Response to EDF's Tony Kreindler

Has EDF spun out of environmentalism?

Posted by Ken Ward (Guest Contributor) at 11:29 AM on 25 Jul 2008

Tony Kreindler reiterates EDF's position that the short-term targets in Lieberman/Warner are strong, that its essential framework is sound, and that we have 40 years to strengthen its weak areas ... but don't expect to do so anytime soon. In his recent Grist series, Kreindler wrote, "the political landscape in 2009 will be much like today's as far as climate change legislation goes."

This is an astonishing admission about the state of U.S. environmentalism. The hard work of decades, over a billion in assets dedicated to climate action, the certain election of a pro-cap-and-trade policy president, a Northwest Passage ice free for the first time in human history, and methane bubbling so furiously in Siberian bogs that melt water does not freeze ... will have no significant impact on political conditions, in EDF's view.

It's much worse than that, of course. Kreindler's appraisal was made months before gasoline broke $4.00 a gallon and our supposed majority support vanished as quickly as spilled gasoline hitting hot pavement.

Instead of capitalizing on our momentum, pressing candidates to take even stronger climate positions and laying the groundwork for action by the next President and Congress, we are fending off a drive to lift the off-shore oil drilling ban and losing no-brainers like extending tax breaks for renewables.¹

Although we have clear, graphic evidence that something has been miscalculated in our work to date, our reflexive response is to gear up for more of the same. Like generals in WWI, we think we can gain the enemy trenches if we pour on more cannon fire and mass extra troops in the next assault.

But it won't work. We can't win by attrition, our supposed friends are not, and we will have no chance if we continue to operate as organizations, funders, and individuals, ignoring ideology, institution, and ideals.

Change in EDF Climate Policy 1996 -- 2008
EDF Position	Target
EDF Position	<1990 U.S. emissions	<2000 U.S. emissions
1996	2000
1997	2005*
1997	2008-12
2002	2020-40
2003		2010**
2007	2020***
* Clinton administration Climate Program, 1997 Climate Stewardship Act of 2003, * Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007 Source: EDF press releases and white paper (reference texts below)

Adjusting as the goal posts move.

The evidence that the incrementalist strategy co-authored by EDF has failed is overwhelming, and EDF's own experience proves the point. A decade ago, EDF lead the way in focusing attention on climate.² Since then, the organization has trimmed its policy to fit within accepted political bounds, as the changing targets in the above chart demonstrate. ³

The most graphic illustration of EDF's swift adjustment to political realities is the change in policy between October 10 and 22, 1997. In an EDF press release on the 10th, Fred Krupp sternly lectured the Clinton administration:

A treaty that only freezes greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by 2010 or later, or that includes a cap-busting escape clause would be opposed by EDF. ⁴

Twelve days later, EDF enthused:

"The President's plan declares 'open season' on greenhouse gases and puts America's business creativity to work for the environment ..." said EDF executive director Fred Krupp ... "The administrations plan calls for emissions of greenhouse gases by industrial countries to return to a cap matching 1990 levels during the period 2008-2012."⁵

Implementation defined in spans, as we know from expansive and bitter experience, always comes to mean the last specified date, at best, and cannot be read as an average. 2008-2012 is not the same as 2010, yet with Clinton's decision final, EDF balked at walking away from the table as they had promised.

By such small steps EDF's climate agenda, in its broad strokes, is now indistinguishable from major fossil fuel corporations.⁶

Who speaks for environmentalism?

It is illuminating to compare Jim Hansen's recent paper and Tony Kreindler's series on Lieberman/Warner.

Hansen, the U.S. government scientist, presents the environmentalist perspective on climate, applying the precautionary principle to determine what is necessary to avert catastrophic climate change (swift return below 350 ppm or lower), proposes a means of accomplishing this (end coal emissions by 2030 replaced by renewables, adopt innovative forestry and agricultural approaches), and calls for politics to be adapted to fit that reality.

EDF advocates politics-as-usual, calculating the best outcome achievable by pressing the envelope. No measure produced by such calculus can address the true scale of the problem, because content must be negotiated with elements of the opposition. EDF ignores this unfortunate reality, skipping nimbly from a broad discussion of global risk to dealing directly with U.S. emissions, never able to articulate a clear line of reasoning to link problem, solution, goals, and strategy.

Hansen and environmentalists know what has to be done in order to save the world, and Al Gore now joins the group. EDF focuses only on what might pass in Congress.

If there is even a prospect that the window for humanity to take significant climate action has closed to one year, as Hansen now cautions, then the decisions we make this fall looking toward the next administration and Congress are final.

When EDF maintains that we still have 40 years to fix a bad domestic bill, when EDF President Fred Krupp endorses expanded oil drilling,⁷ when EDF and every other major organization sidestep a position on 350 ppm, these are, quite literally, earth-shatteringly bad decisions.

Reason vs. hope.

