Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Good planets are hard to find Now Temperate zones and tropic climbs and run through currents and thriving seas Winds blowing through breathing trees and strongholds on safe sunshine.
Good planets are hard to find. Yeah.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Hello, K SQUID listeners. It's every other Sunday again and you're listening to Sustainability Now, a bi weekly K Squid radio show focused on environment, sustainability and social justice in the Monterey Bay region, California and the world. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipschutz. My guest today on Sustainability now is Mark Dowie, self described cowhen guitarist, investigative historian, poet and journalist. He's probably best known as co founder, editor and staff writer for Mother Jones. But during his more than 50 year career, he's also written for many other magazines, newspapers and publications, written eight books and received no less than 19 journalism awards. His most recent book is Judith Letting Go Six Months in the World's Smallest Death Cafe, published in 2024. He's presently developing a podcast on the history of the US Supreme Court which will go live later this year. In 1995, Dowey published Losing American Environmentalism at the close of the 20th century. Thirty years later and 70 odd years since the beginning of that movement, we're going to talk about the US Environmental movement then and now.
[00:01:45] Speaker C: Mark Dowie, welcome to Sustainability Now.
[00:01:48] Speaker D: Glad to be here.
[00:01:49] Speaker C: Well, our mission today is to talk about Losing Ground American Environmentalism at the close of the 20th Century, which was published 30 years ago in 1995, and to talk about what things look like for American environmentalism after the first quarter of the 21st century. Have things changed or are we looking at a lot more of the same? So before we do that, some backgrounds in order. So as I said to you, I look, couldn't find a Wikipedia page about you, so I looked elsewhere and on Amazon your bio reads cowhand, guitarist, investigative historian and poetry, which is quite succinct. I mean, I like that, but it excludes journalists. And I think most people know you from your association with Mother Jones, which was, after all, a while ago. So maybe you could tell us how you got into journalism and what you've been doing since you did that, since you got into journalism.
[00:02:42] Speaker D: Well, I'm, I'm sort of an accidental journalist. My training is in economics. I have an ABD in economics from the University of California. And so, and I worked as an economist for years and I found my way into publishing as, as a microeconomic profession and I was the publisher of Mother Jones and we had sent out a lot of email to or a lot of direct mail to new subscribers promising that we were going to be a heavy hitting investigative magazine and the editors weren't delivering. So I, I broke the firewall and crashed an editorial meeting and said, hey, you know, they're waiting for investigative material, let's deliver it. And the editors sort of whined a little bit and said, well, we really don't know how to do that.
I said, look, you walk into, you walk into the lobby of any corporation or powerful institution in America and you're going to find a story. So. And they said, well, if you're so good at it, why don't you do it if you know so much? So I started doing it. As publisher, I started doing it and I, my first story was the story about the Dalkon Shield enter uterine device, which got a lot of attention and I wandered from there into one after another, almost all corporate investigative stories. And I've wandered from that, a career in investigative journalism into a career in investigative history. Because our work always, you know, journalism is, is the, the opener for history. I mean it's where historians go to look for material into the moors of journalism. So I've, I've become an investigative historian. I've written or five, I guess Losing Ground is one. Investigative histories. So that's it.
[00:04:32] Speaker C: Can you expand on that idea of investigative history? I mean, why.
[00:04:36] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:04:36] Speaker C: Is history important? Because, you know, most Americans figure yesterday is past and, and it's a new day.
[00:04:43] Speaker D: Well, you know, the old thing, if you forget history, you're condemned to repeat it. History is very important and revisionist history is part of the whole historical process.
And investigative history is a branch of revisionist history. It's using the skills of an investigative journalist to write, research and write revisionist history. So that's what I've done, been doing for the last 10 years or more, 30, counting this book. So it's, it's using investigative skills to write in revisionist history.
[00:05:18] Speaker C: You know, I can't help but interjecting here Marx's comment about Hegel and first time is history, second time is farce. Right. As opposed to not forgetting the past. What books have you published besides Losing Ground in the past 30 years? Just so our listeners know?
[00:05:37] Speaker D: Well, Losing Ground led to a book called American Foundations, which is an investigative history of philanthropic foundations, mostly in America, although they are really an American phenomenon, although they were started in Persia before we started doing them. That was my next book. After that was a book called Conservation Refugees, which is a century long history of the conflict between global conservation and native people. And then I did one called which came out of that book called the Haida Gwaii Lesson, which was a story about how the indigenous nation of Haida Gwaii established sovereignty and title to their land. 50 year struggle that took place in Canada. And then that said, I mean, I've written, I wrote a personal book about a friendship that I had which is not really relevant to what we're discussing. So those are the key investigators previously to Losing Ground. I wrote an investigative history of organ transplantation and how it was affecting medicine, medical practice and the whole industry of medicine. And I wrote actually two books on that subject. One of them was never published in English. It was translated into Dutch and I believe Japanese. But I count them as my books. Even though no English, English readers can't read them.
