I have been thinking about this for some time, now. And it came to a head this past week, with the passing of a pioneer in the modern environmental movement...Dr Barry Commoner. Barry passed away on my birthday, September 30...just 7 days ago. His passing was marked here on DKos with just one lone diary, which racked up only 39 comments. A similar diary, noting the passing of Andy Williams, garnered 18 comments. Almost half as many people here registered there condolences for a sappy crooner as they did for a man who devoted his entire life to the quest of making this planet a better place.
It made me wonder...where is the environmental movement today? What is its state of health? How relevant is it? If it could go to the doctor for an annual check-up, what would the lab results say about its general state of health?
There are other questions, to be sure. And I will pose them here. I will pose many questions here. Because I have more questions than I do answers...and I hope some of you can help me with that. This will be the first in a series on the environmental movement. Where we are...where we are headed...where we came from.
But I will start with the most pressing matter. Where is today's environmental movement? What is the state of its health? And how does one even go about assessing that?
I have some ideas, and many questions. And I hope that like minded people here will contribute...not just to this diary, but to the series I have in mind. I would dearly like to initiate a series here that as many of you who care about the topic can contribute to. I would like to hear a varietyof voices chiming in on this subject...not merely as commenters, but as diarists. I envision a series...not by me, but by a community of voices. I'm pretty sure that the environmental movement has made some mistakes over the past 40 years. There have been bridges burnt, perhaps...and bridges that were never fully built. Causes that were worth fighting...and perhaps causes that were not.
I wonder how people of color relate to the environmental movement? Because, let's face it, for much of its life this movement was mostly driven by people and activists that were mostly White, mostly affluent, or at least comfortably UMC. How good a job has been done in the past in building bridges with hunters? Outdoor recreation enthusiasts? Was there common ground that was never sought? Unnecessary ill will?
How about Labor?
I would really, really like for some diarist here, who care about and have given thought to what environmentalism means today, to contribute their thoughts to this series...not just as a commenter, but as an author.
First...the questions.
Where is the environmental movement today?
Do people still relate to it?
If so, why? If not, why not?
How do YOU...as a voter, and as a, let's face it, increasingly tribalisized voter, relate to environmentalism?
Does it relate to your concerns?
Have you ever experienced wilderness? Do you think you ever will? Do you care?
Have environmentalists in the past diluted their message by espousing unpopular causes?
Do you worry more about gluten in your food than you do Alar in your apples? Arsenic in your rice? Have people become too concerned about "their own plate" at the expense of the "global plate?"
Has green technology become a hostage to NIMBYISM? Have too many former environmentalists given into a sort of "not for me, but for thee" mindset? And has that usurped the message of the movement?
Did "Save the Whale", or "Save the Dolphin" devolve into "Save the Snail Darter", and become a parody of itself?
Are there generational and demographic forces at play here? Is the environmental movement naturally becoming irrevalent as a generation of kids come of age who never played outside? Never climbed a tree? Never fished? Increasingly never play outdoors?
Can you care about wilderness if you have never experienced it?
Can you care about environmentalists, if they have never visited your neighborhood, or taken up the cause of urban pollution in neighborhoods that are mostly not White?
Can a hunter, who shoots animals, care about the environment every bit as much as a non hunter, who abhors killing any animal? The answer is yes.
Can a person whose job depends upon resource extraction, whether it be petroleum or coal, or timber, be a natural ally to the environmental movement? Only if you talk to them. And if you don't, they'll most likely see you as an enemy.
Gallup has been polling on environmental issues for several years now. Their polling shows a steady trend...a dimunition in importance that most people place upon environmental issues. I can't post the graph, cuz I don't know how to. But here's what it looks like:
http://www.gallup.com/...
I have always been an environmental voter. I'm the kind of guy who, whenever a new president is sworn in, immediately starts researching the background of whomever is put forward as Secretary of Interior. That has always been the first Cabinet position that grabs my interest, and shapes my opinion of the incoming president. Gale Norton told me everything I needed to know about George W. Bush. Bruce Babbit made me smile. The first time I was old enough to vote in a presidential election was 1976, and in the primaries I was a big fan of Fred Harris, a former Governor from, of all places, Oklahoma. He had a solid environmental record.
This election cycle, not surprisingly, the environment is not an issue. It's so much not an issue, that one sometimes wonders if it ever will be. We all want jobs. I understand that. I want a job, too. But I also want open space. I want old fashioned environmental goals...open space, preservation of wilderness, a sane approach to extracting the resources we need.
But those concerns seem to be almost quaint. Out of touch. And I wonder why?
Sure..it's the economy, Stupid. I get that. But it goes deeper, I think. Perhaps it's the "Stranger Danger, Stupid." The fear of everything that lurks just outside of your front doorstep. The great demographic movement from country to City, and from City to the Great Indoors. Have we become not just an urban society, but a decidedly indoor society? And, if such is the case, what does that infer for the environmental movement?
How can you care about something you have little interaction with?
These are questions that plague me.
I don't know the answers to them.
But I want some answers...Will you help me find them?
I think this topic deserves a series of several diaries...diaries on the history of environmentalism, diaries on where it achieved it's greatest successes, diaries about where it should have turned left at Albuqurque, should have made strategic choices that it didn't, diaries about where we go from here, diaries that contradict my premise and say that environmentalism is alive and well, just in a form I don't recognize. Diaries of hope, of despair, of looking back and looking forward...diaries from disparate points of view.
Is that a diary...a series that you want to read, and want to contribute to?
I hope so.