Earth Day Report Card --We Still Care, Sort of
Experts assess the state of the green movement
Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, April 22, 2000
)2000 San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/04/22/MN82659.DTL

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

An entire generation has grown up since the first Earth Day in 1970 -- an entire generation that has never known civic life without green activism, without corporate slogans professing environmentally friendly intentions, without donnybrooks on both Capitol Hill and the streets over everything from clean air to logging.

While generally committed to environmental protection, Americans are seemingly not too alarmed about the long-term implications of global warming, overpopulation and resource depletion.

A recent Gallup Poll found that more than two-thirds of Americans were sympathetic to the environmental movement, but that the issue ranked behind education, health care, crime, family values and the economy in significance.

So how is the world doing, 30 years after Earth Day One? Some prominent people in the environmental movement and the sciences -- as well as a contrarian -- provide some perspective:

-- DENIS HAYES

Founder of the original Earth Day and president and chief executive officer of the Bullitt Foundation, a $100 million environmental foundation:

What is developing is probably true for all movements. In the early stages, people are easiest to stir up, because that's when they perceive immediate threats to themselves, their children and their neighborhoods.

The conservation movement began a century ago with Teddy Roosevelt, but the modern urban environmental movement started with Rachel Carson and her book, ``Silent Spring.'' About the same time, people in cities realized that they were breathing extremely polluted air and that the rivers they swam and fished in as youths were so polluted they couldn't let their kids near them.

These concerns were all pulled together as a cohesive sense of values that persuaded a broad cross section of Americans of their right to a clean environment.

Today, virtually all Americans believe in the right to a clean environment. When James Watt (the U.S. secretary of the interior under Ronald Reagan) tried to repeal some of these protections, he was body slammed. The same thing happened to Newt Gingrich when he attempted a rollback of environmental regulations.

The threats that are now facing us may not seem as urgent as the threats of 30 years ago, but they have horrific implications.

We are drowning in studies that demonstrate true global warming is occurring. I'm hopeful it can be addressed by the weight of the science and statistics we can bring against it, that we can now move quickly against global warming as we did with CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons, which cause ozone depletion in the stratosphere), which are now banned in the industrial world and undergoing a phased ban in the developing world.

The United States has the wealth and science to deal with this -- if anyone is going to lead the world into this new era, it will have to be us.

-- SYLVIA EARLE

Oceanographer, National Geographic Explorer in Residence, Ambassador for the Sea for the Center for Marine Conservation: Wonderful and terrible things have happened during the past 30 years.

We have learned more of the nature of nature, and our relationship to and our dependence on natural systems.

But at the same time, we have been responsible for the destruction of much of our natural and cultural heritage. . . . So much is being lost so fast. We are facing unprecedented consumption of natural systems that took 4.5 billion years to develop.

Everything we hold near and dear -- our economies, cultures, the future of our kids -- is totally and utterly reliant on maintaining the good health of our environment. Trash our environment, and we trash our future.

I went to a conference of business executives, and someone from DuPont said his company wanted to be responsive to environmental concerns, but that any company that doesn't respect shareholder value doesn't do anyone any good.

I flashed a picture of the Earth, and pointed out that we are all shareholders, and if we don't respect shareholder value, we all lose.

The main problem with the globalization of economy is that industry tends to sink to the lowest common environmental denominator to expedite trade.

The big question is: Can we learn enough to forestall the collapse of our fundamental life support system? At the current rate of destruction, I cringe at what our descendants will say of us 30 years from now.

-- CARL POPE

Executive director, the Sierra Club:

Important things have happened in the last 30 years.

We have made a lot of progress in areas where environmental problems were tangible and visible. The frequency of smog alerts is down dramatically, Lake Erie is a living lake, the Cuyahoga River doesn't catch fire anymore, and blood lead levels in American kids are down 80 percent.

But we are moving in the wrong direction in areas where problems are less tangible.

Emissions of greenhouse gases are up by 10 percent since we signed and ratified a treaty in 1990 saying we would stabilize them. We continue to fragment land and wildlife habitat, so the total number of threatened and endangered species is dramatically higher than in 1970.

Though we banned some persistent organic pollutants such as DDT, we keep inventing new ones so fast that the total level of pernicious toxics is much higher than in 1970.

The environmental debate in this country is over. We want to clean up the environment. We don't want this continent to become a second Europe -- completely tamed. We value its wildness.

