Photo: iStockphoto
When it comes to race, the actual color of the green movement is decidedly white. According to a survey conducted from 2004 to 2006, more than one-third of U.S. mainstream green groups and one-fifth of eco-related government agencies have no nonwhite staff members. Minorities tend to join up with grassroots environmental-justice groups, leaving mainstream groups open to the consistent criticism that they are elitist. And while environmentalism was undeniably elitist in its beginnings -- in the early 1900s, the movement was led by whites trying to protect wild land and animals from the masses -- at this point, surveys indicate that nonwhites care just as much about eco-issues as whites do, from climate change to deforestation to pesticide use to air pollution. Success in the ongoing effort to bring everyone together will get results, says activist Charles Jordan: "Once society sees this is really going to be color-coordinated, I think we're going to perform miracles."
source: The Oregonian
see also, in Gristmill: The green movement’s greatest challenge is its own lack of diversity
Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success
‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science
Comments
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inkabinkaboo182 Posted 5:54 am
29 Jan 2008
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shoreranger Posted 6:31 am
30 Jan 2008
NO non-white staff members, in an entire government agency!? That has got to do with much more than class. Government jobs are traditionally an entre for the "poor" classes - then the "poor minorities" should be amply represented using Inka's reasoning.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 6:50 am
30 Jan 2008
Though there are environmental groups everywhere, the largest (in terms of both size and number) are in fairly wealthy areas like the US, EU, Japan, ANZ, etc. Where the environment is more likely to be on people's minds due to easy access to media, high levels of education, and less emphasis on issues like personal poverty.
Coincidentally, these areas (US, EU, etc) though they are multi-national and harbor people of all races, are predominately white. As opposed to areas like Africa, India, China, etc. which are not.
Proportinately, you'd expect more white people (as opposed to other races) to join environmental groups when the groups are based in areas that are predominately white in population.
On another note, some of those government agenices and eco-groups are probably quite small, maybe less than a dozen staff members. Havin' no non-whites may just be pure coincidence due to the small size of a particular agency/group.
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bookerly Posted 8:03 am
30 Jan 2008
The US is about 69% white. One would reasonably expect more than 0-1% of staff members of environmental organizations to be non-white.
You might expect "more" white people to join in predominately white areas as Tasermons Partner suggests, but you would also expect a healthy number of non-white folks to join.
The problem for Mainstream Environmental Groups (MEGs) is that if they are perceived as indifferent to non-white people, they start their struggle having lost 30% or so of the population. Not a good place to be.
There is no excuse for the current situation, there never has been. (This has been an issue for years and years, nothing ever changes.)
If folks really want to do something about global warming, they need to learn how to be inclusive rather than exclusive.
As we can see by the many fine posters in Grist, there are lots of technical solutions to our problems, what is missing are the political solutions.
Denying the problems of race is as dangerous for our future as denying the problems of global warming.
We can and must do better.
patrick in Beijing
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wave Posted 11:16 am
30 Jan 2008
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bookerly Posted 5:10 am
31 Jan 2008
Dear Wave,
One thing you should know by now is that there is something wrong with the way you are approaching the subject. I say this because you are failing.
The cultural difference is called "Americanism". Most Americans of all colors do not recycle. You happen to be in a group of people who do not recycle. Their skin color is not relevant (unless you could somehow demonstrate that all white people rush to recycle (or brown or yellow)).
I am sorry you are having trouble communicating with people around you, and believe you have the best intentions. But for any subject, just telling people to change their behavior usually fails.
You might find that you would have a similar experience with a group of white people, depending on the group.
The issue here is the color of the environmental movement in America. It must be noted that we are talking about the large wealthy organization environmental movement, not the environmental justice movement!!! (smile).
Some people believe that unless the MEGs( Mainstream Environmental Groups) can find ways to become more inclusive, they are doomed to fail.
The questions are 1) Do people want to be more inclusive? and 2) If so, how can the become more inclusive?
patrick in Beijing
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Wolverine Posted 6:55 am
31 Jan 2008
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bookerly Posted 10:32 am
31 Jan 2008
Dear Wolverine,
It's not about guilt. It's about the road to success. California is a state that is less then 50% white. Which means that an almost all white environmental movement is speaking to only half the population to begin with. Not a recipe for success. Do we want to succeed?
In terms of Greenpeace, the International organization gets it. I saw a very nice Chinese lady who is head of the local organization on TV discussing the results from Bali. There are lots of environmentalists who are not white all over the world.