Climate change reality puts to us a tough choice between acting on reason -- in the form of the precautionary principle -- and hoping for reasonable action, which is the belief that humankind will, in the end, act in our collective best interest -- the basis of incremental policy. It is not possible to straddle the fence on this, the approaches are fundamentally irreconcilable.

If we act on reason, then we accept reality, endorse a 350 ppm or lower precautionary bright line⁸ and demand political action to achieve the mammoth reductions necessary.⁹ Such a course of action cannot be pursued within politics as usual, neither in the U.S. nor internationally. To have any chance, we must aim for abrupt, non-linear change of the sort Gus Speth, borrowing neo-Darwinian language, terms "punctuated equilibrium."

If we hope for reasonable action, as EDF does, then we engage with powers that could change the course of events by unilateral action and political muscle. The approach values access over content, accepting inadequate short-term outcomes as a necessary evil in order to keep a seat at the table.

Environmental principle dictates that ecological reality is not merely accepted; it is the foundation on which our system of values is built and the justification for all our actions, and environmental ideals were never conceived as a palliative to smooth off the rough edges of consumer culture-capitalism, but as a complete alternative to all economic growth-predicated ideology and culture.

EDF's climate platform ignores the precautionary principle and advances a pro-growth, pro-oil, pro-coal, and pro-nuclear future, with a veneer of renewables and energy efficiency. What are we offered in return? Three things:

corporate support;
power to negotiate; and,
freedom from anxiety and fear.

So, how's that working?

There is no room here to explore the psycho-cultural dimensions of accommodation (a topic to return to), but we have more than a decade of experience with private sector engagement and climate negotiations to consider.

Cap-and-trade, EDF's, raison d'être, is proof enough that our seat at the table gains us little and that corporate support is a mirage.

The whole point of cap-and-trade is not the for-public-consumption pitch we have become accustomed to hearing (and presenting) -- that is, by marshaling market forces we can solve a problem which is beyond the scope of inefficient governmental regulation.

Cap & trade was a deal by which certain corporations -- primarily Enron -- could gain an enormous new profit center, while others were provided political cover to support climate action under the guise of a "free market" solution. By splitting the monolithic bloc of private sector opposition, EDF and others hoped to cobble together a power base strong enough to overcome the oil/auto axis.

When the Bush administration reversed on its campaign pledge to support Kyoto in 2001, EDF lost the bet. In the small world of Texas politics, Exxon-Mobil trumped Enron.

Since then, EDF and others have continued to pursue the corporate strategy, but have been unable to turn up any partners willing to exert real political muscle. All the companies showcased in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership are just that -- for show.

Does anyone seriously believe that Lieberman/Warner would not pass the U.S. Senate if Alcoa, BP, Caterpillar, Dow, DuPont, Ford, GE, GM, J&J, Pepsi, PG&E and Xerox -- the largest of EDF and NRDC's "climate action" partners -- really weighed in?

Collapse of the environmentalist commons.

In every attempt at hands-across-the-corporate divide -- from cap-and-trade, to deregulation of state utilities (another Enron debacle, this one chalked up to NRDC), to the auctioning off of Earth Day -- environmentalists have come up with the short end of the stick. Our record since the heyday of the early 80's, as accommodation came to be seen as an alternative to rather than co-pathway with visionary opposition and politically effective protest, has been a tale of dwindling power and political failure.

But the worst injury, by far, has been the collapse of the U.S. environmentalist commons.

EDF and other organizations that have dallied too long in the boardrooms and corridors of power, are now bound more tightly to corporate and governmental decision-makers than to U.S. environmentalism, so that when strategy fails, they are unable to look to friends, and march in ever closer lockstep with our opponents and enemies.

Other centripetal forces have tugged at our institution, to be sure. The concerted drive by the left to reduce environmentalism, as Lowell Nelson nicely puts it, from "a post-industrial counterculture that wants to get out of the modern world through the back door and get on with the next human project," to one more item on the complaint list of the permanently disenfranchised -- a project which has reached a new height with the selection of Cynthia McKinney as the Green Party candidate for President -- has been equally destructive.

How should we face the end of the world?

We are a community of activists, organizers, campaigners, and advocates with the tools, experience, resources and values necessary to mount the only sort of effort that might, at this late date, transform the course of the nation, and through America the world. Yet we do not seem willing to face the very reality we have long warned was imminent, nor capable of taking the most elementary and obvious steps most any group with common ideals would long ago have taken.

Hansen, Gore, and others have defined the timeline and appropriate scale solutions, but must turn vague when it comes to specifics of political strategy. This is understandable because the balkanization of U.S. environmentalists eliminates the sole institutional power base on which a coherent strategy can be premised.

Why do we not pull together, rethink what must be done in light of the latest climate science timeline, concentrate our resources, and launch a last, coherent, coordinated drive? Because the things that divide us are more important than the values and ideals we believe are held in common.

I'm not sure exactly when EDF crossed over -- probably with its dalliance with nuclear power, certainly with its endorsement of carbon sequestration, and beyond any shadow of doubt when it came down in favor of more oil drilling -- but there seems little disputing that the organization is morphing from a flagship environmental advocacy group into some other entity.

