Environmental Heroes – CONSERVING NATURE WITH WORDS & PHOTOS

REVEREND SALLY BINGHAM

Faith-Based Groups Jump on the Climate Change Bandwagon

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

In 1998 at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, California, Reverend Sally Bingham founded the Interfaith Power & Light (IPL)—a staunchly environmental, faith-based organization. IPL now has affiliates in 40 states, involving a total of 18,000 congregations. The mission of IPL’s campaign is to be faithful stewards of Creation by responding to Global Warming through the promotion of energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. Their goals are protecting the Earth’s ecosystems, safeguarding the health of all Creation, and ensuring sufficient, sustainable energy for all.

NEW YORK, NY – MAY 29: Reverend Sally Bingham attends The National Audubon Society 10th Anniversary Women in Conservation Luncheon on May 29, 2013 in New York, United States. (Photo by Ben Gabbe/Getty Images)

In her capacity as President of IPL, Reverend Bingham has brought widespread attention to the link between religious faith and the environment through her work on The Regeneration Project and the IPL Campaign. As one of the first faith leaders to fully recognize Global Warming as a core moral issue, she has mobilized thousands of religious people to put their faith into action through energy stewardship.

In her leadership role at IPL, Reverend Bingham has sparked a growing crescendo of God’s mandate to humans to be faithful stewards of Creation.

In her leadership role at IPL, Reverend Bingham has sparked a growing crescendo of God’s mandate to humans to be faithful stewards of Creation.“Every person of faith should become aware of their moral responsibility to be a steward of Creation. God put Adam in the garden to till and to keep (Genesis). Every mainstream religion has a mandate to care for Creation. Sometimes [followers] have not thought about it or they have not addressed it, and then they see an opportunity to really be faithful stewards of Creation and they join our program,” she explained in an interview.

Bingham went on to say, “People who sit in houses of worship and say they love God and their neighbors have a particular obligation to take care of the Earth and each other. If you sit in a pew on Sunday and say you love God and you love your neighbor, how can you not be taking care of your neighbor’s air and water? They are now starting to recognize that responsibility and act.”

That responsibility is deeply connected to her knowledge that Climate Change is harming the people of the world, and her faith mandates a responsibility to care for them. “[Climate Change] affects every single aspect of life, affects every living thing—starting with the rising sea, the temperature change, the number of long heat days that are causing people to die…the fact that the droughts are more extreme and are disrupting crops…the fact that people are starving because they can’t grow food in an area that has not had any rain in five years…that the storms that are so much more severe than they ever were and are killing people and destroying properties,” says Reverend Bingham with a note of sadness in her voice. She continues, “It is happening because the climate is changing. Why is the climate changing? Because we are putting too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”

One poignant action that she hopes congregations will do is to join the IPL campaign. The IPL is a growing national movement that is completely interfaith, as the name implies. The campaign has brought massive growth and awareness to religious people about their responsibility to protect the climate. IPL began with an episcopal church in the diocese of California asking its congregations to buy renewable energy for their electricity. Those congregations served as examples to their communities and it grew rapidly from there.

IPL began with an episcopal church in the diocese of California asking its congregations to buy renewable energy for their electricity.

Prior to COP21 in Paris, IPL requested its members to take the Paris Pledge to show the world that the faith community in the United States is committed to cutting emissions, creating jobs, and saving money at the same time. Indeed, IPL took an eleven foot long scroll with 4,500 congregations and individual households who pledged to cut their carbon emissions in half by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050.

Reverend Bingham knows as well as anyone that the environment has become a political issue. Bingham says, “It is almost universal that if you are a Democrat you are an environmentalist and if you are a Republican you are not. That unfortunately is a big stumbling block for the issue. We don’t believe in our organization that the environment is a political issue, we see it is as an issue of science but in the big picture, it is a moral issue. Where are our values, what do we care about, what is our responsibility to the future and it’s about how to leave this world to come back to our moral integrity.”

While Reverend Bingham does not offer solutions for solving the politicization of environmental issues, she is enthusiastic about the willingness to think differently on the issues in the religious community. The majority of the people she speaks with are in support of her initiatives, though on occasion she receives push back. “What we have come up against occasionally because our focus has been on Climate Change is that God would never allow anything bad to happen to Creation. And then we have to do some explanation about how God has given us Free Choice and some of our choices have been harmful to Creation. Mostly we get the comment that I had never thought about like that before,” she offers.Religiously, she thinks people are really on board with human beings as the species put on planet to keep it safe and healthy for not only ourselves, but the people that come after us. “There are very few people that would argue with that,” Reverend Bingham asserts.

Pope Francis’ message in his 2015 “Environmental Encyclical” saying, similarly, that this is about the moral values that every person of integrity needs to have. His Encyclical was not just for Roman Catholics it was for people that have a conscious. Through IPL, Reverend Bingham has been teaching this for over fifteen years, “and now to have somebody as well known, as famous and as popular as Pope Francis to come out and say the same thing, it has been hugely helpful to our movement” explains Bingham. This message is being received extremely enthusiastically, and people see participation in the IPL program as an opportunity to be faithful stewards of Creation.

Reverend Bingham’s hope for our future comes from the fact that more and more people are involved and concerned. She believes we are almost a critical mass and soon things will change for the better. “We stopped smoking almost overnight when enough people were touched by disease due to cigarettes. We are close to enough people being harmed by climate change now that it can no longer be denied. People of faith are taking a leading role and once the moral and religious leaders are involved and speaking out the movement will succeed.”

Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.

Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism, and Project Drawdown

Paul Hawken—Innovator / Visionary

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

When it comes down to personal ingenuity and plans for solving Climate Change, one man stands head and shoulders above all. Entrepreneur Paul Hawken has parlayed a financial empire built on selling garden supplies and materials—through the once world-famous Smith & Hawken Company which he co-founded—into “Project Drawdown”, the world’s most ambitious undertaking for finding and testing solutions to our climate dilemma.

