Monday, April 13, 2015

IFER Session on April 6: "Engaging the Everyday: the Challenge for Environmentalism and Political Theory"

Last week, John Meyer, a political science professor at Humboldt State University, came and talked to us about his new book, Engaging the Everyday, which addresses the question: why is there such a lack of political action on environmental change. In his talk, which was thankfully free from jargon so a lay person like me could understand, Meyer first debunked the idea that Americans don't care about environmental change, or think it doesn't exist. An overwhelming majority do think it exists, and do care, but it's simply not the first thing on their list of things to solve. The challenge for American politicians concerned with global warming is thus not to tell people it's important (they already know) but to connect the issue to more urgent "everyday" issues that rank as more important with the American people (issues like wages, employment, safety, etc.).

Meyer's focus on "everyday" concerns allows us to see that any demand for urgent action on climate change needs to be coordinated with equally important changes. People want to eat, want the ability to afford rent and other common expenses without going into debt. Such issues are not separate from those of climate change: indeed, global warming might exacerbate many of them. But an exclusive focus on "global warming" can lead us to forget other political and social problems the resolution of which is at least as urgent as taking action on climate change.

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