Politics of Sustainability:
Barriers and a Formula for Political Success
To
be published in the International Journal of Environmental, Cultural,
Economic and Social Sustainability
Warning about one scary ecological crisis after another, environmentalists sometime sound like Chicken Little of fairy tale fame, crying "The Sky Is Falling." And their efforts beseeching the public, officeholders, and administrators to do something likewise fall on deaf ears. Since so many serious natural systems problems genuinely need attention, this paper considers why the public and elected officials remain largely unresponsive to calls for major environmental actions Ñ and what can we do to change this.
Years of polls have regularly found a sizable majority of Americans claiming to support environmental protection. At the beginning of the Bush presidency in 2001, 68 percent of the public said they were either active in, or sympathetic to, the environmental movement [Gallup Poll, 2001] When asked about specifics, 82-85 percent claimed they worry a "great deal" or a "fair amount" about polluted drinking water; the pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs; and soil and water contaminated by toxic waste [Gallup Poll March 2002]. Early in 2004, 58% of those surveyed by Gallup considered the quality of the environment in the country as a whole getting worse, while 34% said things were getting better. Fifty five percent said that the U.S. government is doing "too little" to protect the environment, while only 5 percent said "too much" [Gallup Poll, 2004].
But classic democratic theory assumes that governmental policies express the will of the majority. Why then this discrepancy between the public's professed pro-environment attitudes and actual policies of their government? Since the 1970s, the U.S. has made some progress in cleaning up rivers and lakes, reducing air pollution, closing off some of the worst toxic dump sites, setting aside some natural areas to logging and mining, and the like [Kraft and Vag, 2006]. Yet many major problems remain unresolved, and deeper systemic ones hardly touched at all. Every indicator that we have of environmental well-being shows the condition of our biosphere worsening. Fresh water sources are being depleted and polluted around the world, ocean fisheries are collapsing, tropical and virgin forests are being chopped down, toxic waste products are infiltrating our food and water, biospecies are dying, and global climate warming rapidly climbs. A depressing litany in sum [Allen, 2006; Brown, 2005].
The "2005 Environmental Sustainability Index" Ñ based on data from 146 nations complied by Columbia and Yale University scholars Ñ provides a systematic and comparative overview of where we stand [Esty, et. al, 2005]. Notably, the U.S. lags behind other developed nations on most major indicators. Globally, the U.S. ranks 23rd in water quality, 69 in air quality, 16 in environmental health, 66 in biodiversity, 107 in ecological efficiency, and 135 in natural resource management.
The record of the U.S. is even worse concerning recent efforts to improve the environment. It ranks 140 in reducing air pollution since 2002, 109 in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, 136 in reducing waste and consumption pressures, and 95 in reducing ecosystem stress. Overall, the U.S. ranks 45th out of 146 nations in environmental sustainability.
Americans are not unaware of these problems. Take the U.S.'s minimal response to the threat of global warming, for example. It's no secret that the world's top scientists comprising the 2,500-member Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (ICPP) have concluded that global warming caused by human activity is quite real, or that it will profoundly affect every facet of the natural world and society.
A Harris poll conducted in 2002 found eighty-five percent of U.S. adults saying they had "seen, heard or read about the theory of global warming that average temperatures are rising slowly and will continue to rise mainly because of the burning of coal, oil and other fuels." Seventy four percent said they "believe the theory that increased carbon dioxide and other gases released into the atmosphere will, if unchecked, lead to global warming and an increase in average temperature." Only 19 percent disagreed.
But although Americans may be aware of the prospective dangers of global warming, few seem alarmed. When asked by pollsters about how greatly they "personally worry" about each of a list of 13 environmental problems, respondents ranked the greenhouse effect next to last, well below various forms of air and water pollution, contamination, and loss of wildlife habitat [Gallup Poll, 2001]. Even these concerns don't generate much action. "Environmental" issues ranked 24th in a 2004 Harris Poll that asked about the most important problems government should address Ñ with only two percent mentioning the topic at all [Harris Poll, 2004].
It is not that there are no solutions. The sad truth is that while many remediation and preservation programs are functioning, most efforts to mitigate environmental problems are only nibbling around the edges. And in the U.S., especially at the federal level, many of these programs are under attack or being cut back [Bosso and Guber, 2006].
