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C o r e C a s e s t u d y

Politics, Environment, and Sustainability

Denis Hayes—A Practical Environmental Visionary As a college student, Denis Hayes (Figure 24-1) took some time to explore the world on foot. He had studied ecology and politi-cal science in college, and one day he grabbed his backpack, filled it with books, and started traveling to see “what was actu-ally going on” in the countries he had studied.

One night while hitch-hiking in Africa, he rested on a hill-side and started to put together what he had learned and what he had seen. He thought about how the principles of ecology apply to everything from amoeba to orangutans. Sometime shortly after that, Hayes decided to spend his life figuring out how human societies could benefit from organizing themselves around ecological principles. He has said:“Pretty much from birth, I had an awareness of that awesome natural beauty being torn apart by industrial processes.”

Denis Hayes is currently president and CEO of The Bullitt Foundation of Seattle, Washington (USA). The foundation seeks to deal with key environmental problems in the U.S. Pacific Northwest by focusing on urban ecological issues and on restor-ing and protecting ecosystem services in the surrounding envi-ronment. It also seeks to harness the entrepreneurial power of business to create competitive industries that are based on eco-

logical principles and sustainable technologies. Hayes’s goal is to use the resources of the foundation to help make the U.S. Pacific Northwest a global model for more sustainable development.

At age 25, Hayes was enrolled in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA), at the same time that Senator Gaylord Nelson of the state of Wisconsin was organizing environmental teach-ins on college campuses. Hayes approached Nelson about organizing such an event at Harvard, and later the senator asked Hayes to organize an event for the whole country.

What started out as a plan for a number of teach-ins became Earth Day—April 22, 1970—thought of by many analysts as the beginnning of the modern environmental movement. That day involved teach-ins and much more—thousands of public dem-onstrations focused on pollution, toxic waste, nuclear power, coal mining, lead contamination, and other urgent environmen-tal issues. More than 20 million people took part. Later, Hayes worked on building the Earth Day Network, which now includes more than 180 nations. As a result, each year, Earth Day is now celebrated globally.

Hayes has held an incredible variety of important environ-mental positions. Since the first Earth Day, he has worked as an environmental lobbyist, a member of an interdisciplinary research organization, a researcher for the Worldwatch Institute, the head of the U.S. Solar Energy Research Institute, a professor of energy and resource studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and director of the Illinois State Energy Office. He helped to found Green Seal, one of the most respected eco-labeling programs, and has won many national and international awards (Figure 24-1).

In terms of lessons learned, Hayes has this to say about one of the most important ones: “Democracy works when people are paying attention to the facts. . . . Earth Day, once we got people to focus their attention on the issues, produced a tidal wave of public support for smart, cost-effective legislation that dramati-cally improved the environment.” Denis Hayes is a person who has made, and is still making, a difference.

In this chapter, we look at how politics can have harmful and beneficial effects on the environment. We examine how politics and environmental science interact. And we consider how any and all of us can make a difference by becoming involved in these processes.

24

Figure 24-1 Denis Hayes has focused his energy on helping people to pay more attention to ecological principles in deciding what policies they support and in taking political action to support sustainability. He has received numerous awards, including the Jefferson Medal for Outstand-ing Public Service and the highest awards given by the Sierra Club, the Humane Society of the United States, and the Global Environmental Facility of the World Bank. In 2008, the Audubon Society listed him as one of the 100 Environmental Heroes of the Twentieth Century.

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Key Questions and Concepts

24-1 What is the role of government in making the transition to more sustainable societies?ConCept 24-1 Through its policies, a government can help to protect environmental and public interests, and to encourage more environmentally sustainable economic development.

24-2 How is environmental policy made?ConCept 24-2A Policy making involves enacting laws, funding programs, writing rules, and enforcing those rules with government oversight—a complex process that is affected at each stage by political processes.

ConCept 24-2B Individuals can work together to become part of political processes that influence how environmental policies are made and whether or not they succeed. (Individuals matter.)

24-3 What is the role of environmental law in dealing with environmental problems?ConCept 24-3 We can use environmental laws and regulations to help control pollution, set safety standards, encourage resource conservation, and protect species and ecosystems.

24-4 What are the major roles of environmental groups?ConCept 24-4 Grassroots groups are growing and combining their efforts with those of large environmental organizations in a global sustainability movement.

24-5 How can we improve global environmental security?ConCept 24-5 Environmental security is necessary for economic security and is at least as important as national security.

24-6 How can we implement more sustainable and just environmental policies? ConCept 24-6 Making the transition to more sustainable societies will require that nations and groups within nations cooperate and make the political commitment to achieve this transition.

Note: Supplements 2 (p. S3), 3 (p. S6), and 8 (p. S30) can be used with this chapter.

You see things, and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”

GEorGE BErnArD SHAw

24-1 What Is the Role of Government in Making the Transition to More Sustainable Societies?

ConCept 24-1 through its policies, a government can help to protect environmental and public interests, and to encourage more environmentally sustainable economic development.

Government Can Serve Environmental and Other Public InterestsBusiness and industry thrive on change and innovations that lead to new technologies, products, and opportu-nities for profits. This process, often referred to as free enterprise, can lead to higher living standards for many people, but it can also create harmful impacts on other people and on the environment.

Government on the other hand, especially demo-cratic government working in the interest of the pub-lic, can act as a brake on business enterprises that might

result in harm to people or to the environment. Achiev-ing the right balance between free enterprise and gov-ernment regulation is not easy. Too much government intervention can strangle enterprise and innovation. Too little can lead to environmental degradation and social injustices, and even to a weakening of the government by business interests and global trade policies. Explore More: See a Case Study at www.cengage.com/login to learn about global trade and the environment.

Analysts point out that in today’s global economy, some multinational corporations, which often have budgets larger than the budgets of many countries, have greatly increased their economic and political power

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over national, state, and local governments, and ordi-nary citizens. However, businesses can also serve envi-ronmental and public interests. Green businesses create products and services that help to sustain or improve environmental quality while improving people’s lives. They make up one of the world’s fastest growing busi-ness sectors and are an increasing source of new jobs.

Many argue that government is the best mecha-nism for dealing with some of the broader economic and political issues we face, some of which we have dis-cussed in this book. These include:

• Full-cost pricing (see Chapter 23, pp. 622–623): gov-ernments can provide subsidies and levy taxes that have the effect of adding harmful environmental and health costs to the market prices of some goods and services.

• Market failures (see Chapter 23, p. 616): govern-ments can use taxes and subsidies to level the play-ing field wherever the marketplace is not operat-ing freely due to unfair advantages held by some players.

• The tragedy of the commons: government is the only power that can preserve common or open-access renewable resources (see Chapter 1, p. 15) such as

clean air and groundwater, and the ozone layer in the stratosphere. This is also the case in a cap-and-trade market approach to solving a problem such as air pollution (see Chapter 18, pp. 486–487), because government oversight is necessary to administer such a program.

The roles played by a government are determined by its policies—the set of laws and regulations it enacts and enforces, and the programs it funds (Concept 24-1). Politics is the process by which individuals and groups try to influence or control the policies and actions of governments at local, state, national, and international levels. One important application of this process is the development of environmental policy—environmen-tal laws and regulations that are designed, implemented, and enforced, and environmental programs that are funded by one or more government agencies.

According to social scientists, the development of public policy in democracies often goes through a pol-icy life cycle consisting of four stages illustrated in Fig- ure 24-2. This figure also shows the general positions of some major environmental problems in the policy life cycle in the United States and most other more-developed countries.

Figure 24-2 This diagram illustrates the policy life cycle, including the positions of some major environmental problems within the cycle in the United States and most of the world’s other more-developed countries. (The posi-tions of some problems vary by country. This is a snapshot of a typical set of problems.) The four stages are recogni-tion (identify a problem); formulation (identify specific causes of the problem and develop a solution such as a law or program to help deal with it); implementation (put the solution into effect); and control (monitor progress and make adaptations as needed). Note that many of the problems listed have not made it through all four phases.

FormulationLook for solutions

Climate change

Urban sprawl

Nuclear wastes

Biodiversity losses

Toxic wastes

Aquifer depletion

ControlMonitor and adjust

Outdoor air pollution

Sewage treatment problems

Drinking water pollution

Point-source water pollution

Municipal solid waste

Some infectious diseases

RecognitionIdentify the problem

Nonpoint-source water pollution

Indoor air pollution

Electronic waste

Mining wastes

Groundwater contamination

Environmentally harmful subsidies

Exclusion of environmentally harmful costs from market prices

ImplementationImplement solutions

Acid deposition

Ozone depletion

Municipal solid waste

Endangered species

Pest damage

Soil erosion

ConCept24-1 639

640 CHAPtEr 24 Politics, Environment, and Sustainability

The policy process is usually cyclical, because in the fourth stage, control, a policy is evaluated according to feedback from the market or environment. Seldom is everyone happy with a policy, and usually, adjustments have to be made or a policy might even have to be abandoned, and the process starts again. Ideally, policies are revised and fine-tuned until they succeed in serving all or most of the affected parties in a reasonably bal-anced way. The most difficult problem is getting a policy to the control phase.

Democracy Does Not Always Allow for Quick Solutions Democracy is government by the people through elected officials and representatives. In a constitutional democracy, a constitution (a document recording the rights of citizens and the laws by which a government functions) provides the basis of government authority and, in most cases, limits government power by man-dating free elections and guaranteeing the right of free speech.

Political institutions in most constitutional democra-cies are designed to allow gradual change that ensures economic and political stability. In the United States, for example, rapid and destabilizing change is curbed by a system of checks and balances that distributes power among three branches of government—legislative, execu-tive, and judicial—and among federal, state, and local governments.

In passing laws, developing budgets, and formulating regulations, elected and appointed government officials must deal with pressure from many competing special-interest groups. Each of these groups advocates passing laws, providing subsidies or tax breaks, or establishing regulations favorable to its cause, while attempting to weaken or repeal laws, subsidies, tax breaks, and regu-lations unfavorable to its position. Some special-interest groups such as corporations are profit-making organiza-tions. Others are nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), most of which are nonprofit, such as labor unions and environmental organizations.

The design for stability and gradual change in democracies is highly desirable. But several features of democratic governments hinder their ability to deal with environmental problems. For example, problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss are com-plex and difficult to understand. Such problems also have long-lasting effects, are interrelated, and require integrated, long-term solutions that emphasize preven-tion. But because local, state, and national elections are held as often as every 2 years, most politicians spend much of their time seeking reelection and tend to focus on short-term, isolated issues rather than on long-term, complex, and time-consuming problems.

