This is the second part of a three-part feature. Also see "Responding to the Reapers" and "Deeper Green."

In a speech to The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Adam Werbach posed and attempted to answer the question “Is Environmentalism Dead”. In his speech he takes a very emotional approach to an issue that has already been explored by his colleagues Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. It’s an engaging piece of postulation, and he brings up some important issues that are very worthy of debate. I applaud him for taking the time and making the commitment to explore some crucial questions.

That being said, I’ll come directly to my response. The answer is “no”, or more frankly, “hell, no!” Far from it, I believe environmentalism today is more alive, more dynamic and more progressive than ever. Adam is wrong on several counts – at least in trying to make the case that environmentalism is dead. Here’s why I think so.

First, I take immediate exception to his apparent definition of environmentalism. Adam says “Within environmentalists and environmentalism reside both a love for and a hatred of humanity. Because misanthropy at a political level is suicidal, it merits remaining private.” It is reckless for any person to assume they know what is in another’s heart, especially when the supposition is damning. By making such a sweeping allegation, he reveals an inherent weakness in his thinking about the movement he attempts to represent.

Environmentalism is so much more than his limited description that highlights what he considers to be people-hating preservationists. The only environmentalism he talks about is “global warming” and “protecting things like redwoods.” What about those working to protect us (as in people, not things) from nuclear waste, incinerators or cyanide gold mining? What about people working to protect their drinking water supplies, working for sustainable fishing and farming, green building, transportation alternatives? The list of self-defined environmentalists who love their families, their communities and their fellow citizens around the world is almost endless. There are people like Gwen Patrick of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, who works to protect poor people in Appalachia from Mountaintop Removal coal mining; Brian Shields of Amigos Bravos in New Mexico, who has spent many years trying to protect the cultural richness of his region by protecting the environment; and Pauline Kohler in Alaska, who has worked tirelessly to protect her native community from military wastes. From the urban heart of New York to the most rural Indian reservations of the West, there are millions of people for whom there is no boundary between environmentalism and their everyday lives. Ultimately, Adam’s analysis of is not convincing because he makes his case for the death of a very broad-based movement on the basis of a tiny fraction of a much, much larger whole.

Interestingly, he begins by using an autopsy analogy to introduce his conjecture. An autopsy is usually performed to determine the cause of death, so I searched his paper for evidence that would justify his assumption that environmentalism is dead. I found a lot of inferences, opinions and random information, but few real facts or statistics I could consider as evidence. He seems to make his entire case on four points:

• Every significant indicator of global environmental health is heading in the wrong direction.
• Storms and draughts are increasing in frequency and severity.
• Anti-environmental conservatives control all three branches of the federal government. • Conservatives are destroying the very institutions that hold the solution to our ecological crisis.

Granted, these are serious problems. They certainly deserve our attention, and we certainly need to do everything possible to address them. But if this is all he has as indicators of the death of environmentalism, then, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the report of its death has been greatly exaggerated.

Look at these examples from the past:

• Between 1942 through 1953 the Hooker Chemical Company dumped 21,800 tons of chemical waste into an abandoned canal in New York. During the next 20 years, hundreds of homes and an elementary school were built on top of the fill-in canal. In 1976, local citizen Lois Gibbs began going to the press about the extremely high rate of cancer and an alarming number of birth defects in their community. By 1978, the Love Canal tragedy captured the nation’s attention with images of sick and dying children and adults who were poisoned by the chemicals buried under their community. The scope of this disaster was so immense at the time that it might have been easy for some people to say that environmentalism was dead. But environmentalists chose not to run from the problem. Instead they channeled their energy into working for new legislation to address the issue at hand, and the result was the Superfund Bill of 1980.

• In 1969, polluted debris on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire. What is not as well known is that this was not the first time there had been a fire on the Cuyahoga. There are documented reports from 1868, 1883, 1887, 1912, 1922, 1936, 1941, 1948 and 1952. Nor was the Cuyahoga River the only fire to burn during the 1960’s. Pollutants fueled fires on a river into the Baltimore Harbor, the Buffalo River in upstate New York and the Rouge River in Michigan, just to name a few. It would have been easy for some people to see these apocalyptic images as signs that environmentalism was dead. Instead, citizen environmentalists pointed to these misfortunes and helped focus the nation's attention on clean water issues, which ultimately led to the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972.

• On March 24, 1989 the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil across 1,300 miles of coastline - a catastrophic event that Time Magazine called “one of the worst environmental disasters of the century.” Compared to many events of today, this event could have easily been seen as a poster child for the death of environmentalism. Instead legislators from a wide range of political backgrounds rallied around the need for stronger environmental measures, resulting in the creation of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) in 1973. MARPOL imposed minimum requirements on tanker design characteristics and has helped to reduce the risk and severity of oil spills since its enactment.