[00:07:09] Speaker C: Well, those are all worth, you know, entire radio shows. But let's get back to Losing Ground. So when you wrote it, it was a sort of like a 30 year retrospective and critique of the US environmental movement in 1965, you know, is a sort of an arbitrary date. But could you summarize the book and your arguments and your critical evaluation of American environmentalism at the time?
[00:07:34] Speaker D: Yeah, the book actually happened. This, this is an interesting sideline too. Sidebar. The book happened because I wrote an essay for Foreign Policy Journal and it, the essay basically was saying that the American environmental movement was dangerously quartering irrelevance. And it, the, that got a lot of attention for some reason, including attention from Teddy Goldsmith, who was at the time a major environmental funder mo Using his, mostly his brother's money, Jimmy Goldsmith. And I got to know him. He was a pretty good guy and, and he liked the essay. And he was also connected to MIT Press. So he showed it to them and said see, why don't you see if you can spin this up into a book. And they called me and invited me to do it. Offered a parsimonious advance that I couldn't afford to accept. So I said no, I can't. But they said, well, wait a minute. And they got the university to basically take me in as a research. So they weren't going to let me use the word fellow. I've forgotten what it is educating some kind of research contract. And I did that four times for MIT and they published three of them. So that's that. That was Losing Ground. Was, was the first of three MIT books that I did, all of which were investigative histories.
[00:08:59] Speaker C: Okay, but so summarize the arguments in the book.
[00:09:02] Speaker D: Well, at the time.
Yeah. Keep in mind that this is 25 years ago. Things changed a lot.
[00:09:09] Speaker C: 30.
It's 30 years ago, Mark.
[00:09:13] Speaker D: I know. No, I know, but the turn of the subtitle is the turn of the 20th century. Right?
[00:09:18] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:09:19] Speaker D: At the close of the 20th century. So at the close of the 20th century, I think the environmental movement, the American environmental movement was courting irrelevance. And I think it was because. I'm for sure it was because it had sort of evolved into this huge group, I mean, this large, this small group of very huge organizations that call themselves the Green Group, that were all of the environmental organizations that we still know and hear about, the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy and all of those groups of World Wildlife Fund that were then and I think still are vacuuming up about 70% of the economic resources that are going towards environmentalism. And that was, and that those groups were pretty much ignoring, almost putting down the grassroots of the environmental movement. And as a consequence, the movement was not as effective as it could be because all social movements require strong grassroots and environmentalism is no exception. So that was sort of in a nutshell, what the indictment of the book was.
[00:10:35] Speaker C: Just again, to give, give our, our listeners a background, those who weren't around at the time, what were the dominant themes and concerns of the movement in the, in both the 60s and the 90s? I mean, did they, did they change? Well, you know, which, which organizations represented what?
[00:10:53] Speaker D: Yeah, well, the movement, the movement really began with conservation, a conservation impulse and usually driven by sort of upper class greens who liked hunting, fishing and hiking in the woods. And that's, that's sort of the early, early stages of environmentalism. That was the impulse was conservation that sort of shifted a little bit and gradually towards preservation, wildlife and, and wildland and wilderness preservation. And that's when groups like the Sierra Club and others grew into, and then evolved from there towards more emphasis on charismatic megafauna, large animals that we had developed a, that humans had developed an affection for protecting them. And then eventually it became a more of a scientific driven movement with emphasis on pollution and biodiversity preservation. So by the end of the 20th century, it had become a fairly broad movement that included all of the things I've just talked about, conservation, preservation, pollution, opposing pollution. And I think climate was beginning to be debated as an issue then, but really didn't become come a major environmental issue until more recently.
[00:12:23] Speaker C: Well, in the book you talk about people like Paul Ehrlich and Garrett Hardin who were very much, you know, focused on population growth at the time, and that was a fairly powerful stream. I think Fairfield Osborne, who You also talked about, was also quite concerned about that, if I remember correctly.
[00:12:45] Speaker D: What almost an obsession, really. The Malthusian obsession was very big then. The whole idea that we were eating and breeding ourselves out of our carry here, the human carrying capacity of the planet. And that still may be a. An active theory embraced by a lot of environmentalists.
