Category Archives: Press

What Would Teddy Do?

Conservation, Gulf Gusher, Opinion, Politics, Press, Recreation, Sustainability, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president… is morally treasonable to the American public…Theodore Roosevelt

In the weeks since the eruption of the Gulf gusher, criticism of the administration and the president has been muted. There have been no marches on the Capitol, no insurrection in the Gulf. In fact, the only civil disobedience has come from BP.

For example,

  • The freedom of the press (an unambiguous 1st Amendment right), has been continuously abridged since 20 April 2010. Journalists have been detained and harassed, swaths of the Gulf have been cordoned off from the public, and BP has hired its own “reporters” to obscure the truth.
  • Independent scientists have been reduced to begging for a chance to collect critical baseline data from the gusher. BP and the administration continue to stall approval.
  • We have learned that there are over 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf, many dating to the 1940s. More than 1,000 “temporary” wells have lingered in regulatory limbo for over a decade.
  • BP, the very company responsible for the oil spill that is already the worst in U.S. history, has purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company’s official website.
  • The US Fish and Wildlife Service has admitted that they approved the original Deepwater Horizon risk assessment since they estimated the chance of a catastrophe at less than 50%. Yet this same agency is working in close collaboration with BP and Entrix (BP’s environmental consultant) on the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA). “If they pay the bills, they’re welcome at the table,” said Peter Tuttle, an environmental contaminant specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

To be fair, the Republican opposition has countered every move the administration has proposed. Texan Joe Barton wins the prize with his “I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, is subject to some sort of political pressure that is, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize” wackiness. But I expect the Republicans to be loony when it comes to the environment. My concern is for our guy, this president, and his administration. This is his watch, and to date his response (or lack of) has been deplorable.

Teddy believed that he could rally the public to his side, and he rarely failed. If he felt mounting opposition within Congress (often from his own Republican party) he would hit the rails to tell the people his side of the story. Teddy understood that he could never get too far ahead of the public. I cannot believe that the public in the early 1900s understood conservation any better than us today. But they believed in the president, and knew that his conservation campaign would benefit all Americans, including future generations. In the end no president left his mark on the American landscape more clearly than Theodore Roosevelt.

I see nothing clear about this president, and he has offered nothing riveting or inspirational related to the Gulf that our citizens can hold on to. The Gulf fiasco offers a revelatory moment, an epiphany, when the interests of the public are starkly defined. The Gulf is a war, and the administration is still hoping for appeasement.

Why? Why aren’t the president and his administration attacking the gusher with force and gusto? Why aren’t outraged Americans spilling into the streets? Do Americans have a clue as to the true impacts of this disaster?

No, they don’t. In fact, I am not certain that most Americans even know where the Gulf is located. According to a Roper/National Geographic poll after Hurricane Katrina (and the around-the-clock media coverage), “nearly one-third of young Americans (ages 18 to 24) polled couldn’t locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi.” Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. Why should I believe that more could locate the Gulf of Mexico?

Americans are semantically (as well as geographically) challenged. We are asking our neighbors to apply terms and concepts such as biodiversity, ecology, and food chain to the Gulf of Mexico when they haven’t yet seen or touched it in their own backyards. Many of these words have also become adopted by marketers, transforming critical scientific language and concepts into cheap slogans and squishy labels.

Sustainable is one of those squishy words (like eco, green, and ethical) that is a manipulatable modifer. Slap one before a word or phrase and presto! your product or service is sanctified. Several years ago Wired Magazine wrote about Patrick Moore, one of the Greenpeace founders. Today he owns a consultancy and often works in direct opposition to environmental organizations. A recent opinion piece on his webpage is titled How Sick Is That? Environmental Movement Has Lost Its Way. He is considered by some to be an eco-traitor.

Or what about eco-friendly Spandex, or eco-sexy dating? A few years ago I accompanied Texas Governor Rick Perry on a quick trip to Dallas and Houston to announce a new project along the Trinity River. I had been hired by the state to compile an assessment of eco-tourism opportunities in the region. As he introduced me in Dallas, he concluded by calling me an expert in eco-terrorism. The crowd laughed, and I assumed a simple slip of the tongue. However, he went on to repeat the mistake in Houston. Toe-mah-toe or toe-may-toe, eco-tourism or eco-terrorism, what’s the big deal when you’re governor?

