A clean environment and a prosperous economy. Can we have both?

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "A clean environment and a prosperous economy. Can we have both?"

Peregrine Gardner
5 years ago
Views:

1 Journal ofwilderness Medicine 2, 1-6 (1991) SPECIAL ARTICLE A clean environment and a prosperous economy. Can we have both? KEYNOTE ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE 6TH ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC MEETING OF THE WILDERNESS MEDICAL SOCIETY, 19 JULY 1990 GAYLORD NELSON Counselor, The Wilderness Society, Washington, D. C, USA Although I have concerned myself with environmental and resource issues for four decades, early on I realized that the more I learned, the less I knew. This is so because the subject matter is all-encompassing. It includes our life-sustaining resource base - the air, water, minerals, soil, forests, oceans, lakes and rivers, as well as all living things in the seas and on land, the relationship and influence of each on the others, plus economics, politics, religion, culture, and philosophy. This is a political-scientific mix of incredible complexity. And, though we will never know or understand more than a small fraction of the endless intricacies of nature's works, we can comprehend and learn the general principles that should guide our conduct as a society, if we are to preserve a liveable habitat. The overall general guiding principle can be stated in many ways. The proposition is, quite simply, that we must conduct our activities in such a way as to protect the integrity of our ecosystems and their resources, for these sustain life and determine its physical quality. Minimum achievable interference with natural systems must be our guideline. It is this resource base that defines the habitat and determines the limitations for survival of all species, plant and animal, within the larger global ecosystem. Whatever various and complex environmental guidelines industrial nations may be following, they are at this stage totally inadequate. Certainly, we all recognize that the resiliency of the living planet Earth has already been dangerously compromised, as it is losing its capacity to renew itself. The insults to the land, water and air are too many and too massive. The threads of the net that hold the world ecosystem together are beginning to unravel. It will take a massive coordinated worldwide effort to save what is left of the natural world and give nature a chance to repair some of the damage man has caused. If this sounds like alarmist rhetoric, it is because the situation is nothing short of alarming. My remarks this evening will be confined mainly to the political aspects of the issue, because it is in the arena of politics where we will succeed or fail to meet the environmental challenges so critical to our future. The pathetic dearth of political leadership, rather than lack of scientific or technical knowledge, is the single most important stumbling block to progress. However much scientific data we may accumulate is quite useless without imaginative and dedicated political leadership. A crucial part of that leadership must come from the President of the United States and the heads of state of the other leading industrial nations. When dealing with societal problems and challenges, the first order of business ought to be to decide which are most important and how they are to be addressed. The most /91 $ Chapman and Hall Ltd

2 Nelson important issue faced by mankind is not the threat of nuclear war, economic recession, a cure for cancer, or anyone of a dozen other issues that occupy our greatest time and attention.

2 2 Nelson important issue faced by mankind is not the threat of nuclear war, economic recession, a cure for cancer, or anyone of a dozen other issues that occupy our greatest time and attention. By far the most important issue revolves around the status of our lifesustaining resource base. In comparison, all other problems are relatively insignificant. The first and most important political reality to acknowledge is that all industrial nations are degrading and dissipating their natural resources. In other words, they are consuming their capital assets, or wealth, and counting it on the profit side of the ledger. The basic riches of a nation are its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty and wildlife habitats. Take these away and all that's left is desert. Unless we change our ways, our legacy will be one ofpollution, poverty and ugliness for this and the next generation. Every business enterprise in history that consumed its capital in pursuit of profits went bankrupt. Sovereign nations are no different. It will just take them longer to get there. Over the past century, industrial forces have destroyed or degraded a significant portion of eons of natural capital accumulation on Earth. Air, river, lake and ocean pollution, soil erosion, depleted aquifers, overdrafted ocean resources, deforestation, destruction of wildlife habitats, and defiled scenic beauty are irrefutable marks of disregard for the environment. If we are going to stop dissipating our resource base, which we certainly must, then three important things must happen during the next three or four decades, beginning soon. First, we must bring together a unified political coalition behind an environmental program which will allow us to create and sustain a viable economy. Next, we must implement a long-term nationwide environmental education effort. Finally, we must insist upon vigorous and imaginative presidential leadership. Indeed, this leadership is not merely important - it is critical, the key to the whole enterprise. The President of the United States must be the catalyst that serves to coalesce the nation behind a positive program of action. No one else can do it. Last year at the economic summit in Paris, President Bush said, 'This summit marked a watershed. We agreed that decisive action is urgently needed to preserve the earth.' Thus far, there has been no decisive action. We haven't even been favored with a speech from the President outlining what 'decisive action' he referred to in his comments at the summit. It is time for the President to define his mission with specifics, and to step out front with a program that squares his rhetoric with activity. I wish to elaborate further on the three fundamental points of my proposition. I stated that we must begin a carefully designed economic-envirommental program with the objective of creating an environmentally sustainable economy. Our fiscal well-being cannot be fueled in perpetuity by consuming our natural resources. We must learn to sustain our growth by living off the interest, so to speak. More directly, we must stop fouling the nest. Surely, that is not an unreasonable goal. Everything that needs to be done to create a sustainable economy is well within our capacity. The only uncertainties are whether we have the vision to recognize the necessity of prompt action and the national will and political leadership to implement such a program. The inevitable question is, 'will such a program be expensive?' The answer is, 'yes it will be expensive in the short run, but very profitable in the long run.' Can we afford it? There is little doubt that we can well afford it, but more important, we cannot afford the alternative. The ultimate economic cost of failure would be immeasurable and the societal result unthinkable.

