Thus began a divergence of opinion about the way forward. I favored a balanced approach that recognized the necessity of factoring the needs of nearly seven billion people into the equation. I believed we could continue to provide the food, energy, and materials required for civilization while at the same time learning to reduce our negative impacts on the environment.
There is an unfortunate tendency among environmental activists to characterize the human species as a negative influence on the earth. We are likened to a malignant cancer that is spreading, threatening to destroy biodiversity, upsetting the balance of nature, causing the collapse of the global ecosystem. The great myth of the movement is that humans are not really part of nature, that we are somehow “unnatural” and apart from the “pure” natural world. For some reason this idea, like original sin, appeals to people who feel guilty about their existence. We are not worthy, they think.
How ironic that a central teaching of ecology is that humans are part of nature and inextricably connected to it along with all other forms of life. In this sense we are no different from a seagull or a starfish or a worm. But somehow the “deep ecologists” have managed to twist things to make us inferior even to worms, as if all other life forms are superior to us. I don’t buy this philosophy of self-loathing.
Since I left Greenpeace, its members, and the majority of the movement, have adopted policy after policy that reflects their antihuman bias, illustrates their rejection of science and technology, and actually increases the risk of harm to people and the environment. They oppose forestry even though it provides our most abundant renewable resource. They have zero tolerance for genetically modified food crops, even though this technology reduces pesticide use and improves nutrition for people who suffer from malnutrition. They continue to oppose nuclear energy, even though it is the best technology to replace fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They campaign against hydroelectric projects despite the fact that hydro is by far the most abundant renewable source of electricity. And they support the vicious and misguided campaign against salmon farming, an industry that produces more than a million tons of heart-friendly food every year.
This divergence in opinion and policy is the result of a single difference of perspective. The extreme environmentalists see humans as the problem, an impediment to salvation, a blight on the landscape. Sensible environmentalists see humans as part of nature and as individuals who are capable of intelligent analysis and decision making and who can learn to integrate themselves into the web of life. The subject of forests and forestry offers a perfect example of this dichotomy.
Anti-forestry activists like those who belong to the Rainforest Action Network argue that we should minimize the number of trees we cut down and hence reduce the amount of wood we use. We are told this will “save” the forests. Indeed, in the absence of humans the forests would do just fine. But there isn’t an absence of humans; there are nearly seven billion of us. We need materials to build our homes, offices, factories, and furniture, and we need farmland to produce food and fiber. It’s not as if we can just stop eating or using resources, it’s a matter of survival. If we decided to reduce our wood consumption, we would automatically increase our consumption of steel, concrete, and other nonrenewable resources. This would require a huge increase in energy consumption, largely from fossil fuels, to manufacture the steel and concrete, adding to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. So on balance, using less wood would result in increased damage to the environment.
Once we accept the existence of nearly seven billion people, the entire equation is altered. Now we want to maximize the use of renewable resources and keep as much land forested as possible. One of the best ways to do this is to use more wood sustainably. In fact, the more wood we use the more trees must be grown to supply the demand and the greater the economic incentive to keep land forested. This is a major reason North America has about the same area of forest today as it did 100 years ago; because we use so much wood, landowners plant trees and keep their land forested in order to supply the demand. It’s not rocket science, but this fundamental economic relationship has managed to escape the attention of many activists, who automatically believe the way to save the forest is to reduce the use of wood.
There certainly are examples of unsustainable forest use, which results in the loss of forests. But these cases have virtually nothing to do with the forest industry and everything to do with poverty. In poor and underdeveloped countries where wood is the primary fuel for cooking and heating, forests have suffered badly. This is the case in many of the drier regions in the tropics, where fuel wood and charcoal production have denuded whole landscapes. Add to this the grazing pressure caused by goats, sheep, and cows and you have an unsustainable situation. In many of the tropical developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the forests are shrinking as hundreds of millions of people cut a patch of forest to plant crops and graze animals just to grow enough food for their family. They don’t have enough wealth to reforest land that is cut for fuel or timber, so the inevitable result is continued deforestation.
But outside of this context of extreme poverty, if people stopped using wood, there would be no incentive for private or public landowners to reforest their land. It would make more sense to get rid of the trees and plant corn, cotton, or soybeans, which are perfectly good crops that can pay the taxes and provide income for the landowners. It is really fortunate the demand for wood is high in North America, as it results in continually reforested landscapes.
It is regrettable that the public has been led to believe deforestation is caused by using wood to build our homes, package our goods, and provide paper for printing, packaging, and sanitation. The forest industries that provide wood for these purposes are, almost without exception, engaged in the practice of reforestation, the opposite of deforestation. In fact, more than 90 per cent of deforestation is caused by the conversion of forests to agriculture. The balance largely results from the unsustainable gathering of fuel wood and illegal logging that is followed by conversion to farming.
Clearly we can’t solve this problem by banning agriculture or the use of wood for cooking and heating. Further on in the book we will analyze this issue more thoroughly, in particular, the role of intensive agriculture and forest management in conserving natural forests and biodiversity.
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 vi
llage 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 recentl
y 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.
Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist Page 2