Bryant Terry.

What work do you do?

I've committed myself to feeding people; illuminating the connections between poverty, malnutrition, and institutional racism; and working to create a more just and sustainable food system for everyone.

b-healthy gets teenagers cooking.

In 2001, I founded b-healthy (Build Healthy Eating and Lifestyles to Help Youth), a New York City-based food-justice organization made up of adult and youth social-justice activists, chefs, and mothers. Most recently, I initiated the Eat Grub project with Anna Lappé.

How does your work relate to the environment?

How we produce our food and what we eat has an immense impact on the environmental health of our planet. Ask anyone who lives within a two-mile radius of a factory farm. They'll smell -- I mean tell -- you a lot about this relationship.

What are you working on at the moment?

After writing a book -- Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen -- that hit shelves in April, Anna and I started "grub parties" and created an online educational space. We also began a Grub Tour, traveling the country speaking about the food-justice movement at bookstores, farmers' markets, food co-ops, churches, clubs, cafés, and universities. I'm planning and fundraising for an offshoot of our Grub Tour that will specifically target people of color.

I'm also constantly coming up with recipe ideas and testing them for future book projects.

How do you get to work?

I walk (from the bedroom to the kitchen in my apartment).

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

I started learning about food systems and sustainable agriculture in my grandparents' backyard gardens in Memphis, Tenn., when I was just knee-high to a June bug. When I was getting my master's in history at New York University, I learned about the "Free Breakfast for Children" program started in 1968 by the Black Panthers. Within one year, the program spread across the country, and they were feeding over 10,000 African-American youth each morning. Other groups working to create social change (e.g., Brown Berets and Young Lords) replicated this model.

When I finished graduate school, I started working for an organization that gave training and technical assistance to youth development organizations throughout New York City. I was troubled that most of these organizations did not have programs addressing food-justice issues, given that many of the youth were in some way affected by lack of access to grub.

Inspired by the free-breakfast program, I decided to go to the Natural Gourmet Cookery School. I founded b-healthy to raise awareness about the need to improve individual and community health as part of building broader social movements.

Where were you born? Where do you live now?

I was born in Memphis, Tenn. I moved to Oakland, Calif., in January 2006 after living in Brooklyn, N.Y., for eight years. Before that, I lived in New Orleans.

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

Getting booed off stage by about 100 high-school students for describing some of McDonald's unsavory practices. That's when I realized how powerful advertising and "fake food" can be.

What's been the best?

Handing my parents a copy of Grub.

What environmental offense has infuriated you the most?

The U.S. government's refusal to label GMOs [genetically modified organisms]. Most people don't realize that up to 70 percent of processed foods in the U.S. market contain products of genetic engineering.

Who is your environmental hero?

The Green Worker Cooperatives in the South Bronx, N.Y.

What's your environmental vice?

I don't compost at my new home yet.

Read any good books lately?

I read a lot of cookbooks and books about food politics. When I can, I fit in some fiction. I'm currently reading Shooting Water by Devyani Saltzman, daughter of filmmaker Deepa Mehta.

What's your favorite meal?

In the summer, it's grilled corn and heirloom tomato salad with fresh purple basil.

Which stereotype about environmentalists most fits you?

I hug trees.

What's your favorite place or ecosystem?

Cape Cod.

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

Then: A Tribe Called Quest. Now: Madlib. He's a musical genius.

What's your favorite movie?

Right now my favorite film is The Five Obstructions by Lars von Trier.

Which actor would play you in the story of your life?

Paul Robeson.

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

Do their unique part as community members, consumers, and citizens to help create a more just and sustainable food system. Every positive action we make with our voices, votes, and our dollars makes a significant impact. And I must say that reading Grub is a great place to start.

Bryant Terry, founder of b-healthy.

There's Something About Terry

What do you think about Wal-Mart offering organic products?    -- Haven Bourque, San Francisco, Calif.

That's the million-dollar question. Jumping on the organic bandwagon will probably mean higher profits for Wal-Mart, so they gladly carry products with the organic seal. But it's important to remember that Wal-Mart has very little concern for public health, the well-being of small farmers, or the economy of local communities.

Which leads us to the bigger problem -- the organic seal. Most people are thoroughly confused about what the organic seal actually means. As we explain in Grub, it does not tell us if the produce was grown locally or imported from across the globe; it does not tell us if that chicken was raised humanely or packed in a filthy warehouse with thousands of other chickens; and it does not tell us if the farmworkers were paid a fair wage and had safe working conditions or if their labor was exploited and they were routinely abused. When Wal-Mart offers grub, go for it. But you might be better off shopping at your local farmers' market until then.

I live and work at a natural hair salon in south Georgia. Daily we try to educate people about how their food choices affect their overall well-being and the health of their hair and skin. We get mixed responses. What response do you get from people of color when you present them with information about eating healthily, and how does their response affect your work?    -- Danita Campbell, Valdosta, Ga.

Like you, I get mixed responses, which are usually influenced by age, class, education, and knowledge about these issues. The key to getting these messages across has been determining what might resonate with my audience and speaking in a language that is accessible to them.

For example, when I talk to a group of young women of color I might open by appealing to their vanity to get them thinking about how the foods they eat affect their physical appearance (e.g., acne and weight gain). Or if I'm talking to a group of older African-American and Latino men, I might start by discussing the way in which preventable diet-related illnesses are plaguing older men of color. Once the conversation gets rolling, we touch on other issues that might not seem as relevant. Creating different age-appropriate, culturally relevant talks usually means more work for me, but I gotta do what I gotta do.

What is one major lie about food that you think we need to unlearn?    -- Shilpa Jain, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

One lie that most people need to unlearn is that we need to cook most of our food. While I would not consider myself a "raw foodist," I certainly include lots of uncooked plant-based foods in my diet (especially during the summer and early fall). Living and raw foods have enormously higher nutrient values than foods that have been cooked. It's not about being extreme either way, but most of us could stand to have a few more crunchy veggies in our diet.

What is your view on CSAs -- community-supported agriculture?    -- Lillian Saum, Shepherdstown, W.Va.

I am a huge fan. Since 1984, they have expanded to more than 1,200 across the U.S. Not only do CSAs offer increased access to grub in urban communities, but they also provide an opportunity for members to get to know the people growing their food. And they create a space to build community with neighbors around grub. For information about CSAs, visit Local Harvest and the Robyn Van En Center for CSA Resources.

Have you established any relationship with organic/local farms that supply you with fresh food? Does the exchange go both ways -- farmers providing you food and you and your eaters getting to work with the farmer?    -- Wayne Teel, Keezletown, Va.

I get most of my food at farmers' markets in Oakland and Berkeley, Calif. It's important for me to establish relationships with the people I purchase my food from, and I want them to know that I appreciate them and all of their hard work.

When I was living in Brooklyn, N.Y., I was a member of my neighborhood CSA, and I got to talk to the farmer every week when he brought fresh produce from his farm into my neighborhood. Some CSAs invite members to visit the farm and even harvest their own shares.

Soul (aka Southern) food traditions have undergone lots of revision in the last decade. What do you think are some of the all-stars (ingredients, recipes, approaches) from soul-food traditions? And just where do you stand on okra?    -- Kim Ruffin, Lewiston, Maine

Soul food is so complex and varied, depending on the region of the South that you're in, and it's hard to reduce it to a few staple products (although many people mistakenly do). There are certain staples that come to mind when I think of "soul food," like collard greens, black-eyed peas, yams, and okra, of course. But these foods are very specific to my memory of growing up in Memphis, Tenn. Someone living in coastal Carolina or Louisiana would probably come up with a different list. I would suggest Jessica B. Harris' Welcome Table for a broad overview of Southern foodways.

As with most cuisines, soul food is a living food tradition. So regardless of what recipes you use, you may need to substitute some ingredients and modify cooking techniques to meet modern-day health concerns. For example, in Grub, I reinvented some family favorite soul-food recipes using health-supportive ingredients and cooking techniques.

As for okra, I love it! I have had it prepared in almost every way imaginable: My grandmother used to pickle it for the winter; my mom would sauté it along with corn and juicy tomatoes from our garden; and when I lived in New Orleans, I always ate it in seafood gumbo, where it is used as a thickener. But grilling it is, by far, the best way that I've ever had it. Most people think it's too slimy. So I include a great non-slimy recipe in Grub -- "Good Grilled Okra" -- that has converted the most die-hard okra haters.

