Healing Our World Commentary: Doom and Gloom Forecasts

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

Doom and Gloom Forecasts: Anti-Environmental Distractions

Keep your heart clean with peace.
Don't get it dirty with greed.
It is not too late to clean it.
-- Kaila Spencer, Age 8. Friends' School, Colorado

For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.
-- His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama's favorite Prayer.

Many conservative government officials, industry leaders and citizens believe that any sacrifice is warranted to protect short term profit. To these people, preserving ecosystems, species and human health does not make good business sense.

However, all their dire predictions of the collapse of the economy, widespread unemployment, and unprecedented corporate losses due to environmental preservation activities have never materialized.

Examples abound of fear mongering and deception by conservative forces.

Here are a few examples:

Forest Resources

In May of 1991, an injunction from a Federal District Court banned timber sales on 24 million acres in 17 national forests in Washington, Oregon and northern California until the U.S. Forest Service could guarantee the safety of the northern spotted owl population.

Conservative forces spread fear throughout the affected states, predicting that 150,000 workers would lose their jobs and that hundreds of communities would become economic disaster areas. They predicted a depression that would take decades to recover from.

Workers and their families from towns where the main income base had been the lumber industry were made angry and fearful by well funded, conservative groups collectively known as the Wise Use Movement.

Their misinformation created an adversarial relationship between timber families and environmentalists. Many owls - most not spotted - were killed and nailed to federal offices or strapped to the grills of pickup trucks in open defiance of the court orders.

Rolling over the Earth (Photo (courtesy Adbusters.org)

As we look back, we see outcomes very different from those predictions. Although timber harvests fell 91 percent on federal lands and 52 percent from their peak from 1988 to 1998, employment in timber related industries fell only 15 percent. In fact, total employment in the region actually rose 31 percent.

A report recently released by the Sierra Club called "Seeing the Forests for their Green," says that there were three main reasons that the timber cutbacks did not effect the economy as predicted:

1. The timber industry does not play a significant, foundational role in the American economy.
   
2. The economic importance of the timber industry is shrinking compared to faster growing industries.
   
3. Leaving federal forests unlogged has demonstrable, significant positive impacts on the economy from recreation and ecosystem health activities.

Auto Emissions

For years, auto makers and conservative politicians have claimed that state and federal auto emissions standards are too high, resulting in higher prices for cars and poor vehicle performance.

Public opinion has been influenced by these claims. Most people see smog checks and mandated repairs as an inconvenience and a denial of individual freedoms. But emissions standards for cars and trucks have been heavily influenced by the auto makers, and so many exceptions exist that auto air pollution is still the biggest threat facing our atmosphere.

Mercedes SUV the ML 430 (Photo courtesy Mercedes)

SUVs get as little as 13 miles to a gallon of gas and emit huge amounts of pollution. A Ford Excursion gets 13 miles per gallon (mpg) and will put out 134 tons of carbon dioxide over a 124,000 mile lifetime. By contrast, a Honda Insight gets 65 mpg and emits 32 tons of carbon dioxide over its useable life. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas considered a major factor in global warming.

Many technologies exist that could turn a Ford Explorer from a 19.3 mpg guzzler into a 34.1 mpg vehicle. Carbon monoxide pollution could be reduced by 43 percent, and other forms of air pollution could be reduced by 76 percent, all for only a $935 increase in the price tag.

Incredibly, cars made before 1975, often the most serious polluters, are totally exempted from government smog rules.

We must put behind us the false belief that environmental protection and the elimination of toxic substances from our earth, air and water are just another set of tradeoffs to be weighed against economic growth.

Human and ecosystem health are not options - they are the first and most fundamental considerations to make which must outweigh all others.

Profitability cannot be measured only by how much one's bank account grows. Healthy earth, air, and water must start appearing on the spreadsheets of industry. If prices reflected the ecosystem devastation caused by development, manufacturing, distribution, use and disposal of most products, we might think twice about making them at all.

Environmental protection and the reduction of toxic substances must be the priority. What good is a strong economic bottom line if our planet's life support systems are trashed?

We must demand that creating healthy ecosystems become our planet's primary business by retooling industries, retraining workers and providing food and health care to the sick and the poor. Our conscience should be the only bottom line.

RESOURCES

1. For the complete Sierra Club report, "Seeing the Forests for their Green," visit http://www.sierraclub.org/forests/report00/index.asp#intro

2. For an excellent example of the environmental impact of products, see Corporate Watch's analysis of the environmental impact of computer manufacture at http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/feature/hitech/computer.html

3. Read a report on the issues with SUVs at http://www.sierraclub.org/globalwarming/suvreport/

4. Check out the Anti-SUV Fan Club at http://www.howard.net/ban-suvs.htm

5. What if the money used for the military world wide were applied to solving the Earth's problems? See how it could be done at http://www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/

6. See an up-to-the-minute estimate of world resource use at http://www.worldgame.org/worldometers/worldfuel.html

7. An up-to-the-minute tally of environmental destruction is at http://www.worldgame.org/worldometers/worldenv.html

8. For a profile on the Northern Spotted Owl, visit http://endangered.fws.gov/i/b6k.html

9. Look at what one state has done to acknowledge the costs of environmental pollution at http://www.me3.org/projects/costs/

10. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them that the time is now to start mandating building materials recycling. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html. You can also find your representatives at http://congress.nw.dc.us/innovate/index.html.

[Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his web site at http://www.healingourworld.com] 1. treeffell.jpg caption: "Leaving this forest alone is not an economic disaster (photo (c) 2000 Jackie A. Giuliano, Ph.D.)" position: beginning 2. tireonearth.gif caption: "Rolling over the Earth (courtesy Adbusters.org)" position: near 10th paragraph