EDF may no longer be an environmental organization, but there is no doubt that most of its members, supporters and staff remain environmentalists. This is a most perplexing paradox, and an unsustainable state of affairs. EDF must either reassert its foundational environmentalism or complete its transition, shedding staff and supporters who will not or cannot let go of their environmental values.

This organizational challenge is a microcosm of the larger tension within climate strategy. Everything that is immediate, tactical, fundable, pragmatic, familiar, and easy nudges EDF to move in its present direction. To do otherwise is troublesome, risky, and painful.

If EDF does not alter its trajectory, however, I think we are likely to fail. The narrative challenge is already so great that it will be extraordinarily difficult to shoulder the additional burden of challenging a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing mainstream environmental organization. Even so, a brisk public split would be far better than continuing as we are, politely complying with unspoken rules of goody good-sportsmanship, and like divorced parents never arguing before the kids (or in public).

The fate of U.S. environmentalism -- and with it, the fate of the world -- hangs on whether we are able to shatter the bounds of convention, organizational routine, professional position, and institutional inertia that have so far prevented us from even recognizing that EDF is spinning out of orbit.

As the Goal Posts Move ... Shifts in Environmental Defense Fund Climate Policy, 1996-2008
EDF Offers Cautious Praise for U.S. Climate Change Plan July 17, 1996, Press release	"... stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at the equivalent of 450 parts per million or less of CO2 would guard against disruptive climate change..." according to Dr. Oppenheimer... But EDF cautioned that the U.S. was failing to meet its earlier obligation to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2000, made at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Environmental Groups Call on President to Keep His Climate Promise: Administration May Break Its Pledge to Cap Dangerous Greenhouse Gases at Safe Levels October 10, 1997, Press release	"The U.S. must support a treaty that ensures substantial industrialized country emissions reductions below 1990 levels starting no later than the year 2005, in order to make meaningful progress towards addressing the global warming problem..." said Krupp. "A treaty that only freezes greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by 2010 or later, or that includes a cap-busting escape clause would be opposed by EDF."
Environmental Defense Fund Encouraged By Clinton Climate Plan: Additional Proposals Still Needed to Slow U.S. Emissions of Greenhouse Gases October 22, 1997, Press Release	"The President's plan declares 'open season' on greenhouse gases and puts America's business creativity to work for the environment..." said EDF executive director Fred Krupp... The administrations plan calls for emissions of greenhouse gases by industrial countries to return to a cap matching 1990 levels during the period 2008-2012, with further cuts below the capped level in the succeeding five years.
Adequacy of Commitments -- Avoiding "Dangerous" Climate Change: A Narrow Time Window For Reductions, And A Steep Price For Delay October, 2002	"It is possible to stabilize concentrations at 450 ppm if industrialized nations meet the Kyoto targets, global absolute emissions peak between 2010 and 2020, and global absolute emissions decline 1-3% each year from 2020 to 2040... But if industrialized nations' absolute emissions reductions are delayed until 2020, global absolute emissions would need to decline 2-8% yearly to stabilize concentrations at 450 ppm ... [and] would likely be prohibitively expensive. "
Environmental Defense Praises New McCain-Lieberman Climate Bill: Serious Bi-Partisan Climate Legislation Marks an End to Stalling & the Start of the Search For Serious Solutions January 8, 2003, Press release	"'This bill creates a long overdue comprehensive, national policy for cutting the U.S. greenhouse gas pollution that threatens to dangerously disrupt the Earth's climate,' said Environmental Defense senior attorney Joe Goffman. ‘In bringing greenhouse gas pollution below current levels by the middle of the next decade, the bill will protect American citizens and the Earth's environment from the impacts of climate change'."
The Heat Is On 2004, white paper	"The Climate Stewardship Act [McCain/Lieberman, 2003] would harness American ingenuity to create a nationwide market for the cheapest and most innovative ways slow global warming. By promoting energy efficiency, it also would help reduce U.S. dependence on oil. Under this bipartisan legislation, energy producers and industrial sources would need to limit their emissions to year 2000 levels by 2010.""...postponing action has already cost us precious time; further delay will only make the problem worse and the solution more costly. Experts say we have a 5- to 10-year window during which we can act before we reach a dangerous tipping point."
Environmental Defense Welcomes Strengthened Lieberman-McCain Global Warming Bill: Emissions to be Cut 60% Below 1990 Levels by 2050 January 11, 2007, Press release	"Krupp... called on Congress to act quickly on climate change. ‘The science of climate change says we can't afford to wait -- this Congress should pass meaningful legislation to cap carbon pollution'."
Majority of Senate Voices Support for Progress on Comprehensive Climate Change Bill June 6, 2008, press release	"A majority of the U.S. Senate today voiced support for moving forward with the Climate Security Act, marking an historic turning point in the debate over national climate policy..."The din of Washington politics can't drown out the drumbeat of progress," said Fred Krupp, President of Environmental Defense Fund."

