October 2, 2003 | Read Time: 7 minutes
Human endeavor, says Peter C. Goldmark Jr., can be divided into six realms — the conventional three of government, business, and nonprofit activities, plus religion, the news media, and the criminal underworld.
Mr. Goldmark’s work has taken him into four of those six, and he brings that versatile background to his latest job as director of climate-change programs at Environmental Defense, in New York.
In the nonprofit world, Mr. Goldmark is perhaps best known for the decade he spent at the helm of the Rockefeller Foundation, which gave him insight into the operations of a major American philanthropy. But his other jobs have included directing the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, as well as stints in newspaper management for the Times Mirror Corporation and the International Herald Tribune.
One of the changes he considered instituting at Rockefeller was to require program officers who had been in their jobs a certain number of years to spend a year working at a nonprofit organization to get a better feel for how the world looks to people who are constantly seeking to raise money rather than to give it away. Changing perspectives occasionally, Mr. Goldmark believes, is a good way to avoid falling into a rut.
His new job, Mr. Goldmark says, involves working to get Americans to change their views about climate change, and to take steps to minimize its impact. But achieving such changes will take time. Many social changes — wearing seatbelts, for example, or quitting smoking — unfold gradually over decades, he points out, adding that incremental changes to reduce global warming may occur on a similar time scale.
“It’s possible that the kind of changes we’ll have to make to live in a world which is sustainable will be these multidecade lifestyle changes,” Mr. Goldmark says. “Maybe they won’t happen in sharp dramatic sacrifices, though there will probably be some external jolts that will help us get the point.”
In a recent interview, Mr. Goldmark talked about his new job.
You could have chosen many other areas in which to apply your talents. Why global warming?
I wanted to work in a fairly aggressive entrepreneurial way, which meant for an NGO [nongovernmental organization] of some kind, on one of the handful of large global issues that define our moment in history. I didn’t want to work on a purely national issue. Most of the issues that will determine decisively the kind of world your and my kids and grandchildren will grow up in are in this very challenging supranational realm, and NGOs are well suited to operate there.
Climate change is a complex problem. How does Environmental Defense fit into the picture?
Environmental Defense has been closely identified as a leader on the climate issue for a couple of decades. It’s a serious, fiercely independent, persistent, and entrepreneurial NGO with a very strong record. One of the things it’s been associated with is this whole idea of the issuing of pollution credits. What’s at the bottom of this philosophically is the idea of harnessing market forces to try and do the job that’s required for the global commons, rather than trying to swim upstream against market forces.
Many Americans still have a passionate love affair with sport-utility vehicles and big houses. How great a concern is that to you?
Western civilization, and the United States in particular, is on a road heading toward a cliff. How near are we to the cliff? Very tough to say. Environmental deterioration in several significant dimensions is happening now; it’s no longer, “This might happen” or “That might happen.” It’s happening. Glaciers are melting. Best estimates are that there will be no more glaciers in Latin America in another two decades. We’re a lot closer to the cliff. But is it a cliff with a precipice, or is it a cliff with a little bit of curve? Obviously, various parts of the world will hit it in different ways and at different times.
One of the great adventures of the human experience is, how do you make those adaptations? Since you’re living in a way that basically doesn’t work for the long term, how do you make those changes? We as a species don’t have much experience with that. You can’t look around easily and say, Well, look at how we solved Problem X.
How will this happen? It probably will not happen by Cotton Mather sternly shaking his finger from the pulpit. That is not historically a proven lever of change. Generational change is more successful. It would be interesting to see a poll of under-30-year-olds in the U.S. on what they assume the future will be and what they would accept. Talk to anybody under 30, either in the United States, by and large, or everywhere in Europe. Part of their world view is that we have large environmental problems and that we have to change the way we act in all these areas. A big sea change is happening.
How does your perspective differ now from when you were at Rockefeller?
In 10 years, no one ever came into my office and said, “Goldmark, I saw what you said last month; that was the stupidest thing.” That’s why you don’t want to stay forever in those jobs.
Will you be doing any fund raising?
Yes. If you’re going to be in a tough, lean, aggressive NGO without any significant endowment, like Environmental Defense, you’ve got to raise your own money as you go along. You’ve got to meet your own kind of market test, not in the profit sense but in the sense of the worth of ideas and the soundness of the strategy. I’ve been there a month and a half, and nobody’s shy about telling you when they think you’re wrong.
In that sense, it’s a scrappier, healthier world than the world of the rarefied foundations. I don’t knock foundations, I defend them; they do terribly important work. At the same time, I’m constantly goading them to be more adventurous, because that’s the direction in which you’ve got to push. This is a lean, aggressive NGO; it’s a more lively, competitive, stimulating place. You don’t have to poke your way through the maple syrup in order to get to the arena where the real clash of ideas takes place.
Fred Krupp, your boss, drives a gasoline-electric hybrid car, the Toyota Prius. What do you drive?
We’ve always tried to drive fuel-efficient cars. We considered the Prius, but this job represents quite a financial adjustment, so for the first time we bought a second-hand car, a Volvo. There’s no such thing yet as a second-hand Prius.
ABOUT PETER C. GOLDMARK JR., DIRECTOR OF THE GLOBAL AND REGIONAL AIR PROGRAM AT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE
Education: Earned a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University in 1962.
Previous employment: Has served as Secretary of Human Services for Massachusetts (1971-74), budget director for New York State (1975-77), and executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (1977-85). His decade-long tenure as president of the Rockefeller Foundation (1988-97) was bracketed by management jobs with two newspaper companies: first as senior vice president of the Times Mirror Corporation (1985-88), and most recently as chairman and chief executive of the International Herald Tribune (1998-2002).
Nonprofit affiliations: Serves on the board of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, in Cambridge, Mass.
Other interests: A lifelong runner, Mr. Goldmark also enjoys writing poetry. Together with a friend, he recently finished writing a play called The Trial of Osama bin Laden and is trying to get it produced.
