Power Back to the People

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: Re: Oh Death!
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005, at 10:37 a.m. PST

Hi everyone,

On my way to work this morning (after dropping off my dry cleaning at the non-perc-using "Muhammad's Environmental Cleaners" on my block in Central Harlem), I was mulling over what the term "environmentalist" really means, and what exactly we are referring to when we talk about "the environmental movement."

How would many of us, whether we label ourselves environmentalists, environmental or social-justice activists, progressives, independents, or just regular folks with a conscience, describe what it is that we are working toward? Maybe we would use simple terms like wanting a world in which there is enough to go around, and where everyone enjoys the basic right to a healthy environment and livelihood. Many of us recognize the parallels between spatial and temporal inequities in the distribution of so-called environmental necessities like clean air and clean water. In other words, an economic and political system, and culturally-defined habits of consumption that give rise to gross demographic and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of pollution and environmental "amenities," also encourage the depletion or disruption of natural resources today, with costs pushed off to some vague time in the future. For the nascent climate-justice movement, linking social justice with what we could call generational justice must be at the heart of any attempts to halt climate change. (For more on this, check out the "10 Principles for Just Climate Change Policies in the U.S." articulated by the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative.)

Of course, it is only natural that people tend to prioritize the "here and now" over the "out there and later." Rather than bemoan this human instinct to preserve what is nearest and dearest to us as precisely the kind of provincialism that undermines any attempts to tackle the global-scale, decades-long phenomenon of climate change, I think we should turn this into a strength. Returning to a more grassroots level, building a base, and encouraging sharp analysis of the relationship between our health and well-being, the health of the environment, consumption patterns, and politics will restore the onus of responsibility for environmental decision-making to everyday people. We need to reclaim this responsibility (and whatever power is associated with it) from the inner circles of the Washington, D.C., Beltway where we allowed it to migrate sometime between the first Earth Day in 1970 and the passage of the technically complex, nonprofit-influenced Clean Air Act of 1990.

As for the environmental movement growing increasingly isolated over the years: we should note that many large environmental organizations remain more or less as distant from the people and communities that are the most affected by environmental damage as they were in 1990. That is the year that the Southwest Network for Environmental & Economic Justice sent a letter to the "Group of Ten" (the 10 largest environmental organizations in the country) criticizing the racism inherent in each organization's activities. Notably, this letter argued that a "resolution of the environmental crisis," could only come about through "a people's strategy which fully involves those who have historically been without power in this society."

Poor people, working-class people, and people of color are certainly at the heart of this category. But I would warn us against repeating the fallacy of viewing progress on climate change (or any other environmental issue) as a trade-off to other basic human needs and rights, like access to affordable health care. Stephen, I'm not sure I understand how transitioning our economy to one that produces fewer greenhouse gases requires the siphoning of public resources away from other fundamental rights such as basic health care -- although I do agree that our response to global warming can't be about legislating behavior (unless it's corporate behavior, where I'd say legislation absolutely must be a key tactic). Indeed, the heart of S&N's argument, which I thoroughly agree with, is that one of the major weaknesses of the environmental movement has been allowing environmentalism to be framed as somehow about preserving the rights of nonhuman elements of our world (like "climate") at the expense of people's basic needs.

The truth for me is that healthy jobs that pay a living wage, access to affordable health care, and the right to live in a world where our homes are not at risk of being destroyed by the vagaries of anthropogenic climate change are all basic, attainable rights that are part of one package -- not a "pick your poison" deal.

Well, I'm off to scrounge up some lunch before the snow hits New York.

Peace,
Swati

---

From: Swati Prakash
To: Torri Estrada, Stephen Moret, Thompson Smith
Subject: Who's moving these discussions?
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005, at 11:29 a.m. PST

Torri,

Yesterday you asked who was having the conversations within the environmental movement about alliance-building and moving forward with new strategies -- and then the very next email I got was from the Asian Pacific Environmental Network. The email was announcing a conversation their director will be participating in next Wednesday with one of the authors of "Death of Environmentalism" and a leader from the Movement Strategy Center in the San Francisco Bay Area, with the whole thing being moderated by a leader from Redefining Progress. (Yeah, yeah, we all know the Bay Area leads the way with everything pertaining to the environment and social justice.) The conversation, called "Headed to an Early Grave or a New Lease on Life?," is striking in its illustration of how people of color, women, working-class people, and others who have historically been left out of the center of conversations about environmental goals and strategies should be (and already are) leading the way out of the "movement's" current identity crisis.

