I appreciated my environmental studies degree in undergrad precisely because it forced me to look at environmental issues from a range of disciplines: biologically, ecologically, politically, internationally, economically. 

Some are more obvious (studying ecology when studying the environment?  I'm shocked!)

Others are more fraught...to be an environmentalist who understands the science means I'm constrained politically.  There's such a stark difference between the two political parties that I'm pretty sure I'll only ever pick the one that, you know, goes with science.

But economics?  Capitalism?  Whole other story. 

So let's talk turkey.  Environmental economics is pretty straightforward.  At its core it says that environmental pollution created by human activity and usually from point sources needs to be accounted for in the market / economy.  Point source?  What is that you say?  Picture a factory with a pipe going up in to the air or a pipe putting leftover waste into a waterway.  If that factory or point source can just spew into the soil, air or water, we all pay for it eventually.  And we all pay for it extremely inefficiently when it's a pound of cure versus if we had just had an ounce of prevention at the point source.  (see: A Civil Action, Erin Brokovich, Dark Waters)

This is what economists call an externality.

The cost of environmental pollution - like greenhouse gas emissions or air / water waste - is often external to the marketplace.

Economists do not disagree with the existence of externalities.  Indeed, economists almost universally agree that externalities should be internalized to the marketplace.

Where people tend to disagree is in the how.  Corporations tend to have a lot of influence and the idea of paying anything additional brings on the heavy, heavy of lobbyists. 

Don't believe me?  Oh, I think you will.
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We humans categorize each other.  Even from our youngest age, we group similar objects and people together. Yet, we reject when those categorizations apply to ourselves (even to the point of irony...see: my fellow Millennials reject the label "Millennial"). 

The reason is simple: when we accept or adopt a label it becomes part of our identity.

Many years back when I started Enviro(ish), I started it on a principle in the wake of this truth. I proposed that we should not get hung up on the label and just do eco-friendly things in our day-to-day.  This is still true, in part...meaning yes, please continue to do eco-friendly things.  With the way 2020 is going, here's hoping some people reading this don't leave their lights and faucets on and put recyclables in the trash out of spite.  But I digress.

As my Enviro(ish) conversation has continued, and as the systemic nature of the climate crisis has reared its ugliness, and seeped more deeply into our collective conscious, I've been spending more time thinking whether my theory of change of Enviro(ish) is really enough. Is it the only thing that matters?  That answer is no.  It's no longer "do eco-friendly things and don't worry about being labeled an environmentalist."   I fervently believe now it is "do eco-friendly things and embrace being an environmentalist."  

Nearly every conservative I know in real life enjoys hunting, fishing, visiting our national parks and/or getting outside in nature.  Newsflash: this makes you an environmentalist.  In this starkly regressive period of the Trump Administration on all the issues I care about most, there is a bright spot.  Do you remember when Congressman Chaffetz (R-UT) tried to sell of 3.3 million acres of public land and utterly failed?  I do.  I have posted before about how the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act were passed on a bipartisan basis, but I feel the need to remind people these foundational laws for environmental protection were signed by a Republican President. Environmental protection use to be universally agreed upon.  (And while I have you here, President Nixon also started the Environmental Protection Agency.) 
(Read more after the jump)