In frustration, two American environmental leaders recently admitted: "Over the last 15 years environmental foundations and organizations have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into combating global warming...We have strikingly little to show for it" [Shellenberger and Nordhaus, 2004, p. 4]. This political impotence extends to all environmental issues, from toxic waste to species extinction, from dying coral reefs to polluted water. These authors Ñ who wrote the controversial "Death of Environmentalism" paper Ñ call for the mainstream environmental movement to totally re-examine itself. They ask it to "rethink everything. We will never be able to turn things around as long as we understand our failures as essentially tactical, and make proposals that are essentially technical" [p. 4; see also Werbach, 2005].
The failure to mobilize a sizable portion of the American people to support even rudimentary environmental protection and preservation programs precludes taking on the major changes required for sustainability.
If in fact the environmental equivalent of the "sky is falling" is true, why is so little being done to solve these highly visible problems Ñ let alone advance more permanent sustainable solutions? This paper summarizes a host of political reasons for the public's and policymakers' inadequate responses to major environmental issues. After considering several major barriers to environmental activism, I suggest methods to overcome these obstacles, cast into "a formula for political success."
The topic of global climate change is as good as any to begin exploring the factors that account for the lack of immediate public concern and concurrent political responses. These same reasons apply to other serious environmental issues.
The impact and effects of global warming are incremental and subtle compared to the immediacy of polluted rivers, foul air, and toxic waste that motivated the passing of landmark U.S. federal legislation in the 1970s. Political headway was made by identifying obvious crises, from Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring documenting the ravages of DDT, the 1978 battle over the toxic stew of Love Canal poisoning rural New Yorkers, and massive destruction of public lands by timber and mining interests. It was easier then to identify the villains.
Back then, the public demanded and policymakers responded by enacting far-reaching safeguards and long-term solutions. The 1970s saw a host of milestone measures passed by Congress: the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), Clean Water and Clean Air Acts that established air and water pollution controls, pesticide regulation, endangered species protection, control of hazardous and toxic chemicals, ocean and coastline protection, better stewardship of public lands, and the creation of the Superfund to clean up toxic waste sites [Kraft and Vag, 2006].
Although progress has been made, the production system that generates environmental harms Ñ particularly toxic chemicals, hazardous wastes, and nuclear by-products Ñ have proven difficult to change. Powerful special interests involved in mining, logging, grazing, oil and gas drilling, agricultural and urban water use, and fishing of coastal oceans, have also had their way. In addition, under pro-business Republican administrations, regulations and enforcement to control conventional pollutants and expand and protect parks, wilderness areas, and other public lands, have been under constant and successful assault [Bosso and Guber, 2006].
With the effects of global warming occurring slowly, and largely removed from personal experiences, it is not surprising that 66 percent of the public believes global climate change does "not pose a serious threat to their way of life within their lifetimes" [Gallup Poll, 2001]. Average citizens Ñ and politicians Ñ rank immediate and easily seen threats as more important (and perhaps easier to deal with) than issues which seem hypothetical.
While Americans say they value environmental quality, they also desire lower crime rates, better public schools, a strong economy, and many other important goals. The environment now competes with other important issues in a crowded political marketplace Ñ especially during elections Ñ and usually finds few buyers.
In the spring of 2004, Gallup found the Greenhouse Effect ranked 9 out of 10 in a listing of problems that the government "ought to address" [Gallup Poll, 2004]. The Harris organization has asked the same "most important issues" question for several years running. Only between 1 and 4 percent of respondents Ñ averaging 2 percent Ñ mention the "environment," among their two most important concerns [Harris Poll, 2004].
Global and systemic environmental problems seem intractable when compared to the more localized ones, such as the toxic dumps or polluted streams tackled in earlier eras. Our expanded understanding of ecological systems has made us realize that environmental problems are more interconnected, less apparent, more subtle, and more difficult to address than the black skies and oozing waste dumps of the 1960s [Bright, 2000]. The potential environmental and human impacts of genetically modified organisms, the risks of exposure to trace residues of pesticides that disrupt endocrine cycles within humans and creatures alike, and the long-term climatic effects of the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, are difficult to sort out Ñ and perhaps even harder to accept.
Agricultural runoff, automobile tailpipe exhaust, and the loss of habitat to suburbanization, cannot be curtailed by clamping down on a few thousand factories, power plants, or industrial polluters. Instead we must address the impacts of hundreds of thousands of businesses and farms, and millions of consumers, whose chemical releases are individually small but cumulatively huge. As the authors of Thinking Ecologically: The Next Generation of Environmental Policy note: "We must also try to affect the choices of 265 million Americans whose decisions about what to buy, where to live, how much to drive, or to throw away, and where to shop profoundly shape the quality of our environment." [Chertow and Esty, 1997, p. 2].
