A green civil war?

Environmental Defense has abandoned other green groups on Lieberman’s bill; how should they respond? 3

Over at OpenLeft.com, the always devastating Matt Stoller writes that "the green civil wars need to begin." He's urging other environmental groups to go after Environmental Defense for offering a ringing endorsement of the latest Warner-Lieberman climate bill.

Environmental Defense is justifying a large corporate giveaway under the rubric of environmentalism, and the rest of the green community is letting ED get away with it.

In terms of the policy, Environmental Defense is alone here. The green groups are remarkably polite to each other, as most of them started in the 1970s convinced that protecting the environment was a value system. At the time, it might have been. Today, the question is how to manage a commons, and these groups just don't agree with each other. There is no movement around the environment anymore, there are progressives, corporatists, and deniers, all fighting over a large multi-trillion dollar rapidly shrinking commons. The lack of robust internal debate among green groups means that ED's Fred Krupp can nonetheless speak for "the environmental movement," scoop up his corporate money, and throw everyone else to the curb.

Having worked in the environmental movement, I've got to say that there is loads of "robust internal debate" and I know from my environmental friends that there has been very spirited debate on this exact issue within the green groups. But on the larger point, Matt is spot-on. Environmental Defense is once again destroying the unity of the environmental movement by endorsing this bill now despite some major weaknesses. In contrast, other environmental groups like Sierra Club are working hard to improve the bill -- and are reserving judgment until the final details are hammered out.

Here's what the Sierra Club's Carl Pope had to say:

The bill is a significant political step forward for the U.S. Congress, but unfortunately the legislation as introduced still falls short what is demanded by the science and the public to meet the challenge of global warming. This comes even as U.S. states, cities, and counties move forward with ambitious, science-based proposals to tackle the issue. We look forward to working with Senators to seek the additional improvements necessary for the bill to sufficiently address the challenge before us.

Sierra Club and its allies are making the right call. It's way too early to either endorse or condemn a bill that includes some good elements and some elements where it must get better. And it's really not right for Environmental Defense to try and suck up all the media attention and senatorial love by breaking the environmental movement's united front and undermining efforts to significantly improve the bill. What incentive will senators have to do that when they can point to Environmental Defense's press release saying that their bill makes "great strides toward climate security and economic growth?"

What's more, we're still far from the endgame, and thus far Sierra Club, U.S. PIRG, NRDC, Greenpeace, and their green allies have made huge strides: the Lieberman-Warner bill now is significantly better than it was in August, largely in response to their pressure. Overall, the debate is in the right place: two years ago, a simple, short-term cap-and-trade that gave emissions allowances to polluters would have made environmentalists happy. Now we're debating how quickly a centrist "consensus" bill should move toward 100% auctions -- auctions that will provide billions in funding for energy conservation, efficiency, and technology as well as vital forest conservation.

As more Washington elites continue to recognize the urgency of the climate crisis, it's likely that this "consensus" bill will continue to improve -- if only Environmental Defense will give it a chance by not removing the pressure on senators. If a relatively good bill somehow passes Congress and gets signed by Bush, it's crucial that enviros praise it, but not in a way that removes the political momentum for future action. Just because Congress passes a good climate bill in 2007, 2008, or 2009 doesn't mean that they shouldn't pass a better one in 2010, 2011, or 2012.

Hopefully, we only need a bit of skirmishing to get Environmental Defense back in line and not a full civil war. After all, despite doing things like heaping praise on former Bush EPA administrator Mike Leavitt when the rest of the movement was noting how he'd let polluters loose on Utah's public lands as governor, ED does some excellent scientific and policy work that has made a significant contribution to the fight to save the climate and protect our oceans, forests, rivers, and wildlife. Sometimes, they even help the rest of the environmental movement win. But on this most important of issues, a little scrapping among friends is exactly what's needed.

Glenn Hurowitz is the Washington Director of Avoided Deforestation Partners (www.adpartners.org), an organization dedicated to protecting tropical forests as part of the solution to climate change. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Politico, The Los Angeles Times, The American Prospect, and many other publications. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party and has worked in a variety of senior positions in the environmental movement and on political campaigns. All his writing at Grist represents his own opinions and no organization should be held responsible for it!

