Our anonymous contributor wrote: “Environmentalism is against capitalism - i.e., it is against production, profit and free-trade. It is against making money by providing services that consumers value.”

At best, this is very poor reasoning. And it certainly demonstrates a thourough lack of understanding of the environmentalist mentality.

First of all, environmentalists are not per definition against production. Environmentalists are so named because they concern themself with protecting our environment. It follows then, that environmentalists are opposed to industries and production where the environment is being harmed. This does not mean that they are against production as such. It is true however that many - and especially large-scale - labours and industries seem uncapable or unwilling to adapt to the fact that we need sustainable production. In these cases they meet opposition from environmentalists - not because the just produce stuff - but because they do so in a way that is damaging to the environment.

Secondly, to say that environmentalists are opposed to the principles of profit and free-trade is downright absurd. Environmentalists are not opposed to capitalism or any functions hereof on principle. They will only be opposed to profit and free-trade where these contribute to an unsustainable development and have damaging effects on the environment.

Having clarified this, I want to pick up this very interesting discussion of environmentalism and industrialism.

You could argue that environmentalists are de facto opposed to most global production, profit and free-trade - and you would be right. The implications of this however, is accepting the fact that most production, profit and free-trade is being conducted in ways that are very harmful to the environment.

Historically industries have had to concern themselves with complex economics, logistics, labour management, branding and the likes. Environmental awareness however, is a fairly new idea, and for a lot of industries it is impossible to implement, because they function in ways that inevitably damage the environment.

We now know that we cannot continue to squander resources and damage our planet. Even so, the outdated and environmentally unsafe forms of industry are fighting bitterly to continue their harmful ways in the interest of making money. We see half-hearted attempts at ‘going green’ with hidden agendas of conserving the harmful industries because they are profitable. (An example of this is Shell promoting bio-fueled cars although there are clearly better solutions.) But these inadequate steps will only slow down the necessary development.

Instead we have to realize this: Most historic forms of industry simply cannot change to accomodate our new knowledge and awareness of the environment and how we are damaging it. And if we let it continue, our planet will enevitably be damaged and much less habitable. Instead we need true innovation focused on developing sustainable industry, production, profit and free-trade. This development can only be succesful if we accept that the old ways have to change and that many old forms of industry will have to be completely replaced.

In this respect, environmentalism is infact the most progressive and sustainability-oriented ideology.