Earth to Berkeley Oak Grove Protesters: Get Out of the Trees! (Part 4 of 5)

In December 2006, protestors claming to represent the interests of the environment established residence in a grove of mature oak trees adjacent to Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, California. Their objective: to prevent the University of California from removing the oak grove to construct an athletic training facility. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Oak_Grove_Protest). Supporting them in their endeavor are such reputable organizations as the Sierra Club, the California Native Plant Society, and the California Oak Foundation. The tree-sitters even have a website for their cause: http://www.saveoaks.com.

On the surface, the action of the protestors could seem like a bold, principled action to protect an important terrestrial ecosystem. Indeed, the felling of a mature oak grove is not an act to be celebrated. However, due to unintended consequences of the protestors’ actions, they are greatly damaging the cause of environmental protection, and producing a net loss to the environment.

In my previous post, I examined the opportunity cost of tree-sitting. Today, let’s examine how the tree-sitters are hindering the advance of sustainability by alienating potential allies to our cause.

Reason 3: Alienating Potential Allies

On September 1, 2007, the California Golden Bears faced the Tennessee Volunteers in a nationally televised football game. During the telecast, the commentators mentioned several times the presence of the protestors in the oak grove. Although the commentators stopped short of overtly disdainful remarks, they reminded viewers that such protests were a way of life in Berkeley, and their tone of voice signaled curiosity that such tolerance would be given to an effort devoted to impeding a simple act of perceived progress.

The action of the oak grove protestors fosters ill will and misperception of environmentalists, and more importantly, misperception of sustainability. Instead of encouraging and persuading the public to adopt their views, the tree sitters have further alienated the general public. How could this happen?

• Relevance Requires Solutions. To remain relevant to America and the world, Berkeley and other environmentally progressive centers need to present themselves as leaders of practicality, purveyors of sustainable solutions that will comprehensively better the world by developing the economy, addressing social issues, and preserving humanity along with the environment. The oak grove protestors are doing none of these: they are wasting taxpayer dollars and harming a large educational institution, creating social disunity and conflict inside and outside environmental ranks, impeding the advancement of a widely-used forum for human gathering, and doing a net disservice to the environment while engendering misunderstanding and ill will in the process.
  
  
• Relevance Requires Environmental and Economic Leadership. The reason other states look to California for environmental leadership is because we are powerful and generally prosperous. Among our successes in California, we have instituted environmentally protective policies without crippling our economy; in fact, our prosperity has continued alongside one of the most progressive, comprehensive bodies of environmental legislation of any U.S. state. Thus far, we have provided a case study for how to advance both environment and economy. We want other states to copy us, but they will only do so to the extent that we remain prosperous and progressive. To the extent that misdirected environmental protection efforts harm our economy, we will drift toward irrelevancy, just as North Korea has crippled itself with totalitarian communism. To the extent that people perceive that we are harming ourselves with alleged environmental radicalism, they will ignore us and our ways.
  
  
• Green, Brown, or In Between? There will always be some people who hate environmentalists and unconditionally oppose environmental protection efforts. These “true browns” could be estimated to comprise no more than five to ten percent of the U.S. population. Likewise, there will always be some people who care about the environment and work passionately to protect it. Currently, these “true greens” could also be generously estimated to comprise five to ten percent of the U.S. population. The remaining 80 to 90 percent of the population (the “sway segment”) may have green or brown tendencies, but can be swayed towards the green or brown side by persuasive arguments, scientific evidence, and tangible results.
  
  
• The Power of the Sway Segment. Since the U.S. operates, at least in principle, as a democracy, our success or failure as true greens will be largely determined by how well we convince, inspire, and empower the sway segment. True greens, at only five to ten percent of the population, are too few by themselves to carry significant influence in a democracy. But what if we captured much of the sway segment – imagine if 75 percent of voters supported renewable sources of energy and listed sustainability and a forward-looking clean energy plan as major issues influencing their voting decisions in the upcoming national election. No candidate, presidential or otherwise, could afford to ignore America’s energy and environmental future in their campaign rhetoric or strategy. No incumbent could afford to consistently vote to renew coal, oil, and big agribusiness subsidies, torpedo environmental protection efforts, and stymie the implementation of renewable portfolio and efficiency standards in order to please corporate campaign contributors with interests opposed to the public.

But where are we now? We still have protestors taking the name of green in vain, displaying on national television for all to see that they stand for plants over people, trivialities over significance, protest over progress. Until and unless the majority of Americans wish to return to an agrarian life in huts (or trees) while sacrificing modern amenities, such protest will never galvanize public support.

On the contrary, displays of protest over progress will alienate our best potential allies, driving them back into the hands of true browns, with their supposed axioms of “green is too expensive”, “green is fine if you want to give up what you care about”, and “environmentalists are only serving their own agenda”. This is what the true browns say, time and time again. Do we really want to encourage people to listen to these misleading statements?

Hawken, Lovins, and Lovins wrote in Natural Capitalism, “Greens tend to unite their enemies and divide their friends, a good formula for political failure. They are often portrayed as caring less for people than animals, more about halogenated compounds than waterborne diseases.” While some protestors may intrinsically care more about trees than people, it is people who are destroying the earth, and the trees along with it.

You can still love trees. I know I do. Hearing of Canadian forests razed to create junk-mail catalogs, exurbian natural areas cleared to make way for McMansion subdivisions, or great tropical forests clear-cut to make furniture for Americans, saddens and angers me. But why is this happening?

People. People cut down the trees, people earn their livings sending junk mail, people demand monstrous dwellings, and people furnish them with teak coffee tables and mahogany dressers poached from ancient rainforests. Is this the best way of life? Certainly we do not believe so. But this is what people are currently doing.

Therefore, to save the earth, even the most diehard true greens must focus first on people, even if our hearts remain with the trees. Just as environmental destruction is a human problem, so must environmental protection find human solutions. We must show people our vision of progress and prosperity, and convince them to adopt our solutions for a better world. Only then will people change their ways.

In my next post, I will examine how, as 21^st –century environmentalists, we must look beyond protest to achieve our goals.