Regarding the Sierra Club, it clearly still doesn't get it. (Note that the League for Conservation Voters has done an admirable job of outreach in California). Major efforts?? Hardly. (And the problem here is not so much the national level (though somewhat), but at the local chapter level, where the efforts have been sporadic to non-existent). (I know (smile)).
The anti-immigration movement inside the Sierra Club didn't help (a number of non-white activists and members withdrew from the organization).
The fact is, there is an environmental justice movement, and some white folks have abandoned the MEGs and work in that with their brothers and sisters of different colors.
Pogo had the answer. If white environmentalists in the MEGs can't solve this problem, then how do they expect to solve global warming?
patrick in Beijing
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sycamore Posted 4:58 pm
01 Feb 2008
Hats off to you, I applaud anyone who is actually doing something. Don't let this talk about failing discourage you. Seems to me from what you wrote that you had a positive impact on your group of co-workers and your office environment. After all the people are talking with you and they feel it is necessary to defend their position of not recycling. Your office is now recycling everything that is recyclable Bravo!! As to the individuals in your office who do not recycle it is not a cultural thing it is a LAZY thing. This is a problem that we all face, even in our own families.
First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
--Mahatma K. Gandhi
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Wolverine Posted 4:32 am
02 Feb 2008
When I interned in Sierra Club's headquarters office in San Francisco, there were large programs aimed at the southeast section of the city, which is almost all black, to get children to the beach (many had never seen the ocean!) and to the Sierra Nevada mountains. Sierra Club spent a lot of resources on these programs. Additionally, their spokesperson on their "Hi, we're Sierra Club" video was a black woman. What do you mean they don't get it?
Re the immigration issue: First, the Club leadership was strongly opposed to the anti-immigrant faction, to the point where they ran an extremely biased board of directors election in 2002 just to ensure that only candidates supported by the leadership would win. Second, there are excellent environmental reasons to support decreased immigration to the U.S., such as not wanting to create even more American overconsumers (an admittedly hypocritical position) and not wanting to increase population (people who come here from Latin America were found to have more children than if they'd stayed in Latin America). I strongly oppose all forms of mass immigration; if white people had never left Europe, the whole planet would be much better off.
Re being successful: fight for what you believe in and don't compromise your core values. Because of all the ecological destruction humans have caused over the past 10-12,000 years, the most we can realistically expect to achieve is that there is something left to grow back after the next ice age comes and recedes. (Now because of global warming, there might not even be an ice age.) That's not to say that we should ever give up hope, but we certainly should not compromise fighting for wildlife and wilderness just to get non-whites to join what would then become a meaningless fight.
Finally, this whole thing about the "environmental movement" being white is baloney, because the movement is being defined as people belonging to environmental groups. The strongest environmental advocates are traditional indigenous people, and there are no white ones left that I know of. So the strongest part of the movement is actually almost all non-white, with a few Earth First!-type radicals thrown in.
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bookerly Posted 7:35 am
02 Feb 2008
Dear Wolverine,
The national Sierra Club gets it, the local chapters mostly don't. The programs you speak of, while well intentioned, were aimed at children. The issue for the environmental movement is who sits among the adults at the table (and a non-white spokesperson in a video doesn't cut it!! sorry).
At Sierra Club meetings, the leadership and the membership is almost all white (San Francisco and the Bay Area (except Marin County, which is very white and very racist) is an area that is incredibly diverse and mostly non-white).
The anti-immigration movement is racist at its core (which does not mean that ABSOLUTELY EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has these feelings is a racist). The movement always talks about not only population but culture being under attack. The degree to which it infects the environmental movement is terrible. It is a cancer that the movement has trouble treating.
Your final statement is cute. Re-define the terms and you solve the problem?? I don't think so!! Now, re-distribute the money, and you might have something (smile).
patrick in Beijing
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Wolverine Posted 3:50 am
03 Feb 2008
And BTW, environmental justice is a SOCIAL issue, not an environmental one, unless those groups explicitly advocate "not in anyone's backyard" instead of "not in my backyard." I agree with the goals of that movement, but don't like that it's been conflated with the environmental movement and then that environmentalists who have other concerns get castigated for not doing anything about it.
First, to change the groups in the manner suggested would render them mostly, if not totally, impotent in attempting to protect and restore wilderness and wildlife. Without these goals, there might as well not be an environmental movement for those of us whose main concerns are wilderness and wildlife.