One of our greatest challenges is to place more emphasis on long-term thinking and policies and to

educate political leaders and the public about the need for long-range thinking and actions. Another problem is that many political leaders, with hundreds of issues to deal with, have too little understanding of how the earth’s natural systems work and how those systems support all life, economies, and societies. Again, there is an urgent need to educate politicians and voters about these vital matters.

Certain Principles Can Guide Us in Making Environmental Policy Analysts suggest that when evaluating existing or pro-posed environmental policies, legislators and individuals should be guided by seven principles designed to mini-mize environmental harm:

• The humility principle: Our understanding of nature and how our actions affect nature is quite limited.

• The reversibility principle: Try not to make a decision that cannot be reversed later if the decision turns out to be wrong. For example, two essentially irreversible actions affecting the environment are the production of indestructible hazardous and toxic waste in coal-burning power plants (see Chapter 15, Case Study, p. 384), which we must try to store safely and essentially forever; and production of deadly radioactive wastes through the nuclear power fuel cycle, which must be stored safely for 10,000–240,000 years (see Chap- ter 15, p. 391). A possible third such irreversible action in the making is the capturing and storing of carbon dioxide underground or under the ocean to help slow projected climate change, which commits us to trying to ensure that these deposits will never leak out (see Chapter 19, Science Focus, p. 515).

• The net energy principle: Do not encourage the wide-spread use of energy alternatives or technologies with low net-energy yields (see Chapter 15, Science Focus, pp. 372–373), which cannot compete in the open marketplace without government subsi-dies. Examples of energy alternatives with fairly low or negative net energy yields include nuclear power (considering the whole fuel cycle), tar sands, and shale oil, as discussed in Chapter 15, and hydrogen and ethanol made from corn, as discussed in Chapter 16.

• The precautionary principle: When substantial evi-dence indicates that an activity threatens human health or the environment, take precautionary measures to prevent or reduce such harm, even if some of the cause-and-effect relationships are not well established, scientifically.

• The prevention principle: Whenever possible, make decisions that help to prevent a problem from occurring or becoming worse.

• The polluter-pays principle: Develop regulations and use economic tools such as green taxes to ensure that polluters bear the costs of dealing with the pol-lutants and wastes they produce. This is an impor-tant way to include some of the harmful environ-mental and health effects of goods and services in their market prices (full-cost pricing).

• The environmental justice principle: Establish environ-mental policy so that no group of people bears an unfair share of the burden created by pollution, environmental degradation, or the execution of environmental laws. (See the Guest Essay on this subject by Robert D. Bullard at CengageNOW.)

Implementing such principles is not easy and will require that policy makers throughout the world, espe-cially in more-developed countries, become more envi-ronmentally literate, based on the latest scientific infor-mation about environmental problems and possible solutions to them.

thinking about environmental Political Principles

Which three of the seven principles listed here do you think are the most important? Why? Which ones do you think influence legislators in your city, state, or country?

24-2 How Is Environmental Policy Made?

ConCept 24-2A Policy making involves enacting laws, funding programs, writing rules, and enforcing those rules with government oversight—a complex process that is affected at each stage by political processes.

ConCept 24-2B individuals can work together to become part of political processes that influence how environmental policies are made and whether or not they succeed. (Individuals matter.)

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How Democratic Government Works: The U.S. ModelThe U.S. federal government consists of three separate but interconnected branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislative branch, called the Congress, con-sists of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which jointly have two main duties. One is to approve and oversee government policy by passing laws that establish a government agency or instruct an existing agency to take on new tasks or programs. The other is to oversee the functioning and funding of agencies in the executive branch concerned with carrying out gov-ernment policies.

The executive branch consists of the president and a staff who oversee the agencies authorized by Congress to carry out government policies. The president pro-poses annual budgets, legislation, and appointees for executive positions, which must be approved by Con-gress. The president also tries to persuade Congress and the public to support executive policy proposals. Citi-zens use the ballot box to elect the president and vice-president in the executive branch and members of Con-gress in the legislative branch.

The judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts. These courts, along with state and local courts, enforce and interpret different laws passed by legislative bodies in terms of their adherence to the rights and responsibilities of government and citizens as established by the U.S. Constitution. Deci-

sions made by the various courts make up a body of law known as case law. Previous court rulings are used as legal guidelines, or precedents, to help make new legal decisions and rulings. Judges at the federal level are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, and judges at state and local levels of government are variously appointed by executives or elected by voters.

The major function of the federal government in the United States (and in other democratic countries) is to develop and implement policies for dealing with various issues. Policy is typically composed of laws passed by the legislative branch, regulations instituted by the agencies of the executive branch to put laws and programs into effect, and funding approved by Congress and the presi-dent to finance the executive agencies’ programs and to implement and enforce the laws and regulations (Con-cept 24-2a).

Converting a bill introduced in the U.S. Congress into a law is a complex process. An important factor in this process is lobbying, in which individuals or groups contact legislators in person, or hire lobbyists (represen-tatives) to do so, in order to persuade legislators to vote or act in their favor. The opportunity to lobby elected representatives is an important right for everyone in a democracy. However, some critics of the American sys-tem believe lobbyists of large corporations and other organizations have grown too powerful and that their influence overshadows the input that legislators get from ordinary citizens.

ConCEPtS 24-2A AnD 24-2B 641


Data from the U.S. Senate Office of Public Records showed that in 2009, more than 13,700 registered cor-porate lobbyists spent $3.49 billion on efforts to influ-ence the 538 members of the U.S. Congress—an aver-age of $6.5 million per member. Corporations are the source of billions of dollars used to finance election campaigns. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations can spend as much money as they want on ads for or against specific candidates running for election. Figure 24-3 presents a simplified overview of how individuals and lobbyists interact with the three branches of government in the United States.

Most environmental bills are evaluated by as many as ten committees in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Effective proposals often are weakened by this fragmentation and by lobbying from groups opposing these laws. Nonetheless, since the 1970s, a number of important environmental laws have been passed in the United States, as discussed throughout this text. Figure 24-4 lists some of the major environ-mental laws passed in the United States since 1969. Explore More: Go to a www.cengage.com/login to see a series of timelines that describe some of the key events in U.S. environmental history.

Figure 24-3 This is a greatly simplified overview of how individuals, corporations, and environmental organizations interact with each other and with the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the U.S. government. The bottom of this diagram also shows some ways in which individuals can bring about environmental change through their own lifestyles. (See the website for this book for details on contacting elected representatives.)

Membershipsupport

Corporations andsmall businesses

Purchase recyclable,recycled, and environmentallysafe products

Reuse andrecycle variousitems

Plant anorganicgarden

Donate clothesand used goodsto charities

Use water, energy,and otherresources efficiently

Walk, ride a bike,or use a carpool or mass transit

Courts

Environmentalorganizations

Legislative branch

Patronize orboycott

Laws

Executive branch

Lobbyists Lobbyists

Individuals

Regulators

Public hearing

Civil suits

Developing Environmental Policy Is a Controversial Process In the United States, passing a law is not enough to make policy (Concept 24-2a). The next step involves trying to get Congress to appropriate enough funds to implement and enforce each law. Indeed, developing and adopting a budget to finance government agencies,

the programs for which they are responsible, and the enforcement of laws and regulations within those pro-grams is the most important and controversial activity of the executive and legislative branches.

Once Congress has passed a law and funded a program, the appropriate government department or agency must draw up regulations for implementing it. A group affected by the program and its regulations may take the agency to court for failing to implement and enforce the regulations effectively or for enforcing them too rigidly.

Businesses facing environmental regulations often put political pressure on regulatory agencies and execu-tives to appoint people from the regulated industries or groups to high positions within the agencies. In other words, the regulated try to take over the regulatory agencies and become the regulators—described by some as “putting foxes in charge of the henhouse.”

In addition, people in regulatory agencies work closely with officials in the industries they are regu-lating, often developing friendships with them. Some industries and other regulated groups offer high-paying jobs to regulatory agency employees in an attempt to influence their regulatory decisions.

Environmental science should play a major role in the formulation of environmental policy, according to many analysts. However, politics usually plays a bigger role, and the scientific and political processes are quite different (Science Focus, p. 644).

■ Case study

Managing Public Lands in the United States—Politics in ActionNo nation has set aside as much of its land for public use, resource extraction, enjoyment, and wildlife habitat as has the United States. The federal government man-ages roughly 35% of the country’s land, which belongs to every American. About three-fourths of this federal public land is in Alaska and another fifth is in the west-ern states (Figure 24-5, p. 645).

Some federal public lands are used for many differ-ent purposes. For example, the National Forest System consists of 155 national forests and 22 national grass-lands. These lands, managed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), are used for logging, mining, livestock grazing, farming, oil and gas extraction, recreation, and conser-vation of watershed, soil, and wildlife resources.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages large areas of land—40% of all land managed by the federal government and 13% of the total U.S. land sur-face—mostly in the western states and Alaska. These lands are used primarily for mining, oil and gas extrac-tion, logging, and livestock grazing.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) man-ages 549 national wildlife refuges (Figure 9-21, p. 211). Most refuges protect habitats and breeding areas for

Figure 24-4 These are some of the major environmental laws and their amended versions enacted in the United States since 1969. No major new environmental laws have been passed since the 1970s.

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

Clean Air Act

Endangered Species Act

Safe Drinking Water Act

Superfund law; National Energy Act Amendments;Coastal Zone Management Act Amendments

Soil and Water Conservation Act; Clean Water Act;Clean Air Act Amendments

Clean Air Act Amendments; Reauthorization of Superfund;Waste Reduction Act

Clean Water Act Amendments

National Energy Act

Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments to RCRA;Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments

Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments

Endangered Species Act Amendments


Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization

Energy Policy Act


Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and RodenticideAct Amendments; Endangered Species Act Amendments

Clean Water Act; Coastal Zone Management Act;Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act;Marine Mammal Protection Act

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); ToxicSubstances Control Act; National Forest Management Act

ConCEPtS 24-2A AnD 24-2B 643


waterfowl and big game to provide a harvestable supply of these species for hunters. Permitted activities in most refuges include hunting, trapping, fishing, oil and gas development, mining, logging, grazing, some military activities, and farming.

The uses of some other public lands are more restricted. The National Park System, managed by the National Park Service (NPS), includes 58 major parks (Figure 7-16, p. 163, Figure 10-22, p. 237, and Fig- ure 24-6) and 331 national recreation areas, monu-ments, memorials, battlefields, historic sites, trails, sea-shores, and lakeshores. Only camping, hiking, sport fishing, and boating can take place in the national parks, whereas sport hunting, mining, and oil and gas drilling are allowed in national recreation areas.