Let’s step back for a moment now and take a closer look at this Climate Change visionary’s background. In 1966, Hawken took over a small retail store in the City of Boston in 1966 called Erewhon (after Samuel Butler’s 1872 utopian novel) and turned it into the Erewhon Trading Company, a natural-foods wholesaler. Next with Dave Smith, he co-founded the Smith & Hawken Garden Supply Company in 1979—a retail and catalog business.

Next with Dave Smith, Paul Hawken co-founded the Smith & Hawken Garden Supply Company in 1979—a retail and catalog business.

In 1999, Hawken co-authored a book with Amory and Hunter Lovins entitled, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. Natural Capitalism—which has been translated into 26 languages—popularized the idea that Earth’s natural resources should be considered as “natural capital” since they provide “ecosystem services” from which humans derive such benefits as clean water and waste decomposition. Then in 2008, he co-founded Biomimicry Technologies with biologist Janine Benyus, the author of Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature.

In 2007, Viking Press published Hawken’s New York Times bestseller, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. The book is about the many non-profit groups and community organizations, dedicated to many different causes, which Hawken calls the “environmental and social justice movement”.

In an interview with us, Hawken provides this elaboration: “Blessed Unrest describes what I call humanity’s immune response to ecological degradation, economic disease, and political corruption. All three are intimately intertwined with Global Warming. When I was doing the initial research [for this book], our institute was cataloging the more than 2,000 different types of non-profit organizations in the world according to their purpose, and month after month we saw the climate movement emerge, grow, and differentiate.”

Now we arrive at Hawken’s piece de resistance: His “Project Drawdown” is aimed at reducing—not just stabilizing—Greenhouse Gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere in order to reverse rising global temperatures. “Drawdown” grew out of Hawken’s frustration with actionable, scalable solutions that would make a meaningful dent in the atmosphere’s growing accumulation of GHG. As he saw it, the solutions that had been put forward over the years were all seemingly out of reach—involving either ungodly amounts of solar and wind energy or the mass adoption of futuristic, unproven technologies.

In a conversation with GreenBiz’s Joel Makower, Hawken recalled, “It made me feel like this is intractable, that it requires such Promethean work by such mammoth institutions—with policy changes that are more than structural,” Hawken recalled. “It made me feel like it wasn’t possible to address Climate Change, rather than giving me hope.” In Climate Change activist Bill McKibben’s seminal 2012 Rolling Stonearticle entitled Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math, Hawken asked, “Why aren’t we doing the math on the solutions? Somebody should come up with a list and see what it requires so you get to drawdown.”

In 2013, Hawken began teaching at San Francisco’s Presidio Graduate School, alongside climate activist and entrepreneur Amanda Joy Ravenhill. “One day we were just riffing, and we started talking about drawdown and we said, ‘Let’s do it. No one else is doing it,” Hawken recounted. Today, Ravenhill is “Project Drawdown’s” Executive Director and—with Hawken—the project book’s co-editor. Together, the two recruited more than 80 advisors, partners, scientists, government agencies, and participating universities—plus another 200 graduate students—to work on the project.

Hawken further described his “Project Drawdown” process in his February 2016 responses to our interview questions: “[In Project Drawdown] we are filling this void by doing the math on the atmospheric and financial impacts of state-of-the-shelf solutions if deployed globally and at scale over the next 30 years. State-of-the-shelf refers to techniques that are widely practiced, commonly available, economically viable and scientifically valid.”

He continued: “In Drawdown we identify solutions that are already in place. But we also describe what we call ‘coming attractions,’ solutions so new and incipient that we cannot as yet fully measure and map their impact. Here we see genius and brilliance and humanity at its best.”

True to Hawken’s nature—he’s not likely to be satisfied with simply creating a book, however ambitious and meticulously detailed. Instead, “Project Drawdown’s” plans extend in several directions: The solutions and calculations will be contained in a publicly available database—along with the means for individuals and groups to create customized applications. There are also plans for accompanying educational curricula developed by the National Science Foundation. And possibly some media projects based on the work.

For our interview, Hawken provided the following conclusions: “There are many reasons to believe [that Climate Change can be solved]. In “Drawdown”, we identify over 100 of the most substantive solutions that are in place and expanding globally. We see in our models [that] the moment in time when Greenhouse Gases decline on a year-to-year basis in the upper atmosphere is possible within three decades. “Drawdown” is the only goal that makes sense for humanity. And it is eminently doable. By collectively drawing carbon down, we lift up all of life.”

As author Makower concludes in his October 2014 GreenBiz article: “It’s easy, in today’s divisive and toxic political environment, to view “Project Drawdown” as too good to be true—a quixotic quest for an unattainable goal. But there’s something simple and sane about the project’s collective ingredients: unabashed optimism tempered by sharp-pencil calculations, a bold goal undergirded by scientific pragmatism, immediacy coupled with a 30-year horizon, all leveraging the wisdom of a very smart crowd.”

The Environmental Justice Movement

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

One other notable environmental/social achievement of President Clinton is directly related—by global extension—to the developed nations versus developing nations controversy that is a significant component of today’s Climate Change debate. By Executive Order in 1994, Clinton decreed that “each Federal agency shall make achieving environmental justice part of its mission.”

The roots of the Environmental Justice Movement—that Clinton referenced in his decree —can be traced back to Warren County, North Carolina in 1982. With a predominant African-American population, this mostly poor rural county was selected as a site for a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) landfill that handled some of the deadliest carcinogens ever produced by man. More than 500 people were arrested when the community marched in protest.

While their efforts to stop the landfill failed, these demonstrators succeeded in bringing the issue of environmental racism to the forefront of the American public. Their claims emphasized that environmental organizations were run by rich, white people advocating for protection of pristine natural resources while ignoring the conditions of the poor minority populations of the nation.

