And now a word from my colleagues
Getting the dialogue going
Following our last issue, where I proposed we all weigh in on how the environmental movement can make more progress, I reached out to a few colleagues for their take. I’m pleased to share their responses here. I hope you’ll read all of them and even respond.
We need more of this. Let’s get the conversation going.
NIGEL PURVIS
Tufts University
I mostly but not fully agree with you, Mark. In the political business cycle, we are experiencing a recession -- perhaps even a depression -- on the environment, as you note. Policies are moving in the wrong direction and in many countries these are dark times, particularly for climate action. And yet I share your optimism that better times lie ahead--the business cycle moves forward; a bull market for the environment is around the corner and we can speed up the process through hard work and sensible, clear-eyed strategies of the type you write about in The Instigator. Your insight that we need to make the business case for green policies, including ambitious climate policies, by showing companies and the public that these policies make sense for non-environmental reasons is spot on. I also support your call for working collaboratively and constructively with CEOs and companies whenever possible. That said, we must also set high expectations for U.S. businesses and financial institutions, establishing what political scientists call better "norms" of behavior. We know from past periods when climate policies were moving backward that encouraging companies to abide by new, ambitious standards made a difference. When President George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol, many U.S. companies joined multinationals in setting ambitious voluntary goals to reduce corporate emissions. When President Trump rejected the Paris Agreement, companies were pressed to set net-zero emission goals for mid century and many did. They also pledged to remove deforestation from their supply chains and invest in nature-based climate solutions through carbon markets. Not all of these pledges were implemented but many were and the process of raising the bar -- strengthening global norms for business -- helped redefine climate and environmental leadership in ways that demanded more of companies. We need the same kind of engagement with companies now. We should join together in pressing leading companies to lobby for sensible climate policies, oppose new coal power plants, decarbonize corporate supply chains, switch to renewable energy, and more. Advocacy campaigns from the left wing of the environmental community are necessary to hold companies accountable and moderate environmental organizations should direct their praise and engagement toward companies that are really working hard to raise the bar.
RALPH BRADBURD
Williams College
Mark has offered a great many useful observations and suggestions, and every one of them is right on the money. Two of them, in particular, strike me as offering important ways to move forward even now, a moment when environmental protection is facing the strongest national-level political headwinds seen in the last fifty years.
One promising avenue that Mark highlights is working to strengthen the pro-environment voting coalition. For this, we should “think local.” While it might be hard to move voters’ positions on global climate change, people often feel strongly about protecting their own local environment. By the definition of “local,” there are many local environmental concerns, and therefore many opportunities for engaging voters at the local level and, by focusing on the local environmental issues rather than the more contentious national or global issues, for bringing more people into the environmental coalition. The best of all outcomes for such local level efforts is a triple-win: a local environment improvement that also contributes to global environmental improvement and that demonstrably yields local economic benefits such as lower energy costs. Replacing a dirty energy source with clean low-cost renewable energy is just one example of this. Successes of this kind do not go unnoticed, and each local success can inspire other localities to try for a similar win. And this suggests some important roles for state and national level environmental organizations and for environmental philanthropy: providing technical and financial advice to the local efforts; providing financial assistance in situations where modest help can make all the difference in yielding a success; and, of course, helping to make news of local successes go viral.
Mark also offered ideas for more effectively engaging the business community in advocating for policies that yield positive environmental outcomes. I could not agree more. In the absence of regulatory requirements, we cannot expect businesses to sacrifice significant profit to achieve environmental improvements; indeed, we would be foolish to do so. Similar to local environmental issues, the name of the game is win-win situations, what we might think of as low-hanging fruit. The wonderful thing about technological change is that it keeps creating more low-hanging fruit. Renewable energy comes to mind here as well. The astonishing reductions in the cost of renewable power generation and, increasingly, battery storage, mean that businesses, especially energy-intensive ones, are potential powerful partners in advocating for policy outcomes we would see as positive. As Mark has long argued, rather than demonize business interests, we should find ways to ally their interests with ours and make use of the resources, talents and political clout they can offer. State and national level environmental organizations and environmental philanthropy can play exactly the same roles here as in the case of local environmental improvements, and, of course, financial entities with substantial resources to bring to bear can play a transformative role.
