by DGR News Service | Jan 2, 2023 | ACTION, Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling
Tribal Chairman: “It’s Our Responsibility to Protect Sacred Sites”
RENO, NV — The Thacker Pass Lithium Mine in northern Nevada is headed back to Federal Court on January 5th as the lawsuits against the project near completion, but project opponents are raising the alarm that Lithium Nevada Corporation has already begun work on the proposed mine.
Lithium Nevada’s workers at Thacker Pass have begun digging test pits, bore holes, dumping gravel, building fencing, and installing security cameras where Native Americans often conduct ceremonies. Lithium Nevada also conducted “bulk sampling” earlier this year, and may be planning to dig dozens of new test pits across Thacker Pass. They’re claiming this work is legal under previous permits issued over a decade ago. But Tribes and mine opponents, including the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, disagree.
They point to language in the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine that says “authorization of [the mine] will terminate the [earlier permits].” The Federal permit for Thacker Pass was approved on January 15th, 2021.
Will Falk, attorney for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, explains: “Lithium Nevada told the government and the American public that it would terminate the older permits upon BLM’s approval of the Thacker Pass Project. Now they are going back on their word, it appears they are lying to get a headstart on building the Thacker Pass mine, and the BLM is allowing them to get away with it.”
Thacker Pass, known as Peehee Mu’huh in Paiute, is a sacred site to regional tribes whose ancestors lived in the area for thousands of years, and were massacred there on at least two occasions.
Michon Eben, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer at Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, says the site is incredibly important to Native American history. “Peehee Mu’huh is a sacred place where our ancestors lived and died. We still go there to pray, gather food and medicine, hunt, and teach our youth about the history of our people.” Eben and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony are currently hosting an exhibit on the impacts of mining on Native people of Nevada.
Tribal members have stated in court filings that, because of the history of battles and massacres on the site, Thacker Pass is as significant to their culture as a site like Pearl Harbor is to American history. Arlan Melendez, Chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, understands the importance of battle and massacre sites as both a Native American and as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.
“As tribal leaders, it’s our responsibility to protect and honor our sacred places,” says Melendez. “Throughout US history, tribes have always been set up to lose in the US legal system against BLM. This Lithium Mine stands in the way of our roots and it’s violating the religious freedoms of our elders, our people.”
Falk, the Tribal attorney, says that Lithium Nevada’s construction activities at Thacker Pass are also violating tribal consultation rights.
“The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe are still engaged in consultation with the BLM about the September 12, 1865 massacre site, a site that will be completely destroyed by Lithium Nevada’s mine if this project is built,” Falk says. “It’s hard to believe a government agency is consulting in good faith when they are already allowing the site to be harmed.”
Shelley Harjo, a tribal member from the Fort McDermitt Shoshone Paiute Tribe and an employee of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, has called the planned destruction of Thacker Pass “the biggest desecration and rape of a known Native American massacre site in our area.”
The upcoming January 5th hearing in Reno’s Federal Courthouse will be the final oral argument in the ongoing lawsuits against the Thacker Pass mine. Mine opponents are planning a march and rally outside. Plaintiffs, including the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Burns Paiute Tribe, four environmental organizations, and local rancher Edward Bartell, have alleged numerous violations of the law, and Judge Miranda Du is expected to issue her opinion in the case within days or weeks of the January 5th hearing.
“No matter what happens in court on January 5th, Thacker Pass is being destroyed right now and that threat will be ongoing,” says Max Wilbert, co-founder of Protect Thacker Pass. “We have to stop that.”
Lithium Nevada claims that its lithium mine will be essential to producing batteries for combating global warming, and the Biden administration has previously indicated some support for Thacker Pass. Opponents of the project have called this “greenwashing,” arguing that the project would harm important wildlife habitat and create significant pollution. They say that electric cars are still harmful to the planet.
Timeline
January 15, 2021 — Due to “fast-tracked” permitting under the Trump Administration, the Bureau of Land Management releases a Record of Decision approving the Thacker Pass mine less than a year after beginning the Environmental Impact Statement process. On the same day, Max Wilbert and Will Falk established the Protect Thacker Pass camp.
February 11, 2021 — Local rancher Edward Bartell files a lawsuit (Case No. 3:21-cv-00080-MMD-CLB) in U.S. District Court alleging the proposed mine violates the Endangered Species Act by harming Lahontan Cutthroat Trout, and would cause irreparable harm to springs, wet meadows, and water tables.
February 26, 2021 — Four environmental organizations (Basin and Range Watch, Great Basin Resource Watch, Wildlands Defense, and Western Watersheds Project) file another lawsuit (Case No. 3:21-cv-00103-MMD-CLB) in U.S. District Court, alleging that BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act, Federal Land Policy Management Act, and other laws in permitting the Thacker Pass mine.
June 24, 2021 — The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the oldest and largest national organization of American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, calls on the Department of the Interior to rescind the permits for the Thacker Pass project.
Spring and Summer 2021 — Rallies, protests, and prayer runs take place in Orovada, Winnemucca, Reno, Carson City, and at Thacker Pass. More than 100 mine opponents gather at Thacker Pass to commemorate the 156-year anniversary of a September 12, 1865 massacre of at least 31 Northern Paiute men, women, and children committed by the 1st Nevada Cavalry. Thousands of people visit the site.
July 19, 2021 — The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and Atsa koodakuh wyh Nuwu (People of Red Mountain) files a successful motion to intervene in Federal District Court (Case No. 3:21-cv-00080-MMD-CLB) alleging that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in permitting the planned lithium mine.
August 2, 2021 — Burns Paiute Tribe files a motion to intervene on the side of tribal plaintiffs (Case No. 3:21-cv-00080-MMD-CLB).
September 15, 2021 — Bureau of Land Management accuses Will Falk and Max Wilbert of trespass for providing bathrooms to native elders at Thacker Pass, fining them $49,890.13.
October 8, 2021 — Eighteen native elders from three regional tribes request a BLM permit for their ceremonial camp. The BLM does not respond.