-----

1 It is a mistake not to raise renewal of tax breaks for renewables to the level of major campaign. Though the tax breaks in questions are of little direct consequence, there is high political cost in losing ground and we forgo an opportunity to forge stronger ties with the renewable sector. Perhaps most importantly, we forgo a powerful narrative opportunity; people get the idiocy of continuing huge tax breaks for oil companies flush with cash while sticking it to the renewables little guys.

2 EDF's Michael Oppenheimer was among the first climate scientists to question UN IPCC targets and make the case for a 450 ppm bright line, and EDF was the first major U.S. environmental organization to elevate climate risk above other issues and reallocate resources accordingly.

3 Data drawn from EDF press releases and white paper, relevant quotes appended in attached chart.

4 Environmental Groups Call on President to Keep His Climate Promise: Administration May Break Its Pledge to Cap Dangerous Greenhouse Gases at Safe Levels, EDF press release, October 10, 1997

5 Environmental Defense Fund Encouraged By Clinton Climate Plan: Additional Proposals Still Needed to Slow U.S. Emissions of Greenhouse Gases, October 22, 1997, Press Release

6 With Fred Krupp's endorsement of expanded oil drilling, EDF's climate agenda is indistinguishable from BP, or even Exxon-Mobil. Both EDF and the majors assume four or more decades for a transition to a post-carbon energy supply, with a target at or new current concentrations of atmospheric carbon. Both look to carbon sequestration and nuclear power to bridge the gap and both assume implementation of carbon markets by a limited number of national governments will guarantee emissions reductions on the scale and timeline necessary to avert cataclysm.

7 Dig it Krupp: On Charlie Rose, EDF leader Fred Krupp endorses domestic drilling for new oil, Grist.org, June 20, 2008, "After quite a bit of dodging and weaving, Krupp, rather startlingly, said we should assess domestic drilling on a case-by-case basis. Rose kept pushing, saying, "Do we need to be drilling for new oil in the short term?" Says Krupp: "yes, absolutely."

8 The global bright line standard should be set "at least at today's level or lower," according to EDF President Fred Krupp, in a Gristmill interview, a far cry from an appropriate, environmentalist precautionary position (which probably ought to be set at 275 - 300 ppm), but it is the first statement by a major U.S. environmental organization that 450 ppm, first proposed by EDF's Michael Oppenheimer in 2002, must be abandoned.

9 i.e. phase out of coal burning globally by 2030 replaced by renewables, and adopt new forestry and agriculture practices, as Hansen proposes, and end coal burning in the U.S. within 10 years, as Al Gore recently called for.

For story: Response to EDF's Tony Kreindler
19 Comments | Post a Comment

EDF -- Extremely Deferential to Finance

I forced myself to read all of Fred Krupp's dismal book so I could review it here (a review that got delayed and then got disappeared, apparently unrecoverably), and I pretty much concluded that EDF is to be treated with extreme caution and that their motto might as well be "All the environmental protection the Fortune 500 approves of."

The 5% Project

by JMG at 11:49 AM on 25 Jul 2008

P.S.

Michael Parenti wisely cautions against assuming that the people in power aren't making sense just because you can't make sense out of what people in power are doing.

So when you write "The evidence that the incrementalist strategy co-authored by EDF has failed is overwhelming, and EDF's own experience proves the point" I caution you to consider the possibility that EDF's strategy has actually succeeded and that you don't understand how they define success and failure.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 1:17 PM on 25 Jul 2008

OK, so who's still good?

Friends of the Earth? Sierra Club? Sierra Club usually? Greenpeace?

by Jon Rynn at 1:34 PM on 25 Jul 2008

Know Who You're Dealing With

(a Continuum of Types of Organizations Affecting Environmental Matters)

This chart of environmental organizations shows the degree to which they're compromised by their funders.
http://www.corporations.org/system/envirogrouptypes.pdf

The chart was made before the Sierra Club-Clorox deal. In light of the Sierra Club's Clorox deal, 'Project Removal,' 'homegrown biofuel' promotions, etc., the chart should be updated - moving Sierra Club from the 'moderately compromised' column to the 'highly compromised' column.

The Traverse Group of the Michigan Sierra Club recently resigned over the National Sierra Club-Clorox partnership. The Traverse Group fought Clorox pollution for years.

This AP article has appeared all over - from the local Traverse City paper to the International Herald-Tribune. In case you haven't read it, here it is:

'Sierra Club's Clorox deal feels dirty to members'
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/20/B ...

Also see 'Bleached Out/Why We Quit the Sierra Club' by Monica Evans, chairwoman of the former Traverse Group of the Sierra Club
http://www.northernexpress.com/editorial/features.asp?id= ...

Some of you might recall that the Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club was 'suspended' due in part to it's opposition to the National Sierra Club-Clorox partnership.