When words like sustainable and eco become popularized, I get nervous. Perfectly good words often become diluted or bastardized when they reach the street. Queer (as in odd) is an example. Most of the green modifiers (like green itself) have become meaningless or indistinct. Heading the list is sustainable, the word that no one can define.

The Brundtland Commission tried. They defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Which (and whose) needs? Economic? Social? Ecological? Mine? Yours? The rich? The poor? One glance at America today should convince even the most blase observer that we have exceeded our economic capacity, our international policies have not proven to be sustainable, and we are going to hell in a hand basket in the Gulf. Does this mean that the U.S. is not sustainable? Of course not. In my mind, it means that the U.S., in its present configuration and on its present tack, isn’t sustainable. In sustainability, nothing is more important than knowing when to correct course.

Nothing, except for knowing what one is sustaining. Since my immediate interest is nature, let’s look at ecological sustainability. Exactly what are we sustaining? Do we try to sustain all of the parts, or only those that have value to us? Do we even know all of the parts?

Piping Plover, East Beach, Galveston, Texas, Ted Lee Eubanks

In the Gulf gusher, the focus has been on megafauna such as brown pelicans, sea turtles, and dolphins. Nothing sells papers better than a dead baby dolphin on the beach. The press and non-profits report bird deaths like the weekly Viet Nam casualty reports once given by Walter Cronkite on CBS Evening News. But do we really know all that is being lost, all that is being eradicated? Are we only concerned with the obvious, with the dramatic?

Today is 6 July, and in about a week piping plovers will begin to arrive on the upper Texas coast. Around 75% of the world’s population of piping plovers winters along the Gulf coast. The remainder winter, in general, along the southern Atlantic coast.

The most recent NOAA oil spill probability map shows a good chance of oil spoiling beaches throughout the plover’s winter range. There are fewer than 10,000 piping plovers left on the planet, and the bird is considered either endangered and threatened throughout its range. What makes a brown pelican intrinsically more valuable than a piping plover? Or what about a polychaete, part of the benthic infauna that shorebirds depend on for food? These are the segmented worms that live in the muck. Piping plovers spend much of their time foot-trembling in the soft sand, coaxing worms to the surface, then to the gullet. As worms go, so go shorebirds. As fish go, so go pelicans. Nothing about oil is good for worms or fish. Nothing about this oil is good for man or beast.

This brings me back to sustainability, my backyard, and John B.S. Haldane (hang with me, I know it’s a stretch). JBS Haldane is the biologist who said that “if one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation it would appear that God has a special fondness for stars and beetles.” I would expand on Haldane and say that God must have an inordinate affection for life. Walk into your yard, any yard, and look. You will see only an infinitesimal fraction of what lives there, but even the obvious is overwhelming. The birds, mammals, and reptiles are apparent and exposed. But what about insects? What about all plants, not just the obvious (trees, shrubs, flowers)? What about nocturnal mammals and birds? And what about insects, including Haldane’s beetles?

What about damselflies? I photographed this damselfly in my yard this morning. On several occasions I have photographed ones infested with mites. You can imagine how small a damselfly mite must be. A couple of years ago I read a research paper about the parasites that live in the guts of mites that infest damselflies. That’s biodiversity, vividly illustrated in your own backyard.

Dusky dancer (Argia translata), Austin yard, 6 July 2010, Ted Lee Eubanks

Why does this matter? Because if you cannot see biodiversity in your backyard, that grasshopper in the cucumber blossom, how can you see it in the world? Within what context would you place biodiversity even if it’s under your own nose? Why should you care if you have never seen it, touched it, or known it? I know that this is a basic premise for Last Child in the Woods, but, no offense, the world cannot wait for 4th graders.

Aztec spur-throat (Aidemona azteca) on cucumber blossom, Austin yard, 6 July 2010, Ted Lee Eubanks

I have another yard, this one in Galveston. I live about 5 blocks from the Gulf of Mexico. Last week the first BP oil (tar balls) reached our beaches. The Gulf of Mexico is my extended yard, and I have seen, touched, and known its diversity for my entire life. Although I have spent countless hours in, on, and around the Gulf, I am still a neophyte, a dunce. I find peace knowing that what little I learn, what little I contribute, still becomes part of a grand encyclopedic saga.

