Abstract
In chapter 6 of Urban Sprawl, Global Warming, and the Empire of Capital, I demonstrate that major environmental groups and numerous multinational corporations share the agenda of ecologically modernizing urban sprawl.1 More specifically, the goal of these actors is to deploy “clean” energy in sustaining power-profligate low-density urban development. Therefore, in addressing US global warming emissions, the “key political players” embrace the “weak” ecological modernization2 of the American economy—that is, carbon capture and storage,3 solar,4 wind,5 and wave6 energy. The “strong” ecological modernization of the American economy would involve curbing the sprawl of its urban zones. By proffering mostly clean energy to abate/eliminate US climate change emissions, leading environmental groups end up minimizing (de-emphasizing) the prime cause of America’s global warming emissions: urban sprawl.7 Moreover, an emphasis on clean energy also allows mainstream environmental groups to avoid raising uncomfortable questions/issues related to the operation of the American empire (e.g., US foreign policy).
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Notes
George A. Gonzalez, Urban Sprawl, Global Warming, and the Empire of Capital (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009), chap. 6.
Henry Fountain, “Climate Aids in Study Face Big Obstacles,” New York Times, January 17, 2014, A8; Anthony Patt, Transforming Energy: Solving Climate Change with Technology Policy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
George A. Gonzalez, Energy and Empire: The Politics of Nuclear and Solar Power in the United States (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012).
Jennifer Hadden, Networks in Contention: The Divisive Politics of Climate Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Philip Smith and Nicolas Howe, Climate Change as Social Drama: Global Warming in the Public Sphere (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Eric Lipton and Clifford Krauss, “A U.S.-Backed Geothermal Plant in Nevada Struggles,” New York Times, October 3, 2011, B1; Jackie Calmes, “Leader Picked for Review of U.S. Loans on Energy,” New York Times, October 29, 2011, A15. In 2009, the U.S. Congress authorized the use of $70 billion in grants, loans, and loan guarantees “to award for high-tech research and commercial projects for renewable energy.” Also in 2009, government funding for “solar energy research” was $175 million. Harvey Blatt, America’s Environmental Report Card: Are We Making the Grade? 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), 180–181.
Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams, Ocean Worlds: The Story of Seas on Earth and Other Planets (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Carl Zimmer, “Ocean Life Faces Mass Extinction, Broad Study Says,” New York Times, January 16, 2015, A1.
John S. Dryzek, “Political Inclusion and the Dynamics of Democratization,” American Political Science Review 90, no. 1 (1996): 479.
Environmental Defense Fund was also mentioned as an environmental organization visible and active on the issues of climate change, transportation, and energy in Washington, DC. I did not discuss their web site here nor pursue an interview with one of their officials because they are not an “oppositional” group, as outlined by Dryzek. Environmental Defense Fund embraces the prime aspects of the US economy, and instead makes it its key political goal to reform the US economy at the margins. Mark Dowie, Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 108.
David L. Levy and Daniel Egan, “A Neo-Gramscian Approach to Corporate Political Strategy: Conflict and Accommodation in the Climate Change Negotiations,” Journal of Management Studies 40, no. 4 (2003): 803–829.
Stephen Schmidheiny and Federico Zorraquin, with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Financing Change: The Financial Community, Ecoefficiency, and Sustainable Development (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), xvi–xx.
Albert Weale, The New Politics of Pollution (New York: Manchester University Press, 1992); Maarten A. Hajer, The Politics of Environmental Discourse (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Arthur P. J. Mol, Globalization and Environmental Reform: The Ecological Modernization of the Global Economy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), and “Ecological Modernization and the Global Economy,” Global Environmental Politics 2, no. 2 (2002): 92–115; Richard York and Eugene A. Rosa, “Key Challenges to Ecological Modernization Theory,” Organization & Environment 16, no. 3 (2003): 273–288; George. A. Gonzalez, The Politics of Air Pollution: Urban Growth, Ecological Modernization, and Symbolic Inclusion (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005); Michael T. Hatch, ed. Environmental Policymaking: Assessing the Use of Alternative Policy Instruments (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005); Arthur P. J. Mol, David A. Sonnenfeld, and Gert Spaargaren, eds. The Ecological Modernisation Reader: Environmental Reform in Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 2009); John S. Dryzek, The Politics of the Earth, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), chap. 8.
