Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility

This book, as the subtitle shows, is about how politics will influence how we fight global warming. There are many points of view expressed in this book. "Environmentalists believe that getting Americans to protect the environment is a simple and ration process: Expose them to the beauty of the natural world. Show them how it is literally being destroyed by human activity. Advocate actions to stop destruction" (Nordhaus and Shellenberger 25). I have learned a lot from doing the research for my I-Search. But, the most important thing that I have learned is that it will take different reasons to motivate different types of people. For people who are passionate about nature, showing them how the world is being abused will get them to do something. This is only a small percentage of the world population, though. I think that this strategy combined with the spread of facts, government actions, and everything else that I have talked about in my blog will get people to fight climate change.
"In poll after poll, voters name concerns like jobs and the economy as their top priorities. Yet environmental foundations and organizations haven't advanced a strategy for action on the environment to be centrally justified as a way to create jobs and stimulate growth. The simple reason for this is that the categories of jobs and growth exist outside of the environmentalist politics of limits" (Nordhaus and Shellenberger 33). So, how can we fix this trend? Create green jobs! This is one of the points that the 1Sky solutions and Jared talked about. Fight global warming shouldn't just be in the field of environmentalism. It should be integrated into our jobs, economy, and politics. We can't isolate climate change in its own scientific field. It needs to be common universal ground that everyone can relate to in one way or another. Of all the ways that climate change can be the central issue of my generation, I think this will be the most prominent. Here is a quote that exemplifies this: "...social scientists have demonstrated that material prosperity is a prerequisite for ecological concern..." (Nordhaus and Shellenberger 37).
The message of this book is that politics will inevitably influence how quickly and effectively the world fights global warming. I agree with this, but I also think that other motivational factors will be needed. This was a very informative book that I would love to read more of.