Rachel’s News #524, December 12, 1996

The Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) –important national organizations in the U.S. environmental movement –are both celebrating environmental victories in 1996.

Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, wrote recently, “It’s been an extraordinary year for the Sierra Club. We were able to stave off the war on the environment waged by the 104th Congress and prevent the dismantling of 25 years of environmental protections for our air and water. In fact, we managed to push some positive environmental legislation through in the last few weeks of Congress, such as protections of the Presidio National Park in San Francisco and the Tallgrass Prairie in Kansas.” He goes on, “The Sierra Club was able to make the environment a salient political issue. For the first time in history, the environment was a decisive issue in a number of Congressional races…”[1]

John Adams, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), assigned even greater importance to the same victories that Mr. Pope mentioned: “Now it is the end of 1996,” Mr. Adams wrote recently, “and all of us who care about the environment can look back on what may be the single most significant victory in the history of the U.S. environmental movement. In the past two years, we have turned back an attack that the entire country thought was unstoppable–an attack on our National Parks, our public health, our keystone environmental laws that have stood for twenty-five years.”[2]

So the U.S. environmental movement had a successful 1995 and 1996, according to these national leaders. But what about the environment itself? Here are a few facts gathered from the nation’s newspaper of record, the NEW YORK TIMES:

** In 1996, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature [IUCN] in Gland, Switzerland, issued an updated worldwide “red list” of threatened species.[3] The new list is “startling,” says the TIMES: 1096 mammals –nearly one-quarter of all the mammalian species on Earth –are critically endangered (169), endangered (315), or vulnerable (612). This is the first time the IUCN has assessed the status of the world’s 4630 mammalian species. More than 500 scientists contributed to the latest edition of the IUCN’s “red list.” Many national governments are members of the IUCN.

The terms critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable have the following meaning to the IUCN:[4]

Critically endangered means an organism faces an “extremely high risk” of extinction in the wild in the immediate future. Immediate might mean 10 years for some species, longer for longer-lived ones. Endangered means a species faces a “very high risk” of extinction in the near future –in 20 years or more, for instance. Vulnerable means a species faces a high risk of extinction in the medium-term future, which could be 100 years or so depending on the species. These categories are not comparable with those established by the United States’ Endangered Species Act (ESA), which assigns imperiled species the status of “endangered” or the less serious “threatened.”

In addition to one-quarter of the world’s mammals being threatened with extinction, the latest IUCN red list includes 1108 species of birds –more than 11 percent of all the bird species on Earth.

In addition to mammals and birds, the red list of 1996 includes 253 reptile species, 124 amphibian species, and 734 fish species in danger of extinction, but it emphasizes that thousands of groups of animals have never been assessed, so the truth is very likely worse than the IUCN has reported.

All told, this year’s red list includes 5025 species that are in danger of disappearing forever.

That’s worldwide. What about in the U.S.?

** In January, 1996, the TIMES reported that the Nature Conservancy (a private organization) had evaluated 20,481 species of animals and plants.[5] The Nature Conservancy reported that about one-third of the species studied are rare or imperiled in the U.S. Specifically, 1.3 percent were already extinct (or possibly extinct –extinction is hard to prove); 6.5 percent were critically imperiled; 8.9 percent were imperiled; and 15 percent were considered vulnerable.

The four groups with the highest percentages of species in danger of extinction are freshwater mussels (67.1 percent), crayfish (64.8 percent), amphibians (37.9 percent), and freshwater fish (37.2 percent). The groups with the LOWEST percentages of species in trouble were birds (13.9 percent), and mammals (16.1 percent). This study listed only full species, not subspecies, so endangered creatures like the northern spotted owl in the northwestern U.S. were not included.

Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson told the TIMES that the Nature Conservancy study was scientifically valid and was representative of the nation’s fauna and flora, even though some groups, like insects, were not well represented. There are an estimated 100,000 species of plants and animals in the U.S., so the Nature Conservancy only looked at about one-fifth of all species –the ones for which scientists had sufficient information to make an assessment.

There is only one cause of this decimation: humans and their economic activities, which are premised on the unspoken assumption that humans are the master species of the Earth and can do whatever they please with it.[6]

If the problem really has only one cause, why can’t we make headway against it? For one thing, we can’t seem to admit a defeat when we experience one. We insist on calling it victory.

Against the IUCN’s and the Nature Conservancy’s catalogs of destruction, we have Sierra Club’s Carl Pope celebrating the year’s accomplishments: managing to hang on to the environmental laws that have permitted the destruction for 25 years; protection of a former military base (albeit a park-like one), the Presidio, in San Francisco, and a slice of prairie in Kansas; and making the environment “a salient political issue” in a handful of Congressional races. For his part, John Adams celebrates the fact that 25 years of ineffective U.S. environmental laws have been retained. Adams calls this “the single most significant victory in the history of the U.S. environmental movement.” If these evaluations are correct, then the environmental movement in the U.S. is bankrupt.

The national environmental organizations are continuing to work exclusively on the symptoms of our distress. They are working to pass laws and regulations, one at a time, to apply a zillion bandages to a zillion small wounds, each of which is oozing blood. This is a strategy doomed to fail. It has failed year after year, and it will continue to fail into the future until the human animal has disappeared.

Let’s be blunt. Few will disagree with the following assessment by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton: “The business class dominates government through its ability to fund political campaigns, purchase high-priced lobbyists, and reward former officials with lucrative jobs.”[7] (Obviously this is true not only in the U.S.; this is a global problem.)