[00:13:05] Speaker C: Yeah, every so often I see people referring to that, but it's always a matter of they are increasing in numbers. We're okay. Right. Well, my, My introduction to American environmentalism came in the late 70s when I worked at the Union of Concerned Scientists. And at the time, it was funded primarily by the Kendall foundation and operated out of this funky old pink building in Cambridge a few blocks from Harvard Square. I don't know if you ever saw the building or were aware of it, but today it's more like a corporation. And, and this, what you mentioned earlier, this, this notion of the corporatization of those old environmental organizations is pretty much a characteristic of the big ones. How did that come about? I mean, why. Why did that happen?
[00:13:52] Speaker D: Part of it is, is the corporatization of philanthropy. I mean, these, these organizations were all became very, very dependent on foundation philanthropy. I mean, foundations have grown enormously during the years that we're talking about here. And also the third wave of environmentalism, I mean, in Lutheran Ground, I divide the movement into four waves. And the third wave of environmentalism, which was the most recent going into this book, really was the wave where environmentalists start collaborating with corporations who are attempting to green themselves by cozying up to the Nature Conservancy and the more conservative members of the Green Group and forming collaborations and cooperations with them. And that at that point, I think that the 25 or so members of the Green Group became much more corporate. I mean, all their headquarters are in Washington. If you go to them, they're indistinguishable from the headquarters of any company anywhere. In fact, I was covering. At the same time I was doing this, I was covering something in the Pentagon. Doing something in the Pentagon. It was easier to get into the Pentagon than it was to get into the Nature Conservancy. I mean, they had more security at the doors of every office in the Nature Conservancy. When I was in Washington, it was. Became incredibly corporate.
[00:15:19] Speaker C: You're listening to sustainability now. My name is Ronnie Lipschutz. I'm your host. And my guest today is Mark Dowie, who in his lifetime has been cowhand, a guitarist and investigative historian, and a poet, amongst other things. And we've just been talking about the corporatization of the environmental debate. Big environmental organizations, you know, back around 1990 and 1995, you know, you mentioned that the philanthropic organizations, the foundations grew enormously. And of course, they've gotten even bigger since then with all of the. Particularly with all of the tech money that has been flowing into, you know, God knows where. But the other, you know, the other sort of impetus is growth.
The more people you hire, the bigger your payroll, and the more payroll you have, the more you have to sort of struggle to make it every month. And the foundations, it seems to me, were not, you know, paying for all of that. And, and of course, this was also when the whole idea of neoliberalism started to, to manifest market series of, of environmental protection.
Does that raise any. I mean, were you, were you observing that at the time?
[00:16:31] Speaker D: Well, yeah. And I mean, not to imply that foundations were the sole funders of the environmental movement. Far from it. They. All of those organizations have huge memberships and their memberships are, you know, 25 to $100 donors who really are essential to. So a big driving force in their organization is membership management and membership accumulation and everything. And that's a big, big part of it. In fact, a lot of people who are employed by environmental organizations have nothing to do with the environment. I mean, all the way up to the top. I mean, Pete Seligman is one of the best fundraisers I've ever known in my. Or seen working in my life. But I don't regard him as an environmentalist. I regard him as a fundraiser. And he's, you know, been the CEO of more than one Nature Conservancy and, and the, and CI and, and it's because he is an ace fundraiser. And I can tell you amazing stories about his fundraising accomplishments. But so that's true throughout the movement is. It's the drive, as you say, is to support the offices and support. I mean, CI has 80 offices around the world.
[00:17:46] Speaker C: That's Conservation International, right?
[00:17:48] Speaker D: Yeah, that is a huge, huge budget item supporting all those offices. And they have planes and boats and cars and everything and fleets of everything to go with it. Things that have nothing to do with the environment except perhaps damaging it a little bit. So, yeah, they're, they're just, they're gigantic organizations that, that on paper are doing stuff for the environment, but really aren't very. Doing very much.
[00:18:15] Speaker C: Well, you talked about several different strategies that environmental organizations deploy to gain influence and grow popularization, legislation and litigation. And at the time you mentioned that membership was declining in 1995. Right. Membership was declining. There was growing opposition in Congress and declining success in the court. So can you talk about this, the strategy, this sort of three pronged strategy and, and how it was deployed and if anything has, has changed since then.
[00:18:51] Speaker D: I'm not sure I know what you mean by the three pronged strategies.
[00:18:53] Speaker C: Well, I said, you know, one is, is signing up members, you know, as you mentioned, like large numbers of members. The second one is trying to get law past. Oh, yeah, right. And then the third one is going to the courts, which, which remains very, very important.
