Fw: #744: Rebuilding the Movement to Win

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: . .

: . RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #744 .

: . ---February 14, 2002--- .

: . HEADLINES: .

: . The Environmental Movement -- Part 4 .

: . REBUILDING THE MOVEMENT TO WIN .

: . ========== .

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:

: The Environmental Movement--Part 4

: REBUILDING THE MOVEMENT TO WIN

:

: The environmental movement is a huge, powerful political force

: that would appear to be unstoppable. In 30 short years it has (1)

: passed a dozen pieces of national legislation, creating a

: government regulatory system that its adversaries dubbed " command

: and control; " (2) forced corporations to reveal each year that

: they routinely dump millions of tons of cancer-causing chemicals

: into our common property (our air and water); (3) launched a very

: fundamental critique of the entire industrial enterprise, that it

: is not " sustainable; " and even (4) challenged the bedrock idea

: that all human activities add up to " progress. "

:

: Furthermore, by publicizing evidence of environmental damage, the

: environmental movement has gained the support of most of the

: public. Large majorities of the public -- at least two thirds --

: when asked, say they want the environment protected, even at

: considerable expense.[1]

:

: Yet despite these phenomenal successes and the political power of

: these issues, in recent years anti-environment forces have gained

: the upper hand. Progress toward environmental protection has

: stalled and in some instances slid backward. In Washington, the

: environmental movement has been on the defensive, really, since

: Reagan took office in 1980. Things improved only

: marginally during the Clinton/Gore years.

:

: How did anti-environmental forces become so powerful? During 30

: years of hard work, self-styled " conservatives " have mobilized a

: huge constituency that accepts a corporate-driven

: anti-environment agenda. Most such " conservatives " tend to hold

: traditional European beliefs: that nature was created, in a

: primitive and unfinished state, by a Christian God who also put

: humans on Earth, separate from nature and superior to it, with a

: sacred duty to improve the environment by dominating and

: controlling it. In this view, humans are entitled -- even obliged

: -- to exploit nature because God put them on Earth for that

: purpose. (The alternate view, that humans are the appointed

: stewards of God's creation, is a distinctly minor strain in

: Christian and secular European thinking.)[2]

:

: This " conservative " constituency includes various groups that

: share one or more of the following goals:

:

: (a) to reduce taxes to make government smaller (and as a

: consequence, intended or not, to reduce the number of government

: jobs, which tend to be union jobs and which tend to be available

: to non-white people);

:

: ( to increase U.S. military power, and to avoid entangling

: alliances (such as the U.N.) so that the U.S. can remain free to

: pressure any country, as needed, to protect access to foreign

: supplies of cheap labor and raw materials;

:

: © through " free trade " agreements, to give U.S. corporations

: freedom and power to maneuver abroad, to evade taxes, to bribe

: public officials, to support private armies, to exploit

: indigenous labor, to extract natural resources and to dump

: toxicants, as needed to improve profitability;

:

: (d) to stamp out abortion and homosexuality, to return women to

: their early 20th-century roles, and to enforce overt allegiance

: to selected Christian slogans in our public institutions;

:

: (e) to keep the economic " playing field " tilted to the advantage

: of white people by denying the existence of white privilege,

: which gives unearned advantages to whites from birth onward (a

: subject to be explored in some detail in our next issue);[3]

:

: (f) to imprison non-whites in numbers far out of proportion to

: their rates of involvement in various criminal behaviors,

: applying a different standard of justice to whites;[4]

:

: (g) to punish the poor by making their lives difficult;

:

: (h) to routinely violate international human rights agreements

: and standards by making it difficult or impossible for U.S.

: workers to form unions, bargain collectively and, if all else

: fails, to strike;

:

: (i) to create and sustain an enormous industry devoted to

: distorting, ignoring and, in some cases, fabricating scientific

: " facts " without any basis, as needed to retain political

: advantage;

:

: (j) to retain and expand the influence of private wealth in

: public elections;

:

: (k) to slowly replace popular democracy with control by corporate

: elites.