A clean environment and a prosperous economy 3 The first step on the path to a sustainable economy is the forging of a social compact among all economic, political and social groups in our society,

3 A clean environment and a prosperous economy 3 The first step on the path to a sustainable economy is the forging of a social compact among all economic, political and social groups in our society, including business, labor, agriculture, academia, religion, the general public, and government. Each constituent must understand and agree with the objective, because consent and political support are essential elements in the process. One encouraging observation is that all of the components necessary to form such a compact are existing or are clearly within our immediate future capabilities. Enlightened leaders from every segment of our society recognize that we are dangerously degrading our life-sustaining ecosystem and that only prompt and decisive actions will protect the physical integrity of our planet. This realization is rapidly spreading at the grass roots level, so that hopefully before too long, there will be general consensus to propel dramatic operations taken across the entire spectrum of environmental issues. Of course, that will include modification or discontinuation of meaningless, paltry, and piecemeal attacks on the problem, which are doomed to failure as too little, too late. The second fundamental step is to nurture a 'conservation generation', imbued in heart and mind with a strong conservation ethic that serves to guide its conduct in all matters related to nature and its works. Absent a true cultural conservation ethic, we will continue in the future, as we have in the past, to destroy enduring national resources and landmarks in exchange for a handful of silver and a mortgage on the future. We must foster in our young people more than a vacationer's appreciation of the wilderness. They must have the understanding, vision, and will to preserve habitats of decent quality for wild and human creatures. When experts are asked to list the most serious environmental problems, they nearly unanimously rank at the top of the list the calamitous consequences of exponential human population growth. Even by the most optimistic scenario, world population will increase by 95 million persons every year during this decade, adding a net of one billion persons to the current world population of 5.3 billion. After overpopulation, the list of environmental concerns diversifies, and includes such vital matters as the threat of global warming, ocean pollution, declining bio-diversity, ground water contamination, hazardous waste disposal, and many more. There is, however, a compelling case to be made that lack of a pervasive conservation ethic in our culture ranks alongside population growth as one of the two most important environmental issues. Social, political and economic conduct are powerfully influenced by the customs, ethics, and mores of society. Uninhibited exploitation for profit of every available resource without regard to environmental consequences has been the prevailing ethic of American society since the founding of the Republic. For over two hundred years, we acted upon the false assumptions that our resources were boundless, and that we could dissipate and exploit them for endless extravagance. We have uncritically assumed that limitless quantities of toxic chemicals, hazardous wastes and other pollutants can be safely vented into the air, dumped in the oceans, lakes, marshes, and rivers, and buried underneath the soil because nature will somehow contain or neutralize them. We have never seemed to appreciate or care that nature's capacity to heal is limited and has been exceeded in many regions in dangerous and frightening ways. It is my belief that we can preserve the integrity of our ecosystem if we will be guided by the sensible philosophy within AIdo Leopold's famous essay, The Land Ethic. That ethic includes the total biotic community and the relationship of each part to the others. Man is only one of a multitude of important and interdependent members of that