If this is so, why do we keep trying to tweak government, to pass one more law that either won’t be enforced or won’t change anything that matters? Instead, why don’t we focus our attention and resources on the institutions that give the business class the undemocratic power to dominate government (as well as to dominate our vision of what’s right and good)? Think of where the environmental movement could be today if, 25 years ago, we had begun to focus our creative energies on diminishing the excessive power of the corporate class instead of on tweaking ineffective environmental regulations.

Before government can help the environment in any significant way, government must be restored to a point where it can debate real issues and seek real solutions. That will require us to get private (corporate) money out of our elections AS A FIRST PRIORITY.

To his credit, Carl Pope went on record in a recent SIERRA magazine saying that the key institution of the business class –the corporation –is a “major obstacle to the defense of clean air and water and the preservation of wildlife habitat.”[8] This was an important, positive statement.

Despite this, the Sierra Club spent almost $7.5 million trying to influence the outcome of Congressional races in 1996 –during an election campaign where total spending exceeded $1.8 billion.[9] This $7.5 million represents a breathtaking amount of cash, when compared to the money that is available to work on campaign finance reform –the effort to get private/corporate money out of elections –where even one million dollars is a huge sum. That $7.5 million could have funded a major effort to achieve campaign finance reform, but could make almost no difference in a $1.8 billion national election. Spent on a national election, those funds could do nothing to diminish the excessive power of the corporate class. Despite Mr. Pope’s recent –and welcome –acknowledgement that corporations are a key problem, the Club evidently still doesn’t have a strategy that can lead to anything but more of the same old stuff –and I offer this saddening assessment as a member and supporter of the Club.

Still it should be said that the Sierra Club is among the more progressive of the nation’s 15 large national environmental organizations. At this point, the rest of the groups are far off target with the exception of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. NRDC seems unlikely ever to understand the centrality of the corporation to environmental destruction. Indeed, most of the Big 15 are committed to failed strategies, supporting Clinton/Gore, pretending to themselves that success will arrive when the Democrats come up with the corporate cash needed to retake control of Congress. History tells us it is a false hope.

But isn’t it really individual lifestyles that are the problem, not corporate money and power? It is difficult to imagine people in an industrialized country like the U.S. successfully curbing their appetites while corporations are spending $23 billion each year promoting hedonism (usually called “consumerism”) through advertising. Corporations have spent a century intentionally reversing our “old fashioned” attitudes of frugality, thrift, simplicity, and religious reverence for life. (And most recently they are in our schools, dismantling environmental education programs, intentionally exorcising the knowledge and attitudes our children will need for survival.) A few people have been able to withstand this ceaseless barrage of corporate propaganda, but not many. Before people can sort out what it’s going to take to prevent the extinction of humans, we will need to clear our minds and focus on fundamentals, in preparation for a difficult national debate. Getting corporat
e money out of the institutions of our democracy is the first requirement. (National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO) –Peter Montague

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[1] Undated letter to “Dear Friends” from Carl Pope, Executive Director, The Sierra Club, received December 9, 1996.

[2] John H. Adams, “A victory against all odds,” AMICUS JOURNAL Vol. 18, No. 4 (Winter 1997), pg. 2.

[3] Les Line, “1,096 Mammal and 1,108 Bird Species Threatened,” NEW YORK TIMES October 8, 1996, p. 4. The IUCN is part of the World Conservation Union, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland. Telephone +41-22-9990001; fax: +41-22-9990002. E-mail: mail@hq.iucn.ch. In Washington, D.C. their telephone number is (202) 797-5454. To order their publications from within the U.S. or Canada call toll-free 1-800-828-1302.

[4] William K. Stevens, “Fierce Debate Erupts Over Degree of Peril Facing Ocean Species,” NEW YORK TIMES, September 17, 1996, pg. 1.

[5] William Dicke, “Numerous U.S. Plant and Freshwater Species Found in Peril,” NEW YORK TIMES January 2, 1996, pg. B12. The Nature Conservancy can be reached in Arlington, Virginia: (703) 841-5300.

[6] For the best explanation of this unspoken assumption, read Daniel Quinn, ISHMAEL (New York: Bantam Books, 1992 [hard back], 1995 [paper back].)

[7] John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, TOXIC SLUDGE IS GOOD FOR YOU! (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995), pg. 78.

[8] Carl Pope, “Corporate Citizens,” SIERRA Vol. 81, No. 6 (November/December 1996), pg. 14.

[9] John H. Cushman, Jr., “Environmentalists Ante Up To Sway a Number of Races,” NEW YORK TIMES, October 23, 1996, pg. 21. The $1.8 billion is from the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C.; telephone (202) 857-0044.

Descriptor terms: sierra club; natural resources defense council; nrdc; elections; corporations; species loss; carl pope; john adams; iucn; red list; extinction; mammals; amphibians; fish; reptiles; international union for the conservation of nature; nature conservancy; ishmael; daniel quinn; corporations;

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Rachel’s News was published by Environmental Research Foundation (E.R.F.) from 1986 to 2009. All together, 1000 issues appeared. Unless otherwise noted, they were written by Peter Montague.

Over the years the name of the publication changed slightly, starting as “Hazardous Waste News,” then “Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News,” then “Rachel’s Environment & Health News” and finally “Rachel’s Democracy & Health News.” In this archive, we have simply used “Rachel’s News.”

E.R.F. changed its location over the years from Princeton, N.J., to Washington, D.C. to Annapolis, Md. and finally to New Brunswick, N.J.

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