The most restricted public lands are 702 roadless areas that make up the National Wilderness Preservation System. These areas lie within the other public lands and are managed by the agencies in charge of those lands. Most of these areas are open only for recreational activ-

ities such as hiking, sport fishing, camping, and nonmo-torized boating.

Many federal public lands contain valuable oil, natu-ral gas, coal, geothermal, timber, and mineral resources (see Figure 18, p. S49, in Supplement 8). The appro-priate use and management of the resources on these lands has been debated since the 1800s.

Most conservation biologists and environmental economists and many free-market economists believe that four principles should govern the use of public lands:

1. They should be used primarily for protecting bio-diversity, wildlife habitats, and ecosystems.

2. No one should receive government subsidies or tax breaks for using or extracting resources on public lands.

3. The American people deserve fair compensation for the use of their property.

SCIenCe FoCUSScience and Politics—Principles and Procedures

of secrecy, disinformation, and character assassination to discredit reliable scientific research and the scientists conducting it (see Individuals Matter, p. 522). People have learned how to spread disinformation quickly in this media age of almost instant global news coverage, text messaging, and Internet blogs and videos. These tactics have been effective and have set back the use of valid scientific research (see Science Focus, p. 511).

While the Internet allows almost anyone to quickly spread disinformation, it also allows almost anyone to check the validity of much information and to detect and publicize lies and distortions. Learning how to detect and evaluate disinformation is one of the most important purposes of education. In this book, we work hard to show that most envi-ronmental problems have many sides and that any proposed solution has advantages and disadvantages. The question we each need to ask and think about is whether the advantages of any course of action outweigh its disadvantages and vice versa. This is no easy task, and it requires an open mind and critical thinking.

Critical thinkingGive two examples of widely accepted results of scientific research that have been politicized to the point where they are largely doubted or ignored by the public.

The rules of inquiry and debate in science and politics are quite different. Science is

based on a set of principles designed to make scientific investigations completely open to critical review and testing. Four such prin-ciples are:

1. Any scientific claim must be based on hard evidence and subject to peer review. This helps to prevent scientists from lying about procedures or falsifying evidence.

2. Scientists can never establish absolute proof about anything. Instead, they seek to establish a high degree of certainty about the results of their research.

3. Scientists vigorously debate the validity of scientific research. Such debates focus on the scientific evidence and results, not on personalities involved.

4. Science advances through the open shar-ing and peer review of research methods, results, and conclusions. There are two exceptions to this: first, some scientists who own or work for companies need to protect their research until legal patents can be obtained. Second, government scientists whose work involves national security often keep their research secret.

In politics, on the other hand, there are no such established and respected principles. In order to win elections and gain influence, politicians use unwritten rules that change frequently. While many politicians would like

to base their decisions and actions on facts, others suggest that what matters more than facts is how the public perceives what they do and say. This makes the political process far less open to review and criticism than any scientific process is.

Without such openness, the political pro-cess has often come to involve tactics that most scientists would reject. For example, some politicians pick and choose facts to support a claim that is not supported by the whole of a body of evidence. They then repeat such a claim over and over until it becomes part of the news media cycle. If this misuse of evidence is not exposed, as it usu-ally is in science, these unsupported claims can become accepted as truth.

Another political tactic that often goes unchallenged is to change a debate about facts to a discussion focused on personal attacks. Such a tactic is meant to make one’s opponents look weak and it helps a politi-cian to avoid serious discussion of issues. In scientific debate, such a shift away from a fact-based discussion is not tolerated by most participants.

Unfortunately, in the process, due to the lack of openness and peer review, these tac-tics have helped some groups to gain political or economic advantages. Representatives of industries whose profits might be reduced by government regulation of their harmful environmental activities have used tactics

4. Allusersorextractorsofresourcesonpubliclandsshouldbefullyresponsibleforanyenvironmentaldamagetheycause.

There is strong and effective opposition to theseideas. Developers, numerous neoclassical economists,andmanycitizenstendtoviewpubliclandsintermsoftheirusefulnessinprovidingmineral,timber,andotherresources.Theyhavesucceededinblockingimplemen-tationofthefourprinciples listedabove.Forexample,analyses of budgets and appropriations reveal that inrecentyears, thegovernmenthas givenanaverageof$1 billion a year—more than $2.7 million a day—insubsidies and tax breaks to privately owned interests

thatusepublic lands formining, fossil fuelextraction,logging,andgrazing.

Some developers and resource extractors havesoughttogofarther.Herearefiveoftheproposalsthatsuch interests have made to get the U.S. Congress toopenupmorefederallandsfordevelopment:

1. Sellpubliclandsortheirresourcestocorporationsorindividuals,usuallyatproposedpricesthatarelessthanmarketvalue,orturnovertheirmanage-menttostateandlocalgovernments.

2. Slashfederalfundingforadministrationofregula-tionsoverpubliclands.

National forests

National wildlife refuges

National parks and preserves

Figure 24-5 Natural capital: This map shows the national forests, parks, and wildlife refuges managed by the U.S. federal govern-ment. These and other public lands are jointly owned by U.S. citizens. Questions: Do you think U.S. citizens should jointly own more or less of the nation’s land? Why or why not? (Data from U.S. Geological Survey)

ConCepts24-2aand24-2b 645

SCIENCE FOCUSScience and Politics—Principles and Procedures

of secrecy, disinformation, and character assassination to discredit reliable scientific research and the scientists conducting it (see Individuals Matter, p. 522). People have learned how to spread disinformation quickly in this media age of almost instant global news coverage, text messaging, and Internet blogs and videos. These tactics have been effective and have set back the use of valid scientific research (see Science Focus, p. 511).

While the Internet allows almost anyone to quickly spread disinformation, it also allows almost anyone to check the validity of much information and to detect and publicize lies and distortions. Learning how to detect and evaluate disinformation is one of the most important purposes of education. In this book, we work hard to show that most envi-ronmental problems have many sides and that any proposed solution has advantages and disadvantages. The question we each need to ask and think about is whether the advantages of any course of action outweigh its disadvantages and vice versa. This is no easy task, and it requires an open mind and critical thinking.

Critical ThinkingGive two examples of widely accepted results of scientific research that have been politicized to the point where they are largely doubted or ignored by the public.

The rules of inquiry and debate in science and politics are quite different. Science is

based on a set of principles designed to make scientific investigations completely open to critical review and testing. Four such prin-ciples are:

1. Any scientific claim must be based on hard evidence and subject to peer review. This helps to prevent scientists from lying about procedures or falsifying evidence.

2. Scientists can never establish absolute proof about anything. Instead, they seek to establish a high degree of certainty about the results of their research.

3. Scientists vigorously debate the validity of scientific research. Such debates focus on the scientific evidence and results, not on personalities involved.

4. Science advances through the open shar-ing and peer review of research methods, results, and conclusions. There are two exceptions to this: first, some scientists who own or work for companies need to protect their research until legal patents can be obtained. Second, government scientists whose work involves national security often keep their research secret.

In politics, on the other hand, there are no such established and respected principles. In order to win elections and gain influence, politicians use unwritten rules that change frequently. While many politicians would like

to base their decisions and actions on facts, others suggest that what matters more than facts is how the public perceives what they do and say. This makes the political process far less open to review and criticism than any scientific process is.

Without such openness, the political pro-cess has often come to involve tactics that most scientists would reject. For example, some politicians pick and choose facts to support a claim that is not supported by the whole of a body of evidence. They then repeat such a claim over and over until it becomes part of the news media cycle. If this misuse of evidence is not exposed, as it usu-ally is in science, these unsupported claims can become accepted as truth.

Another political tactic that often goes unchallenged is to change a debate about facts to a discussion focused on personal attacks. Such a tactic is meant to make one’s opponents look weak and it helps a politi-cian to avoid serious discussion of issues. In scientific debate, such a shift away from a fact-based discussion is not tolerated by most participants.

Unfortunately, in the process, due to the lack of openness and peer review, these tac-tics have helped some groups to gain political or economic advantages. Representatives of industries whose profits might be reduced by government regulation of their harmful environmental activities have used tactics


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3. Cut old-growth forests in the national forests for timber and for making biofuels, and replace them with tree plantations to be harvested for the same purposes.

4. Open national parks, national wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas to oil drilling, mining, off-road vehicles, and commercial development.

5. Eliminate or take regulatory control away from the National Park Service and launch a 20-year construction program in the parks to build new concessions and theme parks that will be run by private firms.

Between 2002 and 2009, the U.S. Congress and the executive branch expanded the extraction of mineral, timber, and fossil fuel resources on U.S. public lands. They also weakened environmental laws and regula-tions protecting such lands. Explore More: See a Sci-ence Focus at www.cengage.com/login examining the controversy over logging in U.S. National Forests.

how wouLd you Vote?

Should much more U.S. public land (or government-owned land in the country where you live) be opened up to the extraction of timber, mineral, and energy resources? Cast your vote online at www.cengage.com/login.

Individuals Can Influence Environmental Policy A major theme of this book is that individuals matter. History shows that significant change usually comes from the bottom up when individuals join with each

other to bring about change. Without previous bottom-up (grassroots) political action by millions of individual citizens and organized citizen groups (Figure 24-7), the air that many people breathe today and the water they drink would be much more polluted, and much more of the earth’s biodiversity would have disappeared.

With the growth of the Internet and digital technol-ogy, individuals have become more empowered. For example, in a highly unusual chain of events in 2007, Chinese citizens using mobile phone text messaging organized to oppose construction of a chemical plant that would threaten the safety of 1.5 million people in a port city. By building opposition from the ground up—circulating nearly a million phone messages—they per-suaded the Chinese government to freeze the construc-tion project and to consider less hazardous alternatives.

Figure 24-8 lists ways in which you can influ-ence and change government policies in constitutional democracies. Many people recycle, buy eco-friendly products, and do other important things to help the environment. But when people work together, start-ing at the local level, just as Denis Hayes did in organiz-ing Earth Day 1970 (Core Case study), they can influence environmental policy. Hayes’s story and other similar examples of individuals making a difference have demonstrated the validity of the obser-vation by Aldo Leopold, American conservationist and writer, that “All ethics rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of inter-dependent parts.” Explore More: See a Case Study at www.cengage.com/login to learn about how one woman organized a successful grassroots effort to save a river from a state of severe pollution.

At a fundamental level, all politics is local. What we do to improve environmental quality in our own neighbor-hoods, schools, and work places has national and global

Figure 24-7 Global outlook: Children in Turin, Italy, wear gas masks as part of an organized protest against high levels of air pol-lution. Question: What environmental issue, if any, would lead you to participate in such a demonstration? Explain.

