Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist (3 page)

China, with its growing middle class, has established a larger area of new forest in the past 15 years than any other country. India, which is also growing wealthier, has doubled the forested area it had just 20 years ago. Why? Because the emerging middle class wants wood and paper and can afford it, so people have planted trees to provide it, thus increasing forest cover. No doubt government reforestation and conservation programs have also played a strong role in China’s and India’s increasing forest area, but these are contingent on there being enough wealth to support them. This is a win-win scenario for people and the environment, yet activists refuse to recognize this linkage between forest use and forest cover. This is just one example of how the environmental movement has lost its way, and of how it promotes policies that seem reasonable at first glance but are actually detrimental in the long run. Sustainability is all about the long run.

The main purpose of this book is to establish a new approach to environmentalism and to define sustainability as the key to achieving environmental goals. This requires embracing humans as a positive element in evolution rather than viewing us as some kind of mistake. The celebrated Canadian author Farley Mowat has described humans as a “fatally flawed species.” This kind of pessimism may be politically correct today, but it is terribly self-defeating. Short of mass suicide there doesn’t seem to be an appropriate response. I believe we should celebrate our existence and constantly put our minds toward making the world a better place for people and all the other species we share it with.

A lot of environmentalists are stuck in the 1970s and continue to promote a strain of leftish romanticism about idyllic rural village life powered by windmills and solar panels. They idealize poverty, seeing it as a noble way of life, and oppose all large developments. James Cameron, the multimillionaire producer of the most lucrative movie in history,
Avatar
, paints his face and joins the disaffected to protest a hydroelectric dam in the Amazon. Who needs lights and newfangled electric gadgets anyway? So what if hydroelectricity is by far the most important source of
renewable
electricity? These dreamers should look to the example of Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue and leader of the “back to the land” movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Today, in his wisdom, he supports nuclear energy, genetic engineering, and urbanization. He celebrates humanity for its creativity and industrious nature. He is not stuck in the 1970s and neither am I.

By the time you reach the end of this book, I hope you will have a new perspective on the important issues that define environmentalism today.

As you will see, I believe:

We should be growing more trees and using more wood, not cutting fewer trees and using less wood as Greenpeace and its allies contend. Wood is the most important renewable material
and
energy resource.

Those countries that have reserves of potential hydroelectric energy should build the dams required to deliver that energy. There is nothing wrong with creating more lakes in this world.

Nuclear energy is essential for our future energy supply, especially if we wish to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. It has proven to be clean safe, reliable, and cost-effective

Geothermal heat pumps, which too few people know about, are far more important and cost-effective than either solar panels or windmills as a source of renewable energy. They should be required in all new buildings unless there is a good reason to use some other technology for heating, cooling, and making hot water.

The most effective way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is to encourage the development of technologies that require less or no fossil fuels to operate. Electric cars, heat pumps, nuclear and hydroelectric energy, and biofuels are the answer, not cumbersome regulatory systems that stifle economic activity.

Genetic science, including genetic engineering, will improve nutrition and end malnutrition, improve crop yields, reduce the environmental impact of farming, and make people and the environment healthier.

Many activist campaigns designed to make us fear useful chemicals are based on misinformation and unwarranted fear.

Aquaculture, including salmon and shrimp farming, will be one of our most important future sources of healthy food. It will also take pressure off depleted wild fish stocks and will employ millions of people productively.

There is no cause for alarm about climate change. The climate is always changing. Some of the proposed “solutions” would be far worse than any imaginable consequence of global warming, which will likely be mostly positive. Cooling is what we should fear.

Poverty is the worst environmental problem. Wealth and urbanization will stabilize the human population. Agriculture should be mechanized throughout the developing world. Disease and malnutrition can be largely eliminated by the application of modern technology. Health care, sanitation, literacy, and electrification should be provided to everyone.

No whale or dolphin should be killed or captured anywhere, ever. This is one of my few religious beliefs. They are the only species on earth whose brains are larger than ours and it is impossible to kill or capture them humanely.

The book is not meant to be an exhaustive treatment of the issues, nor is it a highly technical work. I have written it for a general audience interested in the wide range of current environmental issues. I have provided references where I think they might be useful for validation or further reading. All the website references can be accessed directly on the Internet by going to www.beattystreetpublishing.com

This is simply my story and my interpretation of the key elements of science and philosophy in the subjects of the environment and sustainability. In particular, I try to “connect the dots” among the main areas of concern: biodiversity, climate change, forests, energy, rivers, lakes and oceans, agriculture, chemicals, and population. This in turn leads to a radically different picture from the one provided by most activist groups today. It is a positive agenda that has the promise to lead to real solutions. This contrasts sharply with the doom-and-gloom predictions, food scares, and guilt trips that now pass for common fare in the media releases from Greenpeace and its allies.