Consider our friend Haldane one more time. In a famous study in Panama, 19 trees were “fogged” with insecticide and the dead were collected as they fell through the canopy. In this study, nearly 1,200 species of beetles alone were collected. Of those, 80 percent were not known to science. Extrapolation is dangerous, but studies of this type suggest a high estimate of the number of species that could exist on earth. The current best guess is around 10 million, the low around 2 million, but the number could be as high as 100 million species.

In truth, we have no idea how many species exist on this planet. Between 1.4 and 1.8 million have been named, but most experts admit that the total ranges between 2 and 100 million. Even a conservative estimate, let’s say 10 million, means that we currently have identified only 14% to 18%.

How many are left to be named in the Gulf of Mexico? Hell, we are still finding new named species there, a few big like whales. Once thought to be rare in the Gulf, in recent years pods of as many as 200 orcas have been found in the northern Gulf. How do you overlook an orca?

Easy. The Gulf is immense, the lookers minuscule. Below the surface both mystery and water deepen. We do not, we cannot, know all that is there, all that is being damaged, all that is being killed. Accurate loss estimates will take years, and will rely (as usual) on the effect rather than the cause. We will assume that piping plovers were harmed if we see the population drop over the next decade or so. We will assume that orcas were harmed if they vacate the Gulf. We will assume that brown pelicans were harmed if we wake up to find them gone, like in my childhood, from our beaches. We will assume that shrimp were harmed if shrimpers can no longer net them along the Louisiana coast.

What about those organisms that we haven’t seen, touched, felt, measured, or named? Without a name does a species not exist? What about individuals within a species (named or not), each striving to survive and reproduce in a world turned upside down? What about life, all life?

Brown pelican, Galveston yard, 6 Jan 2006, Ted Lee Eubanks

In the evening, when the heat of day fades, I relax on my porch in Galveston and watch the birds pass. The gulls, terns, pelicans, herons, and egrets stream over, though I see them only for a moment as they fly between beach and bay. For 116 years birds have passed over this house, and there has never been a time when the day broke without them. There is a continuity and a permanence in their presence.

The people of the Gulf also know they can be taken away by our greed, cruelty, ignorance, and indifference. Feather hunters, egg collectors, pesticide sprayers, wetland drainers, resort developers, and deep-water drillers have all left their lesions. One lesson still rings true – people value what they know, and they protect what they value. Too many people simply do not know nature, do not know that their backyard is a living, breathing organism of incomprehensible complexity and dazzling beauty. Many do not know even when their yard is the Gulf of Mexico.

Teddy Roosevelt, faced with the ruination of the heron and egret rookeries by feather hunters, had no trouble capturing the right tone and words.

And to lose the chance to see frigatebirds soaring in circles above the storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad terns flashing in the bright light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach — why, the loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old time.

The Gulf is not a sewer, or a dumping ground, or an oil field, or a fund raiser. The Gulf is one of the masterpieces that Roosevelt is referencing, and he did his part to see it protected. Nature is a time machine, allowing us to share experiences with the past. The same birds that Teddy reported from the White House lawn a century ago can be seen today.

The challenges to nature also transcend time, and we are sharing one of those moments of clarity and revelation with Roosevelt. How would Teddy have faced the Gulf gusher? How can we follow his lead and lessons?

Teddy Roosevelt sitting on the shore of Breton NWR in 1915

Here is one last Teddy story. Chapman and Boroughs came to meet with Teddy about the need to protect birds and wildlife in the Gulf, especially the rookeries. The discussion eventually shifted to the topic of federal lands and of sanctuaries. Roosevelt looked to an advisor, and asked about the legality of a president simply declaring these lands to be protected. A head nodded in the affirmative, and the president then made one of the most famous declarations in conservation history – I do so declare it. The AOU and Audubon then donated the funds to hire the first game wardens, men who served for little compensation and at great risk.