November 29, 2021 — The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony files an amended complaint in federal court alleging major previously unknown violations of the law. In January, Judge Miranda Du rejects the amended complaint because she wants to make a final decision on the case within a few months (note that the case has now continued for another calendar year).
February 11th, 2022 — Winnemucca Indian Colony files a motion to intervene in the lawsuit on the side of plaintiffs, claiming that BLM’s contention that they consulted with the Tribe is completely false. Judge Du rejects this motion shortly afterwards with the same reasoning used above.
April 4th, 2022 — Reno-Sparks Indian Colony files a Motion for Discovery Sanctions alleging that the BLM has been disobeying court orders and making “reckless, false statements” in a deliberate attempt to abuse the justice system and limit judicial oversight. Judge Du agrees with RSIC, but rejects the motion on a technicality.
August 2022 — BLM “discovers” five new historic sites at Thacker Pass and for the first time acknowledges the September 12, 1865 massacre took place, but continues to reject tribal expertise.
September 2022 — Lithium Nevada Corporation begins digging up portions of Thacker Pass for “bulk sampling” despite consultation still being ongoing between the Bureau of Land Management and regional tribes over cultural sites.
October 2022 — Dozens of mining activists from four continents visit Thacker Pass as part of the Western Mining Action Network biennial conference.
Contact:
Will Falk, Attorney for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe
Bethany Sam, Reno-Sparks Indian Colony Media Relations
Max Wilbert, Protect Thacker Pass
by DGR News Service | Dec 19, 2022 | ACTION
The salmons are dying, all for the greed of humans. Salmons are only one of the numerous species at risk due to industrial civilization. We lose 200 species a day. This is an ecological crisis that we are facing. This is a call for action. Join a resistance. For all the species that we are losing every day. For the salmon. Align yourself with the natural world.
By Max Wilbert
Earlier this month I spent a week in the coastal mountains of Oregon, where industrial logging has replaced old-growth forests with monocrop plantations, released vast quantities of greenhouse gases, eviscerated biodiversity, and harmed rivers and streams via siltation and other forms of habitat destruction, water temperature increases, and chemical pollution.
On this trip, I camped a few feet from a salmon stream and was kept up by the sounds of Coho heading upstream to spawn — four fish. Just four.
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Industrial forestlands in the mist
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Healthy old-growth forest
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The author in an industrial clearcut
The rivers and streams of Washington, Oregon, and California are in crisis. Where salmon and steelhead have not already been driven extinct there are only small remnant populations holding on.
In the Western contiguous United States, four hundred and six salmonid populations have already been entirely destroyed, and one-third of remaining populations are listed under the endangered species act. Overall Pacific salmon numbers have declined by 98-99%.
The forests and rivers of the West need defenders. We have work to do. If salmon are going to survive, four things need to happen:
- Protect the forests. Industrial logging needs to stop.
- Protect the water. The dams must come down. Floodplains, wetlands, and estuaries must be restored and allowed to flourish. Toxic chemical pollution from stormwater runoff and forestry spraying must be stopped.
- Protect the fish. Commercial fishing must halt. Salmon farming must be stopped.
- Protect the cold. Global warming must be stabilized and reversed.
by DGR News Service | Dec 16, 2022 | ANALYSIS, Mining & Drilling, Worker Exploitation
Editor’s note: Mainstream environmentalists have been demanding that countries across the world declare a “climate emergency.” But what does a climate emergency mean? What will the consequences be? Is there a possibility that it will be more detrimental to the environment? In this piece, Elisabeth Robson argues how declaring a climate emergency can be worse for the environment.
By Elisabeth Robson/Protect Thacker Pass
“Climate emergency”. We hear these words regularly these days, whenever there is a wild fire, a flood, or an extreme weather event of any kind. We hear these words at the annual Conference of Parties (COPs) on climate change held by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including at the COP27 meeting happening right now in Egypt. And we hear these words regularly from organizations petitioning the U.S. government to “declare a climate emergency”, and from Senators requesting the same.
Most recently, here in the U.S., we heard these words on October 4, 2022 when a group of US Senators led by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) urged President Biden to “build on the inflation reduction act” and “declare a climate emergency”, writing: “Declaring a climate emergency could unlock the broad powers of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Stafford Act*, allowing you to immediately pursue an array of regulatory and administrative actions to slash emissions, protect public health, support national and energy security, and improve our air and water quality.”
The requests by these Senators include two related specifically to electric vehicles:
* Maximize the adoption of electric vehicles, push states to reduce their transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, and support the electrification of our mass transit;
* Transition the Department of Defense non-tactical vehicle fleet to electric and zero-emission vehicles, install solar panels on military housing, and take other aggressive steps to decrease its environmental impact.
The Senators continue, “The climate crisis is one of the biggest emergencies that our country has ever faced and time is running out. We need to build off the momentum from the IRA and make sure that we achieve the ambition this crisis requires, and what we have promised the world. We urge you to act boldly, declare this crisis the national emergency that it is, and embark upon significant regulatory and administrative action.”
What the Senators are requesting is that President Biden invoke the National Emergencies Act (NEA) to go above and beyond what the Biden Administration has already done to take action in this “climate emergency” by invoking the Defense Production Act and passing the Inflation Reduction Act. This is not the first time a US president has been asked to declare a climate emergency by members of Congress, but it is the most recent.
Invoking the Defense Production Act, as the administration did in April, 2022, allows the administration to support domestic mining for critical minerals (including lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, which readers of this blog will recognize as essential ingredients in batteries for EVs and energy storage) with federal funding and incentives in the name of national security.
The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August, 2022, codified into law support for domestic mining of 50 “critical minerals” to supply renewables and battery manufacturing. This law directly supports EV manufacturing by offering tax credits to car companies that use domestic supplies of metals and minerals above a certain threshold (40% to start).