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Figure 24-6 Yosemite National Park in northern California (USA)—a vast, gorgeous valley in the High Sierra Mountains—is a symbol of the National Park System. The park system manages pristine areas such as this for their natural value and for use by future generations.

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implications, much like the ripples spreading outward from a pebble dropped in a pond. This is the meaning of the slogan, “Think globally; act locally.”

Environmental Leaders Can Make a Big DifferenceNot only can we participate, but each of us can also pro-vide environmental leadership in several different ways. First, we can lead by example, using our own lifestyles and values to show others that change is possible and can be beneficial. For example, we can use fewer dispos-able products, eat foods that have been more sustainably produced (see Figure 12-34, p. 310), and walk, bike, or take mass transit to work or school.

Second, we can work within existing economic and polit-ical systems to bring about environmental improvement by campaigning and voting for informed and eco-friendly candidates and by communicating with elected officials. We can also send a message to companies that we feel are harming the environment through their products or policies by voting with our wallets—not buying their prod-ucts or services—and letting them know why. Another way to work within the system is to choose one of the many rapidly growing green careers highlighted throughout this book and described in Figure 23-16 (p. 633) and on the book’s companion website.

Third, we can run for some sort of local office. Look in the mirror. Maybe you are one who can make a differ-ence as an officeholder.

Fourth, we can propose and work for better solutions to environmental problems. Leadership is much more than just taking a stand for or against something. It also involves coming up with solutions to problems and per-suading people to work together to achieve them. If we care enough, each of us can make a difference, as Denis Hayes (Core Case study), Wangari Maathai (see Chapter 10, Core Case Study, p. 217), and Muhammad Yunus (see Chapter 23, Core Case Study, p. 613), have done.

Here are two pieces of hopeful news. First, research by social scientists indicates that social change requires active support by only 5–10% of the population, which often is enough to lead to a political tipping point. Second, experience has shown that reach-ing such a critical mass can bring about social change much faster than most people think.

thinking about environmental Leadership

What types of environmental leadership does Denis Hayes (Core Case study) practice? What type of environ-mental leadership interests you?

Influencing Environmental Policy

What Can You Do?

■ Become informed on issues

■ Make your views known at public hearings

■ Make your views known to elected representatives, and understand their positions on environmental issues

■ Contribute money and time to candidates who support your views

■ Vote

■ Run for office (especially at local level)

■ Form or join nongovernment organizations (NGOs) seeking change

■ Support reform of election campaign financing that reduces undue influence by corporations and wealthy individuals

Figure 24-8 individuals matter: These are some ways in which you can influence environmental policy (Concept 24-2b). Questions: Which three of these actions do you think are the most important? Which ones, if any, do you take?

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ConCEPt 24-3 647

24-3 What Is the Role of Environmental Law in Dealing with Environmental Problems?

ConCept 24-3 we can use environmental laws and regulations to help control pollution, set safety standards, encourage resource conservation, and protect species and ecosystems.

▲

Environmental Law Forms the Basis for Environmental PolicyEnvironmental law is a body of laws and treaties that broadly define what is acceptable environmental behav-ior for individuals, groups, businesses, and nations. This

body of laws and treaties has evolved through legisla-tive and judicial processes at various levels of govern-ment that have usually included attempts to balance competing private, social, and commercial interests. This section of the chapter deals primarily with the U.S. legal system as a model that reveals the advantages and


Figure 24-9 This stream contains acid runoff from a closed coal mine in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Often, it is difficult or impossible to hold polluters responsible in a court of law. W

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IndIvIdUAlS MAtterDiane Wilson

Wilson learned how to file legal briefs and analyze mountains of scientific and highly technical EPA documents.

After years of legal proceedings, protests, and bad publicity for their corporations, Formosa Plastics and Dow Chemical (which was also being sued for dumping chemicals into the bay) agreed to stop polluting the bay. Wilson is now an activist for environmental and social justice. She has practiced non-violent protest and civil disobedience in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, and she has gone on hunger strikes to protest releases of toxic chemicals by companies in her com-munity. As a result, she has been arrested and jailed 13 times.

Wilson wrote a book about her struggle entitled An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas (Chelsea Green, 2005). She has received numerous environ-mental awards and acclaim as an important new writer with an inspiring message. Wilson, who likes to call herself “nobody particular,” urges everyone to help change the world by being committed to a cause and standing up for what they believe.

In 1989, Diane Wilson (Figure 24-A) was a fourth-generation shrimp boat captain and

a working-class mother of five when she had to stop shrimping in Lavaca Bay near Seadrift, Texas, along the U.S. Gulf Coast, because the shrimp catch had declined significantly.

One day, another shrimper brought her a newspaper clipping saying that impoverished Calhoun County, where Seadrift is located, was one of the most polluted counties in the United States. The article went on to say that Lavaca Bay contained a large, underwater Superfund site polluted with toxic mercury.

Despite living in Seadrift all of her life, Wilson had never heard anything about this pollution—so poisonous that it could threaten the health of many of the town’s residents as well as the shrimp and fish harvests on which her business depended. She was outraged and set up a public meeting to discuss pol-lution of the bay caused by chemical plants in the area. Local officials and business lead-ers were furious about Wilson’s complaints because the chemical plants were the coun-ty’s largest employer. Her character was called into question, neighbors shunned her, thugs threatened her, and she even received death threats.

Wilson and environmental lawyer Jim Blackburn filed a lawsuit charging Formosa Plastics, a multinational Taiwanese chemical company, with dumping toxic chemicals into the bay. With only a high school education,

Figure 24-a Diane Wilson, shrimp boat captain and author of An Unreasonable Woman, made a difference in her community.

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disadvantages of using a legal and regulatory approach to dealing with environmental problems.

One way in which environmental law has evolved is through court cases involving lawsuits, most of which are civil suits brought to settle disputes or damages between one party and another. For example, a home-owner may bring a nuisance suit against a nearby fac-tory because of the noise it generates. In such a suit, the plaintiff, the party bringing the charge (in this case, the homeowner), seeks to collect damages from the defen-dant, the party being charged (in this case, the factory), for injuries to health or for economic loss.

The plaintiff may also seek an injunction, by which the the court hearing the case would order the defen-dant to stop whatever action is causing the nuisance. Short of closing the factory, often the court tries to find a reasonable or balanced solution to the problem. For example, it may order the factory to reduce noise to certain levels or to eliminate it at night.

A class action suit is a civil suit filed by a group, often a public interest, consumer, or environmental group, on behalf of a larger number of citizens, all of whom claim to have experienced similar damages from a product or an action, but who need not be listed and represented individually.

Another concept used in environmental law cases is negligence, in which a party causes damage by delib-erately acting in an unlawful or unreasonable manner. For example, a company may be found negligent if it fails to handle hazardous waste in a way that it knows is required by a statutory law (a law, or statute, passed by a legislature). A court may also find a company negligent if it fails to do something a reasonable person would do, such as testing waste for certain harmful chemicals before dumping it into a sewer, landfill, or river (Fig- ure 24-9). Generally, negligence is hard to prove.

Environmental Lawsuits Are Difficult to Win Several factors limit the effectiveness of environmental lawsuits. First, plaintiffs bringing the suit must establish that they have the legal right, or legal standing, to do so in a particular court. To have such a right, plaintiffs must show that they have suffered health or financial losses from some alleged environmental harm. Second, bring-ing any lawsuit costs too much for most individuals.

Third, public interest law firms cannot recover their attorneys’ fees unless Congress has specifically authorized that they be compensated within the laws that they seek to have enforced. By contrast, corpora-tions can reduce their taxes by deducting their legal expenses—in effect getting a government (taxpayer) subsidy to pay for part of their legal fees. In other words, the legal playing field is uneven and puts individuals and groups that are filing environmental lawsuits at a disadvantage.

Fourth, to stop a nuisance or to collect damages from a nuisance or an act of negligence, plaintiffs must estab-lish that they have been harmed in some significant way and that the defendant caused the harm. Doing this can be difficult and costly. Suppose a company (the defen-dant) is alleged to have caused cancer in certain indi-viduals (the plaintiffs) by polluting a river. If hundreds of other industries and cities dump waste into that river, establishing that one specific company is the culprit is very difficult and requires expensive investigation, sci-entific research, and expert testimony.

Fifth, most states have statues of limitations, laws that limit how long a plaintiff can take to sue after a particu-lar event occurs. These statutes often make it essentially impossible for victims of cancer, which may take 10–20 years to develop, to file or win a negligence suit.

Sixth, courts can take years to reach a decision. Dur-ing that time a defendant may continue the allegedly damaging action unless the court issues a temporary injunction against it until the case is decided.

Yet another problem is that corporations and devel-opers sometimes file strategic lawsuits against public par-ticipation (SLAPPs) targeting citizens who publicly criti-cize a business for some activity, such as polluting or filling in a wetland. Judges throw out about 90% of the SLAPPs that go to court. But individuals and groups hit with SLAPPs must hire lawyers, and typically spend 1–3 years defending themselves. Most SLAPPs are not meant to be won, but are intended to intimidate indi-viduals and activist groups.

Despite the difficulties of winning environmental lawsuits, some committed and persistent individuals have successfully used the judicial system to fight large corporations that have degraded the environment (Indi-viduals Matter, below).

Analysts have suggested three major reforms to help level the legal playing field for citizens suffering envi-ronmental damage. First, pressure Congress to pass a law allowing juries and judges to award citizens their attorney fees, to be paid by the defendants, in successful lawsuits.

Second, establish rules and procedures for identifying frivolous SLAPP suits so that cases without factual or legal merit can be dismissed quickly.

Third, raise the fines for violators of environmen-tal laws and punish more violators with jail sentences. Polls indicate that 80% or more of Americans consider damaging the environment to be a serious crime.

Given the influence of corporate wealth and lob-bying power, it is unlikely that these reforms will be implemented without strong bottom-up (grassroots) political pressure from concerned citizens. Explore More: See www.cengage.com/login to learn about the use of alternatives to lawsuits, called arbitration and mediation.

Major Types of Environmental Laws in the United StatesConcerned citizens have persuaded Congress to enact a number of important federal environmental and resource protection laws (Figure 24-4). One type of such legislation sets standards for pollution levels (as in the Clean Air Acts, Chapter 18, p. 485). A second type screens new substances for safety and sets standards (as in

IndIvIdUAlS MAtterDiane Wilson

Wilson learned how to file legal briefs and analyze mountains of scientific and highly technical EPA documents.