4 4 Nelson community. Whatever happens to any element of that biotic population has an impact on all others. There are encouraging signs that our society is developing a conservation ethic that will ultimately flower into a powerful social, political and economic force. The sooner the better. Had society previously been guided by a conservation ethic, it would not have fallen into an endless number of costly environmental blunders. We would neither have destroyed half the wetlands in the nation and continued the process to this very day, draining acres annually, nor would we have polluted so hideously our immediate biosphere. Indeed, most of the environmental deterioration we have generated could easily have been avoided, much to the benefit of our economy, if we had been guided in public policy decisions by a conservation ethic. A committed 'conservation generation' is crucial to future political processes through which we will enact legislation necessary to forge an environmentally sustainable economy. For decades to come, many potentially unpopular and difficult decisions will have to be made. To succeed, political leaders will require the cooperation and support of a broad-based public constituency that understands the objectives and willingly supports the measures necessary to achieve stated goals in a reasonable time frame. No political leader can persuade an uninformed and unwilling voter to support an unpopular cause. How do we, finally, raise a conservation generation in the United States? Certainly, we can wait until so many environmental disasters occur that even the dullest among us recognize the need for reform. But by then, it will be too late. This has already happened in many countries where the land has been rendered uninhabitable because of shortsighted economic and environmental decisions. However, it is worthy of note that we have made encouraging headway since Earth Day That event had both political and educational objectives, as did the Earth Day 1990 celebration. Newspaper stories, magazine articles, television programs, and elementary school, high school and college events that accompanied both Earth Day events had tremendous educational impact and sensitized millions to an issue for which they had no previous concern. The Earth Days directed more attention and provided more concentrated education about a single issue over a two month period than did any other theme in our history, excluding war. Thousands of participants in the first Earth Day are now active environmentalists serving in positions of influence across the career spectrum: in education, business, agriculture, labor, religion, and politics. Many other factors have intervened in the past 20 years to produce a better informed and more concerned public. From my extensive travels around the nation during this period, it has become clear to me that a conservation ethic is germinating in our culture and beginning to influence our conduct. The environment has become a public issue, intensively covered by the media. Thousands of local conservation organizations have sprouted at the community level. These groups are monitoring and challenging government decisions which have an environmental impact. All of these activities are manifestations of a rapidly growing ecological concern, evidence of the evolution of an ethical concept respecting our relations with nature. This, certainly, is progress, but we need to pick up the pace. If we are going to succeed in developing our conservation generation soon enough to have a significant impact in the near term, we must initiate a comprehensive nationwide environmental education program in every school system in America. The Governor of each state should have at

A clean environment and a prosperous economy 5 the top of his or her agenda a proposal mandating that environmental education be included in the curriculum for every class from kindergarten through

5 A clean environment and a prosperous economy 5 the top of his or her agenda a proposal mandating that environmental education be included in the curriculum for every class from kindergarten through high school graduation. My state of Wisconsin has mandated such a program, which is being implemented at this time. The third ingredient necessary to the process of forging a sustainable economy is far sighted and bold leadership from this and all future Presidents. Without it, we will continue to lose ground. Only the President has the prestige to step forward and capture the attention of the nation and provide the credibility and sense of urgency necessary to move the nation. We are dealing with a sociological, ecological, and economic challenge unlike any other in our history. It is a contest that begs for the kind of dedicated, inspirational leadership provided by Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in their pursuit of victory during the Second World War. However, rallying the country to sustained performance on this issue will be more difficult than rallying support for the war effort, because the issue is more complicated and the solutions more controversial. During wartime, the threats are clearly visible, serious and immediate. While the environmental threat is widely viewed by the public as very serious, it is less visible and not perceived to have the appropriate quality of urgency. Thus, it is mistakenly believed by many that continued procrastination is a cost free option. This is an issue that demands high priority from the President. It is my suggestion that he present a major message to a joint session of Congress that paints a clear picture of the environmental state of the nation, outlines a program that encompasses the total predicament, and delineates a course of action. One would hope that the country would make the necessary sacrifices and support the national interest if the case were clear and the leadership convincing. The case for action must be overwhelming, but the guiding hand must be offered by the President. Complex and controversial issues that bear upon congressional re-election have historically been difficult to address in any logical, coordinated fashion by the combined Senate and House of Representatives. The President has the ability to make any issue the center of debate. If his agenda is viewed as a plausible approach to a particular goal, he will prevail. The President has said he wants to be an education president. He could offer a tremendous boost to both education and the environment if he would sign the pending Environmental Education Act after it receives congressional approval, and at the same time send a special message to the nation by urging the state Governors to initiate a mandatory environmental education program. This program could be managed at extremely low cost, essentially tax free for both the federal and state governments. Furthermore, it has the potential to become the single most important contribution the government could make to the cause of conservation. The President should recommend that by the year 2000, the fuel consumption fleet average for new cars shall be at least 40 miles per gallon. Because the technology is already available, and since energy preservation must be a critical part of any reasonable conservation effort, there is no point in further delay. In addition to education and a vigorous program of energy conservation, the President's agenda should address a wide spectrum of issues, including programs aimed at significantly reducing air and water pollution, protecting the quality of ground water, abating soil erosion, developing alternative energy sources, preserving bio-diversity, wildlife habitats, wetlands, and scenic beauty, and reforming the US Forest Service's irra-