:

: Naturally few or no " conservatives " hold every one of these

: views, and some " conservatives " find some of these ideas utterly

: repugnant. Still the " conservative " movement is a huge tent

: holding many different people, some of whom hold each of these

: views, and because they can work together they create a potent

: political force that promotes the corporate anti-environment

: agenda in return for support on other " conservative " agenda

: items.[5]

:

: Today the traditional environmental movement is not

: well-positioned to prevail against these pro-corporate

: anti-environmental forces because the traditional environmental

: movement was founded on the assumption that legal and scientific

: expertise, and rational debate, would suffice to protect the

: environment. Without detracting from the very substantial

: legislative accomplishments of the traditional environmental

: movement -- achieved through years of dedication, personal

: sacrifice and extraordinary effort -- it nevertheless remains

: true that the " traditional strategies and policy solutions being

: employed are proving to be increasingly limited, " notes Professor

: Faber at Northeastern University.[6] This is something of

: an understatement. Traditional approaches have relied on

: lawsuits and on lobbying, and neither tactic is presently very

: effective. Legislatures and the courts are dominated by

: " conservative " activists who see the environment as something God

: intended us to exploit and who tend to believe that, since the

: corporate agenda works for them, it's good for us all.

:

: In sum, to build on the successes of the traditional

: environmental movement and overcome the anti-environment forces

: now arrayed in Washington and in statehouses across the country,

: some new approaches will be needed.

:

: Since 1980, an alternative to the traditional environmental

: movement has been slowly forming in the U.S., though so far it

: has gained little national visibility. It is called the

: " environmental justice " movement, and though it has some problems

: of its own, it represents a different approach to environmental

: protection, one that speaks to people about protecting the places

: where they live, work, and play.

:

: As Faber has documented[6], the fabric of the

: environmental justice movement is woven from six strands:

:

: (1) The civil rights movement. Apartheid officially ended in the

: U.S. in 1964, but environmental racism is still all too common.

: The environmental regulatory system created during the 1970s and

: 1980s had the unintended effect of funneling pollutants into

: communities of color. Well-off white people can usually buy their

: way out of polluted neighborhoods, but people of color and the

: poor often cannot. Pollution trading schemes, being promoted by

: some traditional environmentalists, may be economically efficient

: but they tend to heap additional burdens and injustices on the

: poor and people of color.

:

: (2) The occupational safety and health movement. The U.S. passed

: its first national job safety law in 1970, but since then

: enforcement has been lax or nonexistent. Furthermore, the law

: excludes tens of millions of workers, such as farmworkers. At

: least 60,000 workers die each year as a result of injuries and

: illnesses related to dangerous working conditions. Another

: 850,000 are made sick. (See REHN #578.) At least 35 million

: non-union workers say they would join a union if they could, to

: protect themselves, but U.S. laws violate international human

: rights standards by making unionization an uphill battle. Added

: to existing unions, those 35 million would create the largest

: union movement the U.S. has ever known, effectively shifting the

: balance of power between the corporate elite and wage earners.

:

: (3) The indigenous peoples' and native land rights movements,

: made up of Native Americans, Chicanos, African Americans, and

: other marginalized indigenous communities struggling to retain

: and protect their traditional lands. Partly these groups are

: fighting to control land resources, and partly they are trying to

: retain cultural lifeways that are threatened with extinction by

: the dominant society.

:

: (4) The toxics movement (also known as the environmental health

: movement) has been fighting for the clean-up of thousands of

: contaminated waste sites across the country since 1978. The

: toxics movement has also taken the initiative in discouraging

: toxic technologies such as municipal garbage incinerators,

: pesticides, so-called " low level " radioactive waste dumps,

: coal-burning power plants, buried gasoline tanks, toxicants

: dumped by the military, and more.

