I hear and respect what you’re saying. Let me respond to a few of your points.

1. I do not mean to infer that The Movement has historically focused on a positive, hopeful message, nor that such a message is not vitally important. Instead, I mean to suggest that lately this tactic seems to be trumping all others instead of being a healthy part of a mixed tactic approach.

2. Lovins I included in my list not because he uses fear-mongering in his writings, but because if one reads between the lines of his message and understands what is at stake is we fail to act accordingly, one can easily become fearful of the future.

3. Your points that fear generally provokes immediate response to immediate threat are well taken and important. I guess that I’m thinking about a different type of fear, the one that Kolbert discusses - the hanging cloud of fear that is not so immediate, that never dissipates. There is fear of mortal and imminent danger and then there are the fears that we face when we consider our future. Fear of failure, fear of age, fear of security loss - these types of more generalized fears that compel us toward daily action in many arenas. Could it be that the term “fear,” as I use it, could be replaced with “worry?” It could be, but I’m not convinced as the way I feel, when I think on such things as our global future seems to transcend mere worry and anxiety.

4. Again, I do not intend to promote the notion that fear should be used as the only stick, as you say. To do so would, I agree, rapidly confuse and alienate. But dismissing fear altogether out of the arsenal seems altogether unwise. In fact, it would be the equivalent of turning our back on the achievements of Rachel Carson and so many others who dedicated themselves to raising our awareness by any means necessary.

On the other hand, threats that are abstract, much bigger than individaul scale, and in the nonspecific future seem to invoke a generalized anxiety without actually generating a measurable response. This is not really surprising, since humans did not evolve to cope with this sort of fear. Pretechnological humans rarely encountered threats that would have produced that sort of fear, and usually couldn\’t do anything about it anyway even if they did. The problem is that our environmental crises pose a threat of precisely this nature.

If we\’re going to use fear as a motivating force, then it needs to be perceived as immediate and intensely personal if we want it to result in action. I\’m not sure this is a good strategy in the first place, since frightened people tend to do dumb things. But I do feel quite certain that feeding the generalized environmental anxiety isn\’t helping us any.

I would also disagree with your implication that environmentalism has, historically, focused on a positive and hopeful message. In my experience, the exact opposite has been true: environmentalism has historically been about fear and response to specific threats (Silent Spring, etc). Only relatively recently, with the advent of thinkers like Lovins (not a fear-monger, in my experience, unlike the others on your list) and McDonough, has there been a significant and positive vision presented for an alternative future. Visions of this sort has not gotten nearly enough traction outside of the eco-intelligensia, IMO. I\’m pretty sure that if you surveyed a bunch of \”average Americans\”, you would find alot of concern about the environment, but very little notion of how to respond to the threat.

When someone is confronted with a threat they don\’t understand, they tend to do nothing, or at least nothing useful. On the other hand, when someone is confronted with a opportunity for something better, many of them are motivated to seek that better end. Certainly the positive vision carrot should be backed up with the stick of imminent climate disaster. But just waving the stick will confuse people at best, and alienate them at worst.