Playing Well With Others

To continue the conversation about the ostensible "death of environmentalism," we invited four next-generation leaders to discuss the issue with one another via email. Herewith, in almost real time, we are publishing their thoughts in our pages. All the participants are fellows with the Environmental Leadership Program, which works with emerging activists and professionals to inspire social and political change. So is environmentalism bound for the morgue, or alive and kicking? Stay tuned this week to find out. Most recent post of the day.

From: Swati Prakash
To: Torri Estrada, Stephen Moret, Thompson Smith
Subject: My Matchbox car is emission-free
Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005, at 9:44 a.m. PST

Good morning folks,

Torri and Tom, I appreciated hearing your thoughts yesterday, and it got me thinking about what we need to do to overcome the many social obstacles and power differences we've identified as some of the root causes of the environmental movement's problems.

The one strategy suggested by S&N that resonates very strongly with me is the necessity of working with the labor movement to be able to win on any "environmental" struggles. This is more than just a strategy that has long been used by many in the environmental-justice movement; indeed, it is a familiar way of life for many of us. People of color are disproportionately represented in the nation's most hazardous and dangerous jobs, a fact that led to the articulation of the eighth Principle of Environmental Justice, "the right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment, without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment." The fact that people of color are more likely to face pollution and toxic hazards on both sides of the fence line has led to the evolution of the Just Transition movement, a natural forging of labor and EJ interests. Since 1996 this coalition of labor, economic and environmental-justice activists, indigenous people, and working-class people of color has been working to ensure the "just transition" of communities and workers from unsafe workplaces and environments to healthy, viable communities with a sustainable economy.

Here in New York City, WE ACT has worked with the Transport Workers Union Local 100 since 1997 to reinforce our demands that the New York City Transit Agency reduce the disproportionate number of dirty diesel buses garaged uptown in communities of color. Our shared perspective has always been that the health hazards created by diesel exhaust affect both workers and community residents, and a lack of accountability characterizes NYCTA's relationship to both groups. Indeed, as we approach our second decade of collaboration with the Transport Workers Union, WE ACT is expanding our analysis of vehicle emissions from focusing on local health impacts to understanding the contribution of vehicle-related air pollution to global climate change. Consequently, we find ourselves with a tremendous opportunity to work with our labor allies to encourage the creation of jobs in the public transportation sector through increased public investments in clean, modern, efficient public transportation that is accessible to all.

Tom, yesterday you talked about recognizing that the roots of our ecological crisis and the roots of our social inequities and injustices are deeply intertwined. I think that transportation is one clear example of precisely this reality. Transportation is a sector with unmistakably linked environmental and social-justice impacts -- or, more accurately, environmental impacts that can be at least partially traced to institutionalized social inequities (i.e., racism). The rise of suburbs and their supporting highway infrastructure in this nation was fueled in part by the post-World War II "white flight" of many middle-class families from urban centers. The redlining and economic divestment from the communities of color that were left behind in the city centers led to the deterioration of what, in many urban areas, had been a vibrant public transportation system.

The result is the well-known malaise of urban sprawl, which is understood and framed as poor planning or poor investment of transportation funding, but never as the result of the racism-fueled fear of cities.

However we choose to describe the root cause of this nation's obsession with cars (and hey, being from New Jersey I'll be the first to identify with that obsession, although my dreams of hydrogen-powered muscle car ownership remain in the realm of fantasy), the net impact is irrefutable -- a society of increasingly isolated individuals driving in separate cars, with a growing, irrational personal economic and global environmental cost. I agree with S&N that forging effective alliances to focus on creating a sustainable economy is a keystone in the architecture of a "new" environmentalism. The challenge I'll pose is whether the "new" environmentalism suggested by the authors, which operates on a national level and seems dominated by white men who already enjoy leadership positions, is sufficiently different from the old guard to avoid the many other pitfalls of old-school environmentalism -- those weaknesses both mentioned and not mentioned by the authors of DOE.