The issues are scientifically and politically complex. Mitigating global climate change involves everyone, and the solutions require action by individuals and institutions at all levels of society, from local to international, in both the public and private sectors. That the public is skeptical about our ability to solve these problems is hardly surprising.
Another reason for our collective lack of action is uncertainty about solutions. The environmentalists themselves are deeply divided over problems, goals, strategies, and tactics. Even talking about the environmental movement is misleading. In reality there are thousands of organizations of all types, sizes, and goals. They have distinct and different ideologies. There are dozens of major national and international organizations that make up the environmental "establishment," and thousands of grassroots groups articulating different values and perspectives. More mainline groups try to appeal to a broad middle-class demographic, and work with policymakers inside government tinkering with technical details. Grassroots activists are more willing to engage in demonstrations, sit-ins, and protests, and emphasize emotional issues and dramatic policy changes, not modest technical reforms [Werbach, 2005; Smith and Johnson, 2002; Bosso and Guber, 2006; Dowie, 1995].
Leftists Greens and anti-globalists speak a language that addresses reducing the power of corporations, and mobilizing non-voters, disempowered citizens, and the working class. They argue that a proper analysis of environmental problems demands one go upstream, to the economic roots of capitalism and it hegemonic beliefs. The Left believes that the mainstream environmental movement has been essentially absorbed into the political status quo [Tokar, 1997; Bryant and Bailey, 1997, ch. 3]. The globalism controversy highlights how public policymaking at local, state, and international levels has been captured by a dominant "economic growth-is-good" neoclassic economic philosophy spread and enforced by corporate power [Steiger, 2004].
The publicÕs perception of serious environmental problems is further muddied by widely distributed disinformation issued by corporate public relations offices Ñ what is called "corporate greenwashing" [Tokar, 1997; Stauber and Rampton, 1995]. The hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the fossil fuel industry against even acknowledging global warming has resulted in considerable confusion, ambivalence, and misinformation among the public and politicians [Gelbspan, 2004, 1997; McKibben, 2005].
So environmentalists Ñ like all advocates for change Ñ end up talking to citizens holding vastly different attitudes, with varying degrees of depth and understanding. It is no wonder the public is confused by a plethora of different solutions. Sustainability advocates Ñ those who argue we need to go beyond fixing discrete problems to overhauling the industrial production system itself Ñ find themselves trapped in the same maelstrom of conflicting ideas and information.
Even the term "sustainable development," although a popular mantra among politicians, is often more a political smokescreen and "greenwashing" than a genuine effort at major reform. The vague phrase means only that economic activities should somehow be more ecologically "sound" and "balanced" than usual industrial operations. At best, it implies token mitigation.
Rarely are more radical views heard assigning primacy to ecological systems, or arguing that "healthy development" must meet multiple human needs, not just jobs and the GNP. Or that we must preserve indigenous values, and advance economic self-reliance. Or as "Green" theorists argue, that participatory democracy and decentralized decision-making, a community-based self-reliant economy, social justice, people-friendly community design, redesigned production systems, and a deeper, more spiritual understanding of natural biosystems, are necessary ingredients to truly fix our crashing environment [Carter, 2001; Dobson, 2000; Rohter, 1992].
In sum, the cacophony of completely different voices disagree even about the nature of the problem, let alone what actions to solve them need to be taken.
The great question in political science is "Who Rules?" There is always division between those who hold power and make important decisions, and an underclass whose lives are shaped by those at the top. Worldwide, there is an inexorable link between poverty and environmental degradation, which ranges from resource exploitation to dumping waste [Mabogunje, 2002]. Rural land theft, mining dump sites, and urban squalor are not only prevalent in Africa or South America, but occurs in "developed" nations such as the U.S. as well. Poor folks, and people-of-color, disproportionately bear the burden of environmental injustice [Ringquist, 2006].
This classic equation of political inaction has taken an unusual turn in the U.S. A significant portion of the public is passive about Ñ and has even voted for Ñ a government dominated by anti-environmentalism. While I will say more about this phenomenon below (in "political currents"), one factor in the U.S.'s stumbling environmental performance is the huge amounts of money that polluting industries spend on lobbying and election campaigns.
As the authors of the research report "Green vs. Gold Money, Politics, and the Environment" argue:
... campaign cash from those opposed to strong environmental laws trumps the efforts of environmental groups lobbying for greater environmental protection. Oil and gas, electric utilities, mining, chemical, and the auto manufacturing industries have poured $292 million into federal campaigns and party coffers since 1989, 71 percent of that to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). That's 30 times as much as the $9.8 million contributed by environmental groups over the same time period. On issue after issue, when it comes to the environment, we have a dollar democracy [Public Campaign, 2003].