I know most of the work you do is domestic and local, but what about internationally? Any advice for those of us who may be interested in getting involved in sustainable agriculture in developing nations?    -- Melissa Armstrong, Providence, R.I.

I think it's very important to connect work being done to improve the food system domestically with the global food-justice movement. My friend and coauthor Anna Lappé wrote a book -- Hope's Edge -- with her mother Francis Moore Lappé that brilliantly illuminates trailblazers engaged in social, environmental, and economic transformations around the globe.

Care to share your thoughts on the events concerning South Central Farm?    -- Chris Schults, Seattle, Wash.

I visited the South Central Farm and stood in solidarity with supporters right before they were evicted. It saddens me that the city would not be in full support of a beautiful oasis in the midst of a concrete jungle that fed over 350 poor Latino and African-American families since 1992. I see this less as a setback for the movement, however, and more as a wake-up call. We have to continue to create strong community-driven locally owned solutions to food injustice and know that market concerns are more important to corporations and governmental institutions than true community development. I am confident that something new and even more beautiful will emerge out of this tragedy, though.

Besides giving people a copy of Grub, what do you suggest as resources and strategies for encouraging people to take some baby steps toward making conscious, healthy, and just food choices?    -- Laura Loescher, San Francisco, Calif.

The first thing I would suggest is doing a "community food audit." Anna and I developed the audit to help people determine what local resources are available for acquiring grub. After filling in the resources, we encourage people to share it with friends and loved ones. Spread the grub.

What is your favorite recipe using garden fare? Also, what is one vegetable that is not grown as often but needs to get more attention in gardens?    -- Maria Neumann, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Because I strive to primarily eat what is in season, I create ingredient-driven recipes that are determined by what is available at local community gardens or farmers' markets in the Bay Area. The farmers' markets are starting to be bountiful, so I'm having a ball.

What I think needs more attention is growing different varieties of vegetables that most of us are already familiar with. For example, most of us only experience a few types of tomatoes, but there are hundreds of varieties in existence. So whether gardeners are interested in preserving genetic diversity or cultivating flavor and beauty, I suggest growing heirloom varieties to spice up one's garden.

Since fast food, I'm afraid, is here to stay, have you given any thought to trying to make the fast-fooders change their evil ways to reflect people's growing awareness of and demand for fresh, wholesome, non-chemicalized, and organic foods?    -- Hanna Doniger, Troy, Mich.

Since fast-food corporations control so much wealth and have the ability to influence so many people's minds through advertising, I think that it is important to keep one eye on them and hold them accountable. But I think most of our energy should go into educating people about why they should embrace grub. I would argue that being reactive is not as effective as creating a vision for the type of food system that we want to see and then working to build it. As Che Guevara said, "A revolutionary is motivated by love." So we have to build this just and sustainable food system based upon our love of the earth, animals, and each other. The fast-food corporations will soon be extinct like the dinosaurs that they are.

What role should or could canned foods play in a diet based on sustainable agriculture?    -- Rosamond Cummins, Arlington, Mass.

Sadly, most commercially produced canned goods come packed with high levels of fat, sugar, and salt. In fact, when people ask me to suggest strategies for reducing hypertension, one of the first things I recommend is cutting out commercially canned food products. But even if companies producing health-supportive grub decided to can it, health and safety codes require that canned foods be subjected to extreme heat (up to 250 degrees F) in order to make the food "safe." This heat obliterates the enzymes and delicate vitamins and nutrients that we need for boosting our immune systems, repairing our bodies, and fighting disease.

Do you think current urban community-based models and initiatives for achieving food justice can be applied effectively in rural areas, or do you see rural communities facing unique problems that require a different approach?    -- Loren Drummond, Washington, D.C.

Honestly, I have not thought about this much. I think that some folks at The Food Project in Massachusetts might be able to answer your question better than I could. They started off growing vegetables on a farm outside of Boston and then later created urban farms and youth programs in the Roxbury/North Dorchester area of Boston. They now bridge these communities allowing youth working in their rural/suburban projects to work with youth working in their urban projects and vice versa. What a way to help young people discover their interdependence with each other as well as everything else.

When you use the term "food justice," what exactly do you mean? What can legal professionals do to ensure that justice is served with good grub?    -- Name not provided, Washington, D.C.

Check out an article entitled "The 'Food Justice' Movement: Trying To Break the Food Chains" written by Mark Winston Griffith.

What is the one message we could give the general public about the importance of supporting local food systems, a fair and equitable wage for today's farmer and farmworkers, and a healthy, sustainable, and vibrant future for our communities?    -- Jolinda Buchanan, Vernon, Ind.

EAT GRUB!

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Launched with profits from Al Gore's new movie and book, a new group called Alliance for Climate Protection plans to spend big bucks on advertising and grassroots organizing in an attempt to impart the dangers of climate chaos to the American public. Focusing particularly on conservatives and labor groups -- hoping that public demand will induce more eco-friendly legislation -- the group aims to "get the facts in front of the public more effectively than we have," says Lee M. Thomas, a member of the alliance's bipartisan board. Thomas, who headed the U.S. EPA during the Reagan administration, says the effort will resemble a political campaign. Paramount Classics, which is releasing Gore's upcoming movie An Inconvenient Truth, will donate $500,000 and a portion of the movie's proceeds; Gore's also contributing the advance from his upcoming book, rumored to be around $250,000. Fred L. Smith, president of a free-market lobbying group, sneers that enviros are "panicking" because "they are convinced that no one is listening." What's that, Fred? We weren't really listening.

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The ever-widening net of Republican-corruption busting may have snared a green bête noire: Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.). It seems Pombo took two trips, to New Zealand in 2000 and Japan in 2002, underwritten by a nonprofit foundation notable for opposition to environmental and animal-welfare protections. Problem is, tax laws prohibit private, nonprofit foundations from financing international travel by government officials. According to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, Pombo, his wife, and a staffer have taken $23,000 worth of international travel paid for by the International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources, whose backers include the Japan Whaling Association and the International Fur Traders Association. "This is an organization that has made a cottage industry out of opposing any animal-welfare reform," says the Humane Society's Michael Markarian. Pombo claimed he didn't know the group was a private foundation and said he'll reimburse the travel expenses if they prove to violate the tax code.

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"Given the urgency and magnitude of the escalating pace of climate change, the only hope lies in a rapid and unprecedented mobilization of humanity around this issue ... that some spark might ignite a massive uprising of popular will around a unifying movement for social survival and the promise it holds for a more prosperous, more equitable, and more peaceful world."   -- Ross Gelbspan, Boiling Point

Last weekend, hundreds of thousands of people marched in Washington, D.C., and around the country to protest the war in Iraq. On Saturday in D.C., widespread feelings of outrage and determination were palpable. Over the following two days, activists lobbied on Capitol Hill and engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience at the White House. It was a powerful combination of events. It was also a powerful example of exactly what we need to fight global warming: a massive, multipronged social and political movement.

Such a movement is growing as you read this, and will hit the streets in December -- not a moment too soon. There is no cause, no issue, no crisis more significant and more immediate than global warming. We could well see, within our lifetimes, a vast disruption of human society -- above and beyond the widespread injustice and poverty that already exist -- via floods and storms, rising sea levels, large-scale refugee movements, droughts, deforestation, and a major decline in food production. This possibility was brought home to many people in the U.S. by the devastating effects of the recent hurricanes.

While clean energy, conservation, and efficiency provide a clear solution to our global problem, little action has been taken in the U.S. beyond the individual, local, and occasionally state levels. The hard truth of the matter is this: the battle to stabilize our climate will not be won solely on the basis of rational arguments, individual lifestyle changes, and relatively modest clean-energy efforts. Given the alarming increase in the pace of global warming and the resistance to change by big coal and big oil, we need a movement the likes of which this country and world have never seen.

We need an early 21st century mobilization for global survival that is visible, multifaceted, creative, and determined. We need a fresh, young, energetic campaign. We must be willing to use nonviolent civil disobedience in a strategic way to underline the urgency of this crisis. We need individuals who are willing to make personal sacrifices. If we truly believe the clock is ticking toward a moment when the floodgates will almost literally open, we need people who are prepared for the hard, thankless work it takes to organize and build a movement, and for the dramatic actions of demonstrating, fasting, sitting-in, and risking arrest or going to jail.