6 6 Nelson tional program of subsidized timber sales. The list is long and each issue has its own set of partisans. It is up to the President to provide the country with the rationale and the inspiration to rally around his own agenda. During his presidential campaign, President Bush characterized himself as an environmentalist. The country and world require nothing less. Wrenching political decisions with profound social, cultural, and economic implications will be controversial and politically risky. Leadership transcends expedience. If Mr Bush is going to become the conservation President, he will have to resist the advice of a tight circle of anti-environmental White House advisors who are more concerned about the next election than they are about confronting difficult national issues. If the President acts intelligently and moves to address this issue with vigor and creativity, the next election will take care of itself and history will protect the President's reputation. We are at one of those rare points within the time frame of history when a remarkable combination of events coalesce to open a window of opportunity for statespersons with vision and courage. Presidents Bush and Gorbachev need to seize the moment and extend themselves beyond the bland nature of the vague proposals which emanated from their recent conferences. To date, they have passed up opportunities to spell out for the world the truly inspirational goal of massive arms reductions and reallocation of resources to more sensible and productive enterprises. Significant mutual reductions in military expenditures over the next two decades would allow the annual savings to be allocated to husbanding the environment. If this can be agreed upon, then the superpowers should join with NATO and member nations of Middle East alliances to propose equivalent arms reductions worldwide. The stated goal should be nothing less than total demilitarization of the planet. At this late date, we should at least re-affirm our support for the 1961 McCloy-Zorin Agreement between the United States and Soviet Union, endorsed unanimously by the United Nations, which sanctioned the objective of a demilitarized world with no offensive weapons. This is not idealism run amok. Rather, it is plain and simple hard-nosed realism. How much longer are we and the Soviet Union going to lead a world parade that squanders a trillion dollars every year on weapons systems that put us all in greater jeopardy, while we continue to degrade and dissipate the resource base that sustains us? Scientists understand that increased global military power will at some point only diminish national security. In the absence of an unlikely technical solution, it will be left to the good will and collaboration of nations to solve dilemmas of conflict and environmental abandonment. History has demonstrated that nations can recover from lost wars, revolutions, and economic depressions, but that no civilization has demonstrated it could recover from environmental devastation. That, certainly, is too risky to try. With the most noble and dedicated efforts, Mr Bush must exercise his obligation to the American people. In so doing, he will have the opportunity to reside historically as one of our greatest presidents. However, if he cannot or chooses not to grasp this issue and lead the nation, we are in danger of forfeiting our leadership position on the most pressing crisis in the history of mankind. The nation hopes for more than that from President Bush. Whatever else Mr Bush might do in his presidency, if he successfully initiates the battle to preserve the integrity of the planet, he will be remembered as long as history is written.

II1II. ENVIRONMENf POPUIATION SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day Counselor 0/The Wilderness Society

II1II. ENVIRONMENf POPUIATION SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day Counselor 0/The Wilderness Society II1II SILVER ANN1vERs~{. OF EARTH DAY ENVIRONMENf POPUIATION SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? by Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day Counselor 0/The Wilderness Society The Message for