He might say “Ah ha! These examples all point to victories in the distant past, which supports my contention that environmentalism is now dead.” But these are just a very few examples of past environmental problems, and they aren’t intended to make a case for the vitality of environmentalism today. Rather, I listed them to show there have been substantial environmental problems in the past that seemed overwhelming to the science and the politics of the time, yet no one at the time (at least no one who is remembered today) thought to call environmentalism dead. Instead, people responded with the strategic thinking, organizing and calls to action that eventually turned things around.

I find it strange that Adam chose the obviously controversial title “Is Environmentalism Dead?”, published it with a cover in a bold red, white and black design and jagged-edge font, and then inside say, “I have come to believe, after a decade’s work on this issue, that saving ourselves depends not on our ability to shock but rather to inspire.” Perhaps he should think more about this idea. I, for one, am certainly not inspired by someone who believes something in which I believe so strongly is dead.

What does inspire me is real leadership. And real leadership on environmental issues is a bipartisan matter – it does not belong just to the Democratic Party, although he apparently thinks that is the case. There are strong environmental leaders and neoconservative detractors in both parties, and none of the recent battles over critical environmental issues were won or lost on a straight party-line vote. At least his one-sided view of who cares or doesn’t care about the environment helps to explain why he might think environmentalism is dead.

Unfortunately it has about as much validity of some of the so-called “science” put forth in support of recent bills to weaken environmental protection; it ignores facts that contradict his position while exaggerating points he want to promote. This brings us to the state of environmentalism as seen through the lens of the recent elections. Let’s make one thing clear: the outcomes of the presidential and legislative races had absolutely nothing to do with the public’s attitudes about environmental issues. Zero. Should they have? Yes. Was that a failure of the various nationwide campaigns? Perhaps. But was it a sign of the death of environmentalism? Hardly. When they were given the chance to vote on specific environmental issues, citizens in states and communities nationwide overwhelmingly supported these measures. Overall, 120 of 161 state and local measures on environmental issues were successful – a success rate of 75 percent. Voters in 26 states passed ballot measures to create $3.25 billion for protecting land as parks and open space, and in places like Washington State and Montana voters showed a clear preference for protecting their communities from nuclear waste and from cyanide gold mining. Since 1997, 1,000 out of 1,301 environmental ballot measures have passed in 44 states, and voters have approved over $25 billion in funding for land conservation and other environmental issues. This does not sound like a death knoll for environmentalism to me.

Adam argues that “every time environmentalists step outside of the confines of the environmental discourse to articulate a more expansive, more inclusive and more compelling vision for the future, they cease to being environmentalists and start becoming American progressives.” But the “progressive” community, if there is such a thing, is not necessarily more expansive or inclusive than any other social movement. Changing one’s socio-political designation does not automatically change one’s beliefs. I know anti-war activists who oppose abortion rights and embrace wise use principles, and I’ve met racial justice advocates who oppose civil rights for lesbians and gay men. People who call themselves progressive are at least as divided in their overall opinions as environmentalists, if not more so, and it will take much more than a title change to remedy that.

I am especially intrigued by Adam’s assertion that “We cannot evolve until we move beyond our denial of the death of environmentalism.” Says who? Where is the rule book on evolution? As Carl Pope has pointed out, environmentalism is a broad, diverse and robust movement, and it reflects the many cultures and many strengths of our country. It is continually evolving, growing and improving, and we will always, always need to be better than we were yesterday. We must continue to learn from our losses, think carefully about our future and engage an even broader audience to succeed.

These are not easy tasks, and we have a huge amount of work to do. But just as I don’t have to kill myself now in hopes of reincarnating to a better life, we don’t need to kill environmentalism because what we have has not worked as well as we would like. By saying environmentalism is dead, Adam does a tremendous injustice to tens of thousands of incredibly hard-working people who have dedicated their lives to making our world a better place. Again, I am at a loss to understand how he believes he can inspire the people who should be his core audience by telling them the essence of what they believe should cease to exist.

I do agree with Adam on at least one point: the environmental movement is not prepared to fight the enormous battles we face. We need more really smart leaders, more engaging messages and more money to counteract the billions spent against us. But I see this as a challenge that we can and will meet. No, environmentalism is not dead, and neither he nor others will make it so simply by saying the words. I urge those who pose this question to stop focusing on negativity and instead use their collective intellect to continue strengthening and expanding what is already one of the most influential movements in the history of modern society. More than ever, we need confidence, not condolences; trust, not triage; and most of all, determination, not deterrence.