It's hard to be optimistic in these times, but there are opportunities and we need to take advantage of them. Much to do. Let’s get started.
ERIC WILBURN
Bezos Earth Fund
Building on your call to be inclusive and be kind, I think we (the environmental movement) must be wise enough to compromise in order to make progress. Progress does not come from perfection, it comes from compromise. Today, the majority of the environmental movement seems to me unwilling to compromise on anything. Far too many environmentalists seem to only see black and white solutions and are unwilling to enter into any space of grey. We live in a time when building bridges and finding common ground is critical to not only near term progress, but more importantly long-term coalitions and systems change. I fear that our own fear, exacerbated by social media, has led many in the environmental movement to be unwilling to compromise on anything, even within our own movement! Let alone find common ground with people that don’t consider themselves environmentalists at all.
I think it’s healthy to be realists about the challenges we face, but not let that fear shut down our curiosity to compromise, our capacity to build coalitions and our ability to create a shared positive vision for the future and actually believe it is possible! Now more than perhaps any other time in America and the world, people are looking for, yearning for, positive versions of the future - for pragmatic paths forward that give them something to hope for and something to get excited about. As you Mark call for inclusivity and kindness to build coalitions, I call for us to let go of our self-rightousness and our perfectionism. To step into the grey solution soup and find common ground, with others in the movement itself so that we can get out of our own way, and with others that aren’t in the movement so we can build that big, beautiful coalition. Because that coalition is the foundation of any systems transformation that I know we all so desperately want to see.
GERNOT WAGNER
Columbia Business School
You're asking the trillion dollar question, quite literally. There's no single right answer. Can't be. But here are a couple thoughts:
In the end, it's about opportunity, the green growth mindset, whatever you might call it.
Tapping into that is key.
For the time being, fossil fuel companies are among the most profitable companies in the history of the planet. That, of course, is only the case because we're allowing them -- us -- to use the atmosphere as a free toilet. But jumping up and down shouting as much won't change that fact. They will always be able to outspend whichever coalition environmentalists are able to put together. That also makes the policy wins environmentalists do get so amazing.
How to get more such wins? Opportunity.
There's plenty of money to be made cutting emissions. In a sense, that's the reason we aren't doing enough. Yes, there are costs. But costs = investments, and investments = opportunity.
I keep coming back to this graph:
It's from a BlackRock report circa 2022.
Three points become clear here:
First, it isn't the economy vs the environment. GDP goes up, as we cut emissions and stabilize the world's climates. So yeah, that old "economy-vs-climate" trope has run its course. It just isn't true. Never has been.
Second, there are losers: the fossil fuel companies, the stranded assets. So no, it isn't "economy-vs-climate" but there's definitely "profits of those who use the atmosphere as a free toilet-vs-climate". Guess who's fighting the hardest to keep things just so.
Third, there are plenty of opportunities. Green infrastructure spending is already huge -- over $2 trillion last year for the first time -- and there's plenty of need for more.
Who will benefit from that next trillion in green investments? Well, some of the usual suspects, of course, and yeah, I'd say that's mostly OK.
The real problem: many many more will benefit, who don't yet know about their luck.
What's also clear, of course, is that there are plenty more benefits to cutting carbon pollution than just the extra investment opportunities. The biggest bars in that BlackRock graph are the yellow ones: the avoided climate damages. So yes, we can't shy away from pointing out that cutting pollution is, in fact, good.
One quick final point: None of what we're talking about here is if. It's all when. Shell's most pessimistic climate scenario has the world essentially decarbonize by the end of the century. But of course, doing that would be much too late. It's about channeling trillions of dollars in the right direction, now.
That, too, is happening, despite whatever Trump wished to be true.
The larger economic, technological, and geopolitical forces propelling everyone toward cleaner energy remain as strong as ever.
PETER EBSEN
Net Zero Company
Two Strategic Pivots for Enviro Co - repositioning the problem and working on mutually beneficial solutions with Business Co
I have very much enjoyed Mark’s recent article where he has provided suggestions for course corrections to Enviro Co’s board.