'The Clorox Coup" by Betsy Roberts, chairwoman of the former Florida Chapter, and Karen Orr, Political Chairwoman of the Former Florida Chapter
http://www.counterpunch.org/orr03312008.html

by KarenLOrr at 4:01 PM on 25 Jul 2008

Is the criticism of EDF waranted or wise?

No climate bill was going to be passed in 2008. I don't see how anyone could seriously think any proposal, good bad or indifferent, would be enacted.

I think the EDF is engaging in some political theater. My take on the L-W fight is the EDF is trying to put a positive spin on a no-win situation, basically saying 'look how much progress we're making' and 'we're getting close to results'. This does have the benefit of making enviros look less impotent than we are right now.

The one thing the right is very good at is avoiding damaging public infighting. Even the arch-contrarian Inhofe is dialing down his rhetoric with McCain as the Republican nominee.

We should use caution before we criticize other environmentalists and other environmentalist groups.

by josullivan58 at 7:21 PM on 25 Jul 2008

So who's still good?

The Center for Biological Diversity needs to go into that limited company, I think.
And I just went to EDF's website to express my shock and disappointment about Krupp's comment on drilling. And there I found this link on the front page, about "no to drilling". How ironic.
http://action.environmentaldefense.org/campaign/nooffshor ...

by Tricia G at 7:28 PM on 25 Jul 2008

Good points all. Some thoughts in response...

re: JMG and Krupp's book. I read most of it, skimmed some of it, and had a similar reaction. Krupp is full of rah rah boosterism, some of which is warranted of course, but does not get down to the nitty gritty questions of whether all this neat new technology will work, whether investment levels will climb high enough, and most importantly, what will prevent the final gulping up of fossil fuels.

re: JMG & Karen on motive. Good point to consider that failure might be the goal, but I just don't see that as the case here. Nor do I buy the argument that major foundations established with oil/auto/and related money continue as clandestine advocates for those interests and have deliberately acted to eviscerate our groups.

I don't buy it in large part because I know a lot of the people in senior positions in both our mainstream organizations and foundations, I even trained some of them. If there is a conspiracy within the foundation/organization world, it would have to be the most disciplined and effective effort ever mounted, and be limited to a handful of Executive Directors and program officers. That's just not how our groups operate.

That being said, I know for a fact that there was collusion between a major environmental organization or two, several foundations and Enron to de-regulate state utilities - a topic worth revisiting now that the huge downsides of losing state control over utilities in places like California, New Jersey and Massachusetts are apparent. I know it happened because I was offered Enron money and because the effort to both bribe support and threaten environmentalists who thought to opposes dereg with loss of foundation grants is well documented. So who knows? maybe I'm gullible and the same things has been going on with climate.

re: josullivan & whether public criticism is wise. I agree. Ideally, US environmentalists would engage in free, spirited and more or less private debate over key questions and disagreements, determine the best course of action and then present a united public front in public. The problem is that there IS NO DEBATE on climate strategy, despite the efforts of a number of folks. I've spent three years on it myself. At some point there comes a time when you've got to move to the next level. Given the incredible pace at which new climate science evidence is pouring in, all pointing to an ever shorter window of opportunity, I'd say it's well past time.

re: Jon Ryan, Tricia on "who's good?" I can't answer just yet, but I can share draft criteria I've been tinkering with for use in a "Climate Report Card" that might be published as an aid in decided which organizations to contribute to and support.

Grades would be based on how many steps each organization and foundation takes "walking backwards" from a definition of the problem. No skipping is allowed, it is not a restaurant menu. There are a number of groups that describe a US strategy, in some form, but in this grade system such plans are not rewarded unless they are the product of a transparent chain of logic that is grounded in statements of the problem and solution. As you might guess, there won't be an abundance of "As" handed out.

GRADE ORGANIZATION/FOUNDATION includes following in their climate agenda.

F        None.
D        Problem Statement. Does the organization identify Greenland & Antarctic ice floe breakup and potential for catastrophic sea level rise within decades as the major climate change risk? (D- to organizations that list catastrophe as one of several impacts.)
C        Solution Statement. Does the organization endorse Immediate return to 350 ppm. (C- for referencing 350 ppm, but leaving off the "immediate return below, C+ to any that define 350 ppm or lower.)
B        Goals. Does the organization endorse Jim Hansen's recommendations for achieving 350 ppm (end coal burning by 2030, full replacement by renewables, plus innovative forestry and agriculture) or propose an equivalent? (B- for listing coal and renewables alone. B+ for including a timeline for action.)
A-        Global Strategy. Does the organization offer any proposal for how the world might be brought to take action in time?
A        Global + US Strategies. Does the organization go on to explain that role US leadership must take?
A+        Global + US + US Climate Action Strategies. Finally, for a top grade, does the organization lay out how the US can be mobilized behind this agenda? Additional points for discussing what resources US environmentalists and climate advocates must marshal.