This Dec. 3, a coalition of groups representing students, environmentalists, workers, women, people of color, religious adherents, and others will heed that call during a Day of Action. The day falls in the middle of a major U.N. conference in Montreal of countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol -- as well as some, including the U.S., that have not. There will be demonstrations at federal buildings, vigils, town meetings, and other creative actions, including a major one in Montreal organized by a Canadian coalition.

If all goes well, Dec. 3 will be the springboard for a global justice campaign in 2006, including a potential national march on Washington. And we have good reasons to believe such a campaign will have a major impact.

Here's one: last fall, students on hundreds of college campuses around the country held events and protests on the issue of clean energy. An important national network, Energy Action, which brings together 24 mainly youth and student groups, is continuing to grow. Students are on board.

Understanding within the peace movement about the connections between the war on Iraq and global warming is also growing. The major national anti-war coalition, United for Peace and Justice, supports the call for actions on Dec. 3, and -- as it proved in Washington, D.C., last weekend -- knows how to rally people to the cause. Activists are on board.

Many localities, and some states, are taking action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and replace dirty energy with clean alternatives. Just recently, the U.S. Conference of Mayors went on record in support of these efforts. Towns and cities are on board.

Leaders among the currently influential Christian right are speaking out. Rev. Rich Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs for the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals, tells his flock, "I don't think God is going to ask us how he created the earth, but he will ask us what we did with what he created." The faithful are on board.

The global-warming crisis has reached such magnitude that even within the leadership of the Republican Party, people are speaking out about the need to address it, including Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), and Olympia Snowe (Maine). Political leaders are on board.

Finally, and very significantly: people in the U.S. are getting it. This summer, poll results from the University of Maryland revealed that an overwhelming majority of respondents, 94 percent, thought the U.S. ought to match, or exceed, the rest of the world's limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. Three out of four people saw global warming as a problem requiring action. The people are on board.

All of this has happened without a visible movement taking to the streets. Is it unrealistic to believe that with such a movement in place, seemingly impossible things would become possible?

We must act as if we have it in our power to bring into being a new world -- a desirable world, a world grounded upon justice, where we are at peace with one another and the earth that gives us life. Because we do.

Are you on board?

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It's a shame. Conservationists are sitting on the sidelines while the Big Game unfolds before our eyes. A major campaign is under way to change the terms of development, alleviate crushing debt, and help poor people around the world live better lives. Successes are being racked up. And conservation and environmental groups are nowhere to be seen.

There are 39 groups listed as partners in the Campaign to Make Poverty History. Not one of them is a conservation or environmental organization.

It's a shame, not just for the leaders of the conservation and environmental movements, but also for conservation and the environment. The changes happening now will shape the future of the poorest regions of the world, many of which are home to the earth's greatest biodiversity -- as well as its most desperate people.

People used to talk about conservation and development. For a while, it seemed development advocates would do anything to hitch their projects to conservation. Not anymore. Now conservationists fret that they've dropped off the A-list.

I recently attended a conference on "Conservation Incentives That Work for People on the Land." When I heard Walter Reid, the director of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and Carter Roberts, the new president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund U.S., complain that conservation was not getting adequate attention -- even from such sympathetic types as Jeffrey Sachs, author of The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time -- I wondered whether there might be a new way back into the heart of the development dialogue. Not through conservation, but through something the development community has put at the center of its own agenda: governance.

These days, governance is the key word in international development, from multilateral agencies to governments and NGOs. When the finance ministers of the Group of Eight (G8), a coalition of the world's leading industrialized nations, agreed to cancel $40 billion of debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest countries, they tied the debt relief to good government practices, improvements in health and education, and elimination of poverty.

Once again, the environment was not on the agenda, despite the fact that maintenance of ecosystem services such as clean water is a critical concern in poor countries and despite the fact that good governance is essential for conservation. In a study published in Nature, researchers found that poorly governed countries tend to lose biodiversity faster as corruption rises. Higher corruption correlated with loss of forest cover and, in Africa, with declines in elephant and black rhino populations.

Good governance -- which starts with free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, and property rights -- needs to be pushed further to embrace conservation of ecosystem services and biodiversity through good laws, adequate administration, and practical incentives that work for people on the land.

I am sure there are many conservationists and environmentalists among the more than 3 million people wearing white "Make Poverty History" wristbands worldwide, and the more than 2 million people who sent text messages on their mobile phones trying to get tickets to the Live8 global series of concerts this summer. It's not too late for them to get the message to leaders of conservation and environmental organizations, too.

Conservationists can sit on the sidelines while history is made. Or get back in the game.

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FBI agents working on behalf of the bureau's counterterrorism unit have been gathering information on nonviolent environmental, civil-rights, and peace organizations for the past several years, according to Justice Department documents revealed in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The documents reveal that the FBI has amassed thousands of pages of records on the activities of groups like Greenpeace and the American Civil Liberties Union. The feds claim they're just trying to prevent violence at political demonstrations, not, you know, stifle free speech or free assembly or anything like that (heaven forfend!). But "if the FBI has taken the time to gather 2,400 pages of information on an organization that has a perfect record of peaceful activity for 34 years," said Greenpeace USA's John Passacantando, "it suggests they're just attempting to stifle the voices of their critics."

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Spelling-impaired activists at Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, MoveOn.org, and nine other enviro and progressive groups have launched a nationwide "Exxpose Exxon" consumer boycott campaign. While the coalition doesn't expect to have a big impact on ExxonMobil's bottom line, it hopes to change the public's perception of the world's largest publicly traded oil company and pressure it into good, green corporate citizenship -- investing in clean energy, supporting mandatory greenhouse-gas emissions caps, and backing off from its aim to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "On Arctic drilling and global warming, they are the worst of the worst," said Athan Manuel of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. ExxonMobil also has yet to pay several billion dollars in punitive damages stemming from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

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Today: the personals. Tomorrow: the world?

Since its founding in 1995, Craigslist has gained a devoted following in cities around the world. As filmmaker Michael Ferris Gibson showed in his recent documentary "24 Hours on Craigslist," the online community board brings strangers together for all sorts of transactions and revelations. Now the website's namesake foundation -- whose raison d'être is strengthening community by supporting local nonprofits -- is developing a new environmental network.

Craigslist Foundation's Environmental Non-Profit Network is still taking shape, but it will likely include both social and technological components. Its debut in Craigslist's home base, the San Francisco Bay area, has already attracted the interest of hundreds of local organizations. The foundation's executive director, Darian Heyman, says the network could eventually expand to play a national role.

Starting things off the old-school way, ENPN will sponsor a face-to-face event in San Francisco on June 1 as part of celebrations marking U.N. World Environment Day, which the city is hosting. Uber-activist Julia Butterfly Hill, an adviser to the nascent network, will be ENPN's keynote speaker.

Steering committee members hope this event will be the beginning of big things to come. They envision giant-scale activism in the form of a 2006 Earth Day mass march; edutainment/theater that will stir the public to demand changes in public policy; and cell-phone technology that will put green-purchasing information at consumers' fingertips.

Craigslist Foundation isn't reinventing the wheel. But it is joining those who are helping a struggling movement get back on its feet. And it offers something that many other organizations just don't have: international cachet -- even hipness. As the new network unfolds, observers repeat a cautious mantra: Craigslist has the power to make this work.

The foundation is taking its cue from recent online developments in social, political, and technical networking, ripples of which have emerged through sites like Friendster and LinkedIn, and campaigns like MoveOn and Dean for America. But it is leaving the specifics up to the community.

"This network does not belong to Craigslist Foundation," said Heyman. "It belongs to the Bay Area environmental nonprofit community. We are merely a facilitator. We are trying to empower people to collectively and individually run this thing and tell us how we can help. We're trying not to express an agenda beyond encouraging collaboration and decreasing duplication of effort."

While most coalitions try to find common ground, that narrowing of focus can become a source of conflict. To avoid that fate, "we want to be extremely flexible," said lead ENPN steering committee member Sudeep Motupalli Rao. "We know we have a progressive environmental vision. That's it. That's the only driver. It's a sustainable environmental vision."

"Everybody we talk to is really excited about this," said William Ryan, president of the foundation's board. "So we think we're going down the right path."

