fear as a bad reason

At the start of the week No Impact Man asked his readers what first step they would recommend to someone wanting to go green. Last time I checked there were 116 replies. Many of the steps are well-known: eat less meat, buy less, cycle more, recycle more, change bulbs, get solar panels, turn down your thermostat, and so on.

Some people made reading suggestions: the article 'Plastic Ocean', Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class, Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, Oliver James' Affluenza and Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawkins' Natural Capitalism.

But someone suggested as a first step talking to the person about fear. There was a link to a short article by Resurgence's editor Satish Kumar in which he writes, 'Fear is a bad reason for being an environmentalist ... Ecology or environmentalism is a way of life, not a way of crisis management.'