Roosevelt had brass. He understood that he had the public’s support to develop progressive conservation policy. In our time, we who know, we who believe, are responsible for garnering the public’s support (even beginning in our own yards). We cannot stay silent. We must wake from our sleep and challenge our neighbors, our fellow Americans, to rise to this occasion. Not all wars involve guns, bombs, and carnage. Wars can also be about beliefs, about sacred responsibilities. Our opponents have clearly defined their position, and drawn their line in the sand.

Have we?

Teddy said that “in a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” In our time, we must quit feeling sorry, sad, morose, horrified, and depressed and get back in the game. In your time, President Obama, it is your job to gut it up and follow Teddy’s example.

Ted Lee Eubanks
6 July 2010

Greened

Conservation, Opinion, Politics, Press, Recreation, , , , , ,

The first decade of the millennium is past. How will those ten years be remembered? WW II is the 1940s, the cultural revolution is the 1960s, a roaring economy is the 1920s. How will we label the 2010s?

For many 9/11 will be the moment that brands the decade. Perhaps the wars in the Middle East will give 9/11 a run for its money, although all of these events bleed together, literally. For many, though, I suspect that the decade is the period when we were all greened.

This nation (and world) has passed through conservation eras before. The late 1890s and early 1900s were Roosevelt years. In nine short years Theodore Roosevelt (with help from Pinchot, Garfield, and Lacy) set aside over 230 million acres and established the standard for the world (I should mention, though, that Grant preserved Yellowstone, creating the world’s first national park). The early 1970s brought the environmental years, with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring spurring the movement to clean our air and water. We often forget that it was President Nixon who brought about the Clear Water Act, Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and NEPA.

How ironic that the two most momentous periods in Amiercan conservation and environmental history were guided by Republican presidents. Times do change.

In most cases these eras can be tied to a single or series of catalyzing events. The 1929 Wall Street collapse, Pearl Harbor, the Selma march, the Tet offensive, and 9/11 were prelude to immense social and political change. In the case of 9/11, we are still in the midst of that shift.

Conservationists and environmentalists have similar cataclysmic events to point to. The Cuyahoga River Fire in 1969, Love Canal, the first Earth Day, and Three Mile Island all led to significant changes in public perception and policy. I still remember W. Eugene Smith’s vivid images in Life Magazine showing the effects of mercury poisoning in Minamata, Japan. Humans often need a dramatic event to crystallize the issues that are otherwise amorphous and poorly defined. The current lack of public concern about global climate change is a perfect example. Perhaps when Manhattan or Miami goes under the public will finally take note.

By “greened” I am referring to the popularization of environmental concerns. “Green” is a marketing term, a way of branding a product or act. A brand may well be a promise, but that promise is not always kept. In this past decade PR, marketing, and company flacks convinced the county (and the world) that a new age of sustainability had arrived. And, as with so much of marketing, no one actually took the time to look beyond these promises to see actual proof. Remember, in the green decade British Petroleum morphed into Beyond Petroleum. Now we see the proof that belies that claim in the Gulf of Mexico.

Let’s look past the hype and to the numbers. According to a recent article in New Scientist “the average fuel efficiency of the US vehicle fleet has risen by just 3 miles per gallon since the days of the Ford Model T, and has barely shifted at all since 1991.”

These are the conclusions reached by Michael Sivak and Omer Tsimhoni at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute in Ann Arbor. They analysed the fuel efficiency of the entire US vehicle fleet of cars, motorcycles, trucks and buses from 1923 to 2006. Progress has stalled since then, though, despite growing environmental concerns. From 1991 to 2006 the average efficiency improved by only 1.8 per cent to 17.2 mpg (7.31 km/l).

The average size of a North American suburban home in 1950 was 800 sq ft, in 1970 it was 1500 sq ft, and in 2000 it was 2266 sq ft. According to the US Census Bureau, the average size of a US home as of 2006 is 2,469 square feet. In the same period, the average household size (number of people) dropped from 3.54 to around 2.5. Houses grow larger, and families grow smaller. Here is another scrap to remember – since at least 2005, there have been more TVs per household on average than people per household. I guess we need the TV’s to fill that extra space.

Surely public involvement in environmental issues is an area that showed an increase during the green decade? Here are the numbers.