Ken Ward
kenward@brightlines.org

Ken Ward ken[at]brightlines.org

by Ken Ward at 12:16 PM on 26 Jul 2008

Let's Have More From Ken

Ken Ward is probably the best poster in Grist and I'd like to see a lot more of his columns or essays.

Re the topic at hand, while this was an excellent column, it didn't mention one important dynamic: the biggest environmental groups are also the most conservative ones. The last time I looked, the National Wildlife Federation, which is mainly a hunters' group and which is very conservative, is the largest U.S. environmental group. The largest "grass roots" group is Sierra Club, though the grass roots label is self-described, and it's also the most conservative grass roots group. The reasons are that 1) there just aren't than many of us who care about the environment more than we care about other issues and 2) in order to get large membership, a group must spend a lot of time , money, and effort fundraising, which includes getting new members and holding onto current ones. The latter in turn takes a lot of money, which requires corporate sponsorship and donations of rich people, which are not forthcoming if a group promotes a really progressive or radical agenda. And make no mistake, in this psychotic society a sane environmental policy is very radical.

And there's one more issue, which was briefly touched on. With the exception of the minuscule number of truly superior legislators like Dennis Kucinich, if you go to Congress to lobby legislators and aids that our way of living is killing the planet and will eventually kill us so that we need to radically change it, no one will listen to you. Notice that the really good environmental groups, like Center for Biological Diversity, don't bother lobbying. So, what to do about this?

by Wolverine at 1:54 PM on 26 Jul 2008

Conspiracy

Ken, you used the word conspiracy in your comment above, which is not a word I use because it's been so capably turned into a cartoon by people who, in fact, do "breathe together" on a whole raft of issues.

I have seen up close how a very wealthy foundation, whose wealth derives (as nearly all huge fortunes do) from great crimes, in this case against the environment, manages to fund a huge constellation of environmental groups somewhat generously ... enough to professionalize them, but not generously enough to let the groups build any independence or escape the need for further foundation funding ... and once you've got an overhead built up of young professionals from good schools, it's quite easy to control the group with a word to the board members.

Is that a conspiracy? Do the elites meet together in retreats and think about the kinds of changes that they want to see and how they can bring them about? Absolutely, I've been to some of them. It's not a criminal conspiracy in any sense of the word, which is the cartoon notion that people have of the word.

But it's very, very effective at letting corporations continue to get what they want while neutralizing public opposition to a corporate controlled politics and the natural resource exploitation that inevitably results from that.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 2:33 PM on 26 Jul 2008

Conspiracy?

I understand your distinction. I meant "conspiracy" not in the legalistic or criminal meaning, but in the more general sense of a group of people acting in concert to advance a hidden agenda.

There are some who believe that this is a clear cut, corporate-run conspiracy, exerting direct control through foundations and I'm arguing that this is not the case.

To the extent that EDF advocates a corporate perspective and "free market" approach (I use quotes because I don't think that cap & trade is at all a free market climate policy) and accepts funding from the Pew Trusts and other similarly inclined foundations, this is icky, but it is not conspiratorial, because the players are all quite up-front about their reasoning and intentions.

I think your description of how Pew exerts power is dead on - though you left out the key Pew innovation, which is to form its own environmental groups, like National Environmental Trust and Oceana, and bypass environmentalists altogether (and fold them back in, as Pew did with NET recently, when their purpose is exhausted) - but I don't see Pew program officers calculated how much is necessary to keep our organizations flush enough to stay on the tether, but too poor to actually accomplish anything. If anything, I'd say the major organizations have had more than enough money but squandered the opportunity.

Ken Ward ken[at]brightlines.org

by Ken Ward at 6:32 PM on 26 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

left/right, core/mass, single issue/policy stance

Ahhh gee, thanks Wolverine. May I add your post to my press packet?

But seriously, on the important points you raise, I think we've gone off on the wrong tangent in three related ways.

Right/Left. Environmentalism is outside of the liberal/conservative spectrum entirely, It is true that there are more liberals who think of themselves as environmentalists, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there are more. Environmentalism as it has come to be know is as much a cultural badge as anything else, while environmental values are, quite frankly, more closely aligned with traditional conservative belief then they are with progressivism.

There are large numbers of hunters, birders and fishermen who may be quite conservative on every other issue, but hold strong environmental views, whereas the quintessential Prius driving, latte sipping, coastal city dwellers who are supposed to be stone environmentalists... well, they haven't registered as even a blip in public polling for decades (if you look at the the only polling questions which matter, open-ended questions like "what do you think is the greatest problem facing the nation?").

Core vs. Mass. The problem is that we were seduced by the other polling results, the ones showing that we had upwards of 70% support. We shouldn't be thinking in terms of masses, but in terms of a small, highly motivated, tightly knit group. Where there is a trade-off between motivating the core versus avoiding offense to the majority, as in dumbing down our climate narrative, we should stick with the core, because that's where power originates.