The prevailing attitude was that natural resources were more important than the ethnic minority populations of the US.

The prevailing attitude was that natural resources were more important than the ethnic minority populations of the US. As a result, many of our nation’s most vile waste products—including radioactive materials—were being deposited in areas predominantly occupied by poor minority homeowners. The driving theory in this disgraceful practice was that there would be less chance of organized opposition since the residents were less likely to be aware of what was happening to their communities.

Robert Bullard—Originator / Author

Robert Bullard, often called the “Father of Environmental Justice”, uses his expertise and media savvy to garner attention for communities burdened with environmental hazards. He has dedicated his career to protecting minority and low-income communities from becoming toxic pollution dump sites. Bullard sees environmental justice issues at the heart of everything, in his words, “The right to vote is a basic right, but if you can’t breathe and your health is impaired and you can’t get to the polls, then what does it matter?”

Dr. Robert Bullard is often called the “Father of Environmental Justice Movement”.

Professor Bullard voiced a loud and clear opinion about the disproportionate number of landfills that were cited near predominantly black communities throughout the South, saying “Just because you are poor, just because you live physically on the wrong ‘side of the tracks’ doesn’t mean that you should be dumped on.” His voice was heard and the implementation of the environmental justice movement occurred.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton summoned Dr. Bullard to the White House to witness the signing of an executive order that would require the federal government to consider the environmental impact on low-income communities before implementing policies. Bullard co-wrote a report titled Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism which prompted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to state, “The EPA is committed to delivering a healthy environment for all Americans and is making significant strides in addressing environmental justice concerns.”

Robert Bullard grew up in Elba, Alabama, a small town that kept him closely acquainted with the civil rights movement, as did his parents, activists for the movement. He earned an undergraduate degree in government from Alabama A&M, a historically black university, and subsequently a Master’s degree in Sociology from Atlanta University. Two years after completing a sociology Ph.D. from Iowa State University, he began a study to document environmental discrimination under the Civil Rights Act. Bullard found that, despite a demographic of only 25% African American in Houston, 100% of the city’s solid waste sites, 75% of the privately owned landfills and 75% of the city-owned incinerators were located in black neighborhoods. Since the city of Houston did not have zoning at this time, he knew that individuals in government orchestrated these sitings. This hooked him into the cause.

Dr. Bullard worked his way through academia, holding research positions and professorships at a number of universities in Texas, Tennessee, California among others. He currently holds a position as Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. As with many of our Climate Change Heroes, Bullard works in academia, but turns his attention and voice to political matters and advocates vociferously for his cause.

Bullard’s book, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality was the first tome on environmental justice issues. Bullard believes that sustainability cannot exist without justice. As he puts it, “This whole question of environment, economics, and equity is a three-legged stool. If the third leg of that stool is dealt with as an afterthought, that stool won’t stand. The equity components have to be given equal weight.” To him, part of the solution is to pair mainstream environmental groups with environmental-justice groups that have the ability to mobilize large numbers of constituents. This type of grassroots movement will get people marching and filling up courtrooms and city council meetings to kick off conversations about environmental movement. He believes that reality will force collaboration and that the awareness that our actions in the developed world have impacts that are not isolated to just us. While this is a step in the right direction, we need to move it to another level of action and policy and apply the framework that environmental justice has laid out to be used across developing countries.

Robert Bullard has received countless awards, including: The Grio’s 100 black history makers in the making, Planet Harmony’s African American Green Hero, and Newsweek’s top Environmental Leaders of the Century. In 2013, he was the first African American to win the Sierra Club John Muir Award, and in 2014 the Club named its new Environmental Justice Award after Dr. Bullard.

The Clinton Presidency—High Hopes Dashed

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

In November 1992, America elected President William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton – the first democratic leader of the free world in 12 years and most environmentalists breathed a long, deep sigh of relief. Personally, since I (Budd) was still making a living as an environmental consultant, I indeed felt like a sweet spring wind had just swooshed across the American landscape. Things surely had to get better now that a left-leaning Democrat was back in the White House.

As president, Clinton had many similarities with his Democratic predecessor—Jimmy Carter from the late 1970’s. He had a strong southern heritage, a gubernatorial background, status as a Washington outsider, and a brilliant mind. In fact, Clinton was imbued with a skill that Carter didn’t possess. He was a great communicator—the Democratic equivalent of Ronald Reagan—with the charisma and savvy to be one of America’s greatest presidents. But alas Clinton fell victim to the same extreme weakness that has plagued so many other great—as well as not so great—male world leaders.

Alas President Bill Clinton fell victim to the same extreme weakness that has plagued so many other great—as well as not so great—male world leaders.

Unfortunately, one thing Clinton didn’t share was Carter’s high moral ground. He did much more than “lust in his heart after the fairer sex”—President Carter’s famous quote about how he experienced sexual fantasies. In fact, it would have been interesting to see exactly how much Clinton could have accomplished in the environmental—as well as other arenas—if he had not fallen prey to the feminine charms of a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.

From a Climate Change perspective when he first took office, Clinton had an outspoken commitment to reduce CO₂ and other GHG emissions. He proclaimed that Climate Change was a global strategic threat that required bold leadership. In his first Earth Day address, Clinton announced that he would sign the Biodiversity Treaty and also promised to reduce GHG emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000, both actions that were embarrassingly rejected by President H. W. Bush at the 1992 Rio Earth. Unfortunately, when Clinton left office, GHG emissions were nowhere near the 1990 levels that he promised.

In general, during the Clinton administration, many environmental activists began to be known as “Lite Greens”—they wanted to protect the environment, but not when it would cause any downgrading of their own personal quality of life.While definitely possessing the knowledge base and passion for increasing environmental protection, Clinton immersed himself in the belief that the economy had to come first, above all else. This was based on his perception that an affluent, acquisitive society was what the American people wanted.