Peter Christoff, “Ecological Modernization, Ecological Modernities,” Environmental Politics 5, no. 3 (1996): 476–500; John S. Dryzek, David Downs, Christian Hunold, and David Schlosberg, with Hans-Kristian Hernes, Green States and Social Movements: Environmentalism in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Norway (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Dryzek, The Politics of the Earth, chap. 8; Gonzalez, The Politics of Air Pollution, and Urban Sprawl, Global Warming, and the Empire of Capital; William J. Mitchell, Christopher E. Borroni-Bird, and Lawrence D. Burns, Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010)
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Pathways to 2050: Energy and Climate Change (Washington, DC: World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2007), 14–15.
Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999); Harriet Bulkeley and Michele M. Betsill, Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance (New York: Routledge, 2003); Gonzalez, The Politics of Air Pollution, and Urban Sprawl, Global Warming, and the Empire of Capital; Peter Newman, Timothy Beatley, and Heather Boyer, Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2009).
John S. Dryzek, Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy (New York: Blackwell, 1987).
Irvin C. Bupp and Jean-Claude Derian, The Failed Promise of Nuclear Power: The Story of Light Water (New York: Basic, 1978); Jon Gertner, “Atomic Balm?” New York Times Magazine, July 16, 2006, sec. 6, p. 36; Robert Vandenbosch and Susanne E. Vandenbosch, Nuclear Waste Stalemate: Political and Scientific Controversies (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2007); Max S. Power, America’s Nuclear Wastelands: Politics, Accountability, and Cleanup (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2008); Samuel Walker, The Road to Yucca Mountain: The Development of Radioactive Waste Policy in the United States (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009); Matthew L. Wald, “Experts Queried on Risks Posed by Closed Reactors,” New York Times, May 15, 2014, A19.
William J. Broad, “For Iran, Enriching Uranium Only Gets Easier,” March 8, 2010, New York Times, D1; Matthew Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010).
For a comprehensive discussion of the economic and environmental shortcomings of alternative fuels and carbon sequestration technologies, see Paul Roberts, The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004); Richard Heinberg, The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies, 2nd ed. (Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2005); Henry Fountain, “Corralling Carbon Before It Belches From Stack,” New York Times, July 22, 2014, A1.
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Vision 2050: The New Agenda for Business (Washington, DC: World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2010), 28–29.
Brian C. H. Steele and Angelika Heinzel, “Materials for Fuel-Cell Technologies,” Nature 414 (November 2001): 345; also see Joseph J. Romm, The Hype about Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004).
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Pathways to 2050: Energy and Climate Change (Washington, DC: World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2005), 8–9.
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Mobility 2030: Meeting the Challenge of Sustainability (report overview) (Washington, DC: World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2004), 25, emphasis added.
Ibid.
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), The International Chamber of Commerce (Paris: International Chamber of Commerce, 2008), title page.
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Commission on Energy and Environment, Energy Efficiency with Case Studies (Paris: International Chamber of Commerce, 2009), 1.
Ibid.
John R. Logan and Harvey L. Molotch, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987 [2007]).
Stan Luger, Corporate Power, American Democracy, and the Automobile Industry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Roger M. Olien and Diana Davids Olien, Oil and Ideology: The Cultural Creation of the American Petroleum Industry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz, “Two Faces of Power,” American Political Science Review 56, no. 4 (1962): 947–952; Matthew Crenson, The Un-Politics of Air Pollution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971); Charles E. Lindblom, “The Market as Prison,” Journal of Politics 44, no. 2 (1982): 324–336; Clarissa Rile Hayward, De-Facing Power (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Christina Wolbrecht and Rodney E. Hero eds. The Politics of Democratic Inclusion (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005).
Mark Dowie, Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995); also see Kofi Annan, “Climate Crisis: Who Will Act?” New York Times, November 25, 2013. Web.
Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World (Washington, DC: Michael Shellenberg and Ted Nordhaus, 2004), 10.
Julian Agyeman, Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice (New York: New York University Press, 2005). Also see Julian Agyeman, Robert D. Bullard, and Bob Evans eds. Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); and Duncan McLaren and Julian Agyeman, Sharing Cities: A Case for Truly Smart and Sustainable Cities (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2015).
Raquel Pinderhughes, Alternative Urban Futures: Planning for Sustainable Development in Cities throughout the World (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).
Peter Newman, Timothy Beatley, and Heather Boyer, Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2009).
