May 16, 2005
5/16 - Billy Graham, Shifting Baselines, and "Inclusion"
The Reverend Billy Graham talks about it today in USA Today. He calls it "inclusion." In my first meeting with Gale Anne Hurd (as some of us were scheming over which groups we should and shouldn't include in our new Shifting Baselines project) she had one request of the project -- that it be "inclusive." And that changed everything. We ended the scheming, did our best to invite as many groups as possible at the start (with the main criteria of wanting groups that have membership and are national) and actually thought through the message of the "Pristine?" slide show to make sure we conveyed that our project is not anti-fishing. Inclusiveness continues to be one of our fundamental aspirations.
Yesterday I had the usual 2 hour phone blabber with Jeremy Jackson in which we haggled about everything under the sun, but in the middle of that he talked about recently attending a meeting as one of a group of scientists giving talks about the state of the environment to a very wealthy, but also very conservative businessman. After listening to a few talks (and before Jeremy spoke), the guy said, "why aren't you guys more upset about the dire news you're telling me." Turned out the guy may be a hardcore right winger, but he's still disgusted with the decline of the oceans and eager to do something about it.
I suspect there are many people like this today who are repulsed by the tone of the environmental movement, but in favor of a healthy environment. It certainly is the sentiment I got from the California sport fishermen I got to know.
And this is the relevance of the Reverend Graham (and the Reverend Jeremy Jackson). The environmental movement has become sadly non-inclusive (and smug). It can't afford to. These are not problems of science and policy we're facing, they're social problems. That's my soapboxing for today. And in the meawhile, stand by, we're about to release a new short film with Mark Dowie within the next week that is along these lines and is going to ruffle a few feathers.
We must heed the teachings of the good Rev. Graham and practice "inclusion."
Inclusion is key. Really. As environmentalists, we had better learn to start sitting down with our "enemies", we had better learn to start talking instead of pointing fingers. In a High Country News earlier this year, an article discussed the recent alliance forged between a local conservationist and a republican (thats right, a REPUBLICAN) in order to set aside a wilderness area. The alliance had sparked serious controversy, and it wasn't among the republican's friends. Other conservation groups were up in arms because part of the alliance was forged on the idea of multiple use, and in this case, ment trails for ATVs. Now, I am not a fan of these things, but it ment that this republican went to congress to set aside some land, and that the developers didn't get it. In the end, if we want to be successful, we have to realize that we are not the only ones who use the land, or the sea, and that, in forging alliances and forgetting to bicker, things actually get accomplished. Furthermore, the "anti-environmentalist" movement is so incredibly good at painting us as the bad guys. We're anti-jobs, anti-people, tree-huggers and, really, anti-American. Wrong, but I think we all know how hard it is to change these reputations. But how can they continue to say those things if we're the ones to sit down with fishermen, with loggers, with ATV-riders. The key, however, is to keep it local, to keep it with the people whose jobs actually are at stake.
Posted by: Emily at May 20, 2005 02:53 PM