The World Resents American Environmental Policy
As a younger man, I had a business partner with whom I ran a marketing consultancy that was 200 employees strong, with clients on four continents — during which time I logged a great number of air miles. I used to joke that my seniority on American Airlines was sufficient that, not only would I be instantly upgraded to first class upon booking my ticket, but I could, had I wanted, bring a baby elephant on board with me, prompting the flight attendants to remark, “What a lovely animal, Mr. Shields. I assure you that we’ll make him quite comfortable.”
Of course when one no longer spends that type of loot, one’s status descends from a “somebody” to a “nobody” in a heck of a hurry; I went from platinum to gold to silver to bronze in the blink of an eye; I’m probably nickel or zinc at this point. The really sad part of this, of course, is not that I don’t get big seats next to the present-day jet-setting “somebodies,” but rather that I don’t get to see the rest of the world as I did back then.
But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. The end of my super-frequent travel happened to coincide with a fairly abrupt change in the respect accorded to the Americans abroad. Of course, since in the early part of the 20th Century there were jokes that our ways as Philistines made us unwelcome in the more sophisticated parts of the world, but I believe our more recent misdeeds have made matters worse.
Obvious examples include the squandering of the world’s respect and sympathy after the 9/11 attacks with the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, but more recently, I understand that many people in the rest of the world resent our over-consumption of resources, our over-production of pollution, and our failure to do anything more than argue about climate change.
Europeans in particular object to our selfish and shortsighted hedonism in the face of a world on the brink of ecological collapse. Looking around here, I notice that Google returned 117 million web pages when I provided the search terms “Europeans Resent American Environmental Policy.” I also came across the book Green Giants which explores this dichotomy. Its author summarizes:
The United States in recent years has been abandoning its historical role as a leader in environmental regulation. At the same time, the European Union, spurred by political integration, has enacted many new environmental laws and assumed a leadership role in promoting global environmental sustainability. Green Giants, one of the most detailed comparisons of the environmental policies of America and Europe yet undertaken, looks at current policy trends in the United States and the European Union–the two largest economic actors in the world–and the implications they have for future transatlantic and global cooperation.
It’s time for the United States to begin acting responsibly again vis-a-vis the environment. Here’s another solid reason to go to our advocacy page, and tell your elected leaders to take a good first step in this direction.