Hill, who founded the Oakland-based nonprofit Circle of Life, counts herself among the ranks of the excited. "We know so little about what all these groups are doing in the Bay Area, so spending the time to get together to know what each other's skills and resources are, and then finding some strategic ways to work together, would actually leverage the power of who we are," she said. "I'm passionate about ... building the movement beyond what environmental activism has been -- the coming together of social justice, environmental justice, and the larger sustainability movement."

So ENPN will work toward a sustainable future, and physical social gatherings will be part of that. But what will the technology look like?

The foundation surveyed the growing network's members and found their wish list was no short order: searchable member profile and directory databases; a listserv for emailing members; an events calendar on which any member could post updates; a discussion forum; a blog; a donation processing tool; a file reserve library; the ability to push content from a moderator website to readers on other websites; and the ability to interconnect various organizations and individuals.

While all these technologies are commonplace, bringing them together in one bundled system is trickier, as is providing access to a wide range of players. For example, Yahoo! Groups, which has proven popular for collaborations, allows individuals to chat, post some files and events, and maintain a basic database, but its limited capacity doesn't allow extended file sharing.

"We're still exploring ideas," said Ryan. "We're taking opinions from all kinds of people. We're looking at tools that are already out there, and companies that might want to donate tools to the foundation."

Although Ryan wouldn't say anything definite about the tool other than the foundation is "committed to exploring its feasibility," he said he thought it could be a reality in one year. "Things are already out there, people have expressed interest in working on it, pieces are already built," he said.

In the meantime, ENPN will rely on the technology of the moment. It will also keep a close eye on other similar efforts around the country.

Effective social, political, and technical networking has long been a concern of the nonprofit sector, and several organizations have been putting their considerable brainpower to this thorny subject for years.

"A lot of the ideas [Craigslist Foundation is] talking about are already under development by the nonprofit open-source community," said Jon Stahl, program manager of ONE/Northwest, a nonprofit that provides technology and communications assistance to environmental groups in the Pacific Northwest. "But that community could certainly use more hands on deck."

Martin Kearns, executive director of Green Media Toolshed -- which provides communication tools to nearly 160 environmental organizations nationwide -- expects network-centric political engagement to replace traditional group-driven advocacy. He believes Craigslist Foundation can put together the five key elements he says are required to support this type of network: strong social ties, common story, dense communication grid, shared network resource, and clarity of purpose.

The benefits of such networking, Kearns says, are that individuals act as part of a coordinated movement, leadership is decentralized, and participants can deploy quickly to tip policy debate. For example, they could take advantage of intense national attention on an oil spill to fight an offshore-drilling bill in Congress, or rapidly share the latest power-plant emissions data to rally public support for a court battle over the Clean Air Act's new-source review rules.

Certainly, newfangled technology isn't required to do this good work. Established groups like the Sierra Club and Rainforest Action Network and individuals are already working together effectively.

And Stahl points out that a lot can be accomplished with relatively simple technologies. "Since 1995, [ONE/Northwest has] hosted email discussion lists for the regional environmental community," he said. "We're currently hosting over 800 lists with more than 133,000 participants. We're using off-the-shelf, open-source software to do that. That's been very successful. It's a much more limited tool set than Craigslist is talking about. But even very simple tools can have a lot of power."

Still, as Kearns writes [PDF], "the potential for network-centric advocacy increases with each advancement in connectivity technology." In other words, every little bit helps.

No matter how Craigslist Foundation's technological project turns out, the value of its ability to connect people should not be underestimated. "Social capital is the most important asset that these efforts build," Stahl said. "The most important part of it is building trust among the human beings involved."

Related Links:

Bryant Terry, food-justice activist, answers questions

Wake Up and Smell the Carbon

Junket in the Trunk

FBI calls "eco-terrorists" top domestic threat; Inhofe licks his chops

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee convened a hearing on "eco-terrorism" yesterday, anxious to warn the nation of a rising danger that has already killed ... well, nobody. Despite the unimpressive body count, a growing number of property crimes make fringe ecological and animal-rights groups the single greatest domestic terror threat facing the U.S., according to the FBI's John Lewis, who testified before the committee. He acknowledged that groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front have not caused bodily harm, per se, but cited "troubling signs that this is changing," like "violent rhetoric." After the testimony, committee chair James Inhofe (R-Okla.) got to the real agenda: Smearing the larger environmental movement. "Just like al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization, ELF and ALF cannot accomplish their goals without money, membership, and the media," he said darkly, vowing to look more closely for ways that radical groups get assistance from "mainstream activists." That's you, folks.

Related Links:

E.U. pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

China, India, U.S. commit to seal Copenhagen deal

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Diverse groups, unlikely allies join fight for energy independence

Military officials, environmental activists, and others from across the political spectrum are speaking up about the need for radical change in American energy policy. Over the last year, a number of labor groups and think tanks have joined the chorus, releasing detailed plans for reducing oil imports. Last month, the Energy Future Coalition -- a group of national-security "energy hawks," military leaders, and industry officials -- released a plan to use tax credits to promote hybrid and ethanol-production technology. The bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy and the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington energy think tank, have unveiled plans of their own. "It's one of the great failures of American politics and policy that we are so dependent on oil from one of the most corrupt and unstable areas of the world," says former U.S. Sen. Timothy Wirth. "The world's in crisis, and the U.S. is doing nothing to limit our dependence and extraordinary vulnerability."

Related Links:

E.U. pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Ansje Miller is a program director for Redefining Progress and staffs the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, a consortium of environmental-justice, religious, and policy groups.

Sunday, 20 Feb 2005

LOS ANGELES, Calif.

Driving down California's Interstate 5 from Oakland to Los Angeles, the need for a new vision for the future of transportation was clear. The pouring rain transformed the usual L.A. gridlock into nothing short of a parking lot, with no other mass transportation options in sight. Six lanes of traffic full of cars carrying one person; in that moment, I understood the meaning of the phrase "road rage."

But my rage turned to excitement as I entered a room full of 300 environmental-justice activists, transportation activists, and concerned Los Angeles residents ready to challenge the auto culture and build a movement for public transportation. The weekend Future of Transportation Conference, sponsored by the Center for Transportation Strategies (a project of the Labor/Community Strategy Center), brought together old and new friends from around the country to tackle not only the gridlock problem I experienced on my journey, but its relationship to transit racism, global warming, clean air, access to education, and the threats posed by fossil fuels to our indigenous brothers and sisters.

Heavy topics to take on over the course of one weekend, no? But before anyone had a chance to get overwhelmed, two members of the Bus Riders Union Advisory Committee gave us the strength, courage, and energy to face our future. Rosalio Mendiola told us how he joined the union to take on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's high bus fares, limited service, and emphasis on rail, which has perpetuated racial segregation and poverty in the city. At the beginning of that struggle, a friend asked him, "How are you going to win against a multimillion-dollar agency?" Mendiola replied, "Friend, we are here and we are not leaving!"

"To win a long-term struggle," Mendiola continued, "you need constancy, constancy, constancy. In other words, to fight, to fight, to fight." Through constancy and fighting, Mendiola and his fellow activists at the BRU won a civil-rights consent decree to increase countywide access and mobility of the transit dependent. Mendiola's example brought the entire room to its feet, with a shout from the back of the room, "We're ready for a war!"

As Mendiola left the stage, Grandma Hee Pok Kim rose to the podium. Grandma Kim has been with the Bus Riders Union for the past four years, organizing Korean elders for transportation justice and leading local struggles to get Korean translation at the MTA meetings. Through her 20-something Korean-English translator, this 80-year-old revolutionary reminded us, "We are not day flies. We have a tomorrow. A social movement like this should be continued in the next generation." And most importantly, Kim added, "We can do it."

The need for this work was detailed in the first panel by Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. Dr. Bullard presented the findings in his book Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes to Equity, which documents how cities are subsidizing sprawl and growth in outlying areas and creating a system of "transit apartheid." "People are so in love with their SUVs that they are willing to drive in and drive out," Bullard exclaimed. "It is the equivalent of drive-by pollution."

The pace of the conference was perfect. Powerful presentations such as Bullard's on the research about transportation equity were complemented by reports on legislative activities from local assembly members Karen Bass and Fran Pavley. Then energizing stories of organizing from activists such as BRU's Manuel Criollo were punctuated with a drum-and-chant corps that brought the audience out of its seats in song.