So how do those, those, you know, maybe you can expand on those.
[00:19:13] Speaker D: Well, I think, I think they're all still driving forces of, of the movement, of environmentalism and the movement. And I think they're, they're important to the movement. I mean, you want to bring people in. You want to get people active, not just as donors, but as activists.
So membership, and active membership is important. And I think the best environmental organizations are organizations that do activate their members, not just ask them for 25 bucks a month. So membership and litigation goes on. I mean, three or four of the biggest environmental organizations are law firms. NRDC and EDF and the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund are law firms. And that's, their whole thing is litigating environmental cases against polluters, against government agencies, against anyone who's doing any kind of damage to the environment and the corporations that are lying about it, et cetera. So there's still a lot of litigation. That hasn't changed at all really. And lobbying for legislation, same. It's still going on.
All of the big groups have at least one lobbyist in Washington. I think last time I counted, there were 27 paid environmental lobbyists in Washington. I think way more than that.
[00:20:34] Speaker C: Now that, of course, I suppose pales in, in comparison to the number of, of corporate and other lobbyists. That's still fairly, fairly small, maybe not.
[00:20:44] Speaker D: Very effective because lobbying is giving money. Right. And so if you're going up on the Hill and trying to persuade a, a congressman to vote one way or another a bill or sponsor a bill that is an environmental bill, the polite Congress people will listen to you, but they'll, they'll, they'll open. The next person that's coming in is someone with money from a corporation, and that's who they really listen to. So I'm, I'm a little bit cynical about environmental lobbying.
[00:21:13] Speaker C: Well, it's perfectly respectable to be cynical about it. I mean, and laws, laws often have outcomes that are quite different from at least what one assumes their goals are and even well established ones can be overturned or turned over depending on the whims of Congress and the courts. Did you, by the way, have you been following this latest brouhaha about Exxon and plastics, which is plastics?
[00:21:42] Speaker D: Yes, I mean, just as an American media consumer, not as, as a historian or an environmental. But yeah, I have. And, and plastics are one of the new big, I mean, there's been a lot of mission drifting in the, in the environmental movement over the last 25 years and plastics have become one of the hot topics. You know, greenhouse gases, plastics, biodiversity loss and sea level and environmental justice are the new missions now of, of environmentalism, which they weren't so much so at the turn of the, the 20th century, but so plastics. Yeah, I have been following the plastic story, but not, not carefully. I'm not an expert by any means.
[00:22:28] Speaker C: Well, just to summarize the, the state of California and several environmental organizations filed suit in California against Exxon for misleading essentially the public on plastics recycling. I think the numbers I saw this morning was something like Exxon produces 6 million tons of plastics a year and has managed to recycle £79 million. But Exxon filed suit in Texas against the attorney general of California and these organizations accusing them of, you know, smears and libels. And so we're, we're, we're set for this battle royale, I suppose, between dueling lawsuits and dueling courts. It does raise the question, I guess as well about the, you know, the relative effectiveness of law and litigation in, in trying to protect the environment.
[00:23:22] Speaker D: Well, Exxon has been in court a lot for the last 50 years. I mean, for lying about fossil fuels and lying about air pollution. Lying. But I mean, that's their, and their metier is to fight back with their own counter suits and everything that, that doesn't, and which they're doing now with plastics. And that doesn't surprise me at all. But plastics is, I think plastics is something the whole world has to contend with, not just ExxonMobil. But then ExxonMobil is in the plastics business because the, the, the raw material of plastic is oil.
But there's plenty of other bad actors in the plastics industry that we need to contend with.
[00:24:05] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, I don't doubt that, but I thought it was interesting that of, you know, that this particular oil company has decided to fight back on this, on this particular account. You know, a lot of the environmental legislation of the 60s and 70s became institutionalized. I mean, I think we assumed that the es the Endangered Species act for instance, and the Clean Air act were institutionalized and yet there have been continuing efforts to reverse those laws. And it seems likely that the Trump 2.0 administration, along with Congress and the Supreme Court are going to undermine what laws and regulations are still in place. Do you have any sort of thoughts about how the big environmental organizations are likely to respond to this and to act on it?
