The Enemy Within
By Mike Roselle

Shellenberger and Nordhaus broke their own screwy rules when they attacked Kennedy.

Doth we protest too much? Is it not time for us to sit down with the capitalist pig dogs and the corrupt politicians and decide the fate of nature? Should we be more pragmatic, more realistic? Should we be focusing more on solutions instead of fostering conflict and division? Has the public grown tired of our shrill message, our juvenile antics? I ponder this on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Protesting and direst action are out of style. We have lost the support of the public. We need to have a message that appeals more to the mainstream. These were the words of the Breakthrough Institute a year ago when they sounded the death of the environmental movement in their controversial study by that name. And this is the message from the dynamic duo of Ted Nordhaus and Steve Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute. Their op-eds have been appearing recently in some major US newspapers, and given that they no doubt hired a Washington based publicist like David Fenton to do the legwork, this is your tax-deductible foundation money at work.

The Death of Environmentalism was a broadside at the conservation movement
disguised as friendly criticism from veteran strategists. Our tactics, which were indeed coercive and confrontational, were ultimately successful. We wanted to forge a new conservation movement that would fight, not roll over, to defend the natural world from industrial development. You can look on your Rand McNally atlas and see our progress. That would be those green spaces in between the roads and interstate highways. Without a strong, confrontational and controversial campaign, most of those places would not exist anymore. Permanent protection will require that humans make some major changes in our lifestyles, but the very fact that Americans both understand
and support the protection of wilderness and natural diversity is a testament that we have had an impact on one of the most important issues of our age. Today, there is a global movement racing against time to save the last remaining wild places. In China, the effort to prevent the building of a dam on the Nu River, one of China's last wild running rivers, has sparked unheard of opposition from both farmers and environmentalists alike. This is no time to back down in the face of stiffening opposition.

Breakthrough wants to define a new environmental movement, broader in scope
and more willing to come up with solutions and work with businesses to implement them. They suggest we abandon our efforts to get new laws or to use the courts to enforce existing laws, arguing that saving nature is for elitists who don't care for the plight of the poor and the oppressed. This brand of defeatism was the result of the Democrats losing two elections in a roll, running campaigns that had little to do with the environment. I would still argue that a new movement is not needed, but let’s entertain the thought for a moment less we seem closed minded.

First, how is the Breakthrough Institute going to define this new environmental movement they seek to bring about? Maybe take on a big bad corporation like Freeport Mac Moran who is giving millions of dollars to the Indonesian military while it is poisoning Papua New Guinea with gold mining waste? Maybe the Breakthrough Institute can tackle an issue closer to home and take on the destructive coal-mining method of Mountain Top Removal in the Southern Appalachians?

They are now California Boys, so how about even closer, like the dozen or so new liquefied natural gas terminals that are planned along the coast to import more fossil fuel from Russia?

The response from the Breakthrough Institute and from a Greenpeace "Energy Campaigner” was swift and personal. Not to mention highly technical and legalistic. Some of the arguments in favor of wind derricks are strikingly similar to Ted Stevens's arguments in favor of derricks in the Arctic. They also avoided the central points of Kennedy's arguments by casting aspersions against his integrity. They never mentioned wilderness or wildlife as a value to be cherished. They state flat out that this project won't affect wildlife or the solitude of the area, and would even be an improvement. They accuse Kennedy of "threatening what is arguably the most important clean energy development in the world while encouraging the already substantial public perception that environmentalists are elitists who only care about protecting their own private playgrounds". I can relate to these personal attacks, because these are tricks that have been employed against greens successfully by the timber and oil industries since day one. We are also familiar with these tactics because we use them too, but usually on the bad guys and not so much on each other.

I read another response this week circulated on Breakthrough's website written by Michael Shellenberger. It consisted of ten bullet points correcting the perceived errors in Kennedy's editorial against the Cape Wind Project. The word "Lie" and the corresponding number to which the lie belonged preceded each bullet. In Kennedy's six-hundred words there were a total of nine lies, while number 10 was simply a distortion. They demanded Kennedy's resignation from his job at NRDC. Well, I don't have as much money as Bobby Kennedy, but I too have been called an elitist and a NIMBY. So now we have something in common other that our rugged good looks and love for running wild rivers. As far as being an elitist goes, if you are a Kennedy living on Martha's Vineyard, you pretty much have to prepare yourself for that one. But was he really a self-interested, vicious liar who couldn't give a rat's ass for the Earth and who doesn't care about global warming at all?

Who knew?