Despite his economic proclivities, Clinton did manage to accomplish some significant natural resource gains—especially during his last years in office. He use the Antiquities Act of 1906 to make more than 3 million acres of federal land off-limits to development by declaring them national monuments. These areas included Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante, Arizona’s Grand-Canyon-Parashant, and California’s Pinnacles. He also used his executive power to declare one third of our national forestland—58 million acres in 39 states—off-limits to road building, logging, and oil and gas exploration.

Clinton also took on a variety of commercially complex issues, including restoring the hydrology of the Everglades, restricting flights over the Grand Canyon, banning snowmobiling in national parks, and fighting off congressional attempts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. In addition, he made headway in so-called brown issues—including approving new clean air standards for soot and smog, cleaning up 515 Superfund sites (more than three times as many as the previous two administrations), doubling the number of chemicals that industry must report to communities through right to know laws, and setting tough new standards for reducing sulfur levels in gasoline. His administration also took measurable action to protect the nation’s waterways and water quality by launching the Clean Water Action Plan, strengthening the Safe Drinking Water Act, and permanently barring new oil leasing in national marine sanctuaries.

But some of Clinton’s most significant environmental accomplishments came not in the form of what he achieved, but what he staved off. He faced an aggressive and hostile Congress that worked consistently to dismantle fundamental environmental laws such as the Endangered Species Act and to frustrate the ability of agencies such as the EPA to carry out their regulatory work. Clinton consistently resisted these attacks by vetoing numerous anti-environmental bills, including the package of legislation that was part of the 1995 Congressional leadership’s “Contract with America.”

Soon after taking office, Clinton shifted the bulk of his administration’s environmental watchdog duties onto his Vice President, Al Gore.

Soon after taking office, Clinton shifted the bulk of his administration’s environmental watchdog duties onto his Vice President, Al Gore. A staunch conservationist, Senator Gore authored the 1992 best-seller, Earth in the Balance, that called for mandating much tougher environmental laws and regulations. After leaving office, Gore also became one of our Climate Change Heroes—most notably because of his 2006 documentary film and later book entitled, An Inconvenient Truth. We will talk much more about Mr. Gore—and his substantial influence on the Climate Change arena—later in this chapter plus a detailed biography in Part Four.

Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Society

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

For the most part, environmental radicalism never quite achieved the level of mayhem and destruction wrought by Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang. Most of the new NGO’s of the Seventies relied on getting the public’s attention through protest rallies—fueled by media involvement—and peaceful civil disobedience such as bulldozer blockades, treetop sit-ins, and Congressional conservation voting record-tracking.

The primary exception to low-key environmental activism was the organization known as Greenpeace. Although professed to be nonviolent by its leaders, Greenpeace often employed in-your-face, smash-mouth techniques—commonly referred to as the direct action approach—that would have made Edward Abbey himself blush.

More than any other NGO—before or since—Greenpeace emphasized using the media to gain attention to their causes. Often described as the most visible environmental organization that ever existed, Greenpeace has always been controversial, even acquiring sea-going vessels for the sole purpose of using them to directly confront and interfere with Russian and Japanese whaling factory ships. They also became directly immersed in a battle to stop the slaughter of harp seal pups in Newfoundland. Who can ever forget the public information spot showing an adorable doe-eyed and white-furred harp seal pup one minute and word that they were being bloodily bludgeoned to death for their pelts the next?

Among their thousands of dramatic protests, Greenpeace activists also infiltrated nuclear test sites, shielded whales from harpoons, and blocked ocean-going barges from dumping radioactive waste. On the downside of the organization’s tactics, the Rainbow Warrior— flagship of the Greenpeace fleet—was sunk in the port of Auckland, New Zealand in 1985 by the French Foreign Intelligence Services. En route to protect a planned nuclear test in Mururoa in French Polynesia, the ship —when it sank—also claimed the life of Fernando Pereira, a freelance Dutch photographer.

Depending on who or what you believe, Greenpeace purportedly first came to the light of day in 1971 with an assemblage of hail and hearty souls in the backroom of a storefront in Vancouver, Canada. Their first mission of note involved chartering an old halibut seiner—The Phyllis Cormack—and plowing through unfriendly seas in the Gulf of Alaska to protest nuclear testing on the tectonically unstable island of Amchitka in Alaska. This led to a face-off in 1971 with a US Coast Guard Cutter, and eventually generated enough public support to force the US to end nuclear testing on Amchitka.

No matter what you may think about Greenpeace or their methods for confronting and stopping highly-damaging environmental activities, the fact remains that they are today one of the world’s largest and most successful NGO’s. Greenpeace now has an international organization with five ships, 2.8 million supporters, 27 national and regional offices, and a presence in 55 countries. Greenpeace’s stated goal is to “ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity”.

Today, the international chapters of Greenpeace focus their campaigning on such worldwide issues as deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, anti-nuclear issues, and Climate Change. To keep their noses as clean as possible, the global organization does not accept funding from governments, corporations, or political parties.

Paul Watson and His Sea Shepherd Society

The exact founding structure of Greenpeace has never been quite clear. To this day, it’s said that you can go into any bar in Vancouver, Canada and sit down next to someone who will tell you they are one of the founders of Greenpeace.

Certainly one of the most noteworthy—and outlandish—characters to ever make this claim is Canadian, Paul Watson. Whether or not he was a Greenpeace founder, Watson was an active participant to the point that he got himself banned from the organization and then went out and formed his own rabble-rousing outfit, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Watson proceeded to command his ship, The Sea Shepherd, sailing around the world and personally attacking the whaling fleets of Norway, Japan, and—most notably—Iceland, where he actually scuttled and sank two boats while they were at anchor in harbor. Somehow, Watson managed to escape serving any actual prison time.

