Maccabee Haas
Environmental Advocacy Debate Paper
Over the last few decades, many environmental advocacy groups have emerged. Their foci
range over a large spectrum, from protecting wildlife in certain regions to regulating emissions of large
industries, but all of these groups share the common goal of preserving and protecting the environment.
Some common environmental advocacy groups include the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).1 With concerns about the current trajectory of
environmental degradation growing, many of these environmental activist groups have taken more
radical stances on environmental issues. These stances vary from simply having extreme conservationist
beliefs to violent acts of eco- terrorism. Eco terrorism, as defined by Merriam- Webster, is “sabotage
intended to hinder activities that are considered damaging to the environment.”2 Eco terrorism includes
acts of vandalism, such as destruction of construction equipment, or acts of sabotage to set back
environmental destruction. Environmental extremist groups in South America have been known to drive
large nails into old growth trees to mangle the chainsaws of loggers trying to clear the rainforest there.
Many people question why these groups take such a radical stance with regard to the environment,
while others avidly support their actions. While steps need to be taken to offset the negative
externalities to the environment, both methods may be equally effective or ineffective. While trying to
go with the status quo may be more politically correct, it may not prove effective to alert the masses in
a meaningful way to the issues at hand. This stance also assumes that the status quo looks at the
environment as something that needs to be preserved. On the other hand, rash actions have the
potential to disillusion a lot of people and delay any sort of progress to helping the environment. At this
point, the issue seems like somewhat of a catch 22 scenario- there is no clear solution.
In Environmental Education and Environmental Advocacy: Revisited, the effect of environmental
advocates aligning themselves against the status quo is thoroughly examined. The author explores the
role of education in American society and how it ultimately relates to modern environmental debates.
An interesting point that he mentioned was how the US education system, perhaps unintentionally,
makes education a “value- laden activity.”3 One of the key examples that were highlighted was the
simple classroom dynamic that Americans know so well- the teacher being the ultimate authority over
their students. With a system like this, the author argues, students have a difficult time developing into
functioning members of a democracy. This analysis reveals a much deeper side of the environmental
advocacy debate, which helps expand on the overarching issue of people’s perception of their
surroundings. Later in the article, 2 poignant examples of instances where students went against the
status quo and were met with swift feedback. The first example was about a group of students
published an article in a newspaper expressing their concern with mining in the Yukon region of Alaska.4
Aside from providing their criticism, the children also offered some possible new approaches that the
local mining industry could take to both make a profit and be minimally invasive to the environment.
After their article was published, the students were met with serious backlash from the mining industry.
Officials from the mining companies in the region blamed the children, their teacher, and the curriculum
of their class of being extremely biased. On top of these accusations, the officials asked the Yukon board
1
“List of Environmental Organizations.”
“Ecoterrorism - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary.”
3
Jickling, “Environmental Education and Environmental Advocacy.”
4
Jickling, “Environmental Education and Environmental Advocacy.”
2
Maccabee Haas
Environmental Advocacy Debate Paper
of education to create a politically correct “Mining curriculum” for the children there.5 In this scenario,
even a minor criticism of a conventionally destructive process (mining) started an intense debate in the
Yukon region. This example highlights the influence that large corporations have in environmental
debates such as this. They are clearly some of the major stakeholders in this debate since increased
environmental regulations could decrease their profit margins. The second example described a land
development project involving students and an Aboriginal tribe in Australia. The students involved in the
project attempted to find alternatives to industrialization and constant economic expansion. However,
as the study progressed, the teacher thought that her students were too young to deal with the
complexity of economic, political, and environmental issues. In both these cases, a deviation from the
status quo led to fairly noticeable responses for these environmental activists. In some cases, actions
from the opposition can be better than no action.
Overall, this article provided an extremely in depth analysis of why environmental advocacy is
more effective when advocates oppose the status quo. The author looked at the developmental aspects
of the American education system, particularly in terms of the unintentional imposition of ideas into
children, such as teaching environmental activism in schools. The author did a great job of remaining
objective in his analysis of activism and how it is more practical to align activism against the status quo
than it is to go with it. By citing multiple educational studies as supporting evidence, the argument
become much more concrete and credible. As someone who knows very little about this issue, I was
able to understand the points that were made, and it was very thought provoking. I never would have
thought about environmental activism starting at the early education level. Furthermore, I never noticed
how teachers (more often than not) end up teaching their students much more of a subjective view on
certain subjects than they should. That being said, I don’t think that teachers should not describe the
importance of maintaining the environment, but this belief should also not be allowed to dominate
classroom type, as is typical. While the article focused on a unique aspect of this issue, it did not directly
state a position on the issue. The correlations described by the author supported that environmental
advocacy groups should oppose the status quo, but the author remained as objective as possible. In fact,
he might have been almost too objective. Everyone, whether they like it or not, is biased in one way or
another, and it would have been nice to see that towards the end of the paper.
