"Green Myopia" -- Felicity Pace

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Portion below; whole thing here: http://www.counterpunch.org/pace12192008.html

The Democracy Now debate over the appointment of Salazar as Interior Secretary showcased another fundamental division within the environmental community. Representing the environmental establishment, National Audubon explained its support for Salazar as motivated by a desire to preserve “access” to the Secretary. In contrast the Center for Biological Diversity – which is a product of the movement by grassroots environmental activists to create alternatives to the environmental establishment – is critical of Salazar because of his terrible record on public land issues and the Endangered Species Act.

It appears clear that Salazar will not bring the kind of change that environmental activists would like to see at Interior. The environmental establishment’s support for the appointment, therefore, speaks volumes about that establishment’s low expectations, overly close identification with the Democratic Party and myopic fixation on “maintaining access”.

The environmental establishment’s support for Vilsak and Salizar also reveals a much more fundamental problem: their lack of interest in making common cause with progressive movements. The need for alliances of environmental groups and other progressive movements has been emphasized recently in the writings of one of the movement’s most distinguished elders – Gus Speth. Now the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Speth is a founder of NRDC and was head of the Council on Environmental Quality during the Carter Administration.

Writing this October in the Nation, Gus Speth notes that “the environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to deteriorate.” Speth finds the cause of the deterioration in “modern capitalism” which he says not only degrades the environment but degrades society and democracy at the same time. In response to this “inherently ruthless, rapacious system,” Gus Speth finds “the best hope for change” in “a fusion of those concerned about the environment, social justice and strong democracy into one powerful progressive force.” Speth also tells us that “this fusion must occur before it is too late.”

If Gus Speth’s prescription for saving the planet and democracy had been applied to efforts to influence the Agriculture and Interior appointments we would not see the environmental establishment represented by National Audubon taking a position which isolates it not only from progressive agriculture but also from the environmental movement’s own grassroots. Instead we would have seen those who want to save the environment, small, organic agriculture and democracy united in support of truly progressive candidates.

So what can be done to change the current myopia of the environmental establishment, to get the big environmental groups to embrace and prioritize “a fusion of those concerned about the environment, social justice and strong democracy into one powerful progressive force”?

There are no easy answers. For one thing we need to be careful that in seeking to reform the environmental establishment we do not destroy institutions whose work in the trenches in Washington DC and state capitals across the country needs to continue. With all their problems the national environmental establishment continues to do good work on a myriad of specific issues. Rather than destroy the environmental establishment we need to radically reform it. How can this be accomplished?

Perhaps the environmental movements own grassroots can show the way. If groups like the Center for Biological Diversity, for example, were to forge strong alliances with other progressive movements – with the peace, justice, democracy, sustainable agriculture movements – the big national groups, the environmental establishment, might wake up and take notice. And if the foundations which fund the environmental establishment began shifting funding to such progressive alliances, then the establishment would not only take notice but would begin to change.