A couple of weeks ago, I sat in on a meeting of professional environmentalists who had gotten together to discuss that perennial favorite topic: whither the movement? Or, more fundamentally, is there a movement? And if there is, what is it?
The Washington focus increased through the decades, especially after the passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. In 1981, Reagan gave it a real boost. When he took office uttering assorted menaces in the direction of environmental protection, the major groups beefed up their Washington forces. Initially, most of the people working in those offices were experienced grassroots organizers, but the balance has gradually shifted until now most are people who were hired right out of college to work in Washington. These are the Lane Kirklands of environmental protection. Kirkland, the current president of the AFL-CIO, went straight from college to the national headquarters of the labor organization, and his actions as president often reveal his lack of experience in the nitty-gritty of organizing and running a local.
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But how do we produce a positive message when so many environmental indicators seem to be pointing down? This question was on my mind when I read an essay by Gregg Easterbrook in the April 10 issue of The New Yorker. According to Easterbrook, the environmental news is almost all good. Regulations based on such major environmental laws as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act have done a splendid job. They have created major improvements at modest cost and rather than strangling the economy, they have actually strengthened it.
Easterbrook loves the sort of free market devices that allow companies to sell pollution credits to each other. Wisconsin Power Company cut its airborne emissions so far below the legal requirements that it was able to sell the right to exceed the limits to a company in Tennessee. It is not clear to me why we should be happy about this. It does reward Wisconsin Power for its good work, but if I lived downwind from a Tennessee power plant I don’t think I would be pleased to hear that the electric company had purchased the right to give me emphysema.
