Environmentalism: A Non-Whining Approach

This is the speech I wish candidates like Al Gore and JFK would give. It puts a (deserved) positive spin on environmentalism, and it puts anti-environmentalists where they belong: on the defensive.

If the environmental movement wants to win, it has to stop whining and start resting on its laurels - or better, recycling its laurels into a solid movement-building material. Here is the kind of green speech that I'd like to see, the kind that attracts mainstream support:

Lemons into Lemonade:
CO₂ Reduction Makes Economic Sense

The critics of environment protection, who claimed it would lead to poverty and job loss, were wrong. They are wrong again on global warming. We got rid of acid rain and DDT while sustaining economic growth. We can do it again with global warming. We lowered air pollution in all major cities by [enormous factor], we got rid of chlorofluorocarbons without parboiling ourselves, and in the process we made new high-quality jobs. Well, we can lower CO₂ production too!

Complacent industry fatcats said scrubbing the sulfur out of our coal-fired power plant smoke would cost [umpteen] billion dollars and send the US into a recession. Instead it saved [whatever] billion dollars, led to the creation of [whatever] new jobs, and made the US the world leader in, and the world's largest exporter of, sulfur pollution control technology. All while saving our lakes and streams and forests from the scourge of acid rain.

Now those same lazy executives say reducing CO₂ emissions will cost jobs and money. We've heard their whining before. They were wrong then, and they're wrong now. With American ingenuity and the best engineers in the world, we can meet the CO₂ challenge. We can turn a problem into an opportunity. Once again, we can turn lemons into lemonade. After we've licked global warming, we'll look back in pride! Not only because we'll have avoided climate changes that, left unchecked, will turn our lush forests into arid deserts and our coral reefs into bleached bones of death. No, not just because we'll have saved the fish and the trees and the farms, and avoided flash floods that sweep away houses and towns and families' dreams. But also because we'll have created good high paying jobs, made our industry more efficient, made ourselves the world leader in another important growing high-tech area, and made our country richer. Fighting global warming makes good ecological sense. And it makes good economic sense too!

Notes:

• Bioconcentration of PCBs and other organic pollutants is another success story: this has been improving steadily for the last few decades. It shows that govt intervention can work wonders on environmental issues, while sustaining economic growth. We should be proud! The public should know that this approach works. We should push for more action on other issues so we can reap more benefits. The way to do this is to acknowledge successes of the past and propose to build upon them.
• Acid raid (in the US) has been pretty much licked. (Or was, before Bush eviscerated the EPA and pulled the teeth out of the relevant regulations.)
• Habitat destruction and CO₂ are the real big ticket items for the environment. But no one is willing to say what it would take to address habitat destruction, because it would be political suicide: stop the mortgage interest deduction. Plus little stuff: tax credits for infill and apartments, giving cities the power to tax commuters, not charging real estate taxes for land used for habitat preservation or creation. But mostly, the mortgage deduction is the big killer.
• Speeches like the above are the right way to get people on board for a new big environmental initiative. The current PR strategies are simply ineffective at giving new or non-local issues a broad appeal.