In the era of the second Bush presidency, industrial contributors not only buy access to government policymakers at state and the federal levels, they get to regularly write the actual bills themselves [Tumulty, 2005].
The U.S. system of divided government authority makes changing the status-quo exceedingly difficult. Responsibilities are spread between federal, 50 state, and local governments. Each subdivision is further broken into three branches with overlapping jurisdictions and administrative roles. In the U.S. Congress alone, for example, 13 committees and 31 sub-committees hold some jurisdiction over the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [Kraft and Vag, 2006, p. 7].
While democratic principles call for consultation and agreement among diverse interests both within and outside of government, environmental policymaking today is dominated by the interests of the economic Žlite. They spend virtually unlimited funds to employ teams of lobbyists and give huge amounts of campaign contributions to favored candidates and party organizations [Gonzales, 2001; Rosenthal, 2001; Domhoff, 2002; Cahn, 1995]. Employing carefully crafted media and sophisticated marketing techniques, corporations also influence government policies by "educating" and mobilizing voters to their point of view, especially during election and referendum campaigns [Graber, 2005; Gelbspan, 2004, 1997; Stauber and Rampton, 1995]. This vast discrepancy in wealth translates into political power strong enough to hold back actions, or enact token reforms that fall far short of the most basic principles of good policy design.
Even when voters care a lot about the environment, voting green depends on average citizens being able to discern differences between the positions of competing candidates. Office seekers of all stripes routinely endorse some kind of "I care for the environment" platform, making it difficult for less-than-highly informed citizens to distinguish between genuine advocates for change and token greenwashers. Also, even genuine pro-environment candidates and organizations usually propose only modest policies and reforms, rather than far-sweeping ones. Thus voters are forced to choose among candidates appearing to differ on only minor and technical grounds [Shellenberger and Nordhaus, 2004; Werbach, 2005; Tokar, 1997].
So identifying important policy differences between competing candidates on environmental issues can be difficult, except in locales where the anti-environmentalism counter-movement has taken root.
In the late 1970s, rising conservative criticisms of established environmental programs were fueled by property rights groups such as the "Wise Use Movement" and "Sagebrush Rebellion" formed in the Southwest and West. Well-funded by corporate backers, anti-environmental rhetoric was transformed into a powerful political backlash in the states and Congress [Switzer, 1997; Graft, 1990; Dowie, 1995]. Beginning with the Reagan administration in the 1980s, and continuing through all of its successors (Democrat and Republicans alike), many environmental regulations institutionalized during the spirited days of the Clean Air and Clean Waters Acts and formation of the EPA, have been neutered or reversed.
Mainstream Republicanism in most regions of the country now wholeheartedly represents the interests of the party's core economic backers Ñ industrial corporations and timber, mining, agricultural, and the oil and fossil fuel industries. Republican ideology today is antithetical to even moderate environmentalism. In its conservative orthodoxy, unfettered private property rights and free-market capitalism trump spotted owls, pretty views, and pristine nature. The party's well-heeled allies in industry and property-rights groups contribute millions to propagate anti-government and free-market ideas and elect sympathetic officeholders [Switzer, 1997; Dowie, 1995]. Laws passed by Republican-dominated Congresses have inevitably favored industrialism over nature. Through sharp budget cuts, reduced staff enforcement, weakening of the authority of experienced professionals and environmental agencies, and eliminating or restructuring of many offices (usually out of the public's sight), even the laws on the book are crippled. The deluge of anti-government/ pro-growth propaganda has had its effects on the public.
In 2001, at the beginning of Bush's first term in office, 57 percent of the public thought environmental protection should be given priority, "even at the risk of curbing economic growth." Fifty-five percent agreed that the federal government was doing "too little" to improve environmental problems, with only 11 percent saying it was doing "too much" [Gallup Poll, 2001]. After two years of the administration's and supporter's determined efforts to muzzle environmental programs, and a constant din from the conservative communications systems and media attacking the size and scope of government, 36 percent of the public rejected the assertion that "Protecting the environment is so important that requirements and standards cannot be too high and continuing environmental improvements must be made regardless of the cost" [Los Angeles Times Poll, 2002].
By March of 2004, 3 1/2 years into the second Bush's presidency, the number favoring economic growth, "even if the environment suffers to some extent," had grown to 44 percent [Gallup Poll, 2004]. The proportion willing to give the environment priority, "even at the risk of curbing economic growth," declined to 49 percent [Gallup Poll, 2004]. In sum, although the number of pro-environment supporters fell slightly (-8 percent) during Bush's first administration, the ratio of people who rate economic growth first jumped from only 1 in 10, to nearly half of the adult population.