After years of legal proceedings, protests, and bad publicity for their corporations, Formosa Plastics and Dow Chemical (which was also being sued for dumping chemicals into the bay) agreed to stop polluting the bay. Wilson is now an activist for environmental and social justice. She has practiced non-violent protest and civil disobedience in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, and she has gone on hunger strikes to protest releases of toxic chemicals by companies in her com-munity. As a result, she has been arrested and jailed 13 times.

Wilson wrote a book about her struggle entitled An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas (Chelsea Green, 2005). She has received numerous environ-mental awards and acclaim as an important new writer with an inspiring message. Wilson, who likes to call herself “nobody particular,” urges everyone to help change the world by being committed to a cause and standing up for what they believe.

In 1989, Diane Wilson (Figure 24-A) was a fourth-generation shrimp boat captain and

a working-class mother of five when she had to stop shrimping in Lavaca Bay near Seadrift, Texas, along the U.S. Gulf Coast, because the shrimp catch had declined significantly.

One day, another shrimper brought her a newspaper clipping saying that impoverished Calhoun County, where Seadrift is located, was one of the most polluted counties in the United States. The article went on to say that Lavaca Bay contained a large, underwater Superfund site polluted with toxic mercury.

Despite living in Seadrift all of her life, Wilson had never heard anything about this pollution—so poisonous that it could threaten the health of many of the town’s residents as well as the shrimp and fish harvests on which her business depended. She was outraged and set up a public meeting to discuss pol-lution of the bay caused by chemical plants in the area. Local officials and business lead-ers were furious about Wilson’s complaints because the chemical plants were the coun-ty’s largest employer. Her character was called into question, neighbors shunned her, thugs threatened her, and she even received death threats.

Wilson and environmental lawyer Jim Blackburn filed a lawsuit charging Formosa Plastics, a multinational Taiwanese chemical company, with dumping toxic chemicals into the bay. With only a high school education,

Figure 24-a Diane Wilson, shrimp boat captain and author of An Unreasonable Woman, made a difference in her community.

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ConCEPt 24-3 649


the Safe Drinking Water Act, Chapter 20, p. 543). A third type of legislation encourages resource conservation (the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Chap- ter 21, p. 578). A fourth type sets aside or protects certain species, resources, and ecosystems (the Endangered Species Act, Chapter 9, pp. 209–211, and the Wilderness Act, Chapter 10, p. 242) (Concept 24-3).

A fifth type of legislation requires evaluation of the envi-ronmental impact of an activity proposed by a federal agency, as in the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, passed in 1970. Under NEPA, an environmental impact statement (EIS) must be developed for every major fed-eral project likely to have an effect on environmental quality. The EIS must describe why the proposed proj-ect is needed, identify its beneficial and harmful envi-ronmental impacts, suggest methods to lessen harmful impacts, and present an evaluation of alternatives to the project. The EIS documents must be published and are open to public comment.

NEPA does not prohibit environmentally harmful government projects. But more than one-third of the country’s land is under federal management, and NEPA requires the managing agencies to take environmental consequences into account in making decisions. It also exposes proposed projects and their possible harm-ful effects to public scrutiny. Opponents have targeted NEPA as a law to weaken or repeal.

thinking about environmental impact statements

Are you in favor of requiring government agencies to develop environmental impact statements such as those required by NEPA? Explain.

U.S. Environmental Laws and Regulations Have Been under AttackEnvironmental laws in the United States have been highly effective, especially in controlling pollution. However, since 1980 a well-organized and well-funded movement has mounted a strong campaign to weaken or repeal existing environmental laws and regulations (Figure 24-4), and to change the ways in which public lands (Figure 24-5) are used.

Three major groups are strongly opposed to vari-ous environmental laws and regulations: some corpo-rate leaders and other powerful people who see them as threats to their profits, wealth, and power; citizens who see them as threats to their private property rights and jobs; and state and local government officials who resent having to implement federal laws and regulations with little or no federal funding (unfunded mandates), or who disagree with certain federal regulations.

One problem working against strong regulations is that the focus of environmental issues has shifted from easy-to-see dirty smokestacks and filthy rivers to more complex, controversial, long-term, and often invisible

environmental problems such as climate change, biodi-versity loss, and groundwater pollution. Explaining such complex issues to the public and mobilizing support for often controversial, long-range solutions to such prob-lems is difficult. (See pp. 511–512 and the Guest Essay on environmental reporting by Andrew C. Revkin at CengageNOW.)

Another problem is that some environmentalists have primarily brought bad news about the state of the environment to the general public. History shows that bearers of bad news are not well received, and oppo-nents of the environmental movement have used this to undermine environmental concerns. History also shows that people are moved to bring about change mostly by an inspiring and hopeful vision of what the world could be like (see Chapter 1, Core Case Study, p. 5). So far, environmental groups have not worked together to develop a broad, compelling, and positive vision.

Since 2000, efforts to weaken environmental laws and regulations have escalated. Nevertheless, indepen-dent polls show that more than 80% of the U.S. public strongly support environmental laws and regulations and do not want them weakened. However, polls also show that less than 10% of the U.S. public (and in hard economic times only about 2–3%) consider the envi-ronment to be one of the nation’s most pressing prob-lems. As a result, environmental concerns often do not get transferred to the ballot box or the pocketbook.

Preventing further weakening of U.S. environmen-tal laws and regulations will require action on several fronts: repairing some of the damages already done; improving existing laws and regulations; stepping up science-based environmental education; and the con-tinuation of organized, grassroots political pressure from concerned citizens—the type of pressure that led to pas-sage of important environmental laws in the first place.

An important political component to the transition to a more environmentally sustainable society is for U.S. citizens (and citizens in other democratic countries) to elect ecologically literate and concerned leaders. Citi-zens must also insist that leaders work across party lines to end the current political deadlock on most environ-mental and other key issues that has characterized the U.S. Congress since 1980.

Beginning in the late 1960s, elected officials in the United States were under intense political pressure from citizens to address environmental degradation. This pressure was partly generated and then promoted by people like Denis Hayes and others who were active on Earth Day 1970 (Core Case study). Such politi-cal action led the world into the first phase of an environmental revolution. As a result, members of both political parties in the Congress worked together with the executive branch to pass and implement major environmental laws (Figure 24-4), mostly during the 1970s, which became known as the environmental decade. Explore More: See timetables detailing environmental developments over several decades including the 1970s at www.cengage.com/login.

24-4 What Are the Major Roles of Environmental Groups?

ConCept 24-4 grassroots groups are growing and combining their efforts with those of large environmental organizations in a global sustainability movement.

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Citizen Environmental Groups Play Important Roles The spearheads of the global conservation, environmen-tal, and environmental justice movements are the tens of thousands of nonprofit nongovernmental organiza-tions (NGOs) working at the international, national, state, and local levels. The growing influence of these organizations is one of the most important changes influencing environmental decisions and policies (Con-cept 24-4).

NGOs range from grassroots groups with just a few members to organizations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a 5-million-member global conservation organization, which operates in 100 countries. Other international groups with large memberships include Greenpeace, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, and the Grameen Bank (see Chapter 23, Case Study, p. 613).

Using e-mail, text messages, and the Internet, some environmental NGOs have organized themselves into an array of influential international networks. Exam-ples include the Pesticide Action, Climate Action, Inter-national Rivers, and Women’s Environment and Devel-opment Networks. They collaborate across national borders and monitor the environmental activities of governments, corporations, and international agencies such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organi-zation (WTO). They also help expose corruption and violations of national and international environmental agreements, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which prohibits international trade of endangered species (see Chap- ter 9, p. 209).

In recent years, global public policy networks have formed in response to rapidly changing conditions in a globalizing world. These innovative groups focus on a particular environmental problem by bringing together governments, the private sector, international organiza-tions, and NGOs. Since the 1990s, more than 50 such networks have emerged. Examples include the Interna-tional Forum on Forests, which develops proposals for sus-tainable forest management; the Global Water Partnership, which works toward integrated water resources manage-ment; the Renewable Energy Policy Network, which devel-ops policies to spur development of renewable energy; and the Earth Day Network (Core Case study).

In the United States, more than 8 mil-lion citizens belong to more than 30,000 NGOs that

deal with environmental issues. They range from small grassroots groups to large heavily funded main-line groups, the latter usually staffed by expert lawyers, scientists, economists, lobbyists, and fund-raisers. The largest of these groups are the World Wildlife Fund, the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, the Audu-bon Society, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (see the Case Study, p. 652).

thinking about environmental organizations

Do you belong to an environmental organization? Why or why not?

The largest groups have become powerful and important forces within the U.S. political system. They have helped to persuade Congress to pass and strengthen environmental laws (Figure 24-4), and they fight attempts to weaken or repeal these laws.

Some industries and environmental groups are working together to find solutions to environmental problems. For example, the Environmental Defense Fund worked with McDonald’s to redesign its pack-aging system to eliminate its plastic hamburger con- tainers. Greenpeace worked with a German manufac-turer to build a refrigerator that does not use the potent greenhouse gases called HFCs as coolants; now there are more than 300 million of these Greenfreeze refridg-erators in homes around the world. In addition, the Rainforest Alliance has worked with Chiquita Banana to certify the health, labor, and environmental practices on its farms.

Some environmental groups have shifted resources from demonstrating and litigating to publicizing research on innovative solutions to environmental problems. For example, to promote the use of chlorine-free paper, Greenpeace Germany printed a magazine using such paper and encouraged readers to demand that magazine publishers switch to chlorine-free paper. Shortly there-after, several major magazines made that shift.

Some critics such as the U.S. environmental leader James Gustave Speth have criticized the big environ-mental groups for having the wrong priorities. Speth has stated that these groups need to broaden their efforts from working on selected issues to trying to bring about a new politics. He believes that politics

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652 Chapter 24 Politics,Environment,andSustainability

as practiced today “will never deliver environmental sustainability.” Therefore, he argues, environmental groups need to vigorously promote regulation of lob-bying and other political reforms to make democratic governments more responsive to the needs of citizens and the environment and less dominated by large cor-porations and other powerful, wealthy interests.

Some environmental groups and networks are already beginning to broaden the focus of their efforts. A good example of an extremely active group is the Natural Resources Defence Council.

■ Case study

The Natural Resources Defense CouncilOne of the stated purposes of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is “to establish sustainabil-ity and good stewardship of the Earth as central ethi-cal imperatives of human society. . . . We work to fos-ter the fundamental right of all people to have a voice in decisions that affect their environment. . . . Ulti-mately, NRDC strives to help create a new way of life for humankind, one that can be sustained indefinitely without fouling or depleting the resources that support all life on Earth.”