We’ve already seen how the Biden Administration is using its powers under these two acts (the Defense Production Act (DPA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)) to encourage more domestic mining for “critical minerals” and the expansion of electric vehicles and charging stations. Mining companies are “celebrating”, as one journalist wrote, including Lithium Americas Corporation (LAC) whose CEO said of the IRA “We’re delighted with it.” Car companies getting support from the government to expand manufacturing, companies getting support for building out the EV charging networks, battery-making companies, and the Department of Defense must also be celebrating the infusion of government cash and the tax incentives coming their way.
The administration would have even more power to fund and incentivize mining, manufacturing, development and industry with the National Emergencies Act, or NEA. The NEA empowers the President to activate special powers during a crisis. These powers could include loan guarantees, fast tracking permits, and even suspending existing laws that protect the environment, such as the Clean Air Act, if the administration believes these laws get in the way of mining, manufacturing, and other industrial development required for addressing the climate emergency.
As described in the Brennan Center’s Guide to Emergency Powers and Their Use, in the event a national emergency is declared, such as a climate emergency, the “President may authorize an agency to guarantee loans by private institutions in order to finance products and services essential to the national defense without regard to normal procedural and substantive requirements for such loan guarantees” [emphasis added]. This authorization could occur, as stated in the NEA, “during a period of national emergency declared by Congress or the President” or “upon a determination by the President, on a nondelegable basis, that a specific guarantee is necessary to avert an industrial resource or critical technology item shortfall that would severely impair national defense capability.”
Included in the long list of requirements for a Department of Energy (DoE) loan guarantee, the loan applicant must supply “A report containing an analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the proposed project that will enable DoE to:
(i) Assess whether the proposed project will comply with all applicable environmental requirements; and
(ii) Undertake and complete any necessary reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969.”
In the event a climate emergency is declared, could the administration then be able to “authorize an agency to guarantee loans” to a corporation “without regard” for these requirements? If so, then a corporation could potentially skip the NEPA process currently required for a new mining project, and not bother to do an assessment about whether their project would comply with all applicable environmental requirements (e.g. requirements under the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act).
In other words, a corporation could proceed with their project, such as a lithium mine, with little to no environmental oversight if the Administration believes the resulting products are “essential to national defense.”
We already know that the Biden Administration believes that lithium production is essential to national defense: they have explicitly stated this in their invocation of the Defense Production Act and in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Declaring a “climate emergency” would give the administration free rein to allow corporations to sidestep environmental procedures that are normally required during the process of permitting a project like a mine, resulting in more harm to the environment.
Aside from these technical details about the implications of declaring a climate emergency, we know that most organizations, including those participating in COP27 and the 1,100 organizations that signed a February 2022 letter to President Biden urging him to declare a climate emergency, are demanding actions that would further harm the environment, such as “maximiz[ing] the adoption of electric vehicles” and “transition[ing] the Department of Defense…to electric and zero-emission vehicles” as demanded in the Senators’ October 4 letter to President Biden.
While these actions may reduce some greenhouse gas emissions, neither of these actions will reduce other harms to the environment, because these actions require more extraction and more development. And neither of these actions will reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a scope large enough to solve the climate crisis. What the activists, organizations, and Senators crying out for the President to declare a climate emergency seemingly fail to understand is that the climate emergency isn’t the only emergency we face.
Industrial development, and more specifically, industrial agriculture, has caused a 70% reduction in wildlife numbers just since 1970. This is an emergency inextricably linked with and just as dire as the climate crisis, yet the Senators and organizations calling for a climate emergency don’t demand a reduction in overall industrial development, only a reduction in fossil fuels development.
Each year, 24 billion tons of topsoil are lost, due primarily to industrial agriculture practices and deforestation. In 2014, the UN estimated that if current degradation rates continue, all the world’s top soil could be gone within 60 years. This too is an emergency inextricably linked with and just as dire as the climate crisis, yet again, the Senators and organizations calling for a climate emergency don’t demand actions to rebuild and restore soil.
Industry, including the military-industrial complex, has polluted the entire planet with toxic levels of mercury, lead, PCBs, dioxins, forever chemicals such as PFAS chemicals, and micro- and nano-plastics. These toxics are in the water we drink, the food we eat, and the air we breathe—“we” being, of course, not just humans but all wildlife on the planet. Again, this is an emergency just as dire as the climate emergency.
More than 50 million gallons of wastewater contaminated with arsenic, lead, and other toxic metals flows daily from some of the most contaminated mining sites in the U.S. into groundwater, rivers, and ponds. Mining waste that is captured must be stored and/or treated indefinitely “for perhaps thousands of years,” as the Associated Press wrote memorably in a 2019 article on mining waste. Replicate this kind of mining waste pollution around the world, and obviously, this too is an emergency just as dire as the climate emergency.
There are many such emergencies. Humans, our industry, and our developments have destroyed half of the land on Earth, and one third of all Earth’s forests. 60% of all mammals on Earth are now human livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, and 70% of all birds are now farmed poultry. This along with the staggering loss of wild beings due to human development and the destruction of habitat has resulted in the sixth mass extinction of life in Earth’s history—the only one caused by us.
All of these emergencies are related to climate change, of course. The more our societies develop, the more harm we do to the natural world, including the atmosphere.
“Development” is really global technological escalation by industry to extract more materials more efficiently, destroying more of the planet in its relentless theft of “resources.” The more our societies develop, the less habitat for life is left, and the more we overshoot the ability of the Earth to sustain us and the rest of the species on Earth.
We ignore these other emergencies at our peril. Indeed, ignoring them in favor of the climate emergency often exacerbates these emergencies. When the organizations mentioned above demand increases in electric vehicles, increases in batteries, increases in renewables, and increases in climate mitigation and adaptation (building sea walls, retrofitting and improving roads and bridges, moving entire cities), what they are demanding is more development, not less, which means more harm, not less, to the natural world. For instance, we know that the materials required to supply the projected battery demand in 2035 will require 384 new mines. That’s to supply the materials just for batteries.
Ultimately, what most organizations that support declaring a climate emergency want is not to protect life on this planet, but rather, to protect this way of life: the one we’re living now, the one that’s killing the planet. These organizations believe that we can simply replace CO2-emitting fossil fuels with EVs and so-called renewables, and keep living these ecocidal lifestyles we have become accustomed to.