Second, I haven't seen any credible criticisms of environmental groups from those who complain about lack of pale skin. What exactly are these groups doing that's so horrible? Maybe non-whites in the U.S. just aren't that interested in the environment for social and cultural reasons. But keep in mind, even the vast majority of U.S. white people don't care about the environment despite lip service to the contrary, so what does this really mean anyway? That non-whites don't possess the small minority within their groups, that whites do, of people who care enough about the environment to get involved with environmental groups?
Finally, let's reverse this: Gee, I don't see any white people in leadership positions in the NAACP. Considering that the large majority of the U.S. is white, that means there's something wrong and that in order to succeed this "problem" needs to be fixed. Or, if you think that's not a good analogy, try some others (there are no environmentalists in the labor union movement, etc.) So it boils down to this: without watering down wilderness and wildlife advocacy, how do you propose to fix this perceived problem? I also would like to see many more people of color in the environmental movement, just as I'd like to see more PEOPLE in it, regardless of their skin color or lack thereof, but not at the cost of watering down the movement or removing wilderness and wildlife advocacy, which is the most important part of it.
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bookerly Posted 10:20 am
04 Feb 2008
Dear Wolverine,
The current environmental movement in America is not doing fine on its own. The battle against global warming is being lost, wetlands are being degraded, water is not being cleaned up and... well the list is long.
If you are suggesting coalitions, that is indeed fine.
But it is not true that minorities have no interest in the environment. It is true that there is a lot of racism (of different kinds) in the white mainstream environmental movement that keeps it almost all white.
It is also true that the US is changing demographically, that unless the environmental movement understands this, and begins to change, it's base (a small percentage of a shrinking percentage of the population) will doom it to irrelevance.
The question for white main stream environmentalists is which is more important to you....
1) Dealing with racial issues and broadening your base so that you can win on environmental issues
or
2) Refusing to deal with racial issues (because it is difficult and they are uncomfortable to deal with) and losing on environmental issues, but keeping comfortable about who is in the room.
patrick in Beijing
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ruthiejo Posted 12:04 am
05 Feb 2008
I work with people that live near refineries, chemical plants, steel mills, these people are mostly people of color and low income. They are sick with asthma, all sorts of cancers and reproductive problems from what industry is spewing out. Unfortunately, many of the "big" green groups (like our fave Greenpeace) are cutting their budgets for environmental justice and air toxics (that's what the field is called because that's what people breathe). The greens have a lot more work to do connecting with inner city, low income and people of color demographics.
People ARE interested in the future of their environment, it's about building the relationship with them, even if they are unlike yourself and sending the right message.
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sycamore Posted 3:41 am
05 Feb 2008
Cleaning up the environment will only happen when it is more costly to ignore the problem than to address the problem. The solution of how to bring more people into the environmental movement is to show them results. Even people who are actively involved in environmental organizations have a difficult time in seeing the results of their donations. We keep donating and the environment continues to worsen.
What's a fellow to do? Well I for one have changed the way that I donate to environmental organizations. I want to see tangible, measurable and timely results for my donations. I am no longer willing to donate to the "greater cause" and hope for change. Getting measurable results requires direct action. This most often takes the form of litigation. Businesses change their practices when it makes economic sense. If you want companies to obey the law and government to do something about the environment we must make it more costly for them to ignore you than to deal with you. Be quick on the draw with that lawyer. Require environmental organizations to be more concerned about quarterly results and less about the five year plan. If you don't see results demand that management leave and new blood is brought in to correct the situation. If they don't listen take your efforts and money elsewhere. Hold elected officials accountable and when they are found to have their hands deep in corporate pockets (are you listing Hillary and Barrack) drag them out into the light of day. As an old farmer once told me, when referring to politicians, "maggots can't stand the light of day". We need to be spending our money on direct confrontation. The old way of being a nice guy and believing that corporations and government will do the right thing is not working. Now is the time for an "environmental revolution". Revolutions are not accomplished by committees, conciliation and compromise but by direct action. Take a page from Green Peace's book. They are actually doing something and according to their latest reports have saved over 100 whales from the Japanese whaling fleet. Now that is a measurable result. If the money that we donate to the lame Democrat and Republican candidates was give to an organization like Green Peace or the Environmental Law and Policy Center (elpc.org) think of what they could do with those millions. Now there would be results that we could see!
"People don't change their behavior unless it makes a difference for them to do so."
Sharon Stone
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bookerly Posted 12:52 pm
06 Feb 2008
BTW, in terms of the criticism of the NAACP, I should note that I was a member for many years (since I don't live in the US at this point, and have very little money, I don't belong to anything anymore (smile)).
I agree with RuthieJo. And if we fail to listen to the many voices around us, we will fail.
patrick in Beijing
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