Environmental theory would be better off if it eschewed the concept of “nature” entirely. The concept is too ambiguous and potentially politically dangerous, while as McKibben and others have argued, if “nature” means a world independent of human action it may no longer exist – and even if it did that’s not where environmental problems arise. The world that actually “environs” us is always a built one, and is “socially constructed” in the sense that humans literally construct it in their practices. We are not alienated from nature but rather from that (built) environment, in that we do not rec ... More

Environmental theory would be better off if it eschewed the concept of “nature” entirely. The concept is too ambiguous and potentially politically dangerous, while as McKibben and others have argued, if “nature” means a world independent of human action it may no longer exist – and even if it did that’s not where environmental problems arise. The world that actually “environs” us is always a built one, and is “socially constructed” in the sense that humans literally construct it in their practices. We are not alienated from nature but rather from that (built) environment, in that we do not recognize, or take responsibility for, its builtness. “Thinking like a mall” means recognizing that the distinction between the “natural” and the “artificial” is untenable: artifacts are as material, and so as independent of humans, as anything else. Environmental questions are political questions, about what sort of environment we want to build: “nature” can’t answer them, only those beings capable of engaging in democratic political discourse can. But under capitalism such discourse is virtually impossible, and instead individuals can only engage in private market transactions with each other that when aggregated produce harmful “externalities” that no one intends. This is the source of environmental problems. Only by choosing our practices not as individuals but as democratically a community could such problems be overcome.