We know this to be true, because we can see it directly in the actions already taken by the Biden administration, actions that will dramatically increase mining in the U.S. Mining increases the destruction of the natural world, meaning MORE habitat loss, not less. Mining increases toxic pollution. Mining increases deforestation. Mining increases top soil loss. In other words, these actions will significantly worsen all the emergencies we, and all life on the planet, face.
Rather than demand governments around the world declare a “climate emergency,” we could instead demand governments around the world declare an “ecological overshoot emergency.” In place of demands to increase industry, increase mining, and build new cars and new energy infrastructure, we could instead demand governments reduce industry, end mining, help wean us completely away from cars, and dramatically reduce energy extraction, production, and consumption. In place of demands to continue a way of life that cannot possibly continue much longer, with its relentless destruction of the natural world, we could instead demand that all societies around the world center what makes life possible on this planet: flourishing and fecund natural communities, of which we could be a thriving part, rather than dominate and destroy.
Join us and help Protect Thacker Pass, or work to defend the wild places you love. We can’t save the planet by destroying the planet in the name of a “climate emergency.”
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* In their October 4 letter to President Biden, the Senators mention how invoking the NEA could “unlock the broad powers of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Stafford Act.” The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorizes the president to regulate international commerce after declaring a national emergency, for instance by blocking transactions with corporations based in foreign countries, or by limiting trade with those foreign countries. This would, like the IRA, incentivize building domestic supply chains and manufacturing capabilities. The Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act encourages states to develop disaster preparedness plans, and provides federal assistance programs in the event of disaster. In the event of an emergency, such as a declared climate emergency, the President could direct any federal agency (e.g. FEMA) to use its resources to aid a state or local government in emergency assistance efforts, and to help states prepare for anticipated hazards. In the event of a declared climate emergency, this would unleash federal funds and other incentive programs to states to build and harden infrastructure that is vulnerable to wildfire, floods, severe storms, ocean acidification, and other effects of climate change.
Featured Image: Climate emergency – Melbourne #MarchforScience on #Earthday by Takver from Australia. Via Wikemedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
What does it take to make an electric car?
by DGR News Service | Nov 25, 2022 | ACTION
By Carl van Warmerdam
The North Atlantic Right Whale (NARW) are among the rarest of all marine mammal species in the Atlantic Ocean. They average approximately 15 m (50 ft) in length. They have stocky, black bodies with no dorsal fin, and bumpy, coarse patches of skin on their heads called callosities. The NARW is one of the world’s most endangered whales. Once common along the eastern U.S. seaboard, the whale was hunted to near-extinction by the 1750s. The species gets its names from early whalers, who considered them to be the “right” whales to hunt. By the early 1900s the population off Europe had been virtually extirpated while a small population of perhaps a hundred or fewer survived in the western North Atlantic off the United States and Canada. After 1935, when an international agreement went into effect banning the hunting of all right whales, their numbers began to increase slowly. In recent decades, this slow recovery has been impeded by mortality and serious injury from ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, underwater noise and separation from calving areas because of shipping traffic. NARW now occur almost exclusively along the east coasts of the United States and Canada, where they rely on a calanoid copepod, Calanus finmarchicus, as their primary food source. Beyond eating a lot, whales also produce lots of plumes (a gassy form of underwater poop). These plumes fertilize the ocean and help feed small organisms called phytoplankton. These organisms, in turn, produce 50% of the world’s oxygen – every other breath humans take. Over their lifetimes, NARW also accumulate tons of carbon in their bodies – helping to mitigate climate change. The importance of whales for the ecosystem cannot be overstated.
An 8-year analysis of NARW sightings within Southern New England (SNE) show that the NARW distribution has been shifting (Quintana- Rizzo et al. 2021). A study area of SNE (shores of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket to and covering all the offshore wind lease sites of Massachusetts and Rhode Island) recorded sightings of NARW in almost all months of the year. A population trend analysis conducted on the abundance estimates from 1990 to 2011 suggest an increase at about 2.8% per year from an initial abundance estimate of 270 individuals in 1998 (Hayes et al. 2020). However, modeling conducted by Pace et al. (2017) showed a decline in annual abundance after 2011, which has likely continued as evidenced by the decrease in the abundance estimate from 451 in 2018 (Hayes et al. 2019) to 412 in 2020 (Hayes et al. 2020). This decrease correlates to when the Block Island wind turbines were constructed. The only offshore wind Turbines in the Americas.
With an estimated population of fewer than 350 individuals, scientists have been raising the alarm about the dwindling number of reproductive females needed to sustain the population. For a new paper published in the journal Frontiers, lead author Joshua Reed, a PhD candidate from the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University, used individual female whales’ reproductive history, rather than age, when modeling population trends to provide a better insight into their numbers. “Our research found that of the estimated 142 female right whales alive in the population at the beginning of 2018, only 72 were actually capable of reproducing. This has certainly influenced the species’ decline in recent years,” said Reed. The researchers also found that in recent years, young females are less likely to start calving when they reach 10 years of age. Ten was the age at which right whales used to have their first calf in the years up to the turn of the century. Right Whales can and should live for up to 75 years. But that number is quickly declining. Scientists identify individual right whales through photographs and compare these images throughout time to learn about their lifespan. And, according to recent estimates, female right whales are barely making it to middle age. But many right whales don’t even make it that far.
In its 2020 update of its “Red List of Threatened Species,” the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared NARW “critically endangered,” the most serious category of risk, with such a small, slow-growing population, any threatening factor may have a significant impact.
Offshore Wind or North Atlantic Right Whale?
“North Atlantic right whale” by FWC Research is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) plans, by 2025, to hold up to five additional, to the Revolution Wind, Offshore Wind (OSW) lease sales and complete the review of at least 16 plans to construct and operate commercial OSW facilities, which would represent more than 22 gigawatts of “clean” energy for the nation. That means thousands of wind turbines along the Eastern Seaboard.