Still lovin' my city,
Swati

---

From: Thompson Smith
To: Torri Estrada, Stephen Moret, Swati Prakash
Subject: Re: Who's moving these discussions?
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005, at 12:01 p.m. PST

Dear folks,

As usual, I'm grateful to be in conversation with my fellow ELPers, and for the chance to engage with such trenchant questions and insights. Here's another two cents' worth:

First, Swati's right on about the need to turn the localism of much of our environmental work into a strength rather than a limitation. Interestingly, Swati, you're echoing Carl Pope on that score. But if we're going to do that with the problem of global warming, which manifests locally but can only be assessed in its global dimensions, we have to face the special problems that entails. (Like the Michael Crichtons of the world, who distort the issue by seizing upon local anomalies that seem to suggest global warming isn't happening, when the patterns can only be discerned by looking at the world as a whole.)

All of this means the alliances among local groups (as well as between local groups and national/international groups) have to be strengthened immeasurably. That's going to be one of the most crucial tasks facing us, and one of the greatest funding priorities, if we are really to deal with a problem so awesome in scale and complexity that it often seems just too overwhelming. Stephen's right that global warming is a different kind of problem.

One crucial typo I made in my first email was in saying that environmental funding is finite. I meant to say it's not finite. Just a minor boo boo. In fact, I think both S&N and Pope are wrong in implying that it is finite. One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to get into a fight for money. We need to increase the overall pool of money. We need the Sierra Club. We need WE ACT. We need ELP. And we also need some new organizations that lack the baggage of the old ones and can help build effective, powerful alliances. I have personal experience in seeing the futility and wasted time and energy that can be consumed in trying to change the identity and culture of a long-established organization. We should realize that the more effective and energized the movement as a whole becomes, the more money it will attract.

[Adam] Werbach suggests reshaping the Democratic party. That's a debate that needs to happen. My only reaction to that idea is that it would be disastrous if it means no longer even trying to talk to the huge swath of red-staters who hear only from Rush Limbaugh. (Montana is a good example of how more fluid things are politically than they may appear -- in 2004, Bush won about 60 percent of the state, but by nearly the same margin, we rejected an industry bid to re-legalize cyanide heap leach mining, put a Democrat in the governor's mansion, and restored Democratic control to both the Senate and the House.)

All of us, as well as S&N, Pope, Grist, you name it, seem to agree that we need to define our vision and effectively communicate it at the level of basic values and emotions. But before we jump into questions of what that vision should be, we need to ask how are we going to define it. The process is crucial, and offers a great opportunity to begin forging the very alliances we are talking about. I believe there should be a series of expertly facilitated regional meetings around the country, involving the direct participation of all these groups, working through a well-proven process that will help us arrive at a common vision. I would recommend the oddly named "Technology of Participation," a wonderful technique developed through the Institute of Cultural Affairs in inner-city Chicago. Their method really makes everyone feel they have a stake, and results in usable strategic action plans, not just a document that sits on a shelf and gathers dust.

We also have to keep in mind just how basic we have to get in defining that vision. Swati, I think the simple terms you mentioned are a good start, but I would argue we have to get to something even simpler -- single words: Fairness. Respect. Life. Responsibility. This is Kristin Grimm Wolf's thing in helping design effective media campaigns. Once we've defined that "vision thing," she and similar folks should be engaged in helping design our short-, medium-, and long-term public-education campaigns. They know what works and what doesn't far better than we do.