[00:24:53] Speaker D: I think all environmentalists should be deeply concerned about the incoming administration. This is not going to be a friendly administration to the environment. I mean, drill baby, drill. He's going to start right away. He's probably going to reverse all of the drilling restrictions that Biden has put in recently. This is not going to be a green administration. We know that. I don't know because I'm not following this anymore how environmentalists are planning or lining up to contend with the new administration. But you can be sure they are. I mean they're as alarmed as you and I are about what's about to happen. And not just in environmentalism, in everything.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: Yeah. In the book you, you point out that the U. S Environmental movement was never a singular phenomenon. It was splintered, as you term it, even before the 60s in, in many ways. But in the book you list a whole bunch of environmental ideologies. I'm not quite sure what else to call them, you know, or streams of thought or something like that. And proponents of each believed that they divide had devised a solution to the environmental crisis. And I'm, you know, I'm thinking here about market environmentalism and eco marxism and eco feminism and, and earth first kind of stuff. You know, these were different ecology, deep ecology, you know, and they were all sort of philosophically linked but at the same time not the same in terms of, you know, what the solution was.
What would you say is the dominant ide biology today? Maybe you can say a little bit about what those were. And then in light of that, that large number, I think you had 12 or 15 listed there and there are probably more, you know. Is there a dominant one today?
[00:26:46] Speaker D: Well, that's a good question. And you know, as I say, I'm, I haven't been following it closely enough to really give you a good answer. I mean, I think that, that the fact that most people with environmental sensibilities in the world today are concerned about the climate and I think the climate is driving the mission of environmentalism in most countries of the world right now where environmentalism is a movement and you know, obviously the low lying countries are maybe a little more concerned about sea level things, but the, the, and I don't know if there is a single environmental ideology or ecology that is driving the movement right now. I don't think there is actually. I think they're all still there and they're all still sort of debating what environmentalism means and what needs to be done. It's not a unified movement, never was. I'm not sure it should be. But. And I always welcome a diversity of philosophies in a social movement. I think they help drive the movement and they stop the movement from becoming attached to and defending only one idea or one philosophy or one ideology. So it's a multi ideological movement and I think it always has been and always will be and that's good.
[00:28:14] Speaker C: But at the same time it makes it somewhat difficult to develop, you know, effective coalitions, doesn't it?
[00:28:19] Speaker D: No, I don't think so. And I don't know. I don't, I haven't found that to be true. I think the coalitions haven't can be formed between if the mission is singular and the mission is environment. I don't think it matters whether two members of a coalition come to come into that mission from different ideological positions. I don't think that's hurt coalitions at all.
[00:28:42] Speaker C: You're listening to Sustainability now. I'm Ronnie Lipschitz and my guest today is Mark Dowie, who many people know as a journalist from his time at Mother Jones. But he's done many other things and, and we're Talking about his 1995 book Losing Ground, which is about the environment, U. S. Environmental movement at the turn of the 20th century and since it's 30 years later. I asked him to do some reflecting on what, if anything, has changed since 1995.
How do you assess American environmentalism in 2025 and has anything changed since you wrote Losing Ground?
[00:29:20] Speaker D: Well, I think a lot has. I mean, first of all, the whole environmental movement has become way more global over the last 25 years than it was. I mean, with the COP meetings and international cooperation and collaboration on big environmental issues, and not just climate, but other things and plastics and things that we've already mentioned. So I think the movement, the American movement, which kind of drove the global movement for a long time, I think is, has less significance and less power in the overall global movement. That's one thing that's happened. I think there have been enormous technological advances that have affected environmentalism, particularly towards the development of renewable energy, etc. I, I think one of the things I'm heartened by Is, is the number of the extent with youth has been drawn into this movement. I think there are a lot more young greens than there were at the turn of the century. I mean, I, I think the, the green groups are still hogging a.
An excessive percentage, probably 70 still, of the resources that are going into environmental activism. And I always encourage people who ask, how should I spend my environmental charity, my environmental dollar? And that's, I just say, put half into your watershed and half outside of your watershed. So I think we need local environmentalism and grassroots environmentalism needs more support.
And if we take a little away from the green groups to get that local support, all the better, I think.
[00:31:00] Speaker C: Now in the book you suggested a fourth wave might materialize in the 21st century fourth wave of environmentalism. And if I can read the paragraph in the book and ask you how you reflect on that. A redefined environmentalism will come gradually through a synthesis of classical environmentalism and the emerging ecologies. The fourth wave environmental ideology will lean cautiously toward the human and nature worldview and blend primitive earth wisdom with the verities of modern scientific ecology. It will respectfully reject the anthropocentrism of humanist, Marxist and Judeo Christian traditions, challenge the Newtonian Cartesian view and call for a new philosophy of nature, a new ecological ethos that says we are aware now of our impact on the environment and the planet. The next step is to see ourselves as citizens of nature, unquote, or to paraphrase Thomas Berry, human beings will reapply for membership in the biosphere. As I read it, it sounds actually pretty accurate, but what's your reaction?