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  1. wiscidea Posted 1:36 am
    19 Oct 2007

    the definition of "improve""...other environmental groups like Sierra Club are working hard to improve the bill -- and are reserving judgment until the final details are hammered out..."
    A functional democracy requires compromise.
    There is little point to "improving" a bill if the result is... it dies in committee, doesn't get approved by the House if it leaves committee, doesn't get approved by the Senate if it leaves the House, or gets rejected by the King if it leaves the Senate and the Legislature cannot collect enough votes to override a veto.
    Is this a choice between a climate bill that tries to get the ball rolling and no climate bill at all?
    Perhaps Environmental Defense recognizes that we need some legislation, even if not perfect, RIGHT NOW And the newly elected Democratic President and Democratically controlled Federal Legislature  that assumes greater power in 2009 will be able to approve better legislation.
    If Congress does not accomplish something useful soon, progressive representatives are going to suffer in the next election. Perhaps Ralph Nader will make sure Guliani or Romney gets elected President. Congress has already dropped the ball as far as extracting us from the quagmire in Iraq is concerned and will probably allow the King to continue His Holy Crusade by attacking Iran. Now "environmentalists" want to undermine efforts to pass a climate bill.
    Please, let Congress accomplish SOMETHING useful. They can build on it during the next session.
    Doe it always have to be ALL OR NOTHING???!!!
    No wonder the environmental movement is imploding even as Americans become more concerned about the environment.

    Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?

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  2. lorna salzman Posted 4:43 am
    19 Oct 2007

    Environmental Defense and wiscideaYes, it has to be all or nothing, because if it isn't , you get squashed and chopped up in the big soup of compromise, and the really tough demands will never be addressed once the diluted legislation is passed. ED is not a friend though decades ago it led the country in banning DDT. It is now an appendage of corporations who greenwash themselves, a more lucrative location for ED with its huge overhead and reliance on the wealthy funders and conservative foundations who fund only those who don't rock the boat..of which ED is the prime example. The trouble with all the environmentalists today is that they don't regard legislation the same way they regard ethical or moral principles. If someone asked us to soften our demands on racism in order to get the foot in the door or get something that is "better than nothing", how would we respond? "It's too early...".."we will lose some support from some whites"...."we will be regarded as radicals"....etc, ad nauseum. We are fighting a HUGE moral as well as ecological battle to save the planet, and if we willingly sacrifice our scientifically based demands and goals, we cede the power to ED and the other corporate-controlled enviros who regard the environment as a job, not as a cause. The only way the environmental community can regain its credibility and legitimacy is to hold firm and then bring the public and elected officials along. The old anti-nuclear power movement did exactly that: it said NO NUKES, not "nuclear moratorium", and guess what, folks? It won. It took a while but the politicos and the media and the public all eventually came around. If the compromisers (like NRDC, ED, and even Sierra Club) had been heeded, we would have a hundred more nukes operating today. We stopped the industry in its tracks, pretty much, and it won't have an easy time getting back in business no matter what you read to the contrary. So sidestep around ED and the other sell-outs, and revive the fundamental unwavering environmental principles that we established after so much hard work, and kick the compromisers out into the cold where they can freeze their butts off sucking up to tricky congressmen who are afraid to stand up to utilities, the coal industry and the global warming deniers.

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  3. Tom Athanasiou's avatar

    Tom Athanasiou Posted 7:24 am
    22 Oct 2007

    Please remender the Just Transition fund!Glenn sez:



    Now we're debating how quickly a centrist "consensus" bill should move toward 100% auctions -- auctions that will provide billions in funding for energy conservation, efficiency, and technology as well as vital forest conservation.



    to which I have to say, since we're talking about the future here, that it's way past time to stop passing over the adaptation and just transtions issues. This is not just an "environmental issue." There are going to be lots of losers, and we have to take care of them, or this thing is going nowhere.
    For crying out loud people!
    -- toma

    Tom Athanasiou

    (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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