To those ends, NRDC goes to court to stop environ-mentally harmful practices. It also informs and organizes millions of environmental activists, through its website (www.nrdc.org), magazines, and newsletters, to take actions to protect the environment—globally, regionally, and locally. For example, its BioGems network, acces-sible through the website, regularly informs subscrib-ers about environmental threats all over the world, and helps people to take action by donating money, signing petitions, and writing letters to corporate and govern-ment officials and newspaper editors.

In 2005, with NRDC’s help, U.S. citizens organized massive opposition to a proposed government policy that would have allowed sewer operators to routinely dump virtually untreated sewage into the nation’s lakes, rivers, and streams. Because of well-informed, very vocal opposition to this proposal, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to block the Environmental Protection Agency from finalizing this so-called “blending” proposal.

In another case, in 2001, NRDC helped forge an agreement among Canadian timber companies, environ-mentalists, native peoples, and the provincial govern-ment of British Columbia (Canada) to protect a vast area of the Great Bear Rainforest from destructive logging. This followed years of pressure from NRDC activists on logging companies, their U.S. corporate customers, and provincial officials to protect the habitats of eagles, griz-zly bears, wild salmon, and the rare spirit bear, a sub-species of the American black bear with a creamy white fur coat (Figure 24-10).

thinking aboutthe Work of environmental organizations

Do you think it’s important for you, regardless of where you live, to help organizations like NRDC to protect forests, bears, and salmon in British Columbia, Canada? Explain.

Grassroots Environmental Groups Bring about Change from the Bottom Up The base of the environmental movement in the United States and throughout the world consists of thousands of grassroots citizens’ groups organized to improve envi-ronmental quality, often at the local level. According to political analyst Konrad von Moltke, “There isn’t a gov-ernment in the world that would have done anything for the environment if it weren’t for the citizen groups.” Taken together, a loosely connected worldwide network of grassroots NGOs working for bottom-up politi-cal, social, economic, and environmental change can be viewed as an emerging citizen-based global sus-tainability movement (Concept 24-4).

Some analysts believe this movement got its start on Earth Day in 1970 (Core Case study). Since

Figure 24-10 TheNaturalResourcesDefenseCouncil(NRDC)hasworkedtoprotectthehabitatoftherarespiritbearinCanada’sBritishColumbiaprovince.Thisbeariswaitingtocatchasalmon.Theyalsoeatberriesandgreenplants.Duringtheverycoldwinters,theyhibernateindrycavitiesofgiantoldtreesintheircoastalrain-foresthabitats,whicharethreatenedbylogging.

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IndIvIduals Matter Butterfly in a Redwood Tree

Canyouimaginespending2yearsofyourlifeinatreeonaplatformnotmuchbiggerthanaking-sizedbed,hovering55meters(180feet)abovetheground,whileenduringhighwinds,intenserainstorms,snow,andice?Allaroundherwasnoisefromtrucks,chainsaws,andhelicopters.

AlthoughHilllosthercourageousbattletosavethesurroundingforest,shepersuadedPacificLumberMAXXAMtosavehertree(whichshenamedLuna)anda60-meter(200-foot)bufferzonearoundit.Nottoolongaftershedescendedfromherperch,someoneusedachainsawtoseriouslydam-agethetree.Cablesandsteelplatesarenowusedtopreserveit.

ButmaybeHilldidnotlose,afterall.Abookshewroteaboutherstand,andhersubsequenttravelstocampusesallovertheworld,haveinspiredanumberofyoungpeopletostandupforprotectingbiodiversityandforotherenvironmentalcauses.

JuliaButterflyHillledothersbyfollowinginthetraditionofGandhi,whosaid,“Mylifeismymessage.”Wouldyouspendadayoraweekofyourlifeprotestingsomethingthatyoubelievedtobewrong?

JuliaButterflyHill(Figure24-B)spenttwoyearsofherlifeonasmallplatformnear

thetopofagiantredwoodtreeinCaliforniatoprotesttheclear-cuttingofanold-growthforestoftheseancienttrees,someofthemmorethan1,000yearsold.Sheandotherprotesterswereillegallyoccupyingthesetreesinthelate1990sasaformofnonviolent civil disobedience,similartothatuseddecadesagobyMahatmaGandhiinhiseffortstoendtheBritishoccupationofIndia,andbyMartinLutherKingintheU.S.civilrightsmovement.

Hillhadneverparticipatedinanenviron-mentalprotestoractofcivildisobedience.Shewenttothesitetoexpressherbeliefthatitwaswrongforthepropertyownertocutdowntheseancientgiantsforshort-termeconomicgain.Sheplannedtostayforonlyafewdays.

Butafterseeingthedestructionandclimb-ingoneofthesemagnificenttrees,sheendedupstayinginthetreefor2yearstopublicizewhatwashappeningandtohelpsavethesurroundingtrees.Shebecameasymboloftheprotestand,duringherstay,usedacellphonetocommunicatewithmembersofthemassmediathroughouttheworldtohelpdeveloppublicsupportforsavingthetrees.

Figure 24-b JuliaButterflyHillstoodupforherbeliefintheimportanceofbiodiversityasrepre-sentedbyold-growthforests.

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then, many grassroots groups have worked with indi-viduals and communities to oppose harmful projects such as landfills, waste incinerators, and nuclear waste dumps, as well as to fight against the clear-cutting of forests and pollution from factories and power plants. They have also taken action against environmental injustice. (See the Guest Essay on this topic by Robert D. Bullard at CengageNOW.)

Grassroots groups have organized conservation land trusts wherein property owners agree to protect their land from development or other harmful environ-mental activities, often in return for tax breaks on the land’s value. These groups have also spurred other similar efforts to save wetlands, forests, farmland, and ranchland from development, while helping to restore clearcut forests and wetlands and rivers that have been degraded by pollution.

The Internet and text-messaging have become important tools for grassroots groups. With these tools, they can expand their membership, raise funds, and quickly plan and execute actions such as demonstra-tions and rallies. The Internet also helps these groups to be more efficient and to become interconnected within networks, as described above, which can make them even more effective.

Most grassroots environmental groups use the non-violent and nondestructive tactics of protest marches, tree sitting (see Individuals Matter, below), and other devices for generating publicity to help educate and encourage the public to oppose various environmen-tally harmful activities. Such tactics often work because they produce bad publicity for practices and businesses that threaten or degrade the environment. For exam-ple, after 2 years of pressure and protests, Home Depot agreed to sell only wood products made from certified sustainably grown timber. Within a few months, Lowes and eight other major building supply chains in the United States developed similar policies.

Much more controversial are militant environmen-tal groups that use violent means, such as breaking into labs to free animals used to test drugs and destroying property such as bulldozers and SUVs. Most environ-mentalists strongly oppose such tactics.

how wouLd you Vote?

Do you support the use of nonviolent and nondestructive civil disobedience tactics by environmental groups and indi-viduals? Cast your vote online at www.cengage.com/ login.

IndIvIdUAlS MAtter Butterfly in a Redwood Tree

Can you imagine spending 2 years of your life in a tree on a platform not much bigger than a king-sized bed, hovering 55 meters (180 feet) above the ground, while enduring high winds, intense rainstorms, snow, and ice? All around her was noise from trucks, chainsaws, and helicopters.

Although Hill lost her courageous battle to save the surrounding forest, she persuaded Pacific Lumber MAXXAM to save her tree (which she named Luna) and a 60-meter (200-foot) buffer zone around it. Not too long after she descended from her perch, someone used a chainsaw to seriously dam-age the tree. Cables and steel plates are now used to preserve it.

But maybe Hill did not lose, after all. A book she wrote about her stand, and her subsequent travels to campuses all over the world, have inspired a number of young people to stand up for protecting biodiversity and for other environmental causes.

Julia Butterfly Hill led others by following in the tradition of Gandhi, who said, “My life is my message.” Would you spend a day or a week of your life protesting something that you believed to be wrong?

Julia Butterfly Hill (Figure 24-B) spent two years of her life on a small platform near

the top of a giant redwood tree in California to protest the clear-cutting of an old-growth forest of these ancient trees, some of them more than 1,000 years old. She and other protesters were illegally occupying these trees in the late 1990s as a form of nonviolent civil disobedience, similar to that used decades ago by Mahatma Gandhi in his efforts to end the British occupation of India, and by Martin Luther King in the U.S. civil rights movement.

Hill had never participated in an environ-mental protest or act of civil disobedience. She went to the site to express her belief that it was wrong for the property owner to cut down these ancient giants for short-term economic gain. She planned to stay for only a few days.

But after seeing the destruction and climb-ing one of these magnificent trees, she ended up staying in the tree for 2 years to publicize what was happening and to help save the surrounding trees. She became a symbol of the protest and, during her stay, used a cell phone to communicate with members of the mass media throughout the world to help develop public support for saving the trees.

Figure 24-b Julia Butterfly Hill stood up for her belief in the importance of biodiversity as repre-sented by old-growth forests.

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Students and Educational Institutions Can Play Important Environmental Roles Since the mid-1980s, there has been a boom in envi-ronmental awareness on college campuses and in pub-lic and private schools around the world. Most student environmental groups work with mem-bers of their school’s faculty and administration to bring about environmental improvements in their schools and local communities.

Many of these groups make environmental audits of their campuses or schools. They gather data on prac-tices affecting the environment and use them to pro-pose changes that will make their campuses or schools more environmentally sustainable while usually sav-ing money in the process. Such audits have focused on implementing or improving recyling programs, convinc-ing university food services to buy more food from local organic farms, shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy, retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient, and implementing concepts of environmental sustainability throughout the curriculum.

In 2008, the National Wildlife Federation published a useful guide for students wishing to perform such audits. See http://www.nwf.org/campusecology/BusinessCase/index.cfm.

■ Case study

The Greening of American CampusesIn 2008, Sierra Magazine rated Oberlin College in Ohio as the nation’s greenest college. Its students helped to design a more sustainable environmental studies build-ing powered by solar panels, which produce 30% more electricity than the building uses. A living machine (see Chapter 20, Science Focus, p. 553) in the building’s lobby purifies all of its wastewater, and half of the school’s electricity comes from green sources. The

school has a car-sharing program, and student activity fees subsidize public transportation.

At Northland College in Wisconsin, students helped to design a “green” residence hall that features a wind turbine, panels of solar cells, furniture made of recy-cled materials, and waterless (composting) toilets (Fig- ure 24-11). Northland students voted to impose a green fee of $40 per semester on themselves to help finance the college’s sustainability programs.