Robert D. Bullard and Glenn S. Johnson eds. Just Transportation: Dismantling Race and Class Barriers to Mobility (Stony Creek: New Society Publishers, 1997). Also see Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (New York: North Point Press, 2000); Howard Frumkin, Lawrence Frank, and Richard Jackson, Urban Sprawl and Public Health: Designing, Planning, and Building for Healthy Communities (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004); Robert W. Burchell, Anthony Downs, Barbara McCann, and Sahan Mukherji, Sprawl Costs: Economic Impacts of Unchecked Development (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2005); Mark Vallianatos, Regina M. Freer, Peter Dreier, and Robert Gottlieb, The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005); David C. Soule, Urban Sprawl: A Comprehensive Reference Guide (Westport: Greenwood, 2006).
Robert D. Bullard, Glenn S. Johnson, and Angel O. Torres eds. Sprawl City: Race, Politics, and Planning in Atlanta (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000), x.
Jeffrey Isaac, “Civil Society and the Spirit of Revolt,” Dissent 40 (Summer 1993), 356. Also see Jeffrey Isaac, The Poverty of Progressivism: The Future of American Democracy in a Time of Liberal Decline (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).
Dryzek, “Political Inclusion and the Dynamics of Democratization,” 486. Also see, John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Global Politics: Discourse and Democracy in a Divided World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006).
Isaac, “Civil Society and the Spirit of Revolt,” 357. Also see, Margaret Kohn, Radical Space: Building the House of the People (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).
Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 4.
Robert D. Bullard, Dumping in Dixie (Boulder: Westview, 1990); Robert D. Bullard, ed. The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2005); Robert D. Bullard, ed. Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice, and Regional Equity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007); Andrew Szasz, Ecopopulism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); David Schlosberg, Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Sylvia Noble Tesh, Uncertain Hazards: Environmental Activists and Scientific Proof (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000); Frumkin, Frank and Jackson, Urban Sprawl and Public Health; Agyeman, Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice; Anthony Flint, This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).
Barry Rabe, Statehouse and Greenhouse: The Emerging Politics of American Climate Change Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004); Martha Derthick, “The Politics of Vertical Diffusion: The States and Climate Change,” in Greenhouse Governance: Addressing Climate Change in America, ed. Barry G. Rabe (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010); Jonathan L. Ramseur, The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative: Lessons Learned and Issues for Policymakers (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, 2013).
Felicity Barringer, “States’ Group Calls for 45% Cut in Amount of Carbon Emissions Allowed,” New York Times, February 8, 2013, B4; Jonathan L. Ramseur, Greenhouse Gas Reductions: California Action and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (Washington, DC: BiblioGov, 2013).
Robert D. Bullard, “Preface,” in Just Transportation: Dismantling Race and Class Barriers to Mobility, ed. Robert D. Bullard and Glenn S. Johnson (Stony Creek: New Society Publishers, 1997), x.
Michael Logan, Fighting Sprawl and City Hall: Resistance to Urban Growth in the Southwest (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995).
Mireya Navarro, “Signing Drilling Leases, and Now Having Regrets,” New York Times, September 23, 2011, A25; Tom Wilber, Under the Surface: Fracking, Fortunes, and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012); Jack Healy, “With Ban on Drilling Practice, Town Lands in Thick of Dispute,” New York Times, November 26, 2012, A14; Michael Wines, “Colorado Cities’ Rejection of Fracking Poses Political Test for Natural Gas Industry,” New York Times, November 8, 2013, A14; Dan Frosch, “State May Act to Plug Abandoned Wyoming Wells as Natural Gas Boom Ends,” New York Times, December 25, 2013, A16; Chester Dawson, “North Dakota Reacts to Drilling Critics,” Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2014. Web; Coral Davenport, “White House Unveils Plans to Cut Methane Emissions,” New York Times, March 29, 2014, A12; Michael R. Bloomberg and Fred Krupp, “The Right Way to Develop Shale Gas,” New York Times, April 30, 2014, A25; Norimitsu Onishi, “California’s Thirst Shapes Debate Over Fracking,” New York Times, May 15, 2014, A14; Jack Healy, “Battle Over Fracking Poses Threat to Colorado Democrats,” New York Times, June 10, 2014, A12; Henry Fountain, “Well Leaks, Not Fracking, Are Linked to Fouled Water,” New York Times, September 16, 2014, A17; Clifford Krauss, “Split Decision by Voters on Local Fracking Bans,” New York Times, November 6, 2014, B5; Coral Davenport, “Report Finds No Effect on Water Supply From Fracking, but Warns of Potential,” New York Times, June 5, 2015, A12.