A variant question asking "Do you think the West's oil and natural gas reserves should be developed, or not?," replicates this trend. A majority, 53 percent, said that these resources "should be developed," while 37 percent said they "should not." [10 percent said "don't know"; Gallup Poll, 2004]. Granting that question wordings affect answers, nevertheless, the overall trend shows a sizable increase in the proportion of U.S. citizens favoring development over preserving their natural heritage.
Given the state of the environment, and the barriers to action to remedy the situation outlined above, pessimism is inevitable. However, when one looks at local activism, successes occur. During my thirty-five years living in Hawai`i, I have observed many citizen-led efforts challenging efforts to "develop" Hawai`i by building large resorts on its coastline, and subdivisions, shopping malls, golf courses, and industrial projects throughout its main islands. The environmental impacts have of course been profound. Although most of these grassroots protests failed, a few succeeded. The "Formula for Political Success" below lays out a set of general elements necessary to move communities from quiescence to organized resistance. Finally, I note what is required for communities to go beyond opposition to enacting sustainable long-term alternative solutions.
FIG. 1 Barriers to environmental activism, and techniques to overcome obstacles.
|
Barrier |
Winning Technique |
|
Threats not obvious |
Organize around potent issues that affect many |
|
Competing issues divert attention |
Connect initial potent issue to long-standing health, economic and political abuses |
|
Intractability |
Leaders identity causes and solutions, and publicize a positive alternative |
|
Uncertainty about what to do |
Dedicated and smart leaders follow a decisive political strategy |
|
Political impotence & lacking power to affect changes |
Raise additional issues to draw in other actors. Elicit adequate resources to organize and mobilize public support |
|
Candidate differences often fuzzy or minor |
Gain support from friendly elected officials and public notables. |
|
Deep conservative political currents |
Build widely-based coalitions, enlist knowledgeable and skilful advisors for organization and communications |
* Success depends on Organizing around potent issues. Health and cultural issues, and families being displaced from their homes, are more powerful in mobilizing people than NIMBY concerns. Expand the discussion to other issues.
In Love Canal, New York in the late 1970s, a few housewives organized their neighbors to confront industrial polluters whose negligence resulted in their quiet working-class neighborhood turning into a toxic nightmare poisoned with over 200 chemicals. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, the business community decided to work on environmental issues only when the EPA threatened to use the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts to curtail their polluting industries [Tokar, 1997, ch. 6 "Environmental Justice"; Bernard and Young, 1997, ch. 4].
In my own case study "Fruits of Resistance: Hawai`i Islanders Stop Oji Paper Ltd," it was also a health issue that initially provoked families living in the Hamakua areas to speak out. A timber company's careless aerial spraying of pesticides drifted into nearby residents' homes was followed by days of soot-filled smoke from burning brush-filled fields raining down on them. Children and adults Ñ already sensitized to chemical from direct long-term exposure to sugar plantation herbicides and residues remaining in the water, soil, and air Ñ sought medical treatment for respiratory and other ailments.
Public meetings to protest additional spraying and burning quickly escalated into arguments about larger economic and political issues when it was disclosed that a Japanese company, Oji Paper Ltd, intended to convert 10,000 acres of former sugar lands into an eucalyptus plantation [Rohter, 2001]. Oji's plan to grow cheap-value trees to ship off to their Japan paper mills unleashed old grievances against the plantation system itself and resulting dead-end, poorly paid jobs that would be created. Angered by a scheme hatched by the county Mayor with backing from the Governor, usually passive working-class "little-people" found their complaints covered in the media and gaining the attention of activists and political leaders.
* Success depends on being led by dedicated and smart leaders, both indigenous and from the outside. Enlist knowledgeable and skillful advisors.
Smart and passionate average citizens with no previous political organizing experience often arise from the community. But it's essential that they obtain knowledgeable help from other organizations and political officeholders.
Lois Gibbs, who initiated the mother's campaign at Love Canal, later founded the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste to assist literally thousands of other communities in their campaigns against chemical industries, landfills, incinerators, and other toxic hazards. The CCHW provided tactical and technical support to local leaders fighting hostile companies and non-responsive politicians [Tokar, 1997, ch 6].