BOEM and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries initiated development of a shared Draft North Atlantic Right Whale and Offshore Wind Strategy (hereinafter called “Strategy”) to focus and integrate past, present, and future efforts related to NARW and OSW development. In response to Executive Order 14008, both agencies share a common vision to protect and promote the recovery of NARW while responsibly developing offshore wind energy. The announcement initiated a 45-day public review and comment period on the draft strategy. Comments on the guidance can be submitted via regulations.gov from October 21 to December 4, 2022 under Docket Number BOEM-2022-0066. For more information about the draft strategy and how to submit comments, visit BOEM’s website.
The following is my comment. Please use this opportunity to express your concerns in this regard.
The NARW species provides important ecosystem services, and its potential extinction could be a leading indicator for other ecosystem disruptions (Pershing et al. 2021). The extinction of the Right Whale will be the precursor of the extinction of our own species. Both will be caused by the disturbances to functioning ecosystems by human expansion. And it does not need to be this way. OSW development will result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat. Only a “jeopardy” or “adverse modification” conclusion can be reached. Whales and turbines do not mix. Please do not allow this “development” to proceed while the NARW survival is in the balance. There is still time, but the time is now because there is so little left.
Climate change does in-fact pose a significant global threat that will cause planet-wide physical, chemical, and biological changes that substantially affect the world’s oceans, lands, and atmosphere. But climate change is a symptom of industrial civilization and driven by the disease of a consumer culture. A new study finds a 69% average drop in animal populations since 1970. Over those five decades most of the decline can be traced to habitat destruction. The human desire for ever more growth played out over the years, city by city, road by road, acre by acre, across the globe. “Biological diversity is the variety of life on Earth and the natural patterns it forms. The biodiversity seen today is the result of 4.5 billion years of evolution and, increasingly, of human influence as well. It forms the web of life, of which humans are integral and upon which people and the planet so fully depend. The planet is currently in biodiversity breakdown. Species are now disappearing hundreds, or even thousands, of times faster than the natural background rate of extinction. The scientific community has repeatedly sounded the alarm on the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste. Over half the world’s total GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature, which also provides medicine and social benefits.” We are in a biodiversity emergency. With scores of species dying each day, we are in a mass extinction event. Although many of those species may not be as impressive as the megafauna they are just as important to protect the complex balance of nature which all of life is dependent upon.
Without significant reductions in anthropocentric consumption of the natural world, greenhouse gas emissions, extinctions and transformative impacts on all ecosystems cannot be avoided. Our options in what reductions will then be impose by such limits will create harsher impacts on the economic, recreational, and subsistence activities they support.
OSW is abundant and renewable but extracting that energy with turbines will be neither efficient or clean or an alternative domestic energy resource. Wind turbines are not renewable. Heavy industries use a lot of energy to create the components for wind turbines. Coal and other fossil fuels are utilized to power the machinery and furnaces in these factories. According to estimates, the energy utilized by the present United States’ heavy industries is equivalent to the energy necessary to power the country’s entire electrical grid.
The need for energy in the heavy industries grows in tandem with the demand for wind turbines, producing a feedback mechanism in which the more wind power we use, the more reliant we are on the heavy industry, and thus the more fossil fuels we need. Production of wind turbines to extract wind energy will require the release of more emissions that can pollute the air or water without exceptions, and using turbines to extract wind energy has greater effects on the environment than many other energy sources. Wind turbines will not reduce the amount of electricity generation from fossil fuels, and will result in greater total air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. Transitioning to their use will precipitate a far higher biodiversity loss in their manufacturing process. Already the wind power boom is driving deforestation in the Amazon with its demand for balsa wood.
The major coastal cities, where more than half of the U.S. population resides and energy needs are high, must reduce their energy consumption, as all cities must do. Compared to onshore wind, offshore wind challenges that also need to be considered are higher cost due to specialized installation, equipment, and more expensive support structures; (2) more difficult working conditions; (3) higher wind speeds; (4) decreased availability due to limited accessibility for maintenance; and (5) necessity for special corrosion prevention measures. Hence the lower life cycle of 15 years for offshore wind. Then at the end of their lifecycle they end up in a landfill because they are economically infeasible to recycle. Not to mention that these particular turbines will be built in the home of the NARW.
Without the Departments of the Interior, Energy, and Commerce announced national goal to deploy 30 gigawatts of OSW by 2032 and accompanying subsidies, there wouldn’t be increasing interest in developing OSW. This goal is stated to be achieved while protecting biodiversity and promoting ocean co-use. It can be appreciated that in an attempt to resolve these conflicting goals the BOEM and NOAA Fisheries North Atlantic Right Whale and Offshore Wind Strategy has been put forth.
The Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Lands Act directs BOEM to study and consider coastal, marine, and human environmental impacts, and BOEM must also comply with many other statutes, regulations, executive orders, and policies in making decisions—including the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The ESA requires BOEM to ensure that any action it takes to implement the OCS Renewable Energy Program is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat determined for any listed species, including the NARW (ESA section 7(a)(2)). Additionally, section 7(a)(1) of the ESA requires BOEM (and all other Federal agencies) to “utilize their authorities in furtherance of the purposes of this Act by carrying out programs for the conservation of endangered species.”
NOAA Fisheries strives to take an ecosystem-based approach to managing living marine resources, recognizing the interconnectedness of ecosystem components and the value of resilient and productive ecosystems to living marine resources. This connectedness should also be applicable to places where the metals and material are mined to make wind turbines, for example deep sea mining. A declaration of oceanic rights from the United Nations could recognize the ocean as a living entity that has its own inherent entitlements, such as those to life and health, along with the right to continue its vital natural cycle.
NOAA Fisheries and NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries share NOAA’s mission to 1) understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean and coasts; 2) share that knowledge and information with others; and 3) conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources. So coastal and marine ecosystems then are not resources to conserve and manage for the continuation of extractive industries. They function best when left alone.