After watching his involvement in the documentary A Fierce Green Fire, it is difficult not to consider Watson a true hero—especially if you love marine mammals. He certainly did not pull any punches when it came to fighting for exactly what he believed—the life of every sperm whale and harp seal. In fact, he repeatedly put his own health and safety in harm’s way to protect these majestic and lovely animals. In the end result—largely due to the disruptive efforts of Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Society—the International Whaling Commission (IWC) enacted a global moratorium on whaling with only Japan refusing to sign the pact. Despite this success, the suitability of Watson’s ways are certainly a matter for conjecture and debate within the Climate Change community.

Edward Abbey—The Cutting Edge of the Radical Left

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

In the minds of many radical environmentalists, Edward Abbey’s outlandish 1975 novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, set the tone and attitude for how to best get things accomplished. With an emphasis on protesting environmentally damaging activities through the use of sabotage, the term monkey wrenching soon defined any sabotage, activism, law-making, or law-breaking used to preserve wilderness, wild spaces, and ecosystems. Abbey’s main protagonist, George Washington Hayduke, codified the wants, longings, and desires of the average male environmentalist awash in the frustrations of corporate greed and corruption. Espousing the usually unheard voices of the “little people”, Abbey’s Hayduke justified his unorthodox, costly, and highly illegal actions of environmental mayhem by saying, “… because somebody has to do it.”

Known for his anarchistic rhetoric and sanctimonious wit, Abbey was often at the center of the hip environmental movement.

Known for his anarchistic rhetoric and sanctimonious wit, Abbey was often at the center of the hip environmental movement. His writings ranged from blatantly outrageous to sublimely poignant and powerful. While The Monkey Wrench Gang, fomented such radical environmental groups as Earth First!, his non-fiction Desert Solitaire has been favorably compared to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac.

Desert Solitaire is a beautifully told non-fiction piece about Abbey’s year as a solitary ranger in the secluded backcountry of Arches National Park. Now often considered a classic piece of natural history writing, this book takes a variety of tones, ranging from a polemic against development and excessive tourism in our national parks to tales about the exhilarating excitement of river running. As would be expected from those who know Abbey’s writing, Desert Solitaire is also interspersed with extended musings and observations about the dynamics between humans and the desert environment. Also, in many of his chapters, Abbey strongly expresses his deep-seated beliefs about the foibles of modern Western civilization, the unethical gyrations of United States politics, and the rapid disintegration of America’s environment.

After his death in 1989, Abbey’s family and writing cohorts unceremoniously buried him at night in the Arizona desert wrapped only in a blue sleeping bag near a granite rock famously inscribed with the words, “No Comment”. The gesture was fittingly apropos for a man who deeply believed that a man’s life should blend as lightly and inconspicuously into the natural environment as possible.

Barry Commoner – “The Paul Revere of Ecology” – and Donella Meadows – “Limits to Growth”

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tingerhttp://www.buddtitlow.com

Several landmark literary works—most dealing with the fact that the earth may be about to start spiraling out of control with no hope of recovery—also came to fruition early in the Seventies. In particular, two books by our Past Environmental Heroes—Barry Commoner and Donella “Dana” Meadows—provided early hints that we were on a doomsday track that could culminate in a radically changed Earth.

In a cover page feature in 1970, Time Magazine called Commoner “The Paul Revere of Ecology”.

Although widely criticized in many circles as a doomsayer, Barry Commoner was way ahead of his time in describing the dramatic consequences of zealous overconsumption, capitalistic greed, and abuse of natural resources. In fact, throughout his writing and speeches, he predicted the onset of the Climate Change crisis we are facing today. In a cover page feature in 1970, Time Magazine called Commoner “The Paul Revere of Ecology” and said that: “He has probably done more than any other US scientist to speak out and awaken a sense of urgency about the [world’s] declining quality of life.”

With his thick thatch of hair, warm smile, and intense but purposeful gaze, Barry Commoner would be a good choice for one of any environmentalist’s three dream guests at a dinner party. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1917 to Russian immigrants, Commoner first studied zoology at Columbia University and then at Harvard where he received his doctorate in biology/ecology in 1941. Commoner was one of the new science of ecology’s most provocative thinkers and recognized that America’s technology boom following World War II was not all good.

As a leading opponent of nuclear testing, he was credited with creating the momentum that led to the passage of the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. Commoner also knew we were running the risk of poisoning both the land and ourselves with the preponderance of toxic substances we were spewing across the earth and into our skies. With the publication of his 1971 best-selling book, The Closing Circle, Commoner helped launch the Environmental Movement of the 1970’s—being often mentioned with such other notable activists and Environmental Heroes as Rachel Carson, David Brower, and Aldo Leopold.

The parallels of Commoner’s work and beliefs with those of the modern day Climate Change experts are intriguing. In the 1950’s, Commoner first became well known for his emphatic warnings about the hazards of fallout caused by the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Capitalizing on this newfound public forum, he next alerted the American public about the dangers created by the petrochemical industry and toxic substances such as dioxins.

Laying the groundwork for the environmental justice movement—a catch phrase in the current Climate Change debate—Commoner continually emphasized that environmental hazards disproportionately impacted the poor and racial minorities, since dangerous chemicals and associated hazardous conditions were typically located in rural and/or blue collar neighborhoods. Today, Climate Change analysts focus on these same points, while also emphasizing that poor people in most developing countries throughout the world are the primary sacrificial lambs of the fossil fuel, political-industrial conglomerate of deniers.

Just as do the leading members of today’s 350.org—which we’ll discuss later in this section—Commoner viewed the environmental crisis of the 1960’s as a symptom of a fundamentally flawed economic and social system. In his opinion, three primary culprits—corporate greed, illogical government priorities, and the misuse of technology—were driving the world’s infatuation with excessive profits and overindulgent lifestyles that were threatening to make the Earth an unfit place to live.

Commoner continually emphasized the parallels among the environmental, civil rights, labor, and peace movements in the US while also connecting the ongoing environmental crisis to world problems of poverty, injustice, racism, public health, national security, and war.These are the same arguments and concerns that are now being analyzed as the primary hurdles to discovering practicable solutions for dealing with Climate Change.