In the following chapters I have done my best to weave the discussion of environmental issues into my 40-year journey as an ecologist and environmental activist. It begins with my early transition from an enthusiastic student of science into a radical environmental activist. After 15 years of campaigning around the world another transition occurred. I went from being a radical activist to a kind of environmental diplomat. As such I seek solutions rather than problems. For 25 years I have worked to define sustainability and to put it into practice, with the same fervor and enthusiasm I displayed during the environmental wars 15 years earlier. I have had the good fortune to spend my entire career thinking about, discussing, and working on the wide range of issues that environmentalism embraces. I hope my effort to impart some of that history and thought will provide new insight into the relationship between ourselves and this beautiful earth we share.

[1]
. I. Amato, The Crusade Against Chlorine, Science, July 9, 1993: 152-154

Chapter 1 -
First Principles

Before beginning my story I want to clarify some terms. Many of the terms used to discuss environmental issues are confusing and mean different things to different people. It is not good enough to declare that something is
green
and
sustainable
or conversely
dirty
and
unsustainable
. The following sections describe as clearly as possible how I use these and other environmental terms as well as clarifying some fundamental concepts and principles in politics, science, and environmentalism. This is certainly not an exhaustive treatment of these concepts, but it will orient the reader to the way I view the world.

Sustainability Defined

It would be five years after I first heard the term
sustainable development
in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1982 before it would come into popular usage. In 1987 the UN World Commission on Environment and Development published
Our Common Future
, also called
The Brundtland Report
after Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway and chair of the Commission. The report called on the world’s nations to adopt sustainable development as a philosophy that aims to balance environmental, social, and economic priorities and objectives. This document was widely quoted and millions of people learned of this new idea for environmentally acceptable development. The document contained the following, often quoted definition: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
[1]

While I appreciate this definition it does not provide even a hint of how to achieve the stated objective. It says
what
but it doesn’t say
how
. Over the years I have developed the following definition as a way of “operationalizing” the term: Sustainable development requires that we continue to obtain the food, energy, and materials necessary for our civilization, and perhaps even increase these resources in developing countries, while at the same time working to reduce our negative impacts on the environment through changes in our behavior (practices) and changes in our technologies.

Many activists will read this and say something like: “No way, man. The more people there are and the more resources they use, the more damage will be done to the environment.” It is commonly believed that our ecological footprint can be measured directly from summing up the amount of resources we consume. This is one of the more dangerous myths in modern environmental thinking.

It is dangerous because it leads people, young people in particular, to give up any hope of saving the environment from an eventual collapse due to overpopulation and overconsumption. I recently spoke to a Grade 11 class at an inner-city school in the Bronx. During question period a young woman asked me matter-of-factly, “How many years will it be until the earth is dead?” She took it for granted that climate change would soon kill us all. This is the saddest thing about the extent to which apocalyptic predictions have taken root in the media, political forums, and among the general public. Many young people feel utterly bleak about their future.

It reminds me of the scene in the movie
Ghostbusters
where Rick Moranis, his body taken over by evil spirits, approaches a horse-drawn carriage near Central Park and confides to the horse that the end is near. As he careens down the street, he screams at the driver, “You will perish in flames!”

Not only is this sort of catastrophe theory dangerous and entirely self-defeating, it is simply not true. The earth has supported life for more than three billion years and is not about to become lifeless anytime soon. Note that leaves still burst out of their buds in spring, flower bulbs still come up in our gardens, birds return from their winter homes, and burrowing animals come out of hibernation.

More importantly, it
is
possible to continue to get the resources we need to survive while at the same time radically reducing our impact on the environment. Take a simple example; turn the light off when you leave the room you are in. This is a behavioral change, a change in practice, yet it can result in a huge difference in the amount of electricity the lightbulb uses. Then swap the incandescent lightbulb for a compact fluorescent bulb, a technological change, and now even when you are in the room with the light on you use less than 25 percent as much electricity as before. And the compact fluorescent bulb lasts up to five times as long, reducing materials use and replacement cost. These two actions—a change in practice and a change in technology— add up to a radical change in our environmental footprint. When light-emitting diodes (LEDs) become more common, it will take even less power to light our world.