New York University gets all of the electricity it uses from wind power. Vermont’s Middlebury College recently converted a historic 18th-century structure to a 21st century environmental center that has received the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest certification. In 2009, Middlebury College also opened a biomass gasification plant that has reduced its carbon footprint by 40% and significantly lowered its fuel bills. Ever-green State College in Olympia, Washington, gets all of its electricity from renewable energy resources; uses no herbicides on its landscaping; has an organic farm that produces food for its dining rooms; and has several LEED-certified buildings that have solar panels and liv-ing roofs.

Universities and colleges have a special responsibility to promote environmental literacy and encourage envi-ronmental stewardship and sustainability. Heads of edu-cational institutions are also recognizing that increas-ingly, many students will base their decisions on where to go to school partly on what the schools are doing to be more environmentally sustainable.

Fueled by student pressure, many colleges and uni-versities are making progress in integrating sustain-ability into their institutional cultures. In 2008, Ari-zona State University opened the country’s first School of Sustainability, which employs more than 60 faculty members from more than 40 disciplines. Most U.S. business schools now require students to take at least

Figure 24-11 The Environmental Living and Learning Center is an eco-friendly residence hall and meeting space at Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin. The building, which houses more than 150 stu-dents, features a wind turbine and three large solar panels for generat-ing some of the electricity used by the residents. Other green features include passive solar heating, furniture and carpet made from recycled plastic, recycled Mylar window shades that reduce heat loss in winter and prevent excessive solar gain in summer, and a composting toilet system in some of the bathrooms. Northland students had a major role in designing the building, and the space is used by a variety of organi-zations for meetings and educational programs. Co

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one course with an emphasis on sustainability, ethics, and corporate and social responsibility. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, one goal is for every student to take at least one of the more than 100 available courses having a sustainability emphasis.

thinking about environmental groups

What environmental groups exist at your school? Do you belong to such a group? Why or why not?

24-5 How Can We Improve Global Environmental Security?

ConCept 24-5 environmental security is necessary for economic security and is at least as important as national security.

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Why Is Global Environmental Security Important? Countries are legitimately concerned with national secu-rity and economic security. However, ecologists and many economists point out that all economies are supported by the earth’s natural capital (see Figure 1-4, p. 9, and Figure 23-5, p. 617). Thus, environmental security, eco-nomic security, and national security are interrelated (Concept 24-5).

According to environmental expert Norman Myers,

If a nation’s environmental foundations are degraded or depleted, its economy may well decline, its social fabric deteriorate, and its political structure become destabilized as growing numbers of people seek to sus-tain themselves from declining resource stocks. Thus, national security is no longer about fighting forces and weaponry alone. It relates increasingly to watersheds, croplands, forests, genetic resources, climate, and other factors that, taken together, are as crucial to a nation’s security as are military factors. (See Myers’ Guest Essay on this subject at CengageNOW.)

Research by Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of Can-ada’s Trudeau Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, has revealed a strong correlation between growing scarcities of resources, such as cropland, water, and forests, and the spread of civil unrest and violence that can lead to failing states (see Figure 17, p. S64, in Supplement 9). These countries have dysfunctional governments that can no longer provide security and basic services such as education and health care. They generally suffer from a breakdown of law and order, with gangs often ruling the streets, and deterioration of roads, electrical power, water supplies, and other vital forms of infrastructure. Such states often end up in civil wars as groups compete for power, and these wars can spread to nearby coun-tries. Many failing states also become training grounds for terrorists (Afghanistan and Iraq), weapons traders (Nigeria and Somalia), and drug producers (Afghani-

stan and Myanmar). Together, they also generate mil-lions of refugees displaced from their homes and land, while often fleeing for their lives.

Norman Myers and other analysts call for all coun-tries to make environmental security a major focus of diplomacy and government policy at all levels. This could be implemented by a council of advisers made up of highly qualified experts in environmental, economic, and national security who integrate all three security concerns into their major policy decisions. This would include taking into consideration the enormous harm-ful environmental impacts of wars. Explore More: See a Science Focus at www.cengage.com/login to learn about the environmental impacts of war.

how wouLd you Vote?

Is environmental security just as important as economic and national security? Cast your vote online at www.cengage .com/login.

We Can Develop Stronger International Environmental PoliciesA number of international environmental organiza-tions help shape and set global environmental policy. Perhaps the most influential is the United Nations, which houses a large family of organizations including the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Development Pro-gramme (UNDP), and the Food and Agriculture Orga-nization (FAO).

Other organizations that make or influence environ-mental decisions are the World Bank, the Global Envi-ronment Facility (GEF), and the World Conser-vation Union (also known as the IUCN). Despite their often limited funding, these and other organiza-tions have played important roles in:

• expanding understanding of environmental issues,

• gathering and evaluating environmental data,

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• developing and monitoring international environ-mental treaties,

• providing grants and loans for sustainable economic development and reducing poverty, and

• helping more than 100 nations to develop environ-mental laws and institutions.

In 2008, environmental leader Gus Speth argued that global environmental problems are getting worse and that international efforts to solve them are inade-quate. Speth and other environmental leaders propose the creation of a World Environmental Organization (WEO), on the order of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), to help deal with global environmental challenges.

In fact, a WEO would be largely at odds with the WTO. For example, the WTO can challenge and reverse any member nation’s legal efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if such efforts are judged to undermine world trade. Similarly, it can challenge and abolish any member nation’s subsidy given to an energy efficiency or renewable energy industry if the subsidy is deemed to be damaging to trade. Member nations can move their dirty industries to countries with low standards, thereby continuing to pollute and to grow their ecologi-cal footprints, and the WTO does not allow this to be a factor in trade negotiations. A WEO would have to chal-lenge and reverse such policies in order to bring about real international progress toward more sustainability.

Since the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Envi-ronment in Stockholm, Sweden, progress has been made in addressing environmental issues at the global level. The conference also created the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to help develop the global environmental agenda. But the UNEP is a small and underfunded agency.

In 1992, governments of more than 178 nations and hundreds of NGOs met at the UN Conference on Envi-ronment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The major policy outcome of this conference was Agenda 21, a global agenda for sustainable development in the 21st century, which was adopted by 178 govern-ments, but not including the United States. This ambi-tious agenda established goals for addressing the world’s social, economic, and environmental problems. The conference also established the Commission on Sustain-able Development to follow up on the Agenda 21 goals and monitor and report on the agreements at the local, regional, national, and international levels. In 1997, an Earth Summit was held to review the somewhat lim-ited progress made toward implementing the Agenda 21 goals.

Figure 24-12 lists some of the good and bad news about international efforts to deal with global environ-mental problems such as poverty, climate change, bio-diversity loss, and ocean pollution.

The primary focus of the international community on environmental problems has been the development of various international environmental laws and non-

binding policy declarations called conventions. And there are more than 500 international environmental treaties and agreements—known as multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs).

To date, the Montreal and Copenhagen Protocols for protecting the ozone layer (see Chapter 19, p. 524) are the most successful examples of how the global com-munity can work together to deal with a serious global environmental challenge. Figure 24-13 lists some major problems with MEAs and solutions to these problems.

Corporations Can Play a Key Role in Promoting Environmental Sustainability In our increasingly globalized economy, it has become clear that governments and corporations must work together to achieve goals for increased environmen-tal sustainability. Governments can set environmental standards and goals through legislation and regulations, and corporations generally have highly efficient ways of accomplishing such goals. Making a transition to more sustainable societies and economies will require huge

Figure 24-12 There is good and bad news about international efforts to deal with global environmental problems. Question: Which single piece of good news and which single piece of bad news do you think are the most important?

Most international environmental treaties lack criteria for evaluating their effectiveness

1992 Rio Earth Summit led to nonbinding agreements, inadequate funding, and little improvement in major problems by 2010

2002 Johannesburg Earth Summit failed to deal with climate change, biodiversity loss, and poverty

2009 Copenhagen conference failed to deal with projected climate change

Over 500 international environmental treaties and agreements

UN Environment Programme negotiates and monitors environmental treaties

1992 Rio Earth Summit adopted principles for handling global environmental problems

2002 Johannesburg Earth Summit tried to implement 1992 Rio summit policies and goals

Good News Bad News

Global Efforts to Solve Environmental Problems

Trade-Offs

sidering the current budgetary pressures faced by most governments. Thus, corporations must play a vital role in achieving a more sustainable future.

The good news is that an increasing number of corporate chief executive officers (CEOs) and inves-tors are aware that there is considerable money to be made from developing and selling green products and services during this century. This switch to new product lines is guided by the concept of eco-efficiency, which is about finding ways to create more economic value with less environmental impact by reducing the amount of energy, water, chemicals and other raw materials used per unit of output. In addition to reducing harmful health and environmental impacts, improving eco-effi-ciency can save businesses money and help them to meet their financial responsibilities to stockholders and investors.

In the early 1990s, Stephan Schmidheiny, a Swiss billionaire, organized a group of CEOs from 48 of the world’s largest corporations. It eventually became the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which is dedicated to promoting sustainable development built around improving eco-efficiency. Today, this council is a highly influential coalition of more than 170 international companies, involving some 700 global business leaders.

Figure 24-13 Global outlook: These are some major problems with global environmental treaties and agreements, as well as some solutions to these problems. Question: Which problem and which solution do you think are the most important?

Stop requiring full consensus among participating parties

Improve procedures and funding for monitoring and enforcement

Integrate existing agreements

Take long time to develop and require full consensus

Lack of funding and poor monitoring and enforcement

Not integrated with one another

Problems Solutions

International Environmental Treaties

Solutions

24-6 How Can We Implement More Sustainable and Just Environmental Policies?

ConCept 24-6 Making the transition to more sustainable societies will require that nations and groups within nations cooperate and make the political commitment to achieve this transition.

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We Can Shift to More Environmentally Sustainable SocietiesA study of nature reveals that all parts of the biosphere are ecologically interdependent. Similarly, all parts of the human culturesphere are economically and politically interdependent. This interdependence requires citizens, business leaders, and elected officials to cooperate in try-ing to find and implement innovative short- and long-term solutions to local, national, and global environ-mental, economic, and social problems (Concept 24-6).

Several guidelines have been suggested for promot-ing cooperation instead of confrontation as we struggle to make such a transition. First, emphasize preventing or minimizing environmental problems instead of letting them build up to crisis levels. Second, use well-designed and carefully monitored marketplace solutions (see Chap-ter 23, p. 625) to help prevent or reduce the impact of most environmental problems. Third, cooperate and innovate to find win–win solutions or tradeoffs to envi-

ronmental problems and injustices. Fourth, be honest and objective. People on both sides of thorny environmental issues should take a vow not to exaggerate or distort their positions in attempts to play win–lose or winner-take-all games.