In the 1970s, Commoner disagreed with Paul Ehrlich’s view—as expressed in Ehrlich’s book, The Population Bomb—that overpopulation, particularly in developing countries, was responsible for depleting the world’s natural resources and deepening the earth’s environmental problems. In The Closing Circle, Commoner introduced the idea of sustainability, now a widely considered concept but then very controversial—often linked to socialism—during the 1970s. He emphasized that there is only one ecosphere for all living things.

In line with ecological thought, Commoner believed that “what affects one, affects all”. Encouraging the now widespread practice of recycling, he also noted that in nature there is no waste and—because of this—we can’t just throw things away. He advocated designing and manufacturing products that can be reused, thus maintaining the delicate balance between humans and nature.Commoner was one of the first scientists to bring the concept of sustainable living to a mass audience. He challenged the petroleum industry and—long before it became politically fashionable—touted solar power as the long-term solution to the world’s energy needs.

Barry Commoner ‘s Four Laws of Ecology from his book, The Closing Circle:

“Everything is connected to everything else.
Everything must go somewhere.
Nature knows best.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.”

A man whose ideas were well ahead of their time, Barry Commoner would have been a prime candidate for the leader of today’s Climate Change movement. His courage to take stands and express philosophies that were contrary to—and in some cases, considered un-American—popular thought are exactly what is needed to get the message across and start implanting the major and significant changes that are required in the social, industrial, and political infrastructures of today’s world.

Donella Meadows and Her Limits to Growth

From the standpoint of standing behind your beliefs, Donella “Dana” Meadows is certainly the equal of—if not superior to—Barry Commoner. Meadows had solutions for dealing with Climate Change years before it became a prominent national and worldwide concern, plus she practiced exactly what she preached. In fact, the groundbreaking book she co-authored in 1972—The Limits to Growth—sold nine million copies in twenty-six languages and launched Meadows onto the global stage as a leading environmental thinker and writer. Limits made headlines around the world and began a debate about the limits of Earth’s capacity to support human economic expansion —a debate that continues to this day, especially in the face of the pending Climate Change crisis.

Born in Elgin, Illinois in 1941, Meadows received her Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University in 1968. She then became a Research Fellow at MIT working in the department of Professor Jay Forester studying the application of the relatively new field of systems dynamics to global problems. Inspiration from this landmark research led Meadows and her cohorts to write and publish Limits.

While it was just a small book, Limits packed a huge wallop! Its writing analyzed “the predicament of mankind”—with its interrelated social, economic, and political problems—including poverty amidst prosperity, environmental degradation, unchecked urban sprawl, loss of faith in institutions, alienation of youth, inflation, insecurity of employment, and rejection of traditional values.

One of her primary conclusions was: “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.” As Meadows commented to an interviewer, “From my point of view as a scientist, there was nothing more stupidly obvious than to say that the Earth is finite and growth can’t go on forever.”

Of course, in 1972, this was considered to be an extremely radical point of view and—accordingly—Limitsprovoked a firestorm of criticism, ridicule, and vitriol from the business, economic, political, and even academic establishments. On balance, the book also garnered reasonable acclaim and applause from a cadre of skeptics who were gradually becoming more and more concerned about the ever-increasing human population’s negative influences on Planet Earth.

But many considered Limits to be heretical—especially the legions of people who steadfastly believed in the secular religion of perpetual growth and endless technological potential. However, anyone who took the time to actually read Limits was given a basis for serious insight and reflection about the human condition. The authors of this book were acclaimed scientists and scholars from one of the nation’s most prestigious universities—not sign-carrying, doom-predicting kooks in sandals and robes.

Lost amidst the hubbub, the optimistic solutions to this pending global crisis put forth in Limits, included this: “It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential. If the world’s people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success.”

After the publication of Limits, Meadows spent 16 years writing a weekly syndicated column—which appeared in 20 newspapers—called The Global Citizen in which she commented on world events from a systems point of view. Through the years, her writing won many awards, including the 1985 Champion–Tuck National Competition for outstanding journalism in the fields of business and economics and the Walter C. Paine Science Education Award in 1990. Meadows was also honored as a Pew Scholar in Conservation and Environment (1991), and a MacArthur Fellow (1994), plus she was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1991. Posthumously, she received the John H. Chafee Excellence in Environmental Affairs Award for 2001, presented by the Conservation Law Foundation.

In 1996, Meadows founded the Sustainability Institute with the mission of fostering transitions to sustainable systems at all levels of society, from local to global. After her death in 2001 in Hanover, New Hampshire, the Sustainability Institute was renamed the Donella Meadows Institute (DMI) and moved its offices to Norwich, Vermont. DMI’s overriding message was really quite simple: “We humans are smart enough to have created complex systems and amazing productivity; surely we are also smart enough to make sure that everyone shares our bounty, and surely we are smart enough to sustainably steward the natural world upon which we all depend.” Since its founding, the DMI has been at the forefront of worldwide sustainability thinking and training.

Meadows lived for many years on an organic farm, existing simply, and saving energy.

In the latter years of her life, Meadows truly practiced what she preached—adhering to her personal mantra that was couched in microbiologist and author Rene Dubos’ famous quotation, “Think Globally, Act Locally.” Because of her worries about Climate Change, she restricted her own travel to only those events at which she felt her physical presence would do the most good. She also lived for many years on an organic farm, existing simply, and saving energy. She bought a hybrid gas/electric car as soon as they became available.

It’s truly a shame that Donella Meadows passed away at such an early age. Her philosophy and lifestyle would provide the perfect components of a Climate Change leader. On the one hand she understood all too well what the future bodes if we hold onto our “progress is good at all costs” mentality. While on the other, she firmly believed that humans had the potential and power to do what was right for the long-term future of the world and humanity. Plus she spent the last years of her life personally demonstrating exactly how the world’s population could live sustainably—both as individuals and as collective communities!