[00:32:08] Speaker D: Well, I'm glad to hear you say that because I think it, it's turned out to be pretty accurate. And I, I don't have any reaction to it. I still think it was a pretty good prediction. And I think most of what I expected would happen has happened, and I'm heartened by that.
[00:32:24] Speaker C: In Losing Ground, you took note of an emerging coalition between social justice and environmental organizations and talked about in particular, I think there was a conference in the early 1990s that mobilized, started to mobilize organizations, social justice organizations, around the theme of environmental justice. So you know what? Since it was new at the time, you know, how did you describe it and regard it and assess that?
[00:32:55] Speaker D: Well, I think, I think that you've worded it politely, the emergence of social justice organizations, and they're becoming a little more concerned about where they interacted with and overlapped with environmentalism. I mean, another way to describe it is people of color crashed the movement. I mean, the environmental movement up until that time was a lily white movement and in fact it was a racist movement. Sierra Club supported whites only in national parks, if you go back far enough in the 1920s and 30s. So it was a lily white movement and, and to some degree still is. But there is this arm branch wing of the movement, that opera that marches under the term environmental justice, that is trying to diversify the movement and, and I think has been quite successful doing so. There are now native American greens, there are now black greens in America. There weren't until probably the early 1990s when Bob Bullard crashed a meeting and said, you got to pay attention to us. And somebody crashed the IUCN meeting, a man named Martin Sonny go and said, you know, you have to pay attention to us too. And so conservationists and environmentalists and anti pollutionists and everybody got up, finally got a message from people like saying, you know, other people saying, yeah, we're getting poisoned too. And that became a driving force in the movement as it, as it is today. So environmental justice is a big, big part of environmental activism and environmental emphasis and organization today.
[00:34:44] Speaker C: You mentioned it led to your next book, Conservation Refugees. Can you tell us about that?
[00:34:50] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, Conservation Refugees is an investigative history of the relationship between global conservation and native people around the world. Again, I open the book with an anecdote. I just mentioned a meeting of the IUCN that we're talking about conservation and all of the. And this man stood up and said, we used to consider big mining, big timber, big ranching and all the big industries to be our major enemies. And now you, conservation have become our number one enemy, native people's enemies. And he'd done his research and found that In Africa, about 14 million people where he was from, Martin Sanigo, had been evicted from their traditional homelands, either directly by or at the insistence of big global organizations, environmental and conservation organizations. So conservation was driving native people off their land because native people were hunting bushmeat or doing what the environmentalists called slash and burn agriculture. And they were doing things that were not. That were detracting from the aesthetics of conservation, of wildlands and conservation. And it was affecting tourism. And so they started evicting about 100 years ago, starting evicted native people and created a huge class of what I called conservation refugees, after which I named the book. And that to a degree is still going on. The protection of endangered species in Africa. In the. In the interest of doing that, the World Wildlife Fund has hired people who are killing animal Poachers, because. Who are just killing animals so that they can eat protein and, but, you know, they're. Some of the species that they're killing are of interest to conservationist, animal conservation, wildlife conservationists, and they're, they're patrolling the jungles against the, the Batwa and other people who are living on jungle protein. It's, it's, you know, it's a struggle over food security really, but it's, it's also created an enormous number of refugees around the world driven out by conservation.
[00:37:17] Speaker C: There still remains a big focus on megafauna, charismatic megafauna. Right. As opposed to the smaller species, some of whom are less attractive and of course the bugs and the insects and the like. And that's all connected to, to tourism, to people going on safaris and in their, you know, jeeps and, and looking at big animals. But I, I mean, I'm sort of struck by the idea that the original displacement had to do with, with mining and, and logging and extraction of material resources.
[00:37:50] Speaker D: Well, that's what said. He said they used to be our enemies. Our number one enemies used to be big industry, big mining, big. And now it isn't anymore. You are conservation. And he said that this was an international gathering of the IUCN International Union.
[00:38:06] Speaker C: For the Conservation of Nature. I don't remember if you mentioned that or not.
[00:38:09] Speaker D: That's right.
[00:38:09] Speaker C: And it's a sort of a semi governmental organization, I think it is now. Statuses. Yeah.
[00:38:15] Speaker D: Government. Governments and corporations. They have 10,000 members and they're. Some of them are government and some of them are corporate, but very few of them are green.
[00:38:24] Speaker C: Tell us a little bit about how you went about writing this book.
[00:38:28] Speaker D: Which one?
[00:38:29] Speaker C: The Conservation Refugees.
