Roland Seitre/naturepl.com
FIFTY-FIVE years ago last month, Rachel Carson published her seminal book Silent Spring. Its warning that indiscriminate use of pesticides was poisoning the planet is frequently credited with having started the modern environmental movement.
What has that movement achieved? Arguably not much. Certainly not enough. Pesticides still abound, we’re in the midst of a human-made mass extinction and decades of warnings about irreversible climate change appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
But amid the doom there have been some accomplishments. Emphasising those is the aim of a new environmental campaign that calls itself Earth optimism. Its proponents point out successes in protecting individual species like the scimitar oryx (above) and the Togo slippery frog, a decline in deforestation rates in the Amazon, the gradual transformation of our energy system and more (see “Is positive thinking the way to save the planet?“). The overall message is an Obama-esque “Yes we can!”
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The movement is open to accusations of wearing rose-tinted spectacles, cherry-picking success stories and making mountains out of molehills. Saving the Togo slippery frog is an achievement, but in the grand scheme of things it hardly registers. But the Earth optimists’ aim is not to claim that all is well. Rather, they point out that we cannot expect people to rise to the challenge without concrete examples of success.
They have a point. Despite having their hearts and heads in the right place, environmental campaigners all too often come across as doom-mongering, guilt-tripping party poopers. We need a new message. Whether Earth optimism is it remains to be seen, but it is an interesting experiment in shifting the narrative. A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. Or maybe a Togo slippery frog.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Reasons to be cheerful?”
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