As noted above, section 7(a)(2) of the ESA requires BOEM, in consultation with NOAA Fisheries, to ensure that any action the agencies authorize, fund, or carry out is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat; this coordination is accomplished through ESA section 7 consultations. The Strategy does not state that when a Federal agency’s action “may affect” a protected species, that agency is required to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). This requirement needs to go upstream to the threatened species caused by mining for the materials of the construction of the wind turbines.
In response to a request for consultation, NOAA Fisheries prepares a Biological Opinion detailing how an agency (i.e., BOEM) action affects a threatened or endangered species and/or its critical habitat and a conclusion as to whether the proposed action is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the species. It considers whether the action will result in reductions in reproduction, numbers, or distribution of the species and then considering whether these reductions would reduce appreciably the likelihood of both the survival and recovery of the species, as those terms are defined for purposes of the ESA. The Biological Opinion also includes a determination as to whether the proposed action is likely to result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat. If a “jeopardy” or “adverse modification” conclusion is reached, the Biological Opinion would include one or more Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives to the proposed action that would avoid the likelihood of jeopardizing the continued existence of the listed species or the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat.
If a “no jeopardy” conclusion is reached, either based on the proposed action and its mitigation or after adopting a Reasonable and Prudent Alternative, NOAA Fisheries may issue an Incidental Take Statement that exempts a certain amount and type of take from the ESA section 9 prohibitions on take. The Strategy should include the following definition: The ESA broadly defines “take” to include “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect.” In the case of the NARW this should not be allowed.
According to the Petition for Incidental Take Regulations for the Construction and Operation of the Revolution Wind Offshore Wind Farm :
NARW feed mostly on zooplankton and copepods belonging to the Calanus and Pseudocalanus genera (Hayes et al. 2020). NARWs are slow-moving grazers that feed on dense concentrations of prey at or below the water’s surface, as well as at depth (NMFS 2021l). Research suggests that NARWs must locate and exploit extremely dense patches of zooplankton to feed efficiently (Mayo and Marx 1990).
2.3.2 • Likely changes in copepod distribution between pre- and post-OSW construction. This must be tested to verify. CRITICAL what effect do the present in-place turbines have on prey food?
Currently there are no quantitative data on how large whale species (i.e., mysticetes) may be impacted by offshore wind farms (Kraus et al. 2019). Navigation through or foraging within the Revolution Wind Farm by large whales could be impeded by the presence of the wind turbine generators and offshore substations foundations, which range in diameter from 12 to 15 m with approximately 1.15 mi (1.8 km) spacing between foundations (Section 1). Additionally, wakes in water currents created by the presence of the foundations could alter the distribution of zooplankton within the water column, which would impact prey availability for some marine mammal species (Kraus et al. 2019).
What is the effect the extraction of wind energy from the surface of the ocean in regards to water temperature and currents?
WIND ENERGY EXTRACTION
“Horns rev offshore wind farm” by Vattenfall is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.
Climatic Impacts of Wind Power
• Wind turbines raise local temperatures by making the air flow more turbulent and so increasing the mixing of the boundary layers.
• However, because wind turbines have a low output density, the number of them required has a warming impact on a continental scale. During the day, the surface temperature rises by 0.24 degrees Celsius, while at night, it may reach 1.5 degrees Celsius. This impact happens immediately.
• Considering simply this, the consequences of switching to wind power now would be comparable to those of continuing to use fossil fuels till the end of the century.
In general, BOEM will consider recommendations from NOAA Fisheries and attempt to avoid issuing new leases in areas that may impact potential high-value habitat and/or high-density/use areas for important life history functions such as NARW foraging, migrating, mating, or calving. BOEM and NOAA Fisheries will include potential lessees in these conversations as early as possible to raise awareness of concerns over impacts to NARW.
If issuing new leases in these areas is not avoidable they still must avoid the likelihood of jeopardizing the continued existence of the listed species or the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat. Under what condition would they be unavoidable?
Developers should avoid proposing development in areas that may impact high-value habitat and/or high-density/use areas used for important life history functions such as NARW foraging, migrating, mating, or calving. If avoidance is not possible, include measures to avoid and minimize impacts to NARW and their habitat. In this situation the developer should have alternative proposals in different areas.
BOEM will work with NOAA Fisheries to ensure environmental review under applicable statutes evaluate measures to avoid (primary goal) or minimize (secondary goal) impacts to NARW and high-value habitat and/or high-density/use areas for important life history functions such as NARW foraging, migrating, mating, or calving. The results of these environmental reviews will ultimately inform Construction and Operation Plan (COP) conditions of approval.
THIS IS GOOD: If new information becomes available indicating that activities previously authorized by BOEM through a plan approval (e.g., COP, Site Assessment Plan, General Activities Plan) are now resulting in an imminent threat of serious or irreparable harm or damage to NARW, BOEM has the authority to suspend operations.
- Protected Species Observers (PSOs): Use trained, third-party PSOs with no duties other than to effectively implement mitigation and monitoring measures during construction and operations. Adopt standards for protected species monitoring (e.g., minimum visibility, PSO protocols, etc.). Use only independent, third-party PSOs (i.e., not construction personnel) that are approved by NOAA Fisheries. Locate PSOs safely at the best vantage point(s) to ensure coverage of the entire visual Clearance and Shutdown Zones, and as much of the behavioral harassment zones as possible. Ensure PSOs do not exceed 4 consecutive watch hours on duty at any time, have a two- hour (minimum) break between watches, and do not exceed a combined watch schedule of more than 12 hours in a 24-hour period. These PSO should not be contractors of the developer. They must be payed through a government agency which can be covered through developer fees.
For the success of “DRAFT BOEM and NOAA Fisheries North Atlantic Right Whale and Offshore Wind Strategy” what exactly is that? To promote the recovery of NARW while responsibly developing OSW. What happens if these two are mutually exclusive? Would it be a success if Right Whales continue to survive but wind turbines do not? Must NOAA Fisheries meet the shared vision to protect and promote the recovery of NARW while responsibly developing offshore wind energy? So long as the NARW numbers are declining there should be no disturbance of their habitat.