And let's not forget the solutions, the strategies. In the afternoon, BRU unveiled its plan for the future of transportation in Los Angeles. The plan creates an integrated three-tier bus network for fast, reliable, countywide access that includes a freeway bus network, metro rapid bus, and expanded neighborhood and general services. This plan will create 576 new buses, 50 shuttles, and -- impressively -- 2,351,000 new bus in-service hours each year.

Clayton Thomas-Mueller, the Indigenous Environmental Network's oil-and-gas campaigner, taught us how switching to compressed or liquid natural gas was destroying indigenous communities where the gas is extracted. Thomas-Mueller pointed out that "indigenous peoples are hit first and hit the hardest." As many environmentalists are supporting a move to this form of powering transportation, this is an important lesson in our struggle to save not only our own communities, but communities across the planet.

And that, I believe, is one of the ways that this conference was different from so many gatherings on the fate of our planet. As Eric Mann, director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center pointed out, "The mainstream environmental movement wants less pollution in Iraq, less pollution in white communities." Hopefully, the vision from this conference will create health, transportation, and economic justice for all of our communities.

To put the future of transportation in a global context, we watched the Independent Television Service video Rising Waters. This powerful film traces the impacts of climate change from the tropical Pacific to the island of Manhattan, interweaving the international policy process to address this pressing issue. In the film, Penehuro Lafale from Samoa expressed his frustration at how slowly that process is moving, while rising sea levels force his people to consider evacuation. "We may be the first victims of this phenomenon," says Lafale, "but your time will come up later, whether it be your children or your grandchildren."

Every effective networking conference includes a late-night session -- usually held at a bar or dance club. And this conference was definitely effective. But, on the dance floor that night, I was drawn to the television broadcast of the evening news. Lafale's words haunted me as I watched the reports of storms that touched down in the Los Angeles area earlier in the day, ripping off roof tiles, destroying fences, breaking car windows, flooding eight houses, and cutting power to 7,000 homes. In nearby Sun Valley, the rains left a massive sinkhole in the middle of a local street. And on our ride home, the street and the curb were indistinguishable because of the rising waters that erased their separation. I can't help but think that Lafale is right: Our time is coming. It's time to stop talking and start doing.

Related Links:

December 19—the day after COP15

Chuck Norris on Copenhagen

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

Will class-action plaintiffs still get their day in court?

The Erin Brockoviches of America could have a much tougher time going after polluters if the Class Action Fairness Act -- which the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve last week -- is signed into law.

The bill, which will be put to a full Senate vote today, would move most major class-action lawsuits from state courts to federal courts, purportedly in an attempt to bring order and fairness to a system in which, currently, plaintiffs' attorneys seek out local courts with agreeable track records on rulings and negotiate settlement awards for victims that are inconsistent from state to state. A long-standing priority of the Bush administration and its corporate contributors, the legislation is overwhelmingly backed by Republicans on the Hill and several Democrats in the Senate, and is considered a sure bet for passage.

Durbin criticized the "Class Action Moratorium Act."

Howls of protest are being heard from environmental activists, labor and civil-rights groups, including the AFL-CIO and the NAACP, and a number of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, including Sen. Richard Durbin (Ill.), who said during a hearing on the bill last week, "This isn't the Class Action Fairness Act -- this is the Class Action Moratorium Act."

These critics claim the bill would make it too difficult for wronged citizens to have their day in court and see justice meted out. On Monday, attorneys general of 15 states sent a letter [PDF] to the Senate leadership arguing that the bill as it stands would "result in far greater harm than good." That same day, leaders of 16 large green organizations signed a separate letter [PDF] to the Senate warning of serious environmental harm that would come from the bill and requesting that environmental lawsuits be exempted.

Under current law, class-action suits that involve plaintiffs from multiple states (as most major class-action suits do) can be heard in any state in which the harm has taken place. Beth Levine, an aide to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who sponsored the bill, argues that this allows plaintiffs' attorneys to do what's called "venue shopping": "They look for certain state courts that have been known to rule in their favor. The president often cites the courts in Madison County, [Ill.,] that continually rule in favor of the trial attorneys and dole out huge settlements." (Well, technically, said courts tend to rule in favor of plaintiffs, sometimes known as "victims," but we get her drift.) Levine argues that the settlements frequently yield huge payoffs for the attorneys, but paltry coupons for the plaintiffs themselves. Large class-action cases should be heard before judges who have a more national outlook, she says, and can help ensure fairer and more consistent awards.

Critics of the bill argue that in moving lawsuits from the state to the federal level, local concerns would be taken out of the hands of communities. "There is a reason that defendants want to be tried outside of the state," said John Walke, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "They're fearful that their wrongdoing will be punished more within the community because the people have more at stake. [Proponents of the bill] term it 'local prejudice,' but it's really 'local care.'"

Worse still, say the bill's opponents, federal courts often refuse to hear class-action cases submitted by petitioners from multiple states. "No one wants to file a class-action suit at a federal level because they often get dismissed if they include plaintiffs from a patchwork of different states, all of which have different laws," explained Jude McCartin, an aide to Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who has been a vocal critic of certain sections of the bill. "There isn't one state law that is applicable and there is no guidance for federal judges as to where they can apply just one state's laws."

Bingaman failed in efforts to soften the bill.

Bingaman tried to address this concern by proposing an amendment that would give federal judges the authority to select one state's law and apply it to a case with plaintiffs from multiple states, but he couldn't rally enough votes for it. "We tried to say [in this amendment] that if class-action suits are going to be forced into federal courts, let's give consumers reasonable expectation that their case will be heard," McCartin told Muckraker. "But the support just wasn't there for it."

And even if the cases do get heard, the Class Action Fairness Act could result in substantial cost increases and time delays for plaintiffs. Federal courts are already backlogged, critics say, and new cases bumped up to the federal level would have to go to the end of a long waiting list.

"Going through the federal system is far less expedient," said Joan Mulhern, a senior attorney at Earthjustice. "If you're a community that's suffering from groundwater contamination or an oil spill or a tank explosion or air contamination from nearby factory farms, you may have to wait for years to even get your case heard, much less be given a fair chance from an unbiased judge to have your injuries redressed."

Mulhern argues that the Bush administration is rigging the judicial system so it's harder for citizens to hold corporate culprits accountable on the full gamut of civil concerns -- not just environment and public health, but also consumer protection, civil rights, and labor issues. "It's that sweeping," she said.

Enviros are particularly concerned about how the bill would affect lawsuits over water pollution from MTBE, a gasoline additive that has contaminated the groundwater in at least 35 states. Hundreds of communities across the country are grappling with the effects of MTBE pollution, and many of them have been banding together to organize major class-action suits -- suits that would be passed off to federal courts if the bill is signed into law.

The bill also worries environmentalists and other public advocates because it would hand more power to an increasingly conservative federal judiciary. President Bush has made it a high priority to appoint conservative judges to federal courts, as did Ronald Reagan, and they have left a lasting legacy: Of the 836 total active federal judges, 204 have been appointed by Bush, and 253 were appointed by former Republican presidents going back to Richard Nixon. In total, 55 percent are Republican appointees, according to the Alliance for Justice. And Bush has signaled his intent to aggressively push through more right-wing appointees to the federal bench.

At a time when the White House is weakening environmental defenses across the board, the Class Action Fairness Act would remove yet another avenue for citizens to keep corporate polluters in check, according to Ed Hopkins, director of environmental quality for the Sierra Club. "You've got the executive branch and Congress clearly aligned against strong environmental protections. So what branch of government can citizens turn to? That's the courts. The courts are really the final frontier. And now even they are being taken away from the American people."

Related Links:

Annie Leonard misses the mark in her new video, “The Story of Cap-and-Trade”

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Chuck Norris on Copenhagen

What organization are you affiliated with? What does it do?

I work with the Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Network. I have been on the board for three years now. Every year this organization puts on a film festival in Leavenworth, Wash. This year it is March 18-21. We are showing more than 50 films from around the world. Over the span of four days, people from all over get to come together to view films, eat, talk, and learn about how we can improve the environment from a multitude of perspectives. The best part of the festival is that it is located at the Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat Center. By the end of the weekend there is a sense of community among all of the participants. Because of the intimacy of Sleeping Lady, you have the opportunity to really meet people and learn about them. This is something you wouldn't get from an urban film festival. We invite anyone who has a passion for the environment to attend. This year's themes are Environmental Health, Wildlife, and Water.