The local residents who started up Friends of Hamakua were soon joined by experienced activists who knew how to mobilize people, distribute well-crafted information to the media, run meetings, and put out news-appealing demonstrations. U.S. and international forestry and environmental NGSs provided technical and political information damaging to Oji Paper's proposal. Legal advisors helped The Friends and other affected parties build a case for a drawn-out contested-hearing before the State Land Use Commission. Professional business analysts critiqued the low-benefits-to-Islanders economics of the Oji Paper project, and laid out a business plan for better alternative uses of the public lands. An orchestrated media blitz, letter to editors, appearances on radio and TV shows, op-ed articles, carried the fight to O`ahu, where the Governor and many influential Legislators resided, and heard the story.
* Success depends on raising additional issues to pull in other actors and organizations. Build coalitions, the more widely-based the better.
Small communities and neighborhoods cannot adequately confront powerful corporations or government agencies by themselves. Winners draw on the resources of groups that share similar or related concerns.
The anti-toxic movement kicked off by the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste group added economic and racial issues to its arguments. As Lois Gibbs put it "there's more than just one problem in these communities.... Once they get involved, they realize everything is connected and can see the bigger picture that includes their health, their schools, the economy, and everything else" [Tokar, 1997, p. 127].
The Friends of Hamakua got expert help in their battle against Japan's Oji Paper from Big Island environmental activists initially, and later received valuable assistance from organizations on other islands. The Friend's leaders systematically recruited other groups and individuals concerned about a variety of issues into jointly opposing Oji's scheme, and drafting alternatives. Protect-the-forest and anti-pesticide NGOs located in the Continental U.S. and Japan jumped in. Activists concerned about health, political corruption and democratic government, small-scale economic development, forestry, organic and regular commercial farming, agriculture cooperatives, eco-tourism, community-based planning, and Hawaiian issues, added their articulate voices and support.
* Success depends on selling a positive vision, offering a "yes"; not just being negative and oppositional. Reframe the debate by proposing well-thought out and plausible alternatives to Žlite-instigated projects. Distribute the message effectively and widely.
At public hearings and in the media the Friends and their allies presented well throughout counter-plans for alternative uses of the public lands that Oji Paper wanted to lockup at cheap rents for 55 years. Average citizens were energized when imagining a better future for themselves and their children Ñ if the land could instead be rented to local farmers and ranchers and parts used to establish a profitable forestry industry. Public planning meetings generated many ideas for sustainable projects, and professionals prepared detailed analyses for agriculture parks, coffee farms, ecotourism trails, and Bed & Breakfasts.
Usually docile working class residents were further emboldened by the vision of a political system that was, for once, listening to them.
* Success depends on eliciting support from friendly elected officials.
Angry voices and demonstrations must be supplemented by inside-the-system players who understand and know how to manage the formal rule-making apparatus. The post-colonial political culture of the Big Island was still largely controlled by a small and local Žlite who brokered and profited from off-island development interests. A few sympathetic council members were able to block quick backroom decisions by forcing public hearings, which compelled information that was once held in secret to be released. These officeholders provided legitimacy for opposing the project, and served as role models and protectors for working-class residents who were previously politically acquiescent. These leaders used their office resources, status, and political networks to effectively advocate for alternative plans.
Another campaign on O`ahu around that same time successfully stopped a large oceanside housing project by employing the same sort of alliance between insiders and outsiders. Honolulu's "Save Sandy Beach Coalition" won its battle to establish a major coastal park Ñ the positive alternative Ñ by combining public mobilization at key decision points with legal and political maneuvers carried out by sympathetic State and County officeholders and administrators.
* Success depends on having adequate resources.
Anger and dedication, scrounged materials, passing-the-hat, and pro bono services, can carry a resistance only so far. Burnout and loss of interest inevitably occur over time in all volunteer groups. Ultimately, to be successful, sufficient money must be raised to pay for materials and professional services, and to hire organizers skilled in bringing people together and using the media. A professional staff allows overburdened grassroots activists to match the capacity of corporate public relations and legal teams to out-man, out-publicize, and outlast them.
All of these elements together can sometimes produce short-term political victories, but such wins are seldom permanent because they don't institutionalize an alternative to conventional power and economic relationships. Although Oji Paper's proposed project was derailed, the alternative sustainable development plans never came to fruition. There were many reasons for this failure, among them, the usual bureaucratic inertia and lack of interest, and the dissipation of the Friends of Hamakua coalition. Community residents and other actors have other pressing issues they need to attend to. Activists and groups drawn to protest are not so interested in, nor equipped with the skills and resources needed to handle, the multi-year process required to establish sustainable enterprises.