[00:38:30] Speaker D: I got tipped off about it while I was making a speech in Ottawa and a Chippewa woman leaned over my shoulder and said, you ought to look into conservation refugees. And I asked her what she meant and that started me on this.
And, you know, I started traveling.
I went to every continent. I went to over 100 indigenous communities that were basically refugees, refugee camps of people who've been kicked off their land by conservation. And this has been going on around the world, mostly in Africa, but probably in every country of the world to some degree. It took me about four years to document it all, but. And the book is, I think, probably 15 chapters of the worst offenses in, in the whole process of evicting people in the interest of conservation. But, but I cover the whole issue as well in the book.
[00:39:26] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, there have been a lot of academics who have have written extensively about this, you know, since the, the early 90s. I guess the real question is what has changed?
[00:39:37] Speaker D: If anything, I think there's less of it happening. Some of the, the native people isolated five huge conservation organization that they call the bingos. The BINGO stands for big International ngo.
We've already talked about some of them. Conservation International, the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, Wildlife Fund for Nature and Wildlife, Conservation Society, and gigantic organizations all headquartered in Washington that have been driving the conservation refugee problem in the world. For most of the time it's been happening and I think to one degree or another agree with my indictment that they have not been doing the right thing. Some of them have. I mean, Pete Solomon Seligman, who is the founder of co founder of Nature Conservancy and Conservation International went off and started a third group which is just for conservation refugees and just for people who've lost their land and interest. And I'm not sure how sincere that is, but I, the foundations that read the book went back to the big the Bingos and said, you've got to change, you got to stop doing this. And I mean, and even some of the big funders like Gordon Moore went after, he's probably the largest single environmental grant maker in the United States, if not the world. And he went back to some of the organizations like CI, which he had given like half a billion dollars to and said, you, you know, you, you've got to stop this. And so there's been a curtailment, I would say, but not a complete end to the, the eviction of people in the interest of conservation. But the whole. It. What, it. What, what has been stimulated is a sub movement which you might call indigenous conservation, where, where native people are being brought into the conservation process. So community based conservation has been driven and created by this new response to the conservation refugee indictment.
[00:41:51] Speaker C: You're listening to Sustainability Now. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipschutz. My guest today is Mark Dowie, who many people know as one of the prime movers behind Mother Jones in the 1970s. We've just been talking about one of his books, Conservation Refugees. Correct me if I'm wrong, the hundred year conflict between conservation and. I didn't quite get that right. What was the last Native peoples.
[00:42:16] Speaker D: Yeah, but it's global, Global conservation.
[00:42:18] Speaker C: Global conservation.
No, and you know, I, I sort of imagine that this is still going on in various guises.
Well, we're, we're, we're getting close to the end of our time together and I wanted to go Back to losing ground, because again, toward the end, you have this list of tenets and characteristics, you call them, that you thought in 1995 would become sort of conventional wisdom and practice in the 21st century. You didn't specify when in the 21st century. Of course, I still live 75 years. If I can read it, I'd like to sort of ask each one. Ask you about each one.
All right. Fortunately, Americans are an eclectic people. Out of the potpourri of ideas described in the next few sections will emerge a new environmental imagination. It's impossible to predict exactly what form it will take, but from the common ground around the competing philosophies, one can safely pick up the following tenets and characteristics. Anthropocentrism will become passe. And I want you to just sort of quickly respond, you know, to whether you think we've. We've gotten there yet.
[00:43:28] Speaker D: Not, not yet, but I think we're moving away from anthropocentric thinking and not just regarding the environment, but regarding, you know, overall philosophy in general. I think we are moving away from it. Yes.
[00:43:41] Speaker C: Humanity will be returned to nature and will no longer be considered the crowning achievement of evolution. Well, you've got evolution in there, and there are a lot of people who I think still don't believe in that, so.
[00:43:52] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I mean, I think most greens and environmental activists and leaders believe in evolution. So I'm not worried about the people who don't. They're always going to be around, you know, and it's. To me, what's heartening about the relationship between environmentalism and Christianity is that Christians are starting to become much greener than they used to be. I mean, they were so sort of going by God's admin admonition to dominate nature. And they're moving away from that to seeing nature as God's creation. And it's something that they, as well as everyone else, needs to protect.
[00:44:31] Speaker C: All existing economic orthodoxies will be challenged.
[00:44:35] Speaker D: All orthodoxies are constantly challenged. You know that.
[00:44:38] Speaker C: Well, but, but that was an easy one. That was an easy one. At the same time, you know, will they be challenged? Effectively, I guess, is the. Is the question.