We are entering the new millennium trying to figure out how to make our leaders listen to us. They are not there yet -- look at the presidential and congressional resistance to a world trading system that takes the environment into account.

--JOHN McCOSKER

Senior scientist at the California Academy of Sciences and former director of the Steinhart Aquarium:

From observing passing generations in the Academy's museum and aquarium, I'm uplifted. Kids routinely ask questions now that were never even considered 30 years ago. For example, they want to know why we caught the fish for the aquarium. Thirty years ago, their parents would have said the only good shark is a dead shark. Now they want to know if we can let them go. Those are positive signs.

On the other hand, I am very distressed about life on Earth and the rapidity with which it is disappearing.

Malthus was right -- the only thing off was his time line. More and more, we're dipping into the capital of planetary resources.

I'm also distressed that consensus cannot be reached on critical issues. I've witnessed debates over acid rain for the entirety of the past 30 years. You can always find a scientist not in agreement with the majority of his or her peers -- but that is often used as an excuse to do more studies, not act.

I include in my disappointment a man who was once my hero -- Al Gore. Sad to say, he has been unable to fulfill (his earlier) promise.

I can't predict the future, but for species other than our own, life is only getting worse.

I remain unconvinced the planet will be able to satisfy as many people as now exist. Still, if you had talked to me 30 years ago, I would have been even more pessimistic.

-- DAVID BROWER

Former executive director of the Sierra Club, founder of Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters and Earth Island Institute, and pioneering Yosemite rock climber:

I'd like to paraphrase Tom Hayden here: All I've done in my career is slow the rate at which things get worse. Basically, that's all the environmental movement has done during the past 30 years.

Things are just really bad, and we're not handling it at all well in California -- the most populous state, the state which sets an example for the rest of the world.

The devastation is coming awfully fast, and we need to act if we're going to avoid a cataclysm, particularly in California. The San Joaquin Valley is becoming a hotbed of pollution, and we're doing nothing to correct it.

We are killing the state with the automobile. We need to get back to rail, and subsidize it like we do cars.

The population problem is critical, and you don't solve a problem like that by ignoring the cause, blissfully calling for more growth. This is a beautiful place here in the Bay Area, but we are trying to see how fast we can trash it.

I've also been disappointed in (U.S. Secretary of Interior) Bruce Babbitt, who had a great opportunity that he hasn't been able to exploit. I'm very upset about his recent plan for Yosemite. We've been conned: We're not going to save Yosemite by making it easier to get there, and to find less camping, more parking and more expensive hotels when we do get there.

All the projections we have are just that -- projections. These are decisions that have not yet been made. We can't afford the luxury of pessimism. Just because we have been and are down doesn't mean we have to stay down.

-- MARK SAGOFF

Senior research scholar and environmental specialist at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, the University of Maryland:

Aldo Leopold wrote that the one thing we have not yet tried is democracy.

And we haven't. The most important goal is to get along with each other. Democracy can work to solve environmental problems. The opposite is adversarial legalism, in which opposing ideological groups won't talk to each other, and only have their lawyers litigate.

Is air and water pollution bad? Well, compared to what? Manchester, England, when Marx was writing? It's better now.

One great environmental success story is the Quincy Library Group (an ad hoc group that devised a logging plan for three national forests in the Sierra Nevada). The citizens got together and found a way of healing their rift and brought it to their representatives, who enacted it into law.

Science essentially tells us nothing. Environmental problems are mainly political and cultural problems. Science is a way of restating ideology. As such, it has lost self criticism -- that is why scientists march in lockstep with the most absurd notions.

For example, the colonization of San Francisco Bay by ``exotic'' species is considered a catastrophe by scientists. At least 234 of the bay's 400 species are known to be exotic. I ask: Why is the extent of colonization a problem? Exotics fit so well into the ecosystems they inhabit that even scientists have a hard time telling some native species apart from the exotic ones. So is the bay so corrupted it cannot be loved? I don't think so.

Ecosystems don't have an innate structure -- they are just places. You can read as much biological function into the bay now as during (prehistoric) times.

That's why I'm not pessimistic. I would be pessimistic, however, if we appealed to science for moral, political and religious concerns. We must state things in their own terms and not turn to absolutism.

