Phil Brick, environmental politics professor, answers questions 0

Phil Brick.

What work do you do?

I am professor of politics and codirector of environmental studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. I am also the founder and director of an environmental-studies field program, Whitman College Semester in the West, a three-month field tour focusing on the political, ecological, and human dimensions of environmental issues in the American West.

What do you really do, on a day-to-day basis?

I teach environmental politics. For me, this has meant introducing students to the depth and complexity of environmental problems. Students have grown up with The Lorax story as a good-vs.-evil model of environmental conflict. The Lorax confronted corporate evildoers and was right in the end, but he didn't save the forest. And meanwhile, he was an insufferable, self-righteous little twerp. Environmental problems don't have solutions per se. They do, however, continually require us to reevaluate how we live our lives, and how we act in concert with others to define and achieve common objectives.

Many people seem to think that the academy is not the place where environmental education -- conceived as activism -- should take place. Nonsense. If you believe this, your understanding of education is pathetically narrow. Education is not about indoctrination or simply imparting information. It is instead about critical thinking and opening the mind to new possibilities. Education should be a form of activism: good teachers, by definition, inspire their students to reimagine their lives and to act on these images.

A typical classroom during a semester in the West.

Photo: Whitman College/Kalin Schmoldt

What happens in Semester in the West?

Students get the chance to live and study outside for three full months. Our travel route covers every western state, and we meet with a wide variety of activists and individuals who are working on natural-resource issues. I try to get students to meet people they probably disagree with, and to meet people whose commitment to the environment might surprise them. We also spend much of our time in intensive courses in writing and ecology.

What long and winding road led you to your current position?

I have been lucky -- I recognized early that my calling was in education, and this has dovetailed quite nicely with my other passion: the outdoors. I did a bunch of guiding for an outfit called California Adventures while in graduate school, and after I got my current job at Whitman, I really missed the opportunity to share outdoor experiences with others. So I started taking students on field trips to take a firsthand look at environmental issues in our region. Eventually, this led me to create Semester in the West, which brings my intellectual interests together with my passion for the outdoors.

Where were you born? Where do you live now?

I was born in Duluth, Minn. I now live in Walla Walla, Wash. The name means "many waters," but it's a desert here. That's why I love the West and Westerners. We're down with the irony thing out here, let me tell ya.

What has been the worst moment in your professional life to date?

Last fall our Semester in the West group spent two wonderful weeks with Western writer Ellen Meloy. The focus of our work was to develop what Ellen called a "deep map of place," incorporating that map into our thinking, writing, and ourselves. Just as we were finishing our time with her, Ellen died suddenly. It was like a punch in the gut, and it hit our group hard.

What's been the best?

The day the first Semester in the West group hit the road in August 2002.

What environmental offense has infuriated you the most?

Lawns.

Who is your environmental hero?

Every year I take my students to visit Bob Jackson and Leo Goebel. They are tree farmers in Wallowa County, Ore. It's one thing to talk about sustainability and the importance of a land ethic. These guys walk the talk.

Who is your environmental nightmare?

Hard-core property-rights advocates.

What's your environmental vice?

I ride a BMW motorcycle. Ever since I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I have wanted one. It gets better mileage than any eco-groovy Prius, and it is a helluva lot more fun. But you wouldn't believe the ugly looks I get from my enviro friends. Motorcycles, apparently, violate the very essence of ecological identities.

What are you reading these days?

Doug Peacock, Walking It Off: A Veteran's Chronicle of War and Wilderness. Meet the real George Washington Hayduke. He's much more interesting than his caricature in The Monkey Wrench Gang. Also, I've just picked up Ellen Meloy's final book, Eating Stone: Imagination and the Loss of the Wild.

What's your favorite meal?

