"Environmentalist" was always a misnomer

Why Camp Mystic raises the urgency of renaming a movement that's about people, not just planet

Last night, doomscrolling through news from Camp Mystic, Texas, hoping for a glimmer of good news, for word of a kid discovered, miraculously, alive, I stumbled across this sentence in the New York Times:

“One of the young girls who has been confirmed by her family to have died in the flooding is Janie Hunt, a scion of the Hunt oil fortune.”

It literally took my breath away.

Contained in this one sentence is the whole story of climate change in America. The cause* and the effect, summed up right there in the tragic story of one family’s gain, and devastating loss.

I know there are a lot of kids in harm’s way in the world right now but this story has hit hard for me because this is why I got into sustainability in the first place. To try and prevent exactly this kind of thing from happening.

That’s why I say “environmentalist" was always a misnomer.

Sure, some of us in the so-called “environmental movement” got into it because of the polar bears and tree frogs.

But many of us are in it because of the people. The kids, especially. My kids, our kids. The kids who have a right to inhabit a livable planet. To experience the carefree joy of summer camp. The kids who deserve so much better from us, their parents and grandparents, than this.

Some will say (are saying) now is not the time talk about climate change, that doing so is politicizing a tragedy.

But there should be nothing political about protecting children from avoidable tragedy. If you are pro-family, pro-children, pro-childhood, pro-summer camp, then now is the time to gently suggest you must also be pro-climate action.

We won’t welcome new people into the movement with old frames. We must rebrand environmentalism to make its intent more obvious. To make clear it’s not just about polar bears but about people; not just some abstract idea of saving the environment, but of protecting and keeping safe the places we call home. So that more people can see themselves in it, understand why it matters and feel able to join it.

A frame that explains that this a movement that’s about protecting the American way of life**. Keeping summers safe and just the right amount of hot. Ensuring we can pass down time-honored traditions - like summer camp, and so much more. Keeping American communities green and beautiful, American fields bountiful and American streams and rivers full (but not flooded). Keeping the weather the way we like it. And ensuring the America we pass on looks a lot like the one we inherited - maybe even a little better.

So if “environmentalist” is a misnomer, what then shall we call ourselves? Peopleists? Humanists (I think that one’s taken)? This requires more serious thought than I have capacity for right now.

But I’m accepting suggestions….. while longing for better news for families and communities across Texas. May their children be found safe.

(And if you’re so inclined, here are resources to provide immediate relief to our neighbors in Texas)

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*While it’s too soon to say precisely to what extent the floods in Texas were exacerbated by climate change, it is consistent with scientific models of a warming ocean and climate and has been described as a 1000-year event, meaning there is a less than 0.15 chance of it happening in a given year.

**I’m focused on America because Revolt’s Poking the Bear research shows the power of the American frame in making sustainability topics important and unifying to Americans across the aisle