Logan and Molotch, Urban Fortunes; Kee Warner and Harvey Molotch, Building Rules: How Local Controls Shape Community Environments and Economies (New York: Westview, 2000); Daniel Press, Saving Open Space: The Politics of Local Preservation in California (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002); John M. Degrove, Planning Policy and Politics: Smart Growth and the States (Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Land Institute, 2005); Thomas J. Wilbanks, “Stakeholder Involvement in Local Smart Growth: Needs and Challenges,” in Smart Growth and Climate Change, ed. Matthias Ruth (Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2006).
Harriet Bulkeley and Michele M. Betsill, Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance (New York: Routledge, 2003); Kent E. Portney, Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); Amy Shatzkin, “Sprawling towards Climate Change: Connecting U.S. Patterns of Land Development to Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” paper prepared for the ICLEI: Local Governments for Sustainability (Berkeley: ICLEI: Local Governments for Sustainability, 2004); Soule, Urban Sprawl; Michael Wines, “Without Much Straining, Minnesota Reins In Its Utilities’ Carbon Emissions,” New York Times, July 18, 2014, A13.
Shatzkin, “Sprawling towards Climate Change”; Degrove, Planning Policy and Politics; Jonathan Levine, Zoned Out: Regulation, Markets, and Choices in Transportation and Metropolitan Land-Use (Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 2006); Matthias Ruth, ed. Smart Growth and Climate Change: Regional Development, Infrastructure and Adaptation (Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2006).
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Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
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Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971 [1965]).
Deborah Guber, The Grassroots of a Green Revolution: Polling America on the Environment (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).
In addition to the overtly political factors outlined here, psychological, cultural, and ideological barriers exist that prevent a more robust and confrontational politics arising from civil society to challenge the state’s commitment to environmentally deleterious growth. Lester W. Milbrath, Envisioning a Sustainable Society: Learning Our Way Out (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), “Psychological, Cultural, and Informational Barriers to Sustainability.” Journal of Social Issues 51, no. 4 (1995): 101–120, and Learning to Think Environmentally (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996); Cahn, Environmental Deceptions; Charles Sokol Bednar, Transforming the Dream: Ecologism and the Shaping of an Alternative American Vision (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003).
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Among the environmental interest groups that Shaiko examines in detail, it is the Environmental Defense Fund that most overtly takes the position that its membership is primarily, if not exclusively, an economic resource for its leadership. While the National Wilderness Federation does not openly embrace Environmental Defense Fund’s view of leadership-member relations, it nonetheless limits its political communications to its members for fear of alienating existing and potential dues paying members. The National Wildlife Federation by far has the largest membership among environmental groups (Ronald Shaiko, Voices and Echoes for the Environment (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 41). Among the groups that Shaiko studied, Environmental Action was the most active in seeking to mobilize its membership to affect political change. Significantly, EA historically maintained a relatively small membership base, and in 1996 went defunct due to insufficient financial resources. The Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society make more concerted efforts to communicate to its membership on political issues than either the Environmental Defense Fund or the National Wilderness Federation. Additionally, the Sierra Club maintains an institutional mechanism to allow its members to communicate to the group’s leaders on issues of public policy. Shaiko nonetheless concludes that in the contemporary period the leadership of these groups prioritize organizational maintenance over political efficacy. George A. Gonzalez, “Book Review of Voices and Echoes for the Environment by Ronald Shaiko and Eco Wars by Ronald Libby,” American Political Science Review 94, no. 4 (2000): 950–951.
Uday Desai, ed. Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002); Eric R. A. N. Smith, Energy, the Environment, and Public Opinion (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002); Guber, The Grassroots of a Green Revolution.
Dowie, Losing Ground; Brian Doherty, Ideas and Actions in the Green Movement (New York: Routledge, 2002).
Bryan G. Norton, Toward Unity among Environmentalists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
Bullard and Johnson, Just Transportation; Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820–2000 (New York: Pantheon, 2003); Jennifer Wolch, Manuel Pastor, Jr., and Peter Drier, eds. Up against the Sprawl: Public Policy and the Making of Southern California (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004); Lynn Sloman, Car Sick: Solutions for our Car-Addicted Culture (Devon, UK: Green Books, 2006).
Peter Christoff, “Ecological Modernization, Ecological Modernities,” Environmental Politics 5, no. 3 (1996): 476–500; Eric Neumayer, Weak versus Strong Sustainability: Exploring the Limits of Two Opposing Paradigms, 2nd ed. (Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2003); Dryzek, The Politics of the Earth, chap. 8.
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Gonzalez, G.A. (2016). Democratic Ethics, Environmental Lobbying Groups, and Symbolic Inclusion: The Case of the Canadian Oil Sands. In: American Empire and the Canadian Oil Sands. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137539564_7
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