The world we live in is an intensely diverse, highly complex web of natural systems, human activities, unplanned accidents, and unexpected consequences. Some very strong, pure positions are reasonable and necessary, such as: “Dangerous levels of chemical pollutants shouldn’t be allowed in public drinking water.” For that issue, it is not reasonable to say that it’s okay to allow dangerous levels of chemical pollutants in some cities’ drinking water or in a poor foreign country’s drinking water, but not in my water. It is only reasonable if we all agree that the goal should be clean, safe drinking water for all.
But when it comes to how much water should be allowed to flow down a river or whether clear-cut logging should be allowed on private timberlands, those kinds of questions do not have the same obvious answers. In fact, those issues can often be highly dependent on details such as whether there are threatened salmon or steelhead in the river, whether the river already is suffering from inadequate flows, or whether the rate of clear-cut logging is relatively short or if the “rotation age” of the cut units is 200 years or longer. It can also depend upon which wildlife species are at risk in those timberlands.
But as soon as you begin to discuss the details of issues, environmental questions often become complicated and challenging for the uninformed to easily comprehend.
It is far simpler to either be “for” or “against” clear-cuts or “for” or “against” protecting river flows. On a positive note, the environmental community overall has matured greatly over recent years and especially for forest and water issues, environmental activists are more attuned than ever before to relying on the best available science.
On the other side of most environmental issues, there is often strong resistance to accepting science by those advocating for the timber and mining industries, ranching and agriculture, development and water districts, and any other major threat to the environment. Instead, the mantra has been that environmental policies “threaten jobs” or “destroy our custom and culture” or ”make people an endangered species.” In reality, most environmental policies may harm some kinds of jobs while creating or benefitting other kinds of jobs. And with 7 billion of us now crowding the planet, people are not even remotely endangered as a species.
Pro-industry politicians often ridicule Climate Change and attack scientists who support the need to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG). Not surprisingly, industries that cause the greatest GHG emissions spend money lobbying against Climate Change and promoting paid speakers to tour the country denying there are any reasons to take steps to reduce GHG emissions.
At the level of presidential campaigning, Republican candidates have battled amongst themselves over the past year to try to show which of them is the farthest removed from any acceptance of Climate Change or the need to have strong environmental policies. All of the major candidates have attacked environmental policies or the EPA as a key reason for the huge economic recession that in truth was caused by the collapse of Wall Street and the housing market, amongst other economic factors.
In an attempt to stay in office and appeal to many independent voters, President Obama has frequently moved away from his campaign promises and has openly espoused more drilling for oil or other actions that make environmentalists cringe. Some of this political storm against conservation and the environment comes from extreme radio talk show hosts’ verbal attacks that are clearly intended to inflame political conservatives and make environmentalists the enemy to blame for the nation’s woes. But much of the strident polarization in Congress or at the State legislature is also highly visible in local issues found right in the Central Sierra.
Sierra Pacific Industries refuses to budge in the slightest away from widespread clear-cutting. When I was out in the forest with key SPI officials on a field tour last fall, they accused me and other environmentalists of trying to put them out of business by suggesting that they do less clear-cutting and instead do aggressive selection cutting. The fact that it might reduce their overall timber production by 10-15% was to them completely unacceptable to even consider. Yet when the housing market collapsed their wood production dropped far more than that simply due to the economy. So if the economy forces a slow-down in cutting trees, that was tolerable, but if a compromise forest practice might be to drop production to protect water and wildlife values, that was completely unacceptable.
Such examples could be listed over and over. Some county supervisors who have voted on countless environmental and development issues over many years in office have never voted even once on the side of nature. Water district board members who serve for years dealing with water matters often have never voted once for nature.
Instead of denying those extreme positions, a majority of county supervisors in the local region are firmly entrenched against ever voting in a way that may cause their constituents to believe they are supporting the environment. The two local congressmen in the region and various state politicians from the local region have all openly scorned environmental positions and voted against nature consistently. And despite a far more balanced-sounding message coming from key decision-makers with federal and state agencies, local agency decision-makers are highly responsive to the political pressures and power of anti-environmental interests.
The end result for CSERC and many other conservation organizations is that the deck is consistently stacked against nature. Even in major planning now on-going in Yosemite National Park, it appears unlikely that the Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows ecosystems will be given top priority. Instead, political pressure is high to maintain the status quo or even increase commercialization and use in Yosemite.
When it comes to trying to prevail at county board of supervisor sessions or when commenting on CA state suction dredging regulations or Statewide septic system policies or policies related to private forest management, there is no interest by decision-makers and industry interests in aiming for a compromise or middle ground outcome.
So despite CSERC’s intensive efforts to work for balanced solutions that truly show respect for opposing points of view and truly aim for middle ground outcomes, the deck is stacked against compromise. Accordingly, after filing only two lawsuits in the first 19 years of CSERC’s existence, CSERC has now been forced to litigate three times in just the last two years. Other potential lawsuits by CSERC may be needed in coming months, and given the political reality, litigation may end up being one of the only tools that is left to use on many critical resource issues.
Like many things related to politics and land management actions, changes may come slowly or they may come in pulses or waves. CSERC openly seeks a political shift by all sides who are involved in the key conservation debates of this region, so that sometime soon, all interests can put the majority of effort into finding win-win outcomes based on compromise, rather than having mostly victories and defeats. But at the moment, middle ground positions are just not acceptable to those who ideologically view others as enemies or opponents, rather than someone with different interests.