What's your job title?

El Presidente.

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

I spend a few hours a week working for this organization. The day-to-day work is done by Caroline Cummings, HWEFN's executive director.

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

Well, my friend Sam Stegeman led me here, as he has to many other great adventures. At the time, Sam was directing the film festival, and he asked me to join the board. I agreed and have been on since. When John Degraff stepped down last May as board president, I was asked to take the position.

How many emails are currently in your inbox?

Too many ...

With whom do you interact regularly as part of your job? What types of people? What other organizations or government agencies?

What is nice about Hazel Wolf is that it can have its foot in a lot of different issues. It is media with an environmental focus. However, we all know today that the term "environment" is becoming much broader. We can deal with environmental justice issues, anti-globalization issues, lots of social justice issues, labor issues. Media can be made about all of these. As Hazel Wolf says on the video that was made about the festival, "I think that in the end the environmental movement is going to move everybody. Because we all drink the same polluted air and drink the same polluted water. No matter if you're a timber tycoon or not."

Up 'til now, the organization has been supported mainly by independent filmmakers. We are trying to do a better job of outreaching to environmental organizations to help them see the value of environmental media and how it can help them in their activism. We also want to incorporate governmental organizations into the festival so they can learn about the issues and network with people who can participate in solutions.

Who's the biggest pain in the ass you have to deal with?

I can't say I have run into any real pains in the ass. I would say that it surprises me when HWEFN reaches out to corporations and they are worried that we may be too radical and reflect badly on them -- especially Northwest corporations that would clearly benefit from what HWEFN is doing. Some of the films that are shown at the festival are nature films that promote the outdoor experience. Yet, we haven't gotten a lot of support from companies around Seattle that make money off of this experience. Not sure why they are so reluctant to work with us.

Who's nicer than you would expect?

That's an easier question. I guess I'm mostly amazed by the shared sense of community that occurs at the Hazel Wolf Film Festival every year. It isn't just a bunch of people watching films, but a small community of folks watching, networking, and dialoguing about things that matter to them. I think that's one of the things that really grabs people's attention. The festival itself is a really nice atmosphere. There isn't any backhand dealing or anything. It is a group of people who come together over four days to make the world a better place.

Where were you born? Where do you live now?

I was born in Bozeman, Mont. I live in Seattle right now, in the Central District.

What do you consider your environmental coming-of-age moment?

Oh, there are so many. I guess I would say it was my reading of global warming science. It was at a turning point in my life when I really needed to decide what I was going to do. Once I read about this issue, I realized that no matter how we dealt with the other stuff (and don't get me wrong -- it is all good work), if we didn't fix global warming we were going to have some cataclysmic breakdowns of our natural capital. It was then I chose to dedicate my time to environmental activism. I don't work specifically on global warming, but I think HWEFN contributes to expanding the environmental movement.

What's on your desk right now?

A copy of the Earth Charter. If you haven't checked it out, please do.

What environmental offense has pissed you off the most?

What aggravates me is the way the media tends to jump from one issue to the next without any resolution. We see cutting-edge journalism about an environmental issue -- for example, the work done by Duff Wilson in the book Fateful Harvest. People read about it, there is a public outcry, and then it all just goes away. What happened? The problem is still going on -- nothing significant changed. I don't believe that people are apathetic, but they are overloaded with so many problems they sometimes get stuck not knowing what to do. One reason I like Grist is that you guys connect people to activist websites. I just wish the mainstream media wasn't so focused on the latest thing and actually did long-term reporting to see if some of the problems were actually resolved.

Who is your environmental hero?

Nobody really comes to mind. I just met with a guy who started the Whidbey Institute yesterday, Fritz Hull, and after talking to him for a few hours I would say he is a hero. He is attempting to create a context for religion and the environment to come together as one -- something that has been a problem for many years and is one of the reasons the conservative elite can amass so many people who are Christian. Yet, Christianity isn't the problem per se. It is people's interpretation of Christianity that is the problem. We need to find ways to bridge the cultural divides that keep the environmental movement away from lots of people who should be allies. Somehow these people, living in cancer row down in Louisiana, think environmentalism is an affront to their religious belief system. Fritz is trying to find some of those bridges and I completely support that.

Who is your No. 1 environmental villain/nemesis?

Personally, I don't like this question. I guess it is easy to start to see people as villains and bad guys. I don't like that type of environmentalism. I think we in the environmental movement need to start thinking about ways in which everyone is a player in the solution. The new environmentalism (if I can be so bold as to use that terminology) is about bringing different interests together to find a solution that works for everyone. Loggers are not enemies, they are people who need jobs. How can everyone work together to find new jobs for them and also protect the forest? We need to stop thinking in either/or solutions. It isn't about winning or losing, it is about building a global community where everyone shares in a healthy planet. I'm sure people will consider that naive, but I think it is the only way.

What's your environmental vice?

I like to snowboard.

How do you get around?

Car when I have to go places at a far distance. But I also take the bus a lot and don't shirk from a 35-minute walk.

What are you reading these days?

There are so many books and so little time. I'm reading the Aquarian Conspiracy by Marilyn Ferguson, The Next Enlightenment by Walter Truett Anderson, the new issue of YES! magazine, The Marriage of Sense and Soul by Ken Wilbur, and Power Shift by Alvin Toffler.

What's your favorite meal?

I have been trying a raw-foods diet lately -- feels oh so good. So I'll say a nice spinach salad. My bowels love me (I'm sure this is too much information).

Are you a news junkie? Where do you get your news?

I'm not a junkie. I have been reading a lot of political weblogs lately. Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, and a recent one about the Iraq War found on TomPaine.com. Otherwise I read The New York Times and Seattle Times reasonably regularly.

Which stereotype about environmentalists most fits you?

I'm kinky in bed?

What's your favorite place or ecosystem?

I have to say right here, Cascadia. I mean, can you find a more amazing biosphere in the world? I love the Cascades and the Olympics -- two places that on their own would be reason enough to live here. Yet we get two of the most gorgeous ecosystems around. I have to say as much as Seattle has room to improve, it is one of the most livable and beautiful cities I've ever been to. Cape Town, South Africa, is a close second.

If you could institute by fiat one environmental reform, what would it be?

I would rearrange our public education system to include a significant amount of curriculum that connects people to the natural world. I think that in order for us to save the planet every human being must begin to redefine his or her relationship to this world. This can happen, but it is going to be a major haul.

When was the last time you wore tie-dye? How about fleece?

I'm more of a cotton guy. There isn't anything better then putting on a cotton shirt. Tie-dye isn't part of my experience. But I can appreciate those people cruising around with it today.

Do you compost?

Yes.

Which presidential candidate are you backing in 2004?

Anybody but Bush.

Would you label yourself an environmentalist?

Yeah, I would say I'm an environmentalist. And I say it proudly. I do think that the environmental movement has made some mistakes in the past that have alienated a lot of people. Nonetheless, I don't know of any social movement that has grown so fast and so broadly. I'm proud of the baggage. I hug trees and I do it with pride. Some people may want to portray me as a wacko and out of touch with what really matters, but that's fine with me. I always want to be on the cutting edge of where the culture needs to go -- not too far ahead, just enough on the edge where people are ready to start moving forward. When you sit in these places, the mainstream of our society is always going to be shooting you down and calling you names. All the folks from the counterculture said this was what was going to happen and it did. When you are out in front of the culture you have to expect people to criticize you. The answer is not to attack back but to meet people halfway and try to understand their issues. Once again, I'm sure that sounds naive, but I think it is the only answer to long-term change.

What's one issue about which you disagree with other environmentalists?

I kind of felt like the attack on SUVs was a little gratuitous. Of course I am of the opinion that these beasts of inefficiency should be removed from our roads (due to safety hazards alone). I just don't think that picking on people who have chosen this form of transportation (the guerilla bumper-sticker campaign) is a very effective form of activism. I don't like activism that guilts people into changing their behavior. I don't think it works in the long run.

What could the environmental movement be doing better or differently to attract new people?