Sustainability will be clearly defined, well understood and taught in school.
[00:44:54] Speaker D: Well, sustainability, and pardon me, I know this is part of your. The title of your station.
[00:45:01] Speaker C: No, no offense taken at all.
[00:45:04] Speaker D: My friend Sim Vandren, who died recently, once said that sustainability was the phrase that's driven a thousand conferences. I mean, it, it, I. I suspended it from my own use for a full year I do that every year. I take a word that's being overused and abused and I just stop using it myself. And sustainability was my choice. I've forgotten what year it was. But because it was just being so incorrectly defined and overused, corporations were talking about sustainability. You know that. Yeah, of course, it became a joke for a while, but I think it's a meaningful word and I think it needs to be redefined and reapplied to many, many things, not just environmentalism.
[00:45:48] Speaker C: Clean air, clean water, and arable land will be considered basic human rights.
[00:45:53] Speaker D: Yeah, and I think they should. And, and I think they are to a degree. I mean, people are certainly asking that certainly clean water, clean air and water be. Be defined legally as basic human rights. And, and I'm working now on a podcast about the U. S. Supreme court. And one of the things that is emerging in the critique of not just the court, but jurisprudent generally is that it's time now to give nature and ecosystems standing and in. In courts, which means that the trees can come to court and ask for the court's protection. Trees and animals and other things besides humans and human organizations. So I think that's. That is happening, and I think that the rights of nature will be a driving force of American jurisprudence for the next few years.
[00:46:52] Speaker C: Environmental justice will be litigated as a basic right and tried as such before federal and state supreme courts.
[00:46:59] Speaker D: Well, that is, that is happening. And so that was a prediction that I made, what, in 1995 or wherever it was. And, and that is happening.
Tons and tons of environmental justice litigation. And, and a big, big part now of the whole COP and global climate initiative is driven now by people who are saying we need to be in this part of this indictment and part of this movement as well. So environmental justice is moving into global environmentalism as well.
[00:47:34] Speaker C: Toxic pollution will change from a misdemeanor to a felony and be punished as such.
[00:47:40] Speaker D: Well, to a degree that's happened. I mean, people have been indicted for toxic pollution. And, and of course, the whole super fund thing was, Was an attempt to isolate really, really bad toxic pollution sites and remediate them. So. Yeah, and I. And. And people in corporations have been indicted several times for toxic pollution.
[00:48:03] Speaker C: And finally a land ethic will be taught in nursery school.
[00:48:08] Speaker D: Well, that was kind of wishful thinking. I. I'd have to say, I think, I think at the time I had grandchildren in nursery school the time I said that. But. And I was just hoping that. I mean, I think what I was saying that was a flip way of saying that we, we need to educate people all the way through the system on these issues that are so vital to us all and activate children when they're, you know, and get, get children interested in environmentalism and in, in actively protecting their environment as young as youngsters, so. Well, I think rather than a prediction.
[00:48:44] Speaker C: No, I think you're correct on that one. Although, I mean, the land ethic invokes Aldo Leopold. Right. But, but what I used to say to people was when I was In K through 6, I learned geography about products, products of different countries. Right. And now kids learn about the environment, you know, so, I mean, there has been that change.
Okay, well, is there anything else you'd like to, to mention before we wrap things up?
[00:49:14] Speaker D: No, I think you've cobbled together a great list of questions and reminded me of things I'd almost forgotten and stimulated a good conversation, I think. But I hope you're ready. And Stuz as well.
[00:49:27] Speaker C: Okay. Well, Mark, thank you so much for being my guest on Sustainability Now.
[00:49:31] Speaker D: No problem. Happy to be here.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: You've been listening to a Sustainability now interview with Mark Dowie, self described cowhand, guitarist, investigative historian, poet and journalist. He's probably best known as co founder, editor and staff writer for Mother Jones. Our conversation has focused on his 1995 book, Losing American Environmentalism at the Close of the 20th Century. As he mentioned, he is presently developing a podcast on the history of the US Supreme Court, which will go live sometime in 2025. If you'd like to listen to previous shows, you can find them at ksquid.org sustainabilitynow and Spotify, YouTube and Pocketcasts, among other podcast sites. So thanks for listening and thanks to all the staff and volunteers who make K SQUID your community radio station and keep it going. And so, until next every other Sunday, sustainability.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: Good planets are hard to find out. Temperate zones and tropic climbs through currents and thriving seas.
Winds blowing through freezing trees, strong ozone, safe sunshine.
Good planets are hard to find. Yeah.
