Ancient Environmentalism? Not So Much

ptimism doesn’t come naturally to an environmentalist. Nevertheless, there’s been an unusually positive tone among climate activists in recent weeks. With the news that the United States has rejoined the Paris Agreement, China’s surprise announcement that it plans to become carbon neutral by 2060 and surging investment in renewable energy, there’s a sense that we might just manage to avoid the worst of anthropogenic climate change and environmental destruction.Buoying this fragile optimism is the ever increasing popularity of environmentalism among the general public. A 2018 survey of 26 countries found that, on average, more than two thirds of adults regard climate change as “a major threat to their nation,” and a majority of the respondents in 13 of those countries consider it the single greatest threat facing them. In 2019, an estimated 6 million people around the world took part in a climate strike.