There are no time tables in this Strategy so is it understood then that no action shall be taken until such time as the appropriate data is collected? Although it is long on data collection there is no mention of inspection. All of these actions will require funding but these extra expenses can not be covered in the normal operating budgets of the agencies. Where will it come from and where will it go?
I commend BOEM and NOAA Fisheries for producing a strategy in regard to the NARW. I also acknowledge that in order to maintain functioning ecosystems, this type of Strategy should be implemented for all of the new mining operations, logistics, transportation and infrastructure that will be required to build all of the proposed turbines needed to transition to an energy capturing economy.
Carl van Warmerdam has lived his life on the West Coast of Turtle Island. He has always aligned with the counter culture ideals there. Now he currently lives on the coast of New England, the ancestral home of the Right Whale. If you would like to help save the whales email Lafongcarl@protonmail.com. We stopped offshore wind before, we can do it again.
Save the Right Whales Coalition (ACKRATS) Nantucket Residents Against Turbines
Stop These Things
Featured image: Help North Atlantic Right Whales sign, Belfast, Maine by DrStew82 via Wikimedia Commons is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
by DGR News Service | Sep 19, 2022 | ANALYSIS, Human Supremacy
By Max Wilbert
David Roberts — a journalist who has written for Vox and Grist and now runs a popular green-tech newsletter — recently shared this on Twitter:
This idea is not new to Mr. Roberts. It actually reflects a decades-long push to make environmentalism mainstream by sacrificing its foundational biocentric values in favor of anthropocentrism.
The organization 350, for example, has released a ‘style guide’ advising activists to “Focus on people. Whenever possible, use visuals to emphasize that climate is a real, tangible human problem—not an abstract [sic] ecological issue.” A later version of the same guide edited the statement to read: “People are the heart of the climate movement … avoid photos of polar bears, icebergs or other images that obscure the real people behind the climate crisis.”
Some see this sort of thing as pragmatic thinking to address a crisis. Others — including me, and despite my love of people — see it as at best a profoundly dangerous mistake, and at worst as enabling colonization of the environmental movement by profit-driven interests.
Last year, me and my co-authors Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith released our book “Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What to Do About It” (thanks to the wonderful folks at Monkfish Book Publishing Company) which we bookend with this topic. This is an excerpt from Chapter 2, which is titled “Solving for the Wrong Variable,” and from the conclusion of the book:
Once upon a time, environmentalism was about saving wild beings and wild places from destruction. “The beauty of the living world I was trying to save has always been uppermost in my mind,” Rachel Carson wrote to a friend as she finished the manuscript that would become Silent Spring. “That, and anger at the senseless, brutish things that were being done.” She wrote with unapologetic reverence of “the oak and maple and birch” in autumn, the foxes in the morning mist, the cool streams and the shady ponds, and, of course, the birds: “In the mornings, which had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, and wrens, and scores of other bird voices, there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marshes.” Her editor noted that Silent Spring required a “sense of almost religious dedication” as well as “extraordinary courage.” Carson knew the chemical industry would come after her, and come it did, in attacks as “bitter and unscrupulous as anything of the sort since the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species a century before.” Seriously ill with the cancer that would kill her, Carson fought back in defense of the living world, testifying with calm fortitude before President John F. Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee and the U.S. Senate. She did these things because she had to. “There would be no peace for me,” she wrote to a friend, “if I kept silent.”
Carson’s work inspired the grassroots environmental movement; the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and the passage of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. Silent Spring was more than a critique of pesticides—it was a clarion call against “the basic irresponsibility of an industrialized, technological society toward the natural world.”
Today’s environmental movement stands upon the shoulders of giants, but something has gone terribly wrong. Carson didn’t save the birds from DDT so that her legatees could blithely offer them up to wind turbines. We are writing this book because we want our environmental movement back.
Mainstream environmentalists now overwhelmingly prioritize saving industrial civilization over saving life on the planet. The how and the why of this institutional capture is the subject for another book, but the capture is near total. For example, Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute and Earth Policy Institute—someone who has been labeled as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers” and “the guru of the environmental movement”—routinely makes comments like, “We talk about saving the planet…. But the planet’s going to be around for a while. The question is, can we save civilization? That’s what’s at stake now, and I don’t think we’ve yet realized it.” Brown wrote this in an article entitled “The Race to Save Civilization.”
The world is being killed because of civilization, yet what Brown says is at stake, and what he’s racing to save, is precisely the social structure causing the harm: civilization. Not saving salmon. Not monarch butterflies. Not oceans. Not the planet. Saving civilization.
Brown is not alone. Peter Kareiva, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, more or less constantly pushes the line that “Instead of pursuing the protection of biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake, a new conservation should seek to enhance those natural systems that benefit the widest number of people…. Conservation will measure its achievement in large part by its relevance to people.”
Bill McKibben, who works tirelessly and selflessly to raise awareness about global warming, and who has been called “probably America’s most important environmentalist,” constantly stresses his work is about saving civilization, with articles like “Civilization’s Last Chance,”11 or with quotes like, “We’re losing the fight, badly and quickly—losing it because, most of all, we remain in denial about the peril that human civilization is in.”
We’ll bet you that polar bears, walruses, and glaciers would
have preferred that sentence ended a different way.
In 2014 the Environmental Laureates’ Declaration on Climate Change was signed by “160 leading environmentalists from 44 countries” who were “calling on the world’s foundations and philanthropies to take a stand against global warming.” Why did they take this stand? Because global warming “threatens to
cause the very fabric of civilization to crash.” The declaration concludes: “We, 160 winners of the world’s environmental prizes, call on foundations and philanthropists everywhere to deploy their endowments urgently in the effort to save civilization.” Coral reefs, emperor penguins, and Joshua trees probably wish that sentence would have ended differently. The entire declaration, signed by “160 winners of the world’s environmental prizes,” never once mentions harm to the natural world. In fact, it never mentions the natural world at all.
