A number of persons active in the "Environmental
Movement" have become concerned about the steady drain on the environment,
by developers and road builders in particular, and by the failure of elected
officials to safeguard the future. Associated with this is what can only
be perceived as failures by "environmentalists"( also known as tree huggers)
to develop effective means of action to stop the drain. Some of the failures
stem from:
- being reactionary, being against some development
or action, thereby enhancing the perception of being obstructionist;
- failing to develop meaningful definitions, methods
of measurement, development of meaningful and reproducible presentations
of consequences for such environmental concepts as Sprawl, Wetland Preservation,
Species Loss, True Cost of Development, and so on;
- the common perception of elected officials that
environmentalists do not speak as a unit, and occasionally even oppose
each other;
- the all too often event of waiting for something
to happen to be opposed, instead of taking steps to prevent it happening:
some steps are drafting changes to laws and regulations ( for example,
defining 'clustering', minimum aquifer level, sustainable water consumption,
etc);
- 'not selling' these concepts to public bodies,
and to decision-, regulative and law-writing bodies
In other words, the Environmentalists need to get ahead of the problem
instead of having to play catch-up.
Environmentalists very often complain of the decisions made by government bodies, both elected and appointed. There is, of course, a way to change the decisions: this is for the environmentalists to get themselves elected or appointed to the decision-making bodies. But here a fact must be stated: Environmentalists will not run for public office, nor will they (or at least not enough) get appointed to a regulatory board.
It appears that there are two ways 'to change this situation. One is to educate the conventional decision makers to take the environmental view, which usually is only looking at the future instead of looking only at the glowing promises of today. It means education to recognize the fallacies behind such cliches as "increase the tax base", "it will create new jobs", "we are going to build the future" and so on. Walter Boardman set up the Boardman Foundation to be a nucleation point for such educational activity. Perhaps the Foundation assets are too small to have an effect.
The other approach is to work with environmentalists, to develop the personality, skills and assets to become an elected official, in particular, probably with time spent on a regulatory board as training. Perhaps the Boardman Foundation could also work in this direction, although there is certainly a limit to the Foundation's assets and capabilities.
All of these situations need to change. The way to do this has not appeared. For this reason, the matter is posted, with a request that the "Environmental Community" devote some time and thought to possibilities, and that any ideas with promise be brought to the Environmental Council.
Your suggestions for items to be covered may be emailed to ecouncil@iag.net.