He has invited me to provide some further input. Having spent the past thirty years working on climate solutions in one form or another, I offer these thoughts with considerable humility about what we're up against.
1. Move Climate Action Beyond the Culture Wars
The fundamental challenge is beyond finding centrist coalitions—it's repositioning greenhouse gas concentration as a non-partisan technical problem that demands solving, much like infrastructure or food security. After decades of climate advocacy, we must acknowledge that framing this issue within existing political divides has constrained our effectiveness.
The issue isn't that "saving the planet" should be abandoned as a goal—it's that this framing has been allowed to become divisive when it should be as universally accepted as energy security or economic stability. The path forward requires rebranding climatic stability as the essential foundation for continued economic growth and prosperity. This means demonstrating that maintaining a stable climate is not an environmental luxury but a prerequisite for sustained industrial competitiveness, agricultural productivity, and economic security.
The breakthrough comes when addressing greenhouse gas concentrations is broadly understood as maintaining the stable environmental conditions that modern economies require to function.
2. Work on mutually beneficial solutions with Business Co
The traditional approach of asking business to support environmental goals has reached its limits. Instead, we need a genuine partnership where both sides benefit directly and immediately. This requires addressing two structural challenges that have often undermined past collaborations.
Bringing the Blockers Onboard:
Industries that have historically resisted climate action—oil, gas, cement, steel—must become net beneficiaries of climate solutions, not casualties. This requires designing solutions that leverage existing infrastructure, expertise, and business relationships while creating new revenue streams for these industries.
Solving the Time Horizon Problem: Currently, Enviro Co's main argument to Business Co is that solving greenhouse gas concentrations will be economically advantageous in the very long term. This argument falls short because it ignores the business needs for short term results. A genuine partnership requires net benefits for Business Co in both the short term and the very long term.
To succeed, Enviro Co must anchor climate action in shared interests and joint gains. Reframing climatic stability as an economic essential, and structuring win-win partnerships with business, shifts us from polarization to progress. These strategic pivots can redefine the climate agenda: practical, inclusive, and built to last.
ROBERT PERKOWITZ
ecoAmerica
Thanks for the positive and productive thoughts. We need more/all of us to be thinking in this direction — given massive new obstacles, how do we meaningfully advance climate solutions? That said, I note that if you put two enviros together they’ll each have big ideas (nuclear power! get corporations to step up) that the other thinks are unrealistic. And, even if they confidently know what to do, they don’t typically don’t have a workable plan to make it happen.
It is ironic that now, when we finally have economically favorable, scaleable climate solutions ln America, opponents have captured enough of society and government to significantly reverse progress. As we watch or economy, democracy and global influence get taken apart at the same rate as climate solutions, the question remains, how should we respond?
The NYTimes Magazine piece, updated on September 18, "The Old Climate Activism Playbook No Longer Works. What Else Can?” covers the options. It distills to the basic need for broader, significant public support. David Beckman of Pisces Foundation calls it sway — addressing the underlying conditions facing climate solutions which are social.
"There are many good tactical ideas out there, but I hope we engage what is, for me, the fundamental issue: strengthening our strategic posture. To do this, the most important shift we can make is to focus more on policy’s prerequisites: influence and power. As a community, we have solutions. We need more sway."
We certainly need a majority voter coalition, and inclusive kind efforts. But how do we get sway? We’re not going to be able to spend billions of dollars and dozens ofyears on marketing and organization building. We can though, take advantage of all the, trusted infrastructure that’s been built in America over the bast couple of centuries. We can reach the vast majority of Americans with simple messages, repeated often, by trusted messengers. ecoAmerica shows the way.
ecoAmerica moves society toward climate solutions by engaging and supporting trusted national institutions to inspire and empower their many millions of members in local communities across America to visibly act and advocate for ambitious, just climate mitigation, resilience, and
restoration. ecoAmerica achieves the necessary leverage, scale, and credibility to move society by helping existing organizations add climate as a top level priority. They and their members want clean air and water on a thriving planet, we just need to help them.
Onward,