Going beyond protests to enacting an environmentally healthy society calls for a new variant of politics different from what was successful in passing the first-generation health and preservation laws of the 1970s. One version of a "Next Generation" approach is called "civic environmentalism." As proponent William Stutkin [2001] puts it:
The "new environmentalism" is as much about protecting ordinary places as it is about preserving wilderness areas. About promoting civic engagement, about changing policy-making from a top-down, professional problem-solving approach to a multiple stakeholders, pluralistic solution. It's about implementing sound economic developments that improve the lot of lower income people living in minority communities in urban areas. [p. 14]
This approach stresses:
(a) a concern for the environmental conditions of cities and suburbs and rural areas where most Americans live, not just preserving and protecting remote areas;
(b) a holistic approach that incorporates multiple issues, particularly economic livelihood ones; and
(c) collaborative decision-making processes involving multiple stakeholders.
The roots of American environmentalism go back to the late 19th and early 20th century and stress the conservation of wilderness areas. Preservationist-oriented environmentalists largely ignored rural or urban areas and the disproportionate impacts of urbanization and industrial pollution on lower income and minority communities. Comprised largely of upper-middle class white members, American environmentalism has largely failed to address issues such as economic and racial inequality, political disenfranchisement, and non-natural resource economic development.
Those without political or economic power bear the brunt of environmental burdens like polluting facilities (incinerators, auto body shops, trash transfer stations, and the like), contaminated land and buildings, and under enforcement of environmental laws .... The South Bay area and its adjacent neighborhoods is full of vacant, polluted land (over 50 contaminated hazardous-waste sites located in one neighborhood alone).... For decades these neighborhoods have suffered high rates of unemployment and poverty [Shutkin, 2001, pp. 6-7].
The important political insight here is that environmental degradation in urban areas mirrors its residents' loss of social capital and limited political control. The exclusion of local community members in making decisions about land zoning, mass transit, the sites of commercial businesses or waste faculties, and the like, means special interests whose chief concern is profit set the agenda and control the outcomes. Only the direct and meaningful participation of ordinary citizens whose quality of life is affected by these decisions can counterbalance the Žlite's pursuit of maximum growth.
Therefore, sustainable development will occur only when all community and political stakeholders Ñ residents, businesses, government agencies, nonprofits Ñ work together to ensure an environmentally and economically healthy future [Shutkin, 2001; John, 1994]. A day-to-day politics that views environmental issues as encompassing urban life, and that emphasizes civic engagement and economic inequality, is quite different from one based on preservation, restrictive regulations, and technical solutions. Below are a few success stories based on this new approach.
* Organized around issues directly affecting residents. Residents of a low-income neighborhood in Oakland, California rallied against a large rapid transit facility that would have greatly impacted their community. With the skilled assistance of NGOs, the dispute moved from protests to negotiation, and ultimately agreement was reached on building a facility that was both environmentally sound and included businesses that enriched local economic opportunities. In Boston's low-income Dudley neighborhood, protests over industrial pollution issues evolved into tangible projects that cleaned up several brownfields, revitalized urban slum buildings, and even established urban agriculture businesses [Shutkin, 2001]. Chattanooga, Tennessee, after 100 years of being one of the South's major industrial manufacturing centers, found itself one of the U.S's most polluted cities. The recession of the 1970s, business declines, and the passing of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts forced the city's business leaders and environmentalists to sit down together to see how they could revive the economy, employment, and its natural setting. After years of collaborative planning and community actions, Chattanooga stands out today for its clean air, restored river and waterfront, and revitalized economy. It has become a model sustainable city and according to U.S. News and World Report, is "one of the best cities in the world's [Benard and Young, 1997; http://www.chattanooga.gov/].
Shrinking natural resources can bring people together. Farmers, timber companies, loggers, and environmentalists joined together in Northern California to save a collapsing salmon fishery [Benard and Young, 1997]. Ranchers, loggers, environmentalists, and agents of the Forest Service came together in the rural mountainous area of Catron County, New Mexico, to resolve what to do about the over-cutting of Gila National Forest and rebuilding of its local economy. In Coos County, New Hampshire, local residents, a local environmental foundation, and government agencies, worked together to establish a nature refuge and protect rustic Lake Umbagog from the encroachment of urbanization [Kusel and Adler, 2003].
* Dedicated and smart leadership, in it for the long haul. Success stories always depend on a local champion (or two) taking up the cause and doggedly pushing ahead despite enormous challenges. The creation of a sustainable hardwood forest management program in Northern Minnesota was driven by an energetic wood mill owner who invested substantial amounts of his own money and time, with considerable support from a sympathetic County Land Commissioner, and the County Forester [Kusel and Adler, 2003].
