Will Rogers once famously said "I belong to no organized party. I'm a Democrat." The same might be said of the environmental movement which has so much diversity of thought within its ranks and organizations, that it can hardly be called a single movement at all.
And I am not talking here about the difference between organizations working on behalf of the environment and those taking fancy, environmentally friendly sounding names that are actually working against it. No, I am speaking of legitimate, large scale environmental organizations and advocates that take widely differing views on a variety of topics.
Take for example Sierra Club's endorsement of the Pickens Plan, or at least parts of it. The Thinkprogress Wonk Room and Matt Stoller over at Open Left were both very critical of Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope's affiliation with Pickens and appearances on behalf of his plan. At the same time, Sierra Club has received much praise for its role in the landmark Bonanza decision which has stopped the building of new coal-fired power plants in the U.S., at least temporarily.
A far less surprising public disagreement took place at climate talks in Poznan, Poland on Monday, where official U.S. youth delegates from SustainUS and the Energy Action Coalition issued a number of statements from their attending members in response to the U.S. State Department's opening press conference at Poznan during which U.S. representatives stated that a climate deal was unlikely by the end of next year and that no target dates on greenhouse gas emissions reductions should be expected by the end of this conference.
"The US State Department's statement today makes clear that the outgoing administration remains dangerously out of touch with what the world needs to combat global climate change. In the United States and on the world stage, people are clamoring for global cooperation to create bold, binding, and just climate policy in line with science. As American youth, we want the world to know that the current US administration position does not legitimately represent American popular opinion on this issue."
And while nobody can be surprised at criticism of the Bush administration over environmental policy, it might surprise some to know that one well known environmental organization which is often lambasted by environmental activists is Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Matt Stoller calls it "openly corrupt" (which is better than what he has to say about the Natural Resource Defense Council) and Get Energy Smart! Now!!! has asked "whose environment is Environmental Defense defending?"
On this site, A. Siegel questioned the ideology behind EDF Executive Director Fred Krupp's e-mail this past September warning environmental leaders to avoid linking Hurricanes Gustav and Hannah to global warming.
The disagreements between environmental activists and EDF has now moved from words to actions. On Monday, Rising Tide North America climate activists invaded the D.C. offices of Environmental Defense, accusing them of pushing false solutions to climate change. Specifically, they object to EDF's strong role in pushing carbon trading as a solution to climate change.
Dr. Rachel Smolker of Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition, and the daughter of one of the founders of EDF, was part of the group of grassroots activists. Smolker had this to say as part of a statement she read in the EDF offices:
"My father was one of the founders of this organization, which sadly I am now ashamed of. The Kyoto Protocol, the European Emissions Trading Scheme and virtually every other initiative for reducing emissions have adopted their market approaches. So far they have utterly failed, serving only to provide huge profits to the world's most polluting industries. Instead of protecting the environment, ED now seems primarily concerned with protecting corporate bottom lines. I can hear my father rolling over in his grave."
The activists rearranged EDF's office furniture as a symbolic gesture, stating that marketing carbon is "like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." While EDF did not make any official statement following the office take over, the organization supports cap and trade, seeing it as the same policy which stopped acid rain. In general, EDF has taken what they see as a pragmatic position, not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
EDF has also been roundly criticized by Rising Tide and others for the role it played in establishing the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a business consortium advocating for a cap and trade system that includes Duke Energy, Shell, BP, DuPont, and Dow Chemical. Activists and environmental bloggers accuse USCAP of promoting weak emissions reductions and putting a "green" imprimatur on some of the worst polluters.
The other day on Politico, Russ Walker and Dave Roberts wrote that "reasonable people may debate the value of cap-and-trade legislation". It appears that not everyone agrees with that particular use of reasonable.
Other interesting articles:
Time to Lead
Governors' Global Climate Summit Convenes in Los Angeles