:

: (5) Solidarity movements, human rights movements, and

: environmental activists in the Third World are providing powerful

: allies and examples of extraordinary, fearless activism. In South

: Africa, Mexico, Burma, Indonesia, Nigeria, Central America, in

: the former Soviet Union, and elsewhere local groups are fighting

: the same fights being fought in the U.S. but with fewer resources

: and against greater odds -- sometimes sacrificing their lives in

: their persistent demand for environmental protection,

: sustainability, self-determination, and justice.

:

: (6) Community-based activists working for social and economic

: justice have traditionally focused on issues of housing, public

: transportation, crime and police conduct, access to jobs, a

: living wage, redlining and lender practices, affordable daycare,

: deteriorating schools, and dozens of other neighborhood issues.

: They have not traditionally viewed their work as " environmental "

: but now when they work on lead poisoning, cleaning up abandoned

: toxic sites ( " brownfields " ), poor air quality, childhood asthma,

: and other issues with an environmental component, they are

: indisputably a part of the " environmental justice " movement.

:

: In addition to these six strands, we see a powerful, burgeoning

: seventh -- people whose health has been affected by multiple

: chemical sensitivities, birth defects, breast cancer,

: endometriosis, lymphoma, diabetes, chronic fatigue, veterans

: affected by Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome, and many others.

:

: An eighth strand includes the international " zero waste " and

: " clean production " movements, which are quietly revolutionizing

: the material basis of the industrial enterprise.

:

: This powerful environmental justice movement -- which clearly has

: the potential to become a new political mass movement -- is still

: in its infancy. To grow to its potential it will need to be fed,

: nurtured, cared for. It will need resources. In their report,

: GREEN OF ANOTHER COLOR, Faber and Deborah McCarthy show

: that, of all funds available for environmental work during the

: period 1996 to 1999, some 96% went to the lawyers and scientists

: of the traditional environmental movement, and only 4% went to

: all the thousands of groups working to build the " environmental

: justice " movement.[6] To really protect the environment (and

: overcome the political power of the anti-environment

: " conservatives " ), these funding priorities would have to change

: substantially.

: -- Montague

: ==========

:

: [1] U.S. attitudes toward many environment-related questions can

: be found at

:

http://www.publicagenda.org/issues/major_proposals_detail.cfm?issue_type=env

: ironment & list=8

:

: [2] Clive Ponting, A GREEN HISTORY OF THE WORLD (New York:

: Penguin Books, 1993; ISBN 140176608). See Chapter 8.

:

: [3] See, for example, Peggy McIntosh, " White Privilege: Unpacking

: the Invisible Knapsack (1990). Available on the web at

: http://www.uwm.edu/~gjay/Whiteness/mcintosh.htm

:

: The same essay has appeared under different titles in a number of

: places, among them RACE, CLASS, AND GENDER: AN ANTHOLOGY, edited

: by Margaret L. Andersen and Hill (Belmont,

: Calif: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1992), pgs. 70-81.

:

: See also: Rinku Sen and others, THE PERSISTENCE OF WHITE

: PRIVILEGE AND INSTITUTIONAL RACISM IN US POLICY (Oakland,

: Calif.: Applied Research Center [3781 Broadway, Oakland, CA

: 94611; Tel. (510) 653-3415], 2001). Available at:

: http://www.arc.org/downloads/trji010417.pdf

:

: [4] See

: http://www.buildingblocksforyouth.org/justiceforsome/jfs.pdf

:

: [5] See Hardisty, MOBILIZING RESENTMENT (Boston: Beacon

: Press, 2000; ISBN 0807043176) and Godfrey Hodgson, THE WORLD

: TURNED RIGHT SIDE UP (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997; ISBN

: 0395822939).

:

: [6] R. Faber and Deborah McCarthy, GREEN OF ANOTHER COLOR

: (Boston, Mass.: Northeastern University, 2001), pg. 2. Available

: at:

: http://www.casdn.neu.edu/~socant/Another%20Color%20Final%20Report.pdf

:

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