Saving the environment from environmentalists

Once upon a time, there was a fifteen-year-old Swedish girl who, with a sign in her hand in front of the Stockholm Parliament, managed to shake governments and businesses. Greta Thunberg, with her “school strike for climate,” turned a technical and scientific issue into a global movement. For the first time, the climate emergency was no longer the monopoly of experts but was perceived as everyone’s concern. Out of it came “Fridays for Future,” which mobilized thousands of young people against global warming. Alongside scientists, intellectuals, and academics, they became the protagonists of what, in our essay The Great Hypocrisies on Climate, we called the “triangle of sustainability”: they pushed politics (the second corner of the triangle) to take the energy transition seriously with the Kyoto Protocol, which then led to incentive policies for the third corner — innovative companies in renewable energy (for example, our ENEL) and electric cars (for example, Tesla).

That Greta has not existed for years — and not only because her 2019 transatlantic crossing by sailboat has today been replaced by the Freedom Flotilla for Gaza, consuming a hefty amount of the fossil fuel she once deemed her sworn enemy. In place of the green icon Greta, for years now, we have seen a leader who has transformed the battle for the planet’s survival into an extremist ideological arena, mixing capitalism, inequality, gender gap, colonialism, and anti-Zionism. Thus began the metamorphosis of Fridays for Future and environmentalists worldwide: from an intergenerational platform against global warming into a megaphone for a far-left political agenda of Third-Worldism, woke capitalism (“wake up capitalist, racism still exists!”), and LGBT advocacy.

It’s not just environmental activists protesting in the streets (or at sea). At Harvard — once a temple of capitalism and meritocracy — you cannot be pro-climate without also being pro-DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), and companies must stop thinking only about profits and start worrying about the environment and society. This is “woke capitalism” (“wake up, American, racism is right around the corner”), according to which economic growth is incompatible with environmental and social sustainability and must therefore be slowed down. Companies must also be judged by how “good” they are, with “goodness” measured by hundreds of metrics to be reported under ESG (environmental, social, and governance) criteria. All this has triggered a colossal bureaucracy, even in Europe, which today oppresses businesses and distracts them from growth and profits. And out of it has come a great hypocrisy, with banks and corporations whitewashing themselves in green, social, and pink—the colors of environmentalism, social responsibility, and gender equality (greenwashing, social washing, and pinkwashing).

Today, much of the world pays little attention to Greta’s Freedom Flotilla and her ideology. Even many environmentalists have begun to look at her with suspicion: Fridays for Future in Germany has distanced itself from the movement’s founder.

The real problem is elsewhere: extremist anti-capitalist ideology and the “sustainability” mantra have opened a highway for Greta’s greatest enemy, and for the fight against climate change itself. Donald Trump has always despised Greta, calling her at best a “doom prophet unable to manage her own anger.” He has always denied the climate emergency, dismissing it as a “hoax invented by the Chinese and the Democrats.” According to The Economist, his 2016 victory was aided by Jill Stein, the Green Party leader who, alongside climate issues, pushed the same ideological platform as the “second Greta,” focused on “ending poverty,” “racial justice,” and “peace and human rights.” It was easy for Trump to appeal to American civil society, which did not identify with these ideas, and argue that the green struggle was no longer a scientific issue but a political one. And millions of confused and disillusioned citizens ended up believing it — in the U.S. as in Europe.

In recent months, what we had predicted in our essay is happening: the risk of throwing out the baby (the fight against the climate emergency) with the bathwater (leftist extremism, woke capitalism, corporate bureaucracy for sustainability). And 2025 risks being the year when 25 years of progress against the climate emergency are thrown to the wind.

The tragedy is that even the champions of hardcore capitalism, who are now riding the current backlash against the energy transition by denouncing it as a left-wing hoax, fail to realize how deeply the climate fight is tied to economic development. Ignoring it will be immensely costly, while tackling it creates vast opportunities for value creation: Elon Musk became the richest man in the world thanks to Tesla.

So how do we get out of this?

What’s the way out?

It is necessary to unlock dialogue between two opposing worlds that today do not speak to each other. On one side, leaders of the new generations who do not limit themselves to protests against fossil fuels, capitalism, or Israel, but instead propose informed and pragmatic solutions. On the other side, champions of capitalism who understand that the energy transition is both a major opportunity — and a risk — for the world’s economy.

Neither with Greta & Co., nor with Trump: that is the path to saving both the planet and the global economy.

illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

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