Peace,
Swati

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From: Thompson Smith
To: Torri Estrada, Stephen Moret, Swati Prakash
Subject: Re: My Matchbox car is emission-free
Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005, at 10:39 a.m. PST

Hey Swati, Torri, and Stephen,

Swati, you took words right out of my mouth. Allying with unions in our effort to broaden and strengthen the movement is important in the ways you describe -- as an essential part of diversifying environmentalism across both class and race, for both moral and strategic reasons. But I think it is also crucial in two other ways.

First, environmentalists, EJers, civil-rights activists, and progressives in every arena need to recognize that progressive work in general has been made much more difficult over the past quarter century by the decline of the union movement in the U.S. A big reason for the rightward lurch that S&N describe has been the evisceration of unions as a powerful countervailing force. Politically and socially, there is simply no replacement for a strong union movement.

This is obvious to some, but not to many enviros. We too often have a tendency, as Shellenberger and Nordhaus correctly note, to look at the trees rather than the forest. We see unions in specific cases taking obviously anti-environment positions, and we lose sight of the long-term importance of unions in fighting for a more progressive and rational country, and for a fairer distribution of power and wealth. That loss of vision is due in part, as Torri notes, to many enviros lacking a deeper systemic critique of the roots of the ecological crisis and its connection to the maldistribution of power and wealth.

As a result of that disconnect, we almost never see members of conventional "environmental" organizations walking the picket lines or helping workers trying to save or form unions. Here in Montana, we see workers picketing Stone Container or Louisiana Pacific one day for their crappy contract offers, and the next day they're buying the corporate line about the need to clear-cut every national forest in sight. Yet I've found myself talking to brick walls in trying to get environmentalists interested in working on that contradiction. EJ activists do this all the time, as Swati can attest. It's another reason why we need to bridge the yawning chasm between EJ and mainline environmentalism.

This leads to a second area of importance in developing alliances with unions. When unions were the heart of progressivism in the U.S., it meant that our movement as a whole was about protecting and enhancing people's livelihoods. It was about bread and butter stuff. Now (for those not in the heart of EJ) we're all about protecting life, but too little about livelihood. That is a big part of our political weakness. How are our groups, or the alliances we're a part of, going to help somebody get a good job?

Swati, let's continue the transportation angle on this, which I agree is crucial. And do we ever have stories of relevance to that issue from Big Sky country.

Onward through the fog,
Tom

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From: Torri Estrada
To: Stephen Moret, Swati Prakash, Thompson Smith
Subject: Oh Death!
Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005, at 11:36 a.m. PST

Good morning my verbose comrades,

Sounds like we all agree the DOE's authors have not acknowledged the contributions, critiques, and visions of other key players in the environmental movement, defined broadly. I wholeheartedly agree with Swati that many of the critiques offered by DOE are not new (except for this discussion of values, framing, and vision, which I will prod us to discuss later), and I continue to be frustrated with the environmental movement's knack of "talking around" its weaknesses and shortcomings (among itself) without a deep commitment to real institutional change.

This leads me to another issue, related to what Swati referred to as the environmental movement's "obsession with legislative and other technocratic policy 'fixes' for environmental problems." I support the work of many progressive organizations outside the environmental movement. Many of these organizations make broad, strategic alliances within and outside their movements for social justice. But rarely, if ever, do they work with environmental groups. So that leads me to ask: Why don't other movements in the U.S. and abroad readily ally themselves in struggle with the environmental movement, especially the mainstream, national organizations?

I think part of the answer is that the strategies and tactics of the environmental movement are largely centered around legislative and technical fixes, while those of other movements are rooted in more structural/systemic change and issues of accountability. The environmental movement does not play well with others, partly because: 1) they think their work will be "diluted" and made less effective by taking on other issues; 2) they do not want to give up their agenda and their ability to control the debate on an issue (which may be partly driven by who funds them); and 3) they do not want to challenge their relationships to institutions, policies, and people who, in some cases, are helping to perpetuate larger social and economic problems that other movements are struggling to address. What do you all think?