In New Mexico it was the determined efforts of a few residents and the District Ranger that brought together a community bitterly divided by reductions in allowable timber quotas, restrictions imposed by the Endangered Species Act, and court battles over other area resources. The Catron County Citizen's Group sought " to air issues, rebuild trust, a diversified economy, and attempted to secure a voice in decisions regarding the use of ÔtheirÕ federal lands." [Kusel and Adler, 2003, p. 89].
* Encompassing multiple issues that draw in significant actors and build coalitions. "Civic environmentalism" expands the discussion to include economic and fairness issues along with traditional health, habitat conservation, and resource management concerns. It also requires that all members of affected groups be directly involved in decision-making. In urban areas that means low-income and minority residents, along with their concerns, are included at all stages of negotiation.
In Oakland and Boston providing opportunities for locally-owned businesses and jobs was always a major component of a viable solution. Chattanooga's revitalization included a host of task forces that worked on the restoration of the downtown area, on attracting new industry and businesses to the city, and the renovation of the city's affordable housing stocks. New Mexico's Catron County Citizens Group was comprised of county elected officials and staff, forest service employees, ranchers, environmental representatives, loggers, and citizens concerned about the economy, job training, and overcoming the bitter conflict dividing the community. The Northern California efforts to restore the salmon fishery included ranchers, loggers, lumber companies, state conservation staff, conservationists, scientists, and local residents.
* Creating a long-term and holistic vision for the future. A perspective looking out several years ahead must be adopted by everyone if communities are to take on major change. In Chattanooga, more than 1,700 citizens from all parts of the city spent five month engaged in a "visioning" process. Besides adopting 40 goals consensually, citizen-led task forces and non-profit organizations were established to implement the initial plan. Follow-up plans were modified as problems and new issues emerged, including improving low-income neighbourhoods and housing. The New Mexico Citizens Groups hosted a "Community Visioning Conference that focused the Group's work on long-term watershed improvements, economic development, mediation, and youth, which led to multiple and coordinated programs in lieu of the usual short-term fixes.
* Adequate human and fiscal resources and support from friendly officeholders. Efforts to reduce long-standing bitter tension between contending users of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico's were instigated and supported by Forest service staff, the chief District Ranger, and local health care professionals. Their "Four Corners Sustainable Forests Partnership" received small but crucial grants from Federal economic assistance programs, obtained by their Congressman. The "Restoration Council" that now oversees the Northern California salmon fishery employs part-time directors and permanent staff with funds received from the state, the Bureau of Land Management, foundations, and private companies. The innovative "Northern Minnesota sustainable forestry project" draws support from the county's Land Commissioner and County Forester, and their staffs, and contributions from local businesses.
These stories are only a sampling of many small-scale sustainable development programs in the U.S. that demonstrate the success of the civic environmentalism approach. The democratic participation, collaborative problem-solving, and combining of environmental issues with economic incentives, is a model starting to be transferred to the national level as well.
A recently founded national coalition is calling for a massive investment of public and private capital in a renewable energy infrastructure for the United States. Similar to the commitment made by President John Kennedy in 1962 to dedicate the nation's financial and intellectual resources to putting a man on the moon, the "New Apollo Project" would, over ten years, create millions of new American jobs, end dependence on foreign oil, and reduce the U.S. contribution to global warming [http://www.apolloalliance.org/].
The Apollo Alliance is an unusual political partnership of environmental, labor, business, and community allies, endorsed by every major union in the country and major environmental groups, ranging from the moderate National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to the more activist Rainforest Action Network. They commonly support major federal investments in clean energy research and development, the manufacturing of wind turbines and solar panels, and efficiency programs in transportation and power generation that will accelerate the U.S's. transition to a post-fossil energy economy of the future.
Certainly public opinion is fickle. But trends change. Who would have predicted in 1962, when Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published exposing the dangers of DDT, that eight years later a Republican president would establish the EPA and during that decade Congress would pass landmark Clean Air and Clean Water bills? In 2005, rising oil costs, and the destruction of hurricane Katrina and catastrophic flooding of New Orleans, have suddenly made the environmentalists' forewarnings about Peak Oil limits, and drastic global climate changes, seen not as Chicken Little hysteria, but prophetic. Threats that were obscure and distant from most people's personal lives are now on the center stage. Of course, all the barriers mentioned above that impede changes in environmental policies remain formidable. But likewise we have many examples of proven environmental programs worldwide; armies of scientists, professionals, and NGOs working on ecological issues; and models of successful political action. One can be hopeful.
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