Advertising and messaging experts can also help us address the ways we start out at an inherent disadvantage in combating the right. One reason why they can speak in bumper stickers more easily is that they are flowing with the cultural milieu. Let's face it, in some ways, we're trying to change basic aspects of mainstream U.S. culture, and the sooner we face that, the more effective we will be in working on it. Since at least the early 20th century, mainstream U.S. culture has been consumer culture. For far longer than that, it has been an aggressive culture that prizes risk and competition. Carl Pope talks about the need for us to champion the value of prudence/prevention over risk/retaliation. That's tough work in the arena of mainstream U.S. culture, but his comments don't seem to reflect an awareness of that difficulty. The GOP and the corporate advertising that drowns us every day are championing risk, competition, consumption, and self-interest, while we're trying to pull us toward different values -- ones that are indisputably a part of U.S. culture, but which have been increasingly marginalized for the past century (and especially the past 25 years). The last time Americans collectively embraced sacrifice was World War II. That's a long time ago, and we need to understand the obstacles to resurrecting that rather lost aspect of the national culture.

Stephen, I think your point is important about the danger of advocating solutions that won't deliver what we're claiming they will deliver. That deserves more discussion.

OK, I've got one elder in here describing the logging of the old-growth ponderosa pines here in the early 20th century, and another elder telling a story about playing hooky in first grade. She didn't speak English too well, and thought her classmate was inviting her to play a game. I've gotta record 'em --

Hasta luego,
Tom

---

From: Stephen Moret
To: Torri Estrada, Swati Prakash, Thompson Smith
Subject: Re: Who's moving these discussions?
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005, at 1:58 p.m. PST

Dear ELPsters,

Thanks, Swati and Tom, for your thoughts. As someone not intimately engaged on a day-to-day basis with the broader environmental movement, I really value what I'm learning from you.

Swati, you implied I think that there would not necessarily be a significant economic cost to addressing the global-warming issue in the U.S. Do you have any sense of what the cost would be of the most plausible solutions? My concern about Medicaid was that if economic activity was significantly curtailed, then there would be less tax revenues for state (and federal) governments to fund Medicaid, not to mention other programs that serve vulnerable populations. Before our country engages in a highly costly solution (if that is the case), we need to consider the trade-offs and whether additional research could lead to a better answer. Maybe I just need to be educated on the actual costs.

Every day I interact with CEOs and other executives of large banks, manufacturing firms, law firms, entrepreneurial organizations, etc. To reach these groups will require a fairly succinct and fact-based description of the problem and potential solutions, including the likely cost and impact on their businesses. Has the environmental movement done this? I don't think so. Just like the email thread so far, most of the discussion focuses on how to drive a certain set of actions that are implicitly in line with the overall solution. But what, roughly, is the cost? What will be the impact on the private sector (and others)? Isn't there some pain involved? If so, how much and who will feel it? Can this be described fairly clearly? If not, how can the coalition be broadened? Too often I fear that the environmental movement is spending most of its time talking to itself.

Another concern I meant to note earlier is how the "far right" or "radical right" has been portrayed. Is someone a member of the "radical right" if they have not yet been convinced of the science behind global warming or of the proposed solutions? Is the "radical right" the majority of the population that recently elected George W. Bush? A huge portion of this country is better described as disengaged and/or unconvinced of the arguments associated with global warming. How can those folks be reached?

Incidentally, I should offer a footnote here that I am representing my personal perspective, not that of my organization.

Stephen

---

From: Thompson Smith
To: Torri Estrada, Stephen Moret, Swati Prakash
Subject: Any economists out there?
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005, at 2:28 p.m. PST

Stephen and other ELPers,

That's a great point about the need for clear, concise, and extremely well-documented materials to help someone in your position explain to business leaders the economic impacts of various responses to global warming. Clearly, it's going to take a lot to overcome the resistance of those who are, in the short term, benefitting most from the existing system. I would add that you would also need materials explaining the best estimates of the economic impact of doing nothing or of accelerating the warming of the planet. From what I've seen, the social costs will be staggering even in the most optimistic prognoses -- that is, even if we act aggressively and immediately -- and will soon overwhelm the growth-related benefits of a carbon-intensive economy.

Any help out there, econ-enviros?

Tom

- - - - - - - - - -

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.