I wanted to pose a few questions: Can you all identify the venues, alliances, and spaces where the environmental movement -- again, defined broadly -- is discussing and addressing its shortcomings? And where are the dialogues and alliances being built between the environmental movement and other movements, be it with labor, racial justice, etc.?

Too much to say ... I am off to a lunch meeting.

Torri

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From: Stephen Moret
To: Torri Estrada, Swati Prakash, Thompson Smith
Subject: Re: Oh Death!
Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005, at 10:23 p.m. PST

Hello fellow ELPsters,

I apologize for being a bit late to the party. Things have been busy in Baton Rouge!

My read on the DOE article overall is that it would not have become such a big deal if not for its rather provocative title. Although I am not personally a member of the Sierra Club, I found myself largely convinced by the arguments in Carl Pope's response letter. In particular, I agree with his assertion that the DOE article itself offered limited analysis to support its conclusions. This is not to say that I disagree with DOE's central thesis that major changes are needed.

At the same time, I think the response to the DOE article has provoked a very productive dialogue about the current and future status of the environmental movement, one that hopefully will lead to a better future for the movement itself and the environment.

While I'm not intimately familiar with the existing efforts to curb carbon emissions in the U.S., I was intrigued by the DOE argument that these existing efforts would do little to address the overall issue. If true, this would represent an indictment of the leadership of the environmental movement akin to Matt Miller's criticism of the platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties (i.e., that their proposals fall far short of addressing the problems they purportedly are designed to solve) in his book The Two Percent Solution.

I also agree with the point made in DOE that the environment has wide but shallow political support among the electorate. People want the environment to be better, and the air and water to be clean, but they implicitly make trade-offs in how they vote. Some of the topics advanced by environmental groups (e.g., issues like non-native plant species) do not resonate very much with the public at large. My opinion is that the lack of a groundswell for modern environmental policy issues is because the most pressing concerns (e.g., clean air and water) largely have been addressed by prior legislative efforts. Yes, there are still debates about coal-fired power plants, etc., but I believe the public at large has few urgent environmental concerns.

In my personal view, global warming is a different environmental issue than clean air, etc., in terms of the scale of the problem, the level of public understanding of it, and the tactics and strategy required to address it. To indict the entire environmental movement because it hasn't convinced the American public to take a particular set of positions on this very complex issue is, in my view, a little unfair and naive. I personally am not yet convinced that we fully understand the scale of the problem and the full set of potential solutions. With more time, research, and communication, we may yet develop a much broader shared perspective on the issue, as well as new approaches to address it.

Too often, I have perceived the global-warming mantra to be focused on legislating behavior that we can reasonably expect to cause significant economic hardship. Shouldn't there be some reasoned debate about the trade-offs, e.g., less access to health care for vulnerable populations? For example, all across the country, states are struggling to maintain their Medicaid programs due to spiraling costs. With less resources to go around, the poor are most likely to get hurt first and worst. Whatever solutions are proposed for global warming in the U.S. should be sensitive to this.

Heading to bed...

Stephen

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Torri Estrada is a program officer at the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, N.Y., and co-director of Environmental Justice Solutions, which provides support to community-based organizations, social-justice groups, and the public sector in the areas of environmental justice and policy.

Stephen Moret is president and CEO of the Greater Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce and a former project supervisor with Trinity Consultants, where he advised industrial clients on air-quality issues.

Swati Prakash is the environmental-health director for West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT for Environmental Justice), a 16-year-old environmental-justice organization based in northern Manhattan.

Thompson Smith is director of tribal history and ethnogeography projects for the Salish-Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee, a department of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. Until 2002, he was executive director of the Flathead Resource Organization.