Gallup Poll 2010

The latest Gallup survey shows a decline in the percentage of people who are active in or sympathetic toward the environmental movement, and a doubling of those who are unsympathetic. Yes, environmental supporters still outnumber opponents by a wide margin, but wouldn’t we have expected growth in the age of green?

Even more dramatic is the decrease in the percentage of the American public that believes that the environmental movement is doing more harm than good.

Gallup survey, perceived impact

We rail about the oil industry, yet refuse to take the steps necessary to dramatically raise the average fleet mileage (and a CAFE standard of 34.1 by 2016 is hardly dramatic). We have smaller families to feed yet larger houses to heat, cool, and decorate. We buy green, yet act gray. What gives?

Let’s begin with awareness. Just how aware are Americans about the details of our environmental challenges? Young adults today are among the first to have taken environmental education classes (they were certainly absent when I attended school). We now have environmental learning centers, environmental educators, environmental tv channels, environmental cartoon shows, and environmental organizations constantly pushing environmental education. Shouldn’t we see a higher level of environmental knowledge and literacy than in the past?

But for most Americans, it [environmental literacy] falls far short. Most people accumulate a diverse and unconnected smattering of factoids, a few (sometimes incorrect) principles, numerous opinions, and very little real understanding. Research shows that most Americans believe they know more about the environment than they actually do. For example, 45 million Americans think the ocean is a source of fresh water; 120 million think spray cans still have CFCs in them even though CFCs were banned in 1978; another 120 million people think disposable diapers are the leading problem with landfills when they actually represent about 1% of the problem; and 130 million believe that hydropower is America’s top energy source, when it accounts for just 10% of the total. It is also why very few people understand the leading causes of air and water pollution or how they should be addressed…NEETF, Roper

If Americans struggle with the details, green marketers are more than willing to gloss over the facts for them. According to the American Marketing Association, green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe. But what do they mean by presumed? What is safe? Who is sitting in judgment about what is or is not “green?” The auto industry gave Americans SUVs and Hummers splashing through wetlands on your television set while killing the electric car. The same industry has opposed meaningful CAFE standards since first considered. Exxon may donate to an environmental group, but then gives millions to global warming deniers. Check this for more information about greenwashing, and this older (but still germane) article about green marketing.

This is not to say that green marketing, PR, and communications can’t contribute. I will argue that given the American public’s penchant to buy what is being hawked, green marketing and communications could be a powerful voice and force for good. But to be such a force for good, marketers will need to be accurate, honest, and transparent. In other words, don’t use BP as the model for honest green PR.

Being greened, though, involves more than outside forces (the industries and their marketers). More importantly, we, the public, must be complicit for greenwashing to work. We have to suspend common sense and buy into the shtick.

Americans have been led to believe (and are willing to follow) that change can happen without sacrifice. To even mention sacrifice in American politics is certain death. We do not mention raising taxes (we fight our wars on credit), we do not talk about dramatic changes in transportation systems (we offer virtually meaningless mileage standards), and we want to keep our automobile culture without sacrificing clean beaches and safe seafood. We want all for nothing.

Here is an analogy. Drug consumption in the U.S. is well on its way to destroying a neighboring country – Mexico. Without our consumption, there is no drug war. Gas consumption in this U.S. works the same way, and its reach is global. The oil spilling onto our Gulf beaches is like cocaine washing ashore in Florida.

In this confusing, conflictive time, Americans are looking to their leaders for guidance. In the past, we have found answers from our clergy, elected officials, and the press. Now the clergy is either muted by scandal, or is itself politicized by social campaigners that link abortion, gay marriage, and the environment. The traditional press, the 4th Estate, is in economic meltdown, and environmental writers are an endangered species themselves. Want proof? After a 14-year run, Columbia has suspended its environmental journalism program. Congress has always been relatively easy to influence, but with increased campaign spending access is becoming even easier to buy. If you doubt this, just check campaign donations from the oil industry.

Who is left? What about advocacy groups, the nonprofits that campaign for social change? Remember that perfect storm? The green groups, I fear, have contributed to this blow up as well.