I like to eat Republicans. True, they pretty much taste like shit, especially when taken from the social conservative feedlot. But I figure if everyone ate just a little bit each day, the world would quickly become a better place. Although I don't do it myself, I respect those who believe that if you eat meat, you should be willing to go out and harvest it yourself. Hey, think globally, hunt locally, right? But when you live in a blue state, this doesn't quite work. So even when you factor in the economic and environmental costs of long-distance food transportation, I still think it is better to eat Republicans harvested from red states.

What's one thing the environmental movement is doing particularly well?

Ubiquity. There is a lot of nonsense talk these days about the death of environmentalism. Every day, I work with students and people throughout the West whose lives are inspired and animated by environmental ideas. Environmentalists invest a lot of anxiety in what I call a "ledger" approach to environmental politics. Wins are only temporary, but losses are permanent. What we miss in all this are the more subtle ways that environmental ideas are changing lives, knowledge, industrial practices, institutions, and ultimately, landscapes.

What's one thing the environmental movement is doing badly?

The environmental community has been slow to adapt to the fact that the "political ecosystem" in this country is much more conservative than it was in the 1970s. The environment should not be a partisan issue, but we have let it become so.

Who was your favorite musical artist when you were 18? How about now?

John Prine, then and now. If you hate George Bush as much as I do, check out JP's latest release, Fair and Square, especially track five, "Some Humans Ain't Human."

What's your favorite movie?

Dr. Strangelove.

What are you happy about right now?

My beautiful daughter Jackie Xinlan. We adopted her from China a couple years ago, and she's now about three and a half years old. She is, of course, above average in every way.

If you could have every InterActivist reader do one thing, what would it be?

Find something to do outside that helps you live fully in the moment. You can find it while surfing a wave in a kayak, perfectly still for a split second while 10,000 cubic feet per second of river roars past. Or it might be that moment of flight between telemark turns on a steep and deep powder day. Or the perfect rhythm and hum of crank and wheels on a long-distance bicycle ride. It's a big, beautiful world out there, so why are you staring at your computer?

Phil Brick, director of
Whitman College
Semester in the West.

How do you talk about human living environments and their interaction with the "wilderness" in your semester?    -- Kristen Wilson, Oaxaca, Mexico

A major focus of Semester in the West is to acquaint students with people who work with nature every day. Most of our students come from urban backgrounds, so I think it is important to learn from farmers, foresters, Native Americans, and others who have a wealth of experience living and working in place. After these encounters, I hope students come to see nature differently. Nature isn't just something that is pristine and "out there," (wilderness). Rather, we can better conceptualize nature on a wider continuum of landscapes that are inhabited, uninhabited, and perhaps, reinhabited in Gary Snyder's sense of the word. I encourage you to check out a new book by Dan Dagget, Gardeners of Eden: Rediscovering Our Importance to Nature.

Semester in the West requires a lot of travel and your website says this is accomplished in Chevy Suburban SUVs, which are highly inefficient gas-guzzlers. How do you and your students address this issue?    -- Name not provided

When planning the program, I thought about this quite a bit. I ended up choosing the Suburbans because they offer the best combination of safety, efficiency (calculated in terms of mpg/person with eight passengers), and flexibility. As to the issue of gas consumption, we discuss the following question: On Earth Day 1970, the focus of environmental rhetoric and concern was on production -- the pollution and destruction of our common environment by industrial producers. After Earth Day 1990, the focus of much environmental rhetoric (and self-flagellation in the movement) has shifted to consumption. Why?

As a developing environmental educator with very progressive, "left" leanings, I always struggle with finding and presenting the "other side's" perspective on environmental issues. There is very seldom a black-and-white correct answer or perspective, but withholding value judgments is difficult for me. How do you allow your students to encounter multiple sides of these issues while not having them (or you) quickly vilify and shoot down the non-environmentalist views?    -- Robby Schreiber, St. Paul, Minn.

Quite frankly, this hasn't really been a problem. If we are not open-minded, there is little point in having conversations with others. We should not be afraid to ask each other difficult questions. No matter what the circumstances, I insist that our conversations be conducted in a spirit of genuine curiosity and respect.