EARTH DAY EVENTS

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio will be in Berkeley this afternoon for Earth Day festivities and communities around the Bay Area will weigh in with their own activities marking the event's 30th anniversary. Here's a sampling of today's Earth Day celebrations around the Bay Area:

--Berkeley Earth Day. Kids' activities, farmers' market, vegetarian food, beer, craft, community booths. Guests include Leonardo DiCaprio and Julia Butterfly Hill. Noon to 5 p.m., Civic Center Park, Allston and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley. Free. (510) 654-6346.

--Marin Earth Day 2000. Featuring live music, eco-themed exhibits, food, arts and crafts and more. Free. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Marin Center, Civic Center Drive., San Rafael (415) 472-6172.

--International Earth Day Celebration. Music by West African Highlife Band, art workshops, Earth Day Fair with demonstrations, activities, food, arts, kids' area. Free. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Civic Center Plaza, San Francisco.

--West Contra Costa County Earth Day Celebration. Musicians, Bungee Jumping Cows and world music by Son de la Tierra, Mien Legends, Richmond BLOCO. Free. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Integrated Resource Facility, 101 Pittsburg Ave., Richmond. (510) 215-3021.

--Earth Day Sunrise Ceremony. Bay Area Action hosts a salute to Mother Earth. A variety of volunteer opportunities at various Peninsula locations, ranging from trail building to spring planting. Free. Baylands Nature Interpretive Center. At the end of Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto (650) 625-1994.

--Strybing Arboretum. Hands-on activities, storytellers, music, garden tour. Free. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, Golden Gate Park. (415) 661-1316, Ext. 314.

--Earth Day Cleanup, 9 a.m. to noon, Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, 1 Marshlands Road, Fremont. (510) 792-0222.

--Mother Earth Celebration. Entertainment by Pablo Cruise, Craig Chaquico and Michael Pritchard. Bay Area Backroads guide Doug McConnell. Films, magicians, face painting, art and more. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Exhibit Hall, Marin County Fairgrounds, Avenue of the Flags off Civic Center Drive. (415) 499-6400.

--Earth Day 2000 Bay Area Action Habitat Restoration Program. Seed planting and cleanup day. Tools, gloves, drinks and snacks provided. Free. 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., El Palo Alto Park, Corner of Alma and Palo Alto Ave. (650) 625-1994.

--San Mateo Coast Earth Fair 2000. Save Our Shores sponsors enviro-booths, hands-on and interactive planting, storytelling and puppet shows, environmental clinics and music. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Venice State Beach in Half Moon Bay. (650) 560-9533.

--California Academy of Sciences. Demonstrations on gardening, growing your own food, recycling, special museum tours, storytelling, animals of the earth program, Dr. Art's Planet Earth Show. 11 a.m. to closing. (415) 750-7145.

CHART:
GALLUP POLL/Environment

-- Are you an environmentalist?

Percent responding yes:

18-29 Years: 37%
30-49 Years: 47%
50-64 Years: 49%
65+ Years: 57%

-- Percentage giving each issue high importance in vote for president.

Extremely to very important:

Education: 89%
Health care: 82%
Crime: 81%
Social Security: 80%
Family Values: 79%
The Economy: 77%
Gun Control: 69%
Environmental Protection: 66%
Tax reduction: 63%
Foreign affairs: 57%
Abortion: 53%
Campaign finance reform: 40%

The poll was conducted by Gallup. The survey of 1,004 adults was conducted between April 3-9, 2000. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Chronicle Graphic

)2000 San Francisco Chronicle Page A1

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000

Answers

Looks like McKosker and Brower still have their spurs. The rest of those guys are getting old and intellectually flabby, as are their institutions. As time goes on, there is less opportunity for or justification to compromise. Paraphrasing Barry Goldwater: "Moderation in defense of Gaia is no virtue. Extremism in saving the Earth no vice."

Look at that list of "what's important" by percentages, and tell me that democracy is going to save us (sorry Aldo, you lived in a different world). Seems like the old farts are the ones most concerned. What about the kids? Those statistics are as demoralizing as anything I've seen.

Want to get more depressed? Check out the latest Tim e Magazine Earthday issue; read the poll results. It appears that Time readers are suicidal. 80% think we will cause our own extinction. The other results are an appalling indictment of the effects of our proselytising.

Sorry to be so glum, but....

My mother says she's glad she's old. She knows. I know more than she does. I wish I were older.

Hallyx

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." --- Aldo Leopold (Sand County Almanac)

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000