Excuse me here, because this smacks of hypocrisy. Like most people I have to read the newspapers on many environmental issues and then search the web a little before I decide whom to believe. Since I often know people who are familiar with the issue I can usually make a few phone calls to get additional perspective. But no matter whom I talk to or how much I research the issue, eventually I have to pick sides based on whom I choose to believe. If I were going to award points on poise and style, Robert F. Kennedy would win this one hands down. But I will flat out say it is hypocritical of the Breakthrough Institute for criticizing the environmental movement for demonizing our opponents on one day and then to come back and personally attack Robert Kennedy and other environmentalist the next day and accuse them of being elitists, liars and a threat to the movement.

Such criticism gives credence to the long held position that being a conservationist is a form of insanity. But from an environmentalist's perspective, large-scale industrial development is not the solution, but is the problem itself. Windmills, although better that oil wells, is no panacea for the energy crisis. We are brushing up against the limits of what the natural resources of this planet will support, and a headlong rush into alternative energy production will not affect global warming unless some aggressive steps are also taken soon to address our overall growth and energy consumption in the so-called developed world. Otherwise, we will have wind farms and solar collectors all over the countryside trying to replace energy consumption that in the beginning was subsidized by burning copious amounts of forests and fossil fuel.

In today's New York Times, Thomas Freidman predicts that green energy will be one of the biggest industries of the 21st century. For conservationists this will be a mixed blessing, but given this emerging alternative-energy mega trend, there will be little need to use our scant resources to promote this enterprise, which is already attracting billions of investment dollars and support from the largest multinational corporations. And if we are to settle for large-scale industrial wind and solar projects, the threat of
global warming should not be used as an excuse to trample the last good places for recreation or wildlife. It is hard to believe that suddenly the only place suitable for wind generators is also a place that has been considered for a wildlife refuge for endangered whales.

What really irks me is not just that it has become fashionable among consultants to argue against using boycotts, legislation, litigation and other confrontational and coercive approaches to going after polluter and despoilers. But that you must also differentiate yourself from those who do. This is accomplished by demeaning the efforts of those very environmental activists who have been out there on the front lines doing the heavy lifting over the last few decades. And we can't just be wrong in our approach; we are also selfish, ignorant, irrational, rich, elite or even worse, we are
radical.

There are two problems with this thinking, and the first is that the only reason those corporations are sitting down with Breakthrough or any environmental groups is because they don't want to see those sign waving hippie scum on their doorsteps. Would The Home Depot be talking to any of us if the Rainforest Action Network hadn't picketed hundreds of their most profitable outlets?

And the second problem is that this attitude by the well heeled, well paid professional environmental consultants serves to de-legitimize those very front line soldiers that we are going to need when the going gets rough. What happens when a company refuses to work with the new compliant environmental movement? We have the carrot, but where is the stick? The public may not identify with environmental or animal rights activists, but companies live in fear of being the target of a well-coordinated campaign.
It is very easy to make fun of the activists, but without them where would we be?

I think it should be quite clear by now that Nordhaus and Shellenberger are not, and never were, environmental activists. They have cast their lot with the promoters, developers and opportunists who have taken up residence under the banner of the environment. It is far easier to sit down with big business and cut deals and to give away more wildlife habitat than it is to stick to your guns on principle. You don't have to fight anybody. You don't have to go out into the community to organize the opposition; you don't have to risk being portrayed by these same corporations as unreasonable and confrontational. Indeed, you look out from your conference room table and
agree with these bastards, that yes, these scruffy activists are a well-meaning bunch, but they are not realistic. They don't represent anybody, and we represent the voice of reason.

This is horseshit! The conservation movement is a modern, global, political force with historic roots and a clearly defined mission to protect nature. We understand that the survival of humanity depends on the survival of wilderness and natural diversity. We recognize that far too much of the Earth has been sacrificed for industrial and agricultural development, and this has led us to the brink of a mass extinction event and the onslaught of global warming. Without challenging the dominate paradigm of growth for the sake of growth, and getting serious about protecting habitat, a few more
windmills and a new $30,000 car with double the gas mileage is not going to make much difference. By rejecting a government role in addressing the global warming crisis with stronger laws in favor of playing patty-cake with developers and alternative energy hucksters, they are abandoning the most powerful tools for achieving corporate responsibility -- the courthouse and the jailhouse.

Today we are only talking about 130 windmills in Nantucket Sound. So whether you are for or against them in terms of energy output it's not such a big deal. But I believe that much more should be done to challenge the really bad energy projects before we go willy-nilly into the wind and solar future. If we cannot get coal mining and oil drilling under control soon, no amount of wind energy is going to affect global warming. We need to continue to question the rapid growth of the human population, and the loss of bio-diversity. If the Breakthrough Institute were doing more to address these problems rather than just play cheerleader for private sector voluntary acts of environmental sanity, maybe I would believe them. But, I don't.

Mike Roselle is in Venezuela representing the greater San Francisco Republic at the Sixth World Social Forum, one of three world meetings on progressive and environmental projects. Protest seems imminent lately in Venezuela and Mike will be there to cover it for Lowbagger.