Single issue/policy. We should be focused on winning a handful of seats in Congress and the state houses for single issue climate solution candidates. That doesn't mean that we abandon the effort to influence the major parties, and I think we should attempt to win back the Green Party for environmentalists as well, but we need at least a few voices inside government to articulate an unadulterated viewpoint. If Hansen's right then we've lost this opportunity, but we must proceed believing that we can make a difference right up until we can't.

My next post is on this topic.

Ken Ward ken[at]brightlines.org

by Ken Ward at 7:18 PM on 26 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

The joys and sorrows of non-profit status.

I have spent over twenty five years working for non-profits in Cleveland, Ohio - not in environmental matters but in inner city housing issues and community organizing.

In my humble opinion, the 501c3 non-profit status is one of the most fiendishly effective devices for the control of and/or suppression of dissent ever devised. You don't have to control people directly. Recognizing their own vulnerabilities, they will yank their own leash for you.

I would be the last to totally denigrate the accomplishments of non-profits. The world is much better off with them, than it would be without them. Many brave, excellent people, whose dedication is beyond reproach work for them.

However, there are two things that are very wrong with them. First, they allow the true heavy dancers in our society to appear concerned about issues, when they are not. It is no coincidence that non-profits have spread and flourished in a reactionary political time that has witnessed a roll back of regulatory action and redistributive welfare state programs. No coincidence at all. Second, they politically emasculate activists who otherwise might be causing real problems for the status quo. If you want a career in the non-profit field, you often have to take a vow of political chastity, and you certainly tread very carefully before you allow yourself to use militant, direct action tactics.

I think one of the reasons for the political irrelevancy of the environmental movement, its timidity and its ineffectiveness, must be laid at the door of the non-profit method of organization. At least this must be a topic for our debates on the issues raised by Ken Ward.

Randy Cunningham
Cleveland, OH

Randy Cunningham

by randino at 7:27 PM on 26 Jul 2008

Conspiracy - or just system dysfunction?

More blinding insights into the whole system dysfunction. I've worked on a local issue for more than a decade with The Nature Conservancy, which I've concluded is about as mainstream and corporate as an organization can be and still call itself environmental. Very frustrating. They clearly spend LOTS of time and money trying to exert influence from within the system. And I think the corporate-driven system allows them just enough tether and just enough successes to keep them in thrall. Is that more conspiracy?

As usual, Wolverine is spot on with his analysis. Center for Biological Diversity does not bother with lobbying because they know it's a waste of time. They only sit down when they have some power, which for them comes from winning lawsuits. Negotiating without power is pretty pointless.

by Tricia G at 8:51 PM on 26 Jul 2008

But I wonder...

...would the member base of nrdc, edf, nature conservancy, etc, put up with a different approach? Maybe they understand their base and what works with them and what doesn't. For instance, there has been a distinct lack of interest in public transit by these groups -- but then, their base is probably almost all in the suburbs. Not that I'm defending them, I just think that they are good at what they do, including the occasional protection of wildlife, and we can't expect them to do much more.

Now, people who are really concerned about climate change should understand this, and understand that the right-wing of big enviro, if I can call them that, are not to be counted on. That the "left", say including center for biological diversity since we're mentioning them, are much more worthy of support if you want to do something about climate change. So I guess it's a "faint praise" argument, "you guys are great at what you do, but I'm sorry, you don't fill our current requirements right now" sort of thing.

Ken, one thing worth discussing is whether climate change should be a "single issue" issue. Single issues have the advantage of tapping into the passion of people who prioritize that issue. But of course, we're all much more powerful if we ally with other forces, which is why the environmental justice movement, Van Jones et al, is so important. And since climate change mitigation will require a transformation of the economy, it would naturally lead to allies in the labor movement, as well as plenty within the working and middle classes who are worried sick about the economy. So, perhaps put climate change front and center, but tie in the other parts of the social system, holistically.

by Jon Rynn at 12:28 AM on 27 Jul 2008

The problem I have seen in Ohio

on forest issues, is that the Nature Conservancy is the favorite environmental group of a lot of the natural resource bureaucracies. They give these agencies fig leaf protection. For that reason I know a lot of people who have written off the Nature Conservancy as an environmental group. I came up in the sectarian left, and that gave me a life long revulsion against the old game of separating the goats from the sheep. I favor an adaptation of one of Reagan's maxims. "Thou shalt not speak ill of another environmentalist." Much better than the alternative.

Randy Cunnigham
Cleveland, OH

Randy Cunningham

by randino at 5:48 AM on 27 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

eat an environmentalist

bumper sticker on the truck of a union worker

it ain't easy being green

Kermit

by ce1907 at 7:42 AM on 27 Jul 2008

EDF: throwing it all away

Having read Ken Ward's widely emailed critique of EDF's deteriorating climate policy, I came back here to read Tony Kreindler's original post. It appears that as EDF drifts farther and farther from the science of global warming, its explanations of its positions necessarily become more and more obtuse. It appears EDF can no longer engage in honest discourse, because such discourse would reveal the fundamental inconsistencies of its position.

