Earth For Sale: Reclaiming Ecology In The Age Of Corporate Greenwash - Review

National Catholic Reporter, March 26, 1999 by Neve Gordon

Book charges environmental groups with cozying up to polluters

EARTH FOR SALE: RECLAIMING ECOLOGY IN THE AGE OF CORPORATE GREENWASH

Brian Tokar

South End Press, 269 pages, $18

While preparing an undergraduate course on environmental politics, I came across this book. Tokar is one of those all-too-rare academic activists who has been on the forefront of environmental struggles since the 1970s. Perhaps due to his hands-on experience, he lucidly blends empirical knowledge with astute analysis and a unique sensitivity to political processes.

While focusing on environmental issues, Earth for Sale addresses what I believe to be the most troubling social and political developments in our time. Indeed, it is an essential read not only for those who are concerned with the earth's degradation, but for anyone who is interested in social justice.

At the outset, Tokar identifies three closely related phenomena that have created the current backlash against environmentalism: "the absorption of the mainstream environmental movement by the political status quo, the emergence of corporate environmentalism and the proliferation of `ecological' products in the marketplace."

Tokar provides numerous examples where mainstream environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund, Audubon Society and Environmental Defense Fund have caved in to the anti-environmental demands of big corporations and government officials. We read that corporations like Du Pont, Mobile, Amoco, Exxon, Monsanto, British Petroleum and so on have become major donors to environmental groups, while the Wilderness Society and others have held stock in Dow Chemical, General Motors, Westinghouse and other big businesses. This leads, Tokar claims, to the absurd situation where organizations committed to combating pollution have become financially dependent on the stock value of major polluters.

Tokar not only exposes numerous instances where both mainstream environmental groups and the government have bowed to corporate masters but explains the processes, interests and reasoning that have led them to grovel. His major criticism is that these organizations have appropriated the corporate language and value system and are striving to make room for an environmental agenda within this framework.

At one point he quotes National Wildlife Federation President Jay Hair, saying: "Our arguments must translate into profits, earnings, productivity and economic incentives for industry."

He contests the prevalent claim that economic development can coincide with environmental concerns. This view is referred to as "corporate environmentalism," and is defined by one of its advocates as an attempt to engineer industrial infrastructures that are ecologically sound, "so that the scale of industrial activity can continue to increase without resulting in a negative impact on the quality of life." Pollution, accordingly, should be controlled largely through the use of "smart" market mechanisms.

Against this position, Tokar persuasively argues that the present economic system is oriented toward maximizing profits, not quality. "When companies can already reduce production costs by laying off workers, contracting out large portions of the production process or moving entire factories overseas, the uncertain promise of lowering expenses by improving energy efficiency holds considerably less appeal," he says.

It is therefore not surprising that while "corporate profits skyrocketed between 1990 and 1995, investment in new plants and equipment by Fortune magazine's 500 largest firms fell by 40 percent." Part of this trend has to do with the fact that corporations concentrate on short-term profits in the stock market, while the prevention of ecological hazards necessitates long-term strategies.

While the capitalist market is incapable of "providing adequate protection for natural ecosystems or communities affected by environmental pollution," governmental regulations have failed to correct the problem. The major difficulty is corporate power to influence the politicians who determine the regulations. That many "regulatory programs simply codify the terms by which corporations are granted permits to pollute" is an indication of corporate control.

On a deeper, perhaps more philosophical level, criticizes the subordination of all values to the standards of the marketplace. He quotes Al Gore's book, Earth in the Balance, where the vice president describes environmental degradation as "bottlenecks presently inhibiting the health functioning of the global economy." Thus, the global economy -- not justice - has become the point of reference. Tokar cogently maintains that once the marketplace is aggrandized, everything and everyone becomes an instrument to be used. This, he suggests, is modernity's curse.

The fight to save the earth is lost the moment a group adopts an instrumental relation to the world, Tokar claims, arguing that several mainstream environmental organizations have fallen prey to this form of thinking. Simultaneously, he contends that an instrumental relation to the world is at the root of all instances of social injustice, not only environmental destruction. `