In Go Green! Should Environmental Messages be so Assertive?, the authors explore the effects
of some common environmentalist slogans on consumers. The topics of assertive language/ marketing,
perceived importance and compliance were discussed. In addition, the article describes the results of
multiple studies conducted to compare consumer responses to assertive vs non- assertive slogans.
Interestingly, 57% of environmental slogans use assertive slogans while a mere 19% of slogans for
consumer goods were assertive.6 While assertive language used for environmental protection are more
brutally honest than non- assertive language, the consumer studies show that people respond better to
non- assertive language.7 On a very basic level, people like having options. When assertive language is
used, there is only one option, and people are less inclined to follow those guidelines. A perfect example
5
Jickling, “Environmental Education and Environmental Advocacy.”
Kronrod, Grinstein, and Wathieu, “Go Green!! Should Environmental Messages Be So Assertive?”.
7
Kronrod, Grinstein, and Wathieu, “Go Green!! Should Environmental Messages Be So Assertive?”.
6
Maccabee Haas
Environmental Advocacy Debate Paper
of this is at movie theaters. There is always at least one person in a theater that will immediately put
their feet up on the seat after they see the message not to. I think that Americans in particular have
more trouble than most with being told what to do. Maybe it is because our nation was founded on the
principle of choice, or that Americans are more stubborn than others. Either way, it seems like
environmental organizations need to rethink their marketing approach and possibly follow the example
of consumer marketing. Since these companies do so much research on advertising, it wouldn’t be
difficult for environmental advocates to follow suit. These organizations also need to realize that some
people don’t necessarily consider the environment to be very important. Thus, using assertive language
will likely alienate these potential supporters instead of causing them to rethink the importance of
environmental issues.
The use of multiple market studies and statistics made this article very convincing. It is hard to
dispute the positive correlations the authors made between non- assertive language and compliance. In
addition, the studies conducted had different variables but were still able to show the same relationship.
This is key because a single data set can sometimes be skewed and show invalid relationships. It is
always better to have as much data as possible, particularly for market studies. Another important
aspect of the argument is that the authors never claimed that their results were concrete. That is, they
did not equate their findings as a scientific law that always applies. While their methods of data
collection were very much scientific, the results are based on human decisions, which cannot always be
anticipated. The fact that this was explained in the article showed me that the authors had the expertise
necessary to collect and interpret this data. Aside from the high level of expertise/ credibility, the
authors did a great job of remaining objective for the duration of the text. The introduction was brief
and to the point, and left all the important results for the main body of the article. Overall, this article
accomplished the task of showing that environmental activists should make more of an effort to
normalize their marketing strategies.
In The Green Scare and what it means for Activism, the increasingly violent tactics of extremist
environmental groups is discussed. There have been reported acts of violence and sabotage across the
globe against a variety of institutions that were deemed a threat to the environment. The issue with
these radical organizations is that most of them have no leadership structure or structured membership.
This allows them to conduct these acts of violence more easily while making it harder for police to track
them. In 2005, the FBI named eco- terrorism the number one domestic terrorist threat in the US.8
However, the article does point out that none of these groups have intentionally tried to harm people,
which is a major part of terrorism. Furthermore, it seems like the corporations affected by eco terrorism
play a major role in applying this term since their business interests are at risk.
While it is unclear if eco terrorism will continue at these record levels, environmental advocacy
groups should really think about changing the way they try to further their cause with the general
public. Their use of overly assertive slogans has the potential to disillusion those who don’t consider the
environment important. Instead, they should follow the example set by the consumer goods industry
and use non- assertive language when designing ad campaigns. I think this would really help them reach
8
“The Green Scare and What It Means For Activism — The International.”
Maccabee Haas
Environmental Advocacy Debate Paper
out to more people. However, I also think that as a society, we need to examine the deep seated issues
that have caused eco terrorism to flourish over the last few decades. While these acts of violence may
not be the appropriate response, they are a clear warning sign that we need to be more concerned with
our impact on the environment.
Bibliography
“List of Environmental Organizations.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, March 6, 2014.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_environmental_organizations&oldid=5984303
64.
“Ecoterrorism - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary.” Accessed March
17, 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ecoterrorism.
Jickling, Bob. “Environmental Education and Environmental Advocacy: Revisited.” Journal of
Environmental Education 34, no. 2 (Winter 2003): 20.
Kronrod, Ann, Amir Grinstein, and Luc Wathieu. “Go Green!! Should Environmental Messages Be
So Assertive??” Journal of Marketing 76, no. 1 (January 2012): 95–102.
doi:10.1509/jm.10.0416.
“The Green Scare and What It Means For Activism — The International.” Accessed March 18, 2014.
http://www.theinternational.org/articles/230-the-green-scare-and-what-it-means-for-act.