Making the transition to a more sustainable world will also require governments and their citizens to rethink their priorities. Figure 23-12, (p. 629) shows that it would take about $245 billion a year for the world to meet basic social and health goals, and to provide envi-ronmental security for all. This amounts to about one-eighth of what countries spend each year on environ-mentally harmful subsidies. Converting that portion of those subsidies to environmentally beneficial subsidies and other forms of aid would go a long way toward solving major social and environmental problems.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, a five-star general in the U.S. army, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War II and, later, president of the United States, offered the following advice in helping us decide on our

amounts of investment capital and significant research and development. Most of this money is will likely have to come from profitable corporations, especially con-

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priorities in solving such problems: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signi-fies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

The world has the knowledge, technologies, and financial resources to eradicate poverty and malnu-trition, eliminate illiteracy, sharply reduce infectious diseases, stabilize human populations, and protect the earth’s natural capital. We can do this by restoring the planet’s soils, forests, rivers, and oceans, by relying more on renewable energy, and by sharply reducing our unnecessary waste of matter and energy resources.

Making the shift to more equitable and environ-mentally sustainable global and national societies is primarily an economic, political, and ethical decision (ethics is discussed in the next chapter). It involves shifting to more sustainable forestry (see Figure 10-16, p. 230), organic agriculture (see Figure 12-34, p. 310), water resource use (see Figure 13-23, p. 339), energy resource use (see Figure 16-37, p. 431), and economies (see Figure 23-14, p. 631), while slowing projected cli-mate change (see Figure 19-16, p. 513) and educating the public and elected officials about the urgent need to make this shift over the next several decades. Some countries such as the Netherlands and New Zealand have begun to make such a transition by developing national green plans to make the transition to more sus-tainable societies. Explore More: See a Case Study at www.cengage.com/login to learn about the efforts of the Netherlands in developing a national green plan for making that country more sustainable.

Some say that the call for making this shift is idealis-tic and unrealistic. Others say that it is idealistic, unreal-istic, and dangerous to keep assuming that our present course is sustainable, and they warn that we have pre-cious little time to change.

Some thoughtful business and political leaders are realizing that “business as usual” is no longer a viable option (see Chapter 23, Individuals Matter, p. 626). The governments of Sweden and Germany have begun shifting taxes from income to pollution and carbon emissions. In the United States, various states and cit-ies, choosing not to wait for the federal government, have enacted their own laws and programs to improve energy efficiency, use more renewable energy, and reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

As envisioned by Denis Hayes and other leaders on the first Earth Day in 1970 (Core Case study), making a transition to more sustainable ways of living will improve life for most people today and help us to avoid undermining both the earth’s natural capital and the futures of our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. It will depend on the choices made and the actions taken by everyone, from business and political leaders to ordinary citizens, as we work together to help sustain human civilization during this century.

Here are this chapter’s three big ideas:

■ An important outcome of the political process is environmental policy—the body of laws and regula-tions that are designed, implemented, and enforced, and environmental programs that are funded by one or more government agencies.

■ All politics is local, and individuals can work with each other to become part of political processes that influence environmental policies. (Individuals matter.)

■ Environmental security is necessary for economic security and is at least as important as national security; making the transition to more sustainable societies will require that nations cooperate just as they do for national security purposes.

Denis Hayes and Sustainability

The work of Denis Hayes and other organizers of Earth Day (Core Case study) serves as a model for how to approach dealing with an environmental problem in the political arena. Hayes and his colleagues mustered public opinion and promoted solutions to environmental problems from the grassroots level to the highest levels of government. By mobilizing a critrical number of demon-strators across the nation, he got the attention of the news media and of the general public, which then exerted the necessary pressure on legislators to pass major environmental laws in the 1970s (Figure 24-4) to address the environmental problems the country faced.

Hayes also serves as an outstanding example of someone who is compassionate about a set of issues, who envisions solutions to the problems involved, and who has figured out practical ways to make his vision real. He is a role model for anyone interested in becoming an environmental leader.

Policy making can be guided by the three principles of sus-tainability (see back cover). Because environmental and social

problems are interrelated, their solutions also are interrelated. For example, relying on solar energy and other renewable energy sources reduces oil and coal use, but it also reduces emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants, thus helping to slow climate change and protect biodiversity. Likewise, reforestation benefits biodiversity, but also increases aquifer recharge, reduces soil erosion, and helps to slow projected climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Once we begin these environmentally positive trends, they will reinforce one another and speed up the transition to more sustain-able ways of living for societies of today and tomorrow through a positive feedback loop of beneficial change (Figure 2-18, p. 49). Positive change toward sustainability can occur much more rapidly than we think. Any or all of us can also choose to take part in the change by becoming politically active about the issues of our choice or at least politically aware and informed, so as to make the right choices when we go into the voting booth or take part in other activities that affect our environmental and political futures.

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As the wagon driver said when they came to a long hard hill, “Them that’s going on with us get out and push. Them that ain’t get out of the way.”

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1. Review the Key Questions and Concepts for this chapter on p. 638. Describe the work of Denis Hayes in helping to organize the first Earth Day (Core Case study).

2. What key roles can governments play in improv-ing environmental quality? What is a government’s pol-icy? What is politics? What is environmental policy? What are the four stages of a policy life cycle in democ-racies? What is a democracy? Describe two features of democratic governments that hinder their ability to deal with environmental problems. Describe seven principles that decision makers can use in making environmental policy.

3. What are the three branches of government in the United States and what major role does each play? What is lobbying? Why are some analysts concerned about the growing power of some lobbyists? What are three major environmental laws? Explain why developing environ-mental policy is a difficult and controversial process. What are three ways in which scientific and political processes differ? Why are these differences important for policy-making? What are four major types of public lands in the United States? Describe the controversy over managing these lands.

4. Describe four ways in which individuals in democracies can help to develop or change environmental policy. What does it mean to say that we should think globally and act locally? Give an example of such an action. What are four ways to provide environmental leadership?

5. What is environmental law? What is a civil suit? What are the plaintiff and the defendant in a lawsuit? Explain why it is difficult to win an environmental lawsuit. What is a SLAPP? List three general types of U.S. environmental

laws. Describe how Diane Wilson used the legal system to help deal with a serious environmental problem in her community. What is an environmental impact statement?

6. Explain how and why U.S. environmental laws have been under attack since 1980. How effective have the attacks been? Describe Julia Butterfly Hill’s efforts to save giant redwood trees in California from being cut down.

7. Describe the roles of grassroots and mainstream environ-mental organizations and give an example of each type of organization. Describe the role and effectiveness of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in the United States. Give two examples of successful roles that students have played in improving environmental quality.

8. Explain the importance of environmental security, rela-tive to economic and national security. List two pieces of good news and two pieces of bad news about international efforts to deal with global environmental problems. List three problems with global environmental treaties and agreements. Describe roles that corporations can play in helping to achieve environmental sustainability, and give an example of such an effort.

9. What are four guidelines for shifting to more environmen-tally sustainable societies?

10. Explain how the work of Denis Hayes and other organ-izers of Earth Day 1970 serves as a model for changing public opinion and influencing government policy (Core Case study)? How can the three prin-ciples of sustainability guide wise environ-mental policymaking?

Note: Key terms are in bold type.

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1. If it were 1970, would you participate in a teach-in or other demonstration on Earth Day (Core Case study)? Why or why not? Do you think that a similar global demonstration is called for now, focused on today’s environmental challenges? If so, why do you think this has not yet happened as it did in 1970?

2. Pick an environmental problem that affects the area where you live and decide where in the policy life cycle (Figure 24-2) the problem could best be placed. Apply the cycle to this problem and describe how the problem has

progressed (or will likely progress) through each stage. If your problem has not progressed to the control stage, describe how you think the problem would best be dealt with in that stage.

3. Explain why you agree or disagree with each of the seven principles listed on pp. 640–641, which are recommended by some analysts for use in making environmental policy decisions. Which three of these principles do you think are the most important? Why?

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4. What are two ways in which the scientific process described in Chapter 2 (see Figure 2-2, p. 33) parallels the policy life cycle (Figure 24-2)? What are two ways in which they differ?

5. Explain why you agree or disagree with (a) each of the four principles that biologists and some economists have suggested for using public lands in the United States (pp. 644–645), and with (b) each of the five suggestions made by developers and resource extractors for managing and using U.S. public lands (p. 645).

6. Do you think that corporations and government bodies are ever justified in filing SLAPP lawsuits? Give three reasons for your answer. Do you think that potential defendants of SLAPP suits should be protected in any way from such suits? Explain.

7. Government agencies can help to keep an economy grow-ing or to boost certain types of economic development by, for example, building or expanding a major highway through an undeveloped area. Proponents of such devel-opment have argued that requiring environmental impact statements for these projects interferes with efforts to help an economy. Do you agree? Is this a problem? Why or why not?

8. List three ways in which you could apply Concept 24-6 to making your lifestyle more environmentally sustainable.

9. Congratulations! You are in charge of the country where you live. List the five most important components of your environmental policy.

10. List two questions that you would like to have answered as a result of reading this chapter.

dAtA AnAlySIS

Choose an environmental issue that you have studied in this course, such as climate change, population growth, or biodiver-sity loss. Conduct a poll of students, faculty, staff, and local resi-dents by asking them the questions that follow relating to your particular environmental issue. Poll as many people as you can

in order to get a large sample. Create categories. For example, note whether each respondent is male or female. By creating such categories, you are placing each person into a respondent pool. You can add other questions about age, political leaning, and other factors to refine your pools.

Poll Questions

Question 1 On a scale of 1 to 10, how knowledgeable are you about environmental issue X?

Question 2 On a scale of 1 to 10, how aware are you of ways in which you, as an individual, impact environmental issue X?

Question 3 On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is it for you to learn more about environmental issue X?

Question 4 On a scale of 1 to 10, how sure are you that an individual can have a positive influence on environmental issue X?

Question 5 On a scale of 1 to 10, how sure are you that the government is providing the appropriate level of leadership with regard to environmental issue X?

1. Collect your data and analyze your findings to measure any differences among the respondent pools.

2. List any major conclusions you would draw from the data.

3. Publicize your findings on your school’s website or in the local newspaper.

leArnIng onlIne

STuDEnT CoMPanion SiTE Visit this book’s website at www.cengagebrain.com/shop/iSBn/0538735341 and choose Chapter 24 for many study aids and ideas for further reading and research. These include flashcards, practice quiz-zing, Weblinks, information on Green Careers, and InfoTrac® College Edition articles.

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