Long Live Alex Gourevitch....

He was a panelist on an environmental panel at Columbia University...

Benjamin Kunkel, a novelist and co-editor of n+1, who moderated the panel, said that Mr. Gourevitch’s “great polemical essay” would be a centerpiece of the journal’s next issue.

Mr. Gourevitch explained his thesis:

Let’s say it: Environmentalism is a politics of fear. It is not a progressive politics. When I say it is a politics of fear, I don’t mean that it just deploys hysterical rhetoric or that it exaggerates threats, which I think it does. I mean it in a much deeper sense.

Mr. Gourevitch did not portray himself as a skeptic of climate change, but he argued, “What the science cannot tell you is what our political and social response should be.” Science cannot determine whether humans should focus on mitigation or adaptation, he said.

Mr. Gourevitch quoted Al Gore as describing the climate change not only as the most urgent issue of our time, but also as a unique opportunity for current generations to affect the course of history. Mr. Gourevitch summarized this approach as “the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the human need for transcendence.”

He added:

Environmentalism is not just some politics. It’s a political project, a full-bodied ideology, and one that presents itself in terms of progress and aspiration. But when you look at what this ideology is built on, it’s built on the idea that a collective threat that makes security the basic principle of politics and makes the struggle for survival the basic and central aim of our social and political life. This, to me, is not a progressive politics at all.

Most provocatively, Mr. Gourevitch compared the environmental movement to the war on terror, which he said relies on a unity based on fear. He continued:

What is it that moves us? It’s not actually ideals. We’re not stirred to action by ideals. We’re compelled by the force of circumstances. It’s the sheer spur of necessity that drives us forward. What’s more, this ostensible politics is really an antipolitics, because the idea is that we should put to one side the conflicts of interest and ideals that are the real cut and thrust of politics.