I think the best way to connect to people is through the personal. Unfortunately, things like global warming or ozone depletion don't totally make sense to people. These problems are too nebulous. The way to connect to people is through their day to day. That is where the environmental health movement comes in. Why should I care about the environment? Because if I don't I'm going to have a much higher chance of getting cancer. The environmental health movement personalizes environmentalism. If we can begin to change the perception of cancer to something that is being caused by environmental toxins (there is a tremendous amount of evidence that this is the case), we can focus people on cleaning up their own backyards. This gives people an in to the movement and helps broaden it because these types of issues are hurting everyone. Who doesn't know someone who has or has died of cancer?

What was your favorite band when you were 18? How about now?

I was into U2, Bob Dylan, and Tom Waits. Today I have been rolling the latest Outkast, which is a strong effort for a two-album set.

What's your favorite TV show?

I don't watch TV.

Mac or PC?

Mac.

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

Plant trees.

What are you happy about right now?

I'm happy about my family, the great relationships I've established with friends, living in Seattle, and participating in one of the most interesting periods in human history.

Bryce Mathern, of Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Network.

What was your favorite film from last year's festival? What was it about? Do you have any idea what to expect this year? Any likely faves?     -- Brenda Jenson, Milwaukee, Wis.

Well, there were so many good ones last year. There was a documentary on pesticides that affected children down in Mexico called Playing with Poison -- I also saw it at another viewing in Seattle at 911 Media. It showed the startling effects of pesticides on human beings. I think anyone who saw this would be really concerned. There was another one on fuel cells that was exciting. I have been interested in alternative energy for a long time, so any word about where that is going gets me jazzed up. I actually don't work with the program committee so I haven't seen any of this year's films yet. I know of a couple made by local filmmakers that I'm going to see. Other than that I like to go in and enjoy the festival like everyone else.

The film festival sounds like it could be fun, but I live in Idaho. Could you give me a brief rundown on what the films are like? Are most documentaries? Are some fiction? Are most outdoor adventure epics? Where are most of the films submitted made -- U.S.? The Northwest? Europe? Asia? And lastly, if I can't make it to Washington, are the films showing anywhere else?     -- Nikki Mecidi, Boise, Idaho

Hey Nikki, I grew up in Boise. Idaho is a great state. Not exactly the hub of enlightened thinking, but some really good people live there, including my parents and sister.

Many of the films are documentaries. There are usually some humorous shorts that lighten the somewhat somber mood. We also provide some films on the natural beauty of the world. Most of the films are from the U.S., although we have people from several other countries as well. I actually don't know where most of our films come from in the U.S. I'll have to ask.

I don't actually know of any films being shown in Idaho. But if you are interested, why don't you contact Hazel Wolf and we can help you set up a community film festival in the Gem Stone state.

Is it too late to submit a film for the upcoming festival?     -- Larry Reisinger, Colorado Springs, Colo.

Sorry, Larry. You can submit it for next year.

Since you are in the media business, why not develop movies or presentations that could be used in the classroom -- and maybe more importantly, at teacher conferences? You could then be instrumental in getting to educators and students.     -- Jerry Broadbent, Bucoda, Wash.

Jerry, this is a good idea. We would like to get more of these films into classrooms. I don't think you would need to change a lot of the films -- many of them are produced as educational tools. Hazel Wolf does offer a youth program, which is helping to get young people involved in making films and incorporating these films into the classroom. I really like the idea of students taking charge of their own community environmental issues by making films about them. I have seen students do this as a result of the youth program. Not only do they gain a better sense of the environment and the use of media, but it creates a new level of confidence that will be valuable for the rest of their lives.

In reference to the constantly shifting attention of major media that you mentioned, what do you think is (or should be) the role of independent media in keeping attention focused on issues? And do you think alternative media has been doing a good job of doing whatever you believe their job is? Additionally -- this is the last question I swear -- do you think that environmental films (i.e., documentaries, etc.) are a part of the alternative media and do they tend to focus peoples' attention more than the manic corporate news coverage of issues?     -- Nikos Hollis, Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Nikos (great name by the way), the first issue is to define alternative media. I'm sure everyone has a variation on this, but mine revolves around commerce. My issue with the mainstream media is that they aren't attempting to educate the public, but instead are focused on selling the public more stuff. Alternative media or independent media is focused on getting some idea or message out to the public that they believe will better the world. To me that is one of the most important distinctions -- not the only one, of course.

The role of independent media is to counter the dominant paradigm that the mainstream media is trying to instill in the world. You can imagine this with regard to a number of different issues. For example, the myth of the American dream -- the role of independent media is to counter this by pointing out that the dream is not a reality for a huge portion of this society and is not a sustainable dream for the world. This can be done in a variety of ways, by showing the degree of poverty in our society or showing how unhealthily people are actually living.

Sarasota County, Fla., is a progressive community. We take environmental stewardship seriously and have done a lot in recent years to minimize our environmental impact. We have a tremendous amount to do; however, the leadership and political will seems to be in place.

We also host a film festival here. Obviously hosting a film festival brings in local economic development; hosting one with the topic of environmental stewardship serves a dual purpose in that it is educational.

I am looking for creative and thought-provoking ways to attract and engage people in this conversation in an effort to breed long-term behavior change.     -- Jodi John, Manager, Sustainable Sarasota, Sarasota, Fla.

Jodi, I'm impressed. You are doing some wonderful and important things. Answering your question about "ways to attract and engage people ... in an effort to breed long-term behavior" is a difficult one. Attracting people to attend a film festival is hard enough.

In a general sense, you are getting into the psychology of activism. How do we create a culture of activism? I have thought about this a bit in my life by first thinking about what motivates me. Why have I become active? That may be the first question you ask yourself.

The other point I would make is that the term activism needs to be expanded. I think that we have a very confined way of looking at the word. When I say the word activism or activist, many people have images of young angry folks with posters marching, yelling, and screaming. I think this is only one form of activism. The term (and maybe we need another term) could be used more inclusively, allowing more people who want to get involved (but are not really into yelling) to feel empowered by the things that they do. In some ways I think we need to get out of the mindset that all activism is anti-Vietnam-style activism. And while we are at it, could someone please write some new anti-war songs? If I hear "Masters of War" at the next Iraqi war protest, I'm going to lose my lunch.

I was just wondering, what do you think the environmental health movement can do for conventional Western medicine? You talked about personalizing environmentalism through stressing environmental health, but do you think this works or could work in mainstream medicine? Or is the burden of proof too high for modern medicine, which relies on study after study to prove causes of ill health?     -- Matt Verstraete, Tampa, Fla.

Matt, I'm not sure what you mean exactly. When I talk about the environmental health movement, I'm talking about Western medicine. Hospitals, our supposed beacons of health, are one of the major polluters in urban areas. They dump huge amounts of toxic materials in local landfills and in some communities they actually burn their waste. This is the kind of insanity that we have created. Our centers for health are creating disease.

As for the burden of proof issue -- that's a problem all to itself. We in the Western world have created analysis paralysis. Even though we know that lots of people who smoke get lung cancer, the tobacco industry can still claim that smoking isn't actually the cause. They can point to inconclusive research. Once again, this is madness and not related to common sense. We need more common sense and wisdom and less analysis.

So, being El Presidente of an environmental film organization, you seem uniquely positioned to answer my wide-ranging question: What do you think is the role of art in environmentalism?     -- Kim Gyre, Savannah, Ga.

I really like your question, Kim. I'm not sure I'm the one to answer it, but I'll give it a shot. Art, which I define as the manifestation of cultural values and mythologies, has an important role to play, one that is not sufficiently emphasized by the environmental movement. I think that art can provide a great space to question the way the world works and possibly provide alternative ideas. I don't know if you've noticed this, but lately I have seen an increase in the amount of garbage art. I'm not sure if that is my own deal or if there is actually a growing desire in the art community to draw attention to our throw-away society. I was down at Burning Man last summer and the artistic community there is really tuned into building art that is shifting the paradigm of the dominant culture. I enjoy Burning Man because the art is being made only for the participants. At the end of the festival it is usually burned or taken apart. There is a freedom one feels when the purpose is not to sell the art.

You're working with a great independent film project -- what role do you think independent media can play in supporting activism? What opportunities do you see for different independent media folks, across media (film, radio, print, web) to work together and/or support each other?     -- Susan Gleason, Seattle, Wash.