How do you see the future water shortages playing out? And please, don't throw in the global-warming trump card.    -- Jared Webb, Rocky Mount, Va.

Water in the West tends to flow uphill toward money, climate change or not.

Do you recruit students for Semester in the West who are environmentally inept, to educate them, or do you travel with students who are planning to have careers involving the environment? What is your main goal for these students (e.g., to recycle more, to become one with nature, or to gain more respect for the earth)?    -- Morgan Poncelet, Fremont, Calif.

Some of the students on Semester in the West will go on to environmental careers. Others, I hope, will be different kinds of environmental citizens as a result of participating in the program. My environmental pedagogy is a bit postmodern: I want students to literally disassemble key assumptions they have about the environment and how one can think and act on behalf of it. Then it is time to pick up the pieces. What gets picked up, and what remains on the ground, is up to each student. Some students leave the program with new ideas and new commitments. Others don't move far beyond their original ideas. In both cases, I think, we have more reflective environmental citizens.

Do you think more density in our urban areas will result in more or less active enjoyment of our wilderness areas? And, assuming there is more opportunity for open-space uses, will this encourage users to be active stewards?    -- Maryann Kirkby, Bainbridge Island, Wash.

Check out Lowell Monke's essay, Charlotte's Webpage, recently published in Orion. More and more children are growing up with little or no contact with nature. Instead, the world is brought to them through their computer screens. So I think we can expect fewer and fewer people to be visiting natural areas. For those who do visit, I see little reason to worry that future generations will be any less inspired by nature than we have been.

How exactly does a motorcycle "violate the very essence of ecological identities"?    -- Jon Current, Hillsboro, Ore.

Most of this can probably be traced to a dislike for motorcycle culture in the United States, which is all about machismo, noise, power, and speed. And with Harley riders, you can add a hyper-marketed mix of nostalgia and nationalism.

It's not like this everywhere. In Asia, everyone gets to ride on the scooter in one way or another: grandmothers, kids, dogs, chickens, you name it. They've got the right idea. Ride on!

In terms of place, what role does "the West" play in the experience offered in your program?    -- Name not provided

What makes the West distinct from other regions of the country is the prevalence of public lands. Much of our focus on the program is exploring what these lands mean, and how they might inspire us to act on their behalf in a wide variety of ways, from politics to literature.

Why are environmental groups silent on the issues of overpopulation and consumption?    -- Rena Petrescu, Freedom, Calif.

I don't think the environmental community has been silent on issues of consumption. In fact, we have been obsessed with such issues. From sustainable building and architecture to the slow-food movement, you will find green activists chipping away at the big machine.

What impact, if any, do your studies have on red states such as Montana?    -- Jerry Broadbent, Bucoda, Wash.

Semester in the West might easily be called "Semester in the Red States." Since most of my students come from blue states, I suppose the program is not unlike study abroad programs that emphasize cross-cultural communication. What we learn, of course, is that there is a lot of interesting political and cultural terrain that is obscured by the red-blue dichotomy.

You mentioned that environmentalism shouldn't be partisan, and I agree. What do you think needs to be done to make environmental protection nonpartisan, so we don't lose ground every time a Democrat loses an election?    -- Lisa Mayo, Germantown, Md.

For big-picture thinking, the Apollo Alliance is an example of how environmental issues might be restructured to encompass new constituencies and to redirect the focus of public and private investment. Closer to home, I think collaborative restoration projects are great opportunities to build trust and to build new political coalitions. Such projects (streams, grasslands, forests) help put the environmental community on more favorable strategic ground: instead of being the ones always trying to stop something bad from happening, we can participate, often with traditional adversaries, in making something good happen on the ground.

Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard has one of the worst environmental records in the U.S. Senate. What would be the most effective way to replace him when he comes up for reelection in 2008?    -- Jesse Kumin, Boulder, Colo.

There is a new website in Colorado that aims to bring progressively minded activists together. Check out Progress Now Action and get hooked up.

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