We think this last paragraph from one of her Global Citizen columns perfectly summarizes who Donella “Dana” Meadows was: “Personally I don’t believe that stuff [about just giving up] at all. I don’t see myself or the people around me as fatally flawed. Everyone I know wants [both] polar bears and three-year-olds in our world. We are not helpless and there is nothing wrong with us except the strange belief that we are helpless and there’s something wrong with us. All we need to do, for the [polar] bear and for ourselves, is to stop letting that belief paralyze our minds, hearts, and souls.”

“We have no choice but to conform [to a more sustainable future]. If we don’t choose to, the planet will make us. And [in fact] our lives will be better if we do. It isn’t sacrifice we’re selling, it’s a more meaningful, time-filled, love-filled, nature-filled existence.”

NEPA, CEQ, and the Birth of the EIS

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

Fittingly, the very first federal action to arrive on the scene during the Seventies was the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—and along with it the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). While officially intended to be representative of the “US national policy promoting enhancement of the environment”, NEPA—in actuality—turned out to be something quite different. In fact, it quickly became a controversial vehicle for debating the pros and cons of “proposed federal actions that may or may not have significant negative or positive impacts on the quality of the natural or human environments.” Got it?

Well don’t feel bad, neither did most of the people who were hired by the federal government to conduct NEPA analyses and then write corresponding Environmental Impact Statements (EIS’s) summarizing the findings of these analyses. I (Budd) should know—I was one of those people!

I spent my first three years as a “Professional Environmental Scientist” trying to convince Congress to clarify exactly how an EIS was supposed to be written and how the findings should be determined and presented. By the way, NEPA is the law that brought us all the titanic—and often multi-year—EIS battles over such relatively obscure creatures as the snail darter, the furbish lousewort, zebra mussels, and oh so many more tantalizing federal foibles and fiascos.

Anyway, we digress … at least NEPA represented a legitimate effort on the part of Congress to embed some sort of environmental ethic and consciousness into the land development business in the United States. And this was—in fact—a big improvement over what previously had been required from an environmental analysis and evaluation standpoint—which was, pretty much—nothing at all!

Russell Train – The First Guru of CEQ

All of this Washington, DC level hoopla about environmental awareness and protection also brought another leading man to the forefront of the conservation movement. From the day that he first set foot on a Washington sidewalk, Russell Train was destined to be a bright star in the mixed metaphor affairs of politics, high finance, and natural resource conservation. Meticulous, dapper, and exquisitely mannered—even as a young boy—Train had the combined legal and business acumen to know how to get things done in DC and—wow—did he ever put those skills to work in for national environmental regulation and worldwide wildlife protection.

Born in Jamestown, Rhode Island in 1920, Train was raised in Washington where his father, a Rear Admiral in the US Navy, served as President Herbert Hoover’s Naval Aide. Educated at both Princeton and Columbia Universities, he started his career as a DC lawyer working in the US Tax Court but quickly realized he could create a niche for himself as an advocate for African wildlife—his first real love. So—in 1965—he resigned in mid-term and became president and chief attorney of the Conservation Foundation.

Train’s success as a conservation attorney was so great that he caught the eye of President-elect Richard Nixon who decided that his deft combination of innovative ideas and personal passions were exactly what was needed to capture the public’s burgeoning concerns—and votes—about environmental protection. Nixon plugged Train into all the right places and it was actually through Train’s advice that Nixon created both the CEQ—to review regulatory activities under NEPA—and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Once he became the first Chairman of CEQ, Train was off and running as a force to be reckoned with on the red carpets of Washington.

His work as head of the CEQ was so effective that Train soon had the moniker, The Father of NEPA, attached to his name. His policy of “look-before-you-leap” became the catch phrase for analyzing the potential impacts of major federal actions before building them. As CEQ Chairman, Train also earned the reputation for being the “founding father” of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Heritage Program.

After being appointed Administrator of the EPA in 1973, Train soon also became well known for creating ground-breaking laws and implementing effective enforcement of a host of ersatz rules and regulations. With the delegated power of the presidency firmly clinched in his fists, Train shaped the world’s first comprehensive programs for scrubbing the skies and waters of pollution while safeguarding US citizens from exposure to toxic chemicals.

After leaving government service in 1978, Train moved on to the next position where he soon earned another starring role as the first Chairman of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). During Trains’ time in leading the organization, the WWF grew from a small, relatively-unknown conservation group to a global force for conservation, consisting of $100-million-a-year global network of researchers and technical specialists, famed for its panda trademark.

Panda-adorned logo of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

For the remainder of his life, Train continued to receive numerous plaudits—from Chairman Emeritus of the WWF to the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by President H.W. Bush in 1991. In 2003, Train published his memoir, Politics, Pollution, and Pandas, which is an excellent compendium on the birth and growth of US’s national interest in environmental issues.

“I felt strongly that environmental issues needed a sharp, cutting edge in government, one that had high visibility to the public … and this view finally prevailed.”

– Russell Train, Politics, Pollution, and Pandas

Russell Train’s primary organization building skills—in both the public and the private sectors—should be studied in depth by Climate Change leaders and activists. Successfully fostering a conservation cause first depends on having a cohesive, well-staffed, and financially solvent organization in place.

The First Earth Day Leaves A Mighty Mark

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

Among the many events heralding the newfound and hardcore lust for environmental protection was the first Earth Day which took place on April 22, 1970. The brainchild of Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day spotlighted such problems as thermal pollution of the atmosphere, dying lakes, the profusion of solid waste, ruinous strip mining, catastrophic oil spills, and dwindling natural resources. As a pivotal event in the environmental movement, the First Earth Day emphasized that the obsession with industrial growth and consumerism was straining the environment to the breaking point and introduced the idea of living lightly on the Earth.

