The Real Challenges Facing Environmental Groups

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

To the Editor:

I am surprised that The Chronicle printed a column so illogical and misleading as Leslie Lenkowsky’s attack on the environmental movement (“What’s Killing Environmentalism: Moralistic, Overzealous Behavior,” Opinion, March 3).

Mr. Lenkowsky states that “the scientific basis behind global warming [is] questionable,” when in fact there is broad consensus among scientists that global warming is happening and that human activities are the principal cause. He asserts that environmentalists want to limit growth and inhibit economic expansion.

To the contrary, the Sierra Club and other major environmental organizations contend that we can expand our economy and reduce emissions by adopting cleaner energy technologies that are readily available.

Mr. Lenkowsky accuses the environmental movement of abandoning “pragmatic” approaches on well-defined issues and embracing causes such as environmental justice — as if groundwater contamination and toxic oil refineries in low-income communities are not well-defined issues that should concern environmentalists.

Every movement has extremists and true believers, and environmentalism is no different. Mr. Lenkowsky cites the success of the conservative movement without recognizing how important its own extreme wing has been for organizing grass-roots support and giving legitimacy to the conservative “center.”

All movements for change need zealots as well as deal-makers. This unreasoned caricature of environmentalism does a disservice to the complexity of the challenges facing environmentalists and progressive advocates.

Douglas Stewart
Consultant
Fairfax, Va.

To the Editor:

According to former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, President Bush’s first Environmental Protection Agency administrator: “There’s no question but that global warming is a real phenomenon, that it is occurring, and while scientists can’t predict where the droughts will occur, where the flooding will occur precisely or when, we know those things will occur. The science is strong there.”

This view is consistent with the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is a serious problem and that we have it within our power to greatly reduce, if not eliminate, what are likely to be its most catastrophic effects.

This is what makes Leslie Lenkowsky’s opinion piece so puzzling. Mr. Lenkowsky uses “The Death of Environmentalism,” a report written to provoke a serious debate about how to solve the global-warming problem, to advance an altogether different agenda. Rather than dealing seriously with the looming threat, he seems more interested in scoring political points against environmentalists.

We know what we can do when we pull together and apply American know-how and ingenuity to solve the big problems. We also know that we’re not going to solve this without leadership, clarity, and action that transcend ideology. Foundations have an important role to play in supporting new thinking and developing more effective approaches. The time for denial and inaction on global warming is over. Mr. Lenkowsky could perform a service by urging philanthropy to get on with the important work at hand.

Peter Teague
Program Director on the Environment
Nathan Cummings Foundation
New York

To the Editor:

Leslie Lenkowsky’s comments about how environmentalists’ “moralistic, overzealous behavior” has led to a decline in the effectiveness of environmental advocacy in recent years struck a chord for me, one with both dissonant and harmonic overtones.

While the Kyoto Protocol’s weakness is indeed due in part to fuzzy cost estimates, it can no longer be reasonably blamed on questions about the scientific basis of climate change.

Research in the past few years has steadily pointed toward a significant anthropogenic component in the forcing of global warming. Objections raised in the past about both climate models and atmospheric observations have consistently been shown to be either wrong or irrelevant, to the point that comments such as “the scientific basis for global warming [is] questionable” now take the tone of belief in a geocentric universe.

A more powerful argument about the weakness of Kyoto is its ineffectiveness. Even were it to be fully implemented, it would have very little impact on the Earth’s future climate trajectory, as has been shown by a number of climate model projections. Kyoto is more properly viewed as an exercise in international diplomacy, a feel-good measure that, as has been repeatedly emphasized, includes a wide array of economic benefits to developing nations.

But Mr. Lenkowsky’s main theme about the decline of the environmental movement was wonderfully melodic.

In fact, I believe it would be appropriate to make the point even more strongly: To the extent that its public persona is driven by its fringe (the “environmental justice” and “deep ecology” crowds that Mr. Lenkowsky mentions, all of whom are quite effective at garnering publicity), the environmental movement is widely perceived as being misanthropic.

I’m afraid that such positions as the notion that prairie dogs are more important than people are just never going to fly with the general public. Until the movement rediscovers its roots — that we should practice reasoned, responsible stewardship of our planet for future generations — the decline Mr. Lenkowsky discusses seems inevitable.

Howard P. Hanson
Southwest Environmental Research & Education
Santa Fe, N.M.