Well, Susan, this is a timely question. One way indy media can support activism is by telling stories about what's happening at the grassroots level. The mainstream media rarely reports on these types of issues because they don't have the necessary sex appeal or star quality. Working day after day, it is important for people to know about others in the trenches protecting forests, fighting for indigenous land rights, stopping the slaughter of wolves in Alaska, and on and on. I think this gives people a sense that things can change and it breaks through the pervasive cynicism that is gripping our culture right now. I know that when I read about something happening in the world that is starting to turn for the better, I feel a renewed sense of hope. Right now we need more hope and less fear.

First, what would you say to "skeptical environmentalists" out there like Bjorn Lomborg, who is holding a Copenhagen Consensus in May around his claim that the world will have to choose between problems like ending hunger and tackling climate change because it cannot solve them all at once? Second, if you could take Lomborg on (or any annoying "skeptic" for that matter), what method of combat would you choose (and how would you annihilate them -- OK, this part may be for mature audiences only)?     -- Mitzi Borromeo, Lausanne, Switzerland

I haven't actually read Lomborg's book, but I have a sense of the thesis. I guess I would tell him that his role as a statistician is important. But the real issue is not one of numbers and scenarios but people's relationship to the spirit of our planet. I would ask him to take a trip with me out to the Cascades on one of those gorgeous sunny Western Washington days and see the landscape. We could walk around some of the thousands of alpine lakes and maybe even go for a dip in the fresh clean water. And then I would ask if he is still willing to give all this up.

Mitzi, I don't feel annihilation is the right way to go about it. Lomborg has a perspective that is important. It may be wrong in a number of ways, but it is still important. Instead of annihilation, I would choose understanding. What is Lomborg's motivation for writing his book? What is his history with the natural world? Why is he so certain of his views? I personally don't want to create an environmental movement that is focused on destroying some sort of corporate industrial elite to save the planet. The environmental movement has to include everyone -- even those who really get our blood boiling. The best way to include everyone is to begin by listening and being open to their experience. Annihilation only leads to more disconnection. We need to start finding ways to come together rather then separating ourselves from each other. I know this is hard in the current cultural climate. It is much easier to want to annihilate people. But in the long run we don't get anywhere.

What action steps do you recommend environmentalists and all lovers of progressive civil society take on this spring, summer, and fall to get Bush out of office? What are your plans to contribute to this effort?

Thank you for all your wonderful work on the festival and for your clarifying perspectives on global warming and environmental education!     -- Pam Emerson, Seattle, Wash.

Very timely question, Pam. I think one of the biggest opportunities of this election is to pull some people out of their apathetic stupor. Anyone who says voting doesn't matter can be shown the evidence of the 2000 election and see that Bush only won Florida by 500 votes. There are a number of voter-registration drives going on in the 17 key battle states and I would suggest getting involved in those. One group is America Coming Together. I don't know what you do, but if you work for a nonprofit I would recommend checking out a meeting in Seattle next Thursday that details how nonprofs can legally get the word out about the next election:

Thursday, March 18, 6 p.m.
Garfield Community Center
2323 East Cherry St.
Seattle, WA

I personally plan to have a voter-registration place at the festival and use some of my time this summer for registering voters.

Who or what has had the greatest influence on your environmental views and opinions?     -- Gloria Coronado, Seattle, Wash.

For some reason this has been the stumper of all the questions, Gloria. There are so many things that have really influenced me over the years. I guess it really has been my personal spiritual journey that has led me to much of my concern over the plight of our planet. I think that is a little backwards because I think a lot of people come to a more spiritual place as a result of their connection to the natural world. I have come to the natural world as a result of my spiritual quest. But ultimately my own sense of myself and the unity of my body, mind, and soul have led me to rethink how I look at the world itself. It has helped me to see the deep interconnections that exist all around us. Humans are so separated from "nature" in this current time, by their own choosing. I don't really feel this separation like I used to. Now I see the way it is all interconnected and so damn beautiful.

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The Bush administration, reeling from a series of unflattering stories and unfavorable poll numbers, took another kick in the pants yesterday when 60 of the world's most influential scientists -- including 20 Nobel laureates and 19 recipients of the National Medal of Science -- accused the administration in an open letter of systematically distorting scientific research and misleading the public about the likely results of its policies. In an accompanying report, the Union of Concerned Scientists detailed numerous instances in which the administration has suppressed scientific results, gagged its own science officials, and replaced independent scientists on its research panels with industry representatives. John Marburger, chief of the White House Office of Science and Technology, dismissed the criticisms as a "conspiracy report" and explained that the real problem was not distortions of science but his failure to "communicate" effectively with scientists.

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Graduate students holding teaching and research positions at Cornell University announced late last week that they would not join the United Auto Workers, bucking a growing trend toward grad student unionization. According to Allen MacKenzie, co-founder of At What Cost?, a student group opposed to unionizing, many students disliked the UAW's political views, especially regarding the environment. The union strongly opposes stricter fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks. The UAW began courting graduate students as potential union members after the National Labor Relations Board granted grad students at private schools the right to unionize, in 2000. If students at Cornell had approved unionization, the school would have become the second in the U.S., after New York University, to have a graduate-student union affiliated with the UAW.

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The Sierra Club released poll numbers recently indicating that 47 percent of voters would be more likely to support a presidential candidate prepared to aggressively attack the problem of urban sprawl. Most people associate VP Al Gore with that issue, but Seattle Mayor Paul Schell has his own ideas.

Schell jumped on Bill Bradley's presidential bandwagon last week and told this reporter a large part of the reason was the former New Jersey senator and hoop legend's stated commitment to balancing anti-sprawl efforts with the economic needs of growing urban areas. Schell also pointed to Bradley's support for a stronger federal role in getting money to urban areas to create green spaces to offset ugly, sprawling, asphalt 'burbs.

So what? Isn't Schell just one lowly mayor compared to the reams of governors, congresspersons, and other high-grade pols throwing their weight behind Gore? Well, Schell also happens to be at the helm of the biggest city in a state that just hopscotched up near the front of the primary line, with voting now slated for Feb. 29, 2000. That's smack in the middle of the mad rush from New Hampshire to the March 7 mega-primaries in New York and California, which are winnable only with the boatloads of free media generated by strong showings in early primary states (now including Washington).

Regardless, Bradley's got his mojo working these days, at least in the other Washington (D.C.), and appears to be laying the groundwork for an early season run at the veep who has had a rough time of it of late from some leading environmentalists.

Speaking of Seattle, Mayor Schell and other city luminaries worked diligently to land the gargantuan World Trade Organization gathering, which will begin Nov. 3 and bring in huge tourist revenues along with trade reps and high mucky-mucks from hundreds of nations.

For all his trouble, it looks like Schell may also play host to angry protests from environmental groups and labor unions looking to blast the WTO for what they see as the environmental depredations and labor injustices caused by the borderless global economy. A press release from Public Citizen issued a call to labor union reps and enviro activists to drop whatever they are doing this November and head for the Evergreen State.

Earth Day '99 is receding into the collective memory leaving in its wake a passel of proposals and a load of legislative progeny. The question is: Now what? In the interests of accountability, Muckraker will keep its eye (hopefully with your help) on all the Earth Day-inspired efforts to see what takes and what tanks. Among them:

The Senate on April 19 unanimously approved Bob Gee's nomination to become assistant secretary for fossil energy at the Department of Energy ... Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt tapped David J. Hayes as acting deputy secretary of Interior.

Speaking of Babbitt, the secretary spent his Earth Day tromping around the Gettysburg National Battlefield Park in Gettysburg, Pa., where controversy rages over plans for construction of a new, privately operated visitor center. Historical preservation types are generally in favor as the current facilities at the park are insufficient and allow precious relics to molder away in a dank basement. The new park plan also calls for a recreation of the natural landscape encountered by Generals Robert E. Lee and George Meade when they clashed in the pivotal 1863 battle that turned the tide of the Civil War.

Local businesses and their Chamber of Commerce champions are up in arms over the proposed changes, fearing the visitor center's new location will cut into downtown foot traffic. They have made an effort to line up enviros to oppose the landscaping part of the plan because it would require clearing some forest that has grown up over the last 135 years, but so far they haven't had much luck. We'll keep our eye on this environmental angle.

Finally, our Man in Texas Rick Abraham reports that four more people were arrested last week for "obstructing a passageway" outside Gov. George W. Bush's mansion in Austin while protesting lax emissions standards for old industrial plants in Texas.

No winner yet in the Kyoto haiku contest so keep on versifying. (Remember, five syllables, seven syllables, then five syllables.)

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