Environmental
Movements Since Love Canal:
Hope, Despair, and (Im)mobilization
Allan Schnaiberg
Abstract
This paper challenges conventional social scientific
assessments of the postive features of community mobilization in
Niagara Falls, New York, around toxic wastes being emitted from
the Love Canal. In contrast, I argue that this form of local activism
(1) created a new focus on human health concerns, and a diminished
concern with ecosystem protection; (2) entailed a complex set of
local issues that contextualize local movements, which makes it
difficult for such movements to coalesce with and strengthen national
and regional environmental organizations; and (3) started a process
in which rising fear and despair are the hallmarks of much local
mobilization, as much as new forms of anger and radicalization which
propel future activism.
Based on these reflections, the paper offers a critique of challenging
existing political-economic policy in the United States by voluntary
social-movement organizations. Instead, I offer alternative political
party models from other industrial societies that appear to be more
effective in redirecting economic policies to both protect the environment,
and to enhance social opportunities.
Allan Schnaiberg, Department
of Sociology, Northwestern University
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