In his March 25, 1999 testimony to the U.S. Senate regarding the potential impacts of the Kyoto Protocol, the President of the United Mine Workers of America estimated that enacting the greenhouse gas emissions reductions envisioned by the protocol would result in a loss of over 1 million American jobs. Environmentalists of course dispute these job loss claims as unfounded or at least extremely exaggerated. In November of 1997, at the height of public debate regarding the Kyoto summit, the New York Times conducted a poll of the American public's desire for environmental protection. They found that 61 % of their respondents favored action to protect the environment from global warming even if such protection would result in a loss of jobs. In July of 1998, the Charleston Daily Mail carried an article criticizing Governor Underwood's efforts to weaken proposed clean air rules based in part on the fallacy that air protection would cost jobs. In June of that same year, the Washington Post reported that Virginia lagged behind its neighboring states in prosecution of environmental claims due in part to a belief that punishing polluters, instead of working with them, would result in the loss of jobs. Whether it is international regimes, the passage of domestic laws, or even the enforcement of environmental laws, the idea of a trade-off between jobs and environmental protection permeates virtually all environmental policy decisions.

Although the idea remains central to public environmental decision­making, for years a majority of economists have agreed that environmental protection does not result in a loss of jobs. This article analyzes the way the idea of a job versus environment trade-off may have come into being. It argues that the idea of a jobs versus environment trade-off is deeply rooted in a number of historical forces that have shaped our understanding of work and nature. In particular, it argues that the idea of a zero sum trade-off between work and nature is rooted in the institutions of modem scientific capitalism and the environmental ideology of Henry David Thoreau's Transcendentalism. As a result of the way these forces influence our understanding of work and nature, the article argues that individuals in modem society intuitively conceive of work and nature in a state of absolute tension. If, as this article argues, the idea of a jobs versus environment trade-off has no empirical basis and is truly a myth, such an understanding would dramatically affect the current public policy dynamic; creating common ground for environmentalists and labor-two groups usually found on opposite sides of current national environmental policy issues. Such an understanding will also substantially impact law creation by de-emphasizing one of the most powerful anti-environment rhetorical devices that currently influences law creation.

The article is organized in the following way. The first section examines some of the basic cultural forces that have come to frame our understanding of man and nature. The next section then analyzes the way in which particular forces of the modern era co-opted this basic understanding to create the idea of a zero sum trade-off. The final section concludes with some thoughts on what uncovering the myth may mean for environmental protection.