In the 1970’s groups such as the Sierra Club were instrumental in forcing the environmental legislation that shifted both American policy and perception. Losing their tax exempt status in those early skirmishes, the Sierra Club continues today with a concerted political effort. However, most environmental and conservation groups now steer clear of advocacy. In part this is due to their 501 (c) 3 IRS status which restricts political activity. But even in areas where they are able to act most have chosen not to. Why?

Perhaps in part this failure to act is because the environmental movement has calcified, and become unable to march to the front. I suspect in part it is due to an honest desire to avoid confrontation, to be “good citizens.” I also believe that in part the green groups quickly embrace those initiatives that are conflict free, and avoid those that may entail blood on the carpets. Notice how many green groups have rushed to the Last Child in the Woods campaign, a feel-warm-all-over effort if ever there was one. Of course we want our kids and grandkids to grow up with an appreciation for nature and the outdoors. But, honestly, will issues such as the Deepwater Horizon gulf gusher wait for 4th graders to be able to vote? And, more importantly, is there any proof that this environmental education effort will be any more effective than those of the past?

In the U.S. there are over 1 million 501 (c) 3 charity organizations, one for every 300 American men, women, and children. Between 1998 and 2008 the number of these organizations grew by over 64%. Of course not all are conservation groups (many are churches and religious groups), but the growth is remarkable nevertheless. In the environmental world, nonadvocacy organizations such as land conservancies and land trusts have enjoyed spectacular growth as well. We now have more and more groups competing for what is generally a same-sized pie. To survive, many have chosen to focus on local land and planning initiatives, and avoid politics. Even international groups such as The Nature Conservancy prefer to stand back from political advocacy. As a result we have more green groups and fewer green acolytes.

Of course all of these groups are desperate for funding, and many of the extractive industries (oil and gas, timber, mining) have responded by filling some of the gap. BP has donated millions to The Nature Conservancy, and ConocoPhillips has supported Audubon and conservation efforts around the country. Perhaps they are simply being good corporate citizens. But in an essay published in the Wall Street Journal, the influential neoconservative Irving Kristol counseled that “corporate philanthropy should not be, and cannot be, disinterested,” but should serve as a means “to shape or reshape the climate of public opinion.”

Most of the groups will deny (testily, I might add) any link between the money they receive and the purity (as one recently put it) of the mission. Perhaps. But an exchange between a donor and a recipient involves at least an implied quid pro quo. The company donates money, and receives, in turn, at least the good will and good name of the recipient. And, of course, those “good names” have been more than helpful in greening the American public.

Edward Abbey said, “the idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.” At no time in my life has this been more true. The Gulf gusher shows that no matter how much land you conserve, you can never buy enough. If you could buy enough, you can never adequately protect it from the outside world. Isolationism does not work in international policy or conservation. The defenders of nature must be advocates, engaged in a political system that makes decisions daily (such as whether or not to exempt a proposed well from an EIS) that directly impact the resources we strive to protect.

As Zaradic, Pergams, and Kareiva recently noted, “Ultimately, the fate of biodiversity and intact ecosystems may depend less on rates of habitat loss or invasive species, than on public perception of whether conservation should be supported at all.” In order to stem this tide of change, the green groups will need to slip outside of their skins and embrace their neighbors rather than just their fellow members and donors.

Abraham Lincoln said that “public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” The environmental movement must reenlist the public, and invite both their involvement and their sentiment. Perhaps the existing structures should be altered. Shellenberger and Nordhaus, in The Death of Environmentalism, argued that “above all else, we need to take a hard look at the institutions the movement has built over the last 30 years. Are existing environmental institutions up to the task of imagining the post-global warming world? Or do we now need a set of new institutions founded around a more expansive vision and set of values?”

Whatever is needed, the change will be forced from the outside rather than come from inside the current structure. Can the Tea Party be the only current movement that understands the power of grassroots activism? Shellenberger and Nordhaus believe that “we need to take an urgent step backwards before we can take two steps forward.” If this step backwards is one returning the movement to the basic concepts of public engagement and grassroots organizing, then I agree. Absent strong political (particularly presidential) leadership, there is no other choice.