After the first Earth Day was over, Nelson mulled over what had just occurred as the greatest groundswell demonstration of public support for a cause in US history, “No one could organize 20 million people, 10,000 grade schools and high schools, 2,500 colleges and 1,000 communities in three and a half months even if he had $20 million. [Nelson had just $190,000.] The key to the whole thing was the grass roots response.”

All concerned Climate Change activists would do well to study the unequivocal success of the first Earth Day. The unexpected magnitude of the response to this landmark event clearly shows what can be done when the political and social moods of the country collide together with a message that says, “Let’s get something done”. Furthermore, the resultant outpouring of federal environmental legislation proves that Congress was listening to what the people were asking for. Such a groundswell of public opinion—all speaking with the same voice—will certainly go a long way toward passing similar laws and regulations to initiate real Climate Change solutions both in the US and around the world.

Tricky Dick Comes to the Rescue

The public outcry for fixing the environment became so pervasive across the land, that when President Richard Millhouse Nixon—arguably the most reviled leader in US history—took office he was forced to acknowledge that something had to be done about the environment. Nixon made his feelings quite evident during his first State of the Union Address by saying: “The 1970’s absolutely must be the decade when America pays its debt to the past by reclaiming the purity of its air and its waters. … It is literally now or never.” The furious flurry of federal environmental legislation that emanated from Capitol Hill during the first few years of the Seventies offered solid proof that Nixon and the Congress were fully committed to putting federal funds where their mouths were.

President Richard Nixon at work in the Oval Office.

What made this all seem so incongruous was that the demand for more national environmental protection was so great that no administration, including one staffed primarily by conservative and—as proven by the sordid and shameful Watergate Affair in 1972—criminally unscrupulous politicians, could ignore the nationwide clarion calls.

As an aside, I (Budd) vividly remember —as a graduate student at Virginia Tech—having dinner at my dad’s house in Blacksburg, Virginia when the Watergate Break-In was first reported on the CBS Evening News. Walter Cronkite just sort of mentioned it in passing late in the broadcast, essentially as a non-story—“some minor criminal activity at the Washington, DC hotel where the Democratic National Convention was being held”. His dad immediately looked up from cutting his broiled chicken and—displaying his right-on instincts as a lifelong newspaperman—said, “Boy that sure sounds like that just might be a real story!”

Arrival of the Brown Cloud—Retooling the US Auto Industry

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

The late Sixties also featured an array of natural disasters unlike anything the world had seen before, providing even more proof that the Earth was in dire need of increased environmental sensitivity and protection. Most prominently in June of 1969, the Cuyahoga River near downtown Cleveland actually caught on fire creating an abominable absurdity that even Hollywood movie producers could not imagine conceiving.

In California, newscasters in Los Angeles were regularly advising residents to keep their children and elderly relatives inside during the frequent Brown Cloud smog alerts the city was experiencing. Primarily emanating from automobile engine combustion, the all too frequent Brown Clouds became a huge concern because they were seriously affecting the health of millions of Americans—especially the young and the elderly.

I (Budd) vividly remember sitting in our living room on cold winter mornings in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Golden, Colorado and looking out at the City of Denver—20 miles to the east. Downtown Denver’s central phalanx of skyscrapers looked to be immersed for days on end in a bowl of beef bouillon. This was due the automobile exhaust fumes that were being trapped by daily temperature inversions.

The “Brown Cloud” hangs over the City of Denver on a winter morning.

To counteract this confounding pollution problem as a Nation, we took on the all-powerful American automobile industry and—in the long-term—forced them to make major changes in the products they delivered to consumers. The first legislated exhaust (tailpipe) emission standards were issued by the State of California for 1966 Model Year cars. Then in 1968, the rest of the US followed suit. Finally, starting in 1970, the US EPA began progressively tightening national emission standards each year.

By Model Year 1974, federal emission standards had tightened to such an extent that they couldn’t be met without seriously reducing engine efficiency and thus increasing fuel usage. Accordingly, the 1975 Model Year emission standards—coupled with the increase in fuel usage—led to the invention of the catalytic converter for post-emission treatment of exhaust gas. But because lead residue contaminated the platinum catalyst, use of catalytic converters was not possible with leaded gasoline. In response, General Motors proposed elimination of leaded fuels to the American Petroleum Institute (API) for 1975 and later model year cars. While production and distribution of unleaded fuel presented a major challenge to the US gas and oil industry, the transition was successfully completed in time for the 1975 Model Year cars. Today, all cars are equipped with catalytic converters and it is nearly impossible to find and buy leaded fuel in most developed nations.

Drawing of a typical Catalytic Converter that was completed in time for the 1975 Model Year cars.

In addition to this US industry re-tooling, foreign-made, fuel-efficient cars—led by the Japanese—gained a stronger foothold in the American market. This began during and after the 1973 oil embargo and with the corresponding rise in gas prices in the wake of the Arab-Israeli war. As a result, Detroit’s “Big Three” auto manufacturers—Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler—responded by manufacturing new lines of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. The days of the US auto industry being dominated by gas-guzzling muscle cars which were ready for the junkyard before their odometers hit 100,000 miles were now gone forever.

Installation and use of Catalytic Converters led to switch from leaded gasoline to unleaded gasoline.

Isn’t this situation with the US auto industry directly analogous to what we’re now facing with Climate Change? On the one hand we now have all-powerful entities—the Big Oil Companies—dominating US lifestyles and finances. Just the same as the “Big Three” US automobile manufacturers were doing in the Sixties and Seventies. While on the other hand, we have a pollution problem that threatens to severely affect the good health and welfare of everyone on Earth. So why can’t we make the oil companies retool their production lines—just like we did with the automotive production lines—from extracting less fossil fuels to building infrastructure that increasingly creates and transports more renewable energy supplies? Folks—we’ve done it before, so why can’t we do it again?