Kreindler tells us to support the woefully inadequate Lieberman-Warner bill because we need action now and can't wait for an adequate bill. This argument might make some sense if L-W had significant chance of passing. But L-W was declared impassible by its supporters (including EDF) prior to the battle, and even now EDF says it is unlikely to pass in 2009. So supporting a weak bill that won't pass, won't get you quick action on global warming? All it will do is set the bar low for the next bill. It would have been far wiser to support a good bill in 2008, thus setting a high bar for the next round. All EDF's position has done is confuse the public about the science of global warming and lower the political bar.

Kreindler tells us that had L-W passed, its target level of 488 ppm (EPA is certainly optimistic on this projection by the way) is not incompatible with reducing to 350 ppm. Tellingly, he gives no explanation of the emissions pathway that puts on a L-W course then divert to a 350 ppm. That is because there is no pathway. Jim Hansen's recent research shows that if we don't enact much steeper short-term cuts than L-W, we can not get to 350 ppm anytime in the next hundred years and we will likely pass into runaway global warming over which we have no control. Kreindler's hand waving on this central point indicates that he is more concerned about protecting EDF's image that stopping global warming.

Here are a few predictions for you:

EDF will in every case support any major greenhouse gas policy put forth by the Democratic leadership regardless of how weak it is. This will necessitate it invoking increasingly obtuse explanations. And because cracks will always develop in such a rhetorical strategy, EDF will fairly regularly contradict itself and flat out lie.
EDF will work with energy corporations to develop general principles which sound good but are entirely unenforcable. It will run to the press expounding its win-win, capitalists-like-it victory. Then, as an enforcible bill approaches, even one weaker than the supposed corporate agreement, those energy companies will refuse to support it. EDF will not respond by criticize its corporate partners or pointing out the contradictions. Then will reenact the play over again.
EDF will continue to have energy corporations on its board of directors.

This will all occur because EDF is not fundamentally an environmental group. Its mission is to work with corporations to incrementally improve corporate citizenship. When that mission collide with environmental needs, the environment is tossed and media hacks like Kreindler will fan out to "explain" EDF's policies while EDF's scientists quietly cry in their cubicles.

by DrBenway at 9:24 AM on 27 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

Right/Left Etc.

Ken,

Yes, you may use my post. Many presidential candidates have gotten elected using my endorsements.

As to your right/left comments, when I say an enviro group is conservative, I'm talking strictly about environmental issues. Some groups, like NRDC, are so conservative that they've been on the anti-environmental side of issues. I've experienced this personally while working on lawsuits in which they've been opposing parties. (NRDC is only one of many, unfortunately, and I just used it as an example.) And Nature Conservancy was caught supporting logging in order to get money for something. This is what I mean by conservative in this context.

You're quite correct that hardcore wilderness/wildlife advocates like me are actually conservatives, because we just want natural areas left alone. Dave Foreman of Earth First! pointed this out decades ago. In general, I actually get along far better with the rednecks in the enviro movement than I do with hippies or leftists and have absolutely no problem with them.

As to mass support v. deep support, there's no doubt that even when 80-85% of Americans said they were environmentalists that support was extremely shallow. And I've never sold out my original Earth First! beliefs, among them "no compromise in defense of Mother Earth!," so I also agree that holding onto one's core beliefs and remaining true to the core of the movement and/or group is more important than whether the majority is offended, though it's obviously important to avoid the latter if possible.

I also agree that we've lost the faction of the Green Party that participates in electoral politics. There's another faction that does not run candidates for office but is still true to the core beliefs, which are that peace and the environment are the fundamental and foremost issues of the Green Party. Whether the party can be won back I have no idea, but even as is it's still substantially better than the Democratic Party.

Randy,

While I agree that it's best to keep internal disputes private, these issues must be dealt with. There are major and substantial differences between say, EDF and the Center for Biological Diversity that affect policy decisions. There's no way to resolve these difference other than to discuss them, which will necessarily require speaking ill of other enviros, though of course personal attacks should be avoided.

by Wolverine at 5:29 PM on 27 Jul 2008

Finally Ken

"Cap & trade was a deal by which certain corporations -- primarily Enron -- could gain an enormous new profit center, while others were provided political cover to support climate action under the guise of a "free market" solution. By splitting the monolithic bloc of private sector opposition, EDF and others hoped to cobble together a power base strong enough to overcome the oil/auto axis."

Someone else noticed this. Thanks. Keep up the good work.

The incrementalist approach lends itself to cap and trade corruption, and not just from the obvious "free' market trading side.

The cap, put in place by a green government, has every possibility of being raised by a GOP administrations. Any number of "trifecta" (as in the bush trifecta) type emergencies could provode an excuse.

Enron and Phil Gramm and the enron loophole all clustered behind the effed up cap and trade notion? It's a distinct possibility.

Gore's excellent carbon tax/income tax cut for middle and lower income families is the best way to price carbon.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 9:32 PM on 27 Jul 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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