Introduction: Is Environmentalism Failing?

This chapter begins with a question that at some point just about every environmentalist asks themselves: “Is environmentalism failing?” In some respects and on some measures, environmentalism has been – and remains – a highly influential social movement. Nonetheless, the earth is clearly in a full-blown crisis as agricultural pollution, biodiversity loss, chemical contamination, climate change, deforestation, desertification, freshwater loss, ocean acidification, plastic waste, and transboundary pollutants continue to worsen. Why is environmentalism failing at this global scale? To begin to answer this question this chapter surveys the forces of global “unsustainability,” sketches the diversity of environmentalism, and defines the parameters of the book’s central organizing concept of “environmentalism of the rich,” taking great care to explain what qualifies – and what doesn’t. The chapter concludes by mapping out how the 11 chapters ahead fit into (and build) the book’s full analysis.