Ted Eubanks
Austin and Galveston, Texas
14 June 2010

The Value of Nature

Press, ,

(No) Drill, Baby, Drill

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Liberia, Costa Rica

Sailing down Costa Rica’s Tempisque River on an eco-tour, I watched a crocodile devour a brown bass with one gulp. It took only a few seconds. The croc’s head emerged from the muddy waters near the bank with the footlong fish writhing in its jaws. He crunched it a couple of times with razor-sharp teeth and then, with just the slightest flip of his snout, swallowed the fish whole. Never saw that before.

These days, visitors can still see amazing biodiversity all over Costa Rica — more than 25 percent of the country is protected area — thanks to a unique system it set up to preserve its cornucopia of plants and animals. Many countries could learn a lot from this system.

More than any nation I’ve ever visited, Costa Rica is insisting that economic growth and environmentalism work together. It has created a holistic strategy to think about growth, one that demands that everything gets counted. So if a chemical factory sells tons of fertilizer but pollutes a river — or a farm sells bananas but destroys a carbon-absorbing and species-preserving forest — this is not honest growth. You have to pay for using nature. It is called “payment for environmental services” — nobody gets to treat climate, water, coral, fish and forests as free anymore.

The process began in the 1990s when Costa Rica, which sits at the intersection of two continents and two oceans, came to fully appreciate its incredible bounty of biodiversity — and that its economic future lay in protecting it. So it did something no country has ever done: It put energy, environment, mines and water all under one minister.

“In Costa Rica, the minister of environment sets the policy for energy, mines, water and natural resources,” explained Carlos M. Rodríguez, who served in that post from 2002 to 2006. In most countries, he noted, “ministers of environment are marginalized.” They are viewed as people who try to lock things away, not as people who create value. Their job is to fight energy ministers who just want to drill for cheap oil.

But when Costa Rica put one minister in charge of energy and environment, “it created a very different way of thinking about how to solve problems,” said Rodríguez, now a regional vice president for Conservation International. “The environment sector was able to influence the energy choices by saying: ‘Look, if you want cheap energy, the cheapest energy in the long-run is renewable energy. So let’s not think just about the next six months; let’s think out 25 years.’ ”

As a result, Costa Rica hugely invested in hydro-electric power, wind and geo-thermal, and today it gets more than 95 percent of its energy from these renewables. In 1985, it was 50 percent hydro, 50 percent oil. More interesting, Costa Rica discovered its own oil five years ago but decided to ban drilling — so as not to pollute its politics or environment! What country bans oil drilling?

Rodríguez also helped to pioneer the idea that in a country like Costa Rica, dependent on tourism and agriculture, the services provided by ecosystems were important drivers of growth and had to be paid for. Right now, most countries fail to account for the “externalities” of various economic activities. So when a factory, farmer or power plant pollutes the air or the river, destroys a wetland, depletes a fish stock or silts a river — making the water no longer usable — that cost is never added to your electric bill or to the price of your shoes.

Costa Rica took the view that landowners who keep their forests intact and their rivers clean should be paid, because the forests maintained the watersheds and kept the rivers free of silt — and that benefited dam owners, fishermen, farmers and eco-tour companies downstream. The forests also absorbed carbon.

To pay for these environmental services, in 1997 Costa Rica imposed a tax on carbon emissions — 3.5 percent of the market value of fossil fuels — which goes into a national forest fund to pay indigenous communities for protecting the forests around them. And the country imposed a water tax whereby major water users — hydro-electric dams, farmers and drinking water providers — had to pay villagers upstream to keep their rivers pristine. “We now have 7,000 beneficiaries of water and carbon taxes,” said Rodríguez. “It has become a major source of income for poor people. It has also enabled Costa Rica to actually reverse deforestation. We now have twice the amount of forest as 20 years ago.”

As we debate a new energy future, we need to remember that nature provides this incredible range of economic services — from carbon-fixation to water filtration to natural beauty for tourism. If government policies don’t recognize those services and pay the people who sustain nature’s ability to provide them, things go haywire. We end up impoverishing both nature and people. Worse, we start racking up a bill in the form of climate-changing greenhouse gases, petro-dictatorships and bio-diversity loss that gets charged on our kids’ Visa cards to be paid by them later. Well, later is over. Later is when it will be too late.