Are leatherback turtles, American pikas, and flying foxes “abstract ecological issues,” or are they our kin, each imbued with their own “wild and precious life”?
Wes Stephenson, yet another climate activist, has this to say: “I’m not an environmentalist. Most of the people in the climate movement that I know are not environmentalists. They are young people who didn’t necessarily come up through the environmental movement, so they don’t think of themselves as environmentalists. They think of themselves as climate activists and as human rights activists. The terms ‘environment’ and ‘environmentalism’ carry baggage historically and culturally. It has been more about protecting the natural world, protecting other species, and conservation of wild places than it has been about the welfare of human beings. I come at it from the opposite direction. It’s first and fore- most about human beings.”
Note that Stephenson calls “protecting the natural world, protecting other species, and conservation of wild places” baggage.
Naomi Klein states explicitly in the film This Changes Everything: “I’ve been to more climate rallies than I can count, but the polar bears? They still don’t do it for me. I wish them well, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that stopping climate change isn’t really about them, it’s about us.”
And finally, Kumi Naidoo, former head of Greenpeace International, says: “The struggle has never been about saving the planet. The planet does not need saving.”
When Naidoo said that, in December 2015, it was 50 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal at the North Pole, above freezing in the winter.
##
I (Derrick) wrote this for a friend’s wedding.
> Each night the frogs sing outside my window. “Come to me,” they sing. “Come.” This morning the rains came, each drop meeting this particular leaf on this particular tree, then pooling together to join the ground. Love. The bright green of this year’s growth of redwood trees against the dark of shadows, other trees, tree trunks, foliage, all these plants, reaching out, reaching up. I am in love. With you. With you. With the world. With this place. With each other. Redwoods cannot stand alone. Roots burrow through the soil, reaching out to each other, to intertwine, to hold up these tallest of trees, so they may stand together, each root, each tree, saying to each other, “Come to me. Come.” What I want to know is this: What do those roots feel at first touch, first embrace? Do they find this same homecoming I find each time in you, in your eyes, the pale skin of your cheek, your neck, your belly, the backs of your hands? And the water. It is evening now, and the rain has stopped. Yet the water still falls, drop by drop from the outstretched arms of trees. I want to know, as each drop let’s go its hold, does it say, and does the ground say to it, as I say to you now, “Come to me. Come.”
In the 15 years since that wedding, the frogs in my pond have suffered reproductive failure, which is science-speak for their off- spring dying, baby after baby, year after year. Their songs began to lessen. At first their songs were so loud you could not hold a (human) conversation outside at night, and then you could. The first spring this happened I thought it might just be a bad year. The second spring I sensed a pattern. The third spring I knew something was wrong. I’d also noticed the eggs in their sacs were no longer small black dots, as before, but were covered in what looked like white fur. A little internet research and a few phone calls to herpetologists revealed the problem to me. The egg sacs were being killed by a mold called saprolegnia. It wasn’t the mold’s fault. Saprolegnia is ubiquitous, and eats weak egg sacs, acting as part of a clean-up crew in ponds. The problem is that this culture has depleted the ozone layer, which has allowed more UV-B to come through: UV-B weakens egg sacs in some species.
What do you do when someone you love is being killed? And what do you do when the whole world you love is being killed? I’m known for saying we should use any means necessary to stop the murder of the planet. People often think this is code language for using violence. It’s not. It means just what it says: any means necessary.
UV-B doesn’t go through glass, so about once a week between December and June, I get into the pond to collect egg sacs to put in big jars of water on my kitchen table. When the egg sacs hatch, I put the babies back in the pond. If I bring in about five egg sacs per week for 20 weeks, and if each sac has 15 eggs in it, and if there’s a 10 percent mortality on the eggs instead of a 90 percent mortality, that’s 2,400 more tadpoles per year. If one percent of these survive their first year, that’s 24 more tadpoles per year who survive. I fully recognize that this doesn’t do anything for frogs in other ponds. It doesn’t help the newts who are also disappearing from this same pond, or the mergansers, dragonflies, or caddisflies. It doesn’t do anything for the 200 species this culture causes to go extinct each and every day. But it does help these.
I don’t mean to make too big a deal of this.
One of my earliest memories is from when I was five years old, crying in the locker room of a YMCA where I was taking swimming lessons, because the water was so cold. I really don’t like cold water. So, I have to admit I don’t get all the way into the water when I go into my pond to help the frogs. I only get in as far as my thighs. But this isn’t, surprisingly enough, entirely because of my cold-water phobia. It’s because of a creature I’ve seen in the pond a few times, a giant water bug, which is nicknamed Toe-Biter. My bug book says they’re about an inch and a half long, but every time I get in the pond, I’m sure they are five or six inches. And I can’t stop thinking about the deflated frog-skin sacks I’ve seen (the giant water bug injects a substance that liquefies the frog’s insides, so they can be sucked out as through a straw). I’ve read that the bugs sometimes catch small birds. So, you’ll note I only go into the pond as deep as my thighs—and no deeper. Second, I have to admit that sometimes I’m not very smart. It took me several years of this weekly cold-water therapy to think of what I now perceive as one of the most important phrases in the English language—“waterproof chest waders”—and to get some.
What do you do when someone you love is being killed? It’s pretty straightforward. You defend your beloved. Using any means necessary.
##
We get it. We, too, like hot showers and freezing cold ice cream, and we like them 24/7. We like music at the touch of a button or, now, a verbal command. We like the conveniences this way of life brings us. And it’s more than conveniences. We know that. We three co-authors would be dead without modern medicine. But we all recognize that there is a terrible trade-off for all this: life on the planet. And no individual’s conveniences—or, indeed, life—is worth that price.
The price, though, is now invisible. This is the willful blindness of modern environmentalism. Like Naomi Klein and the polar bears, the real world just “doesn’t do it” for too many of us. To many people, including even some of those who consider themselves environmentalists, the real world doesn’t need our help. It’s about us. It’s always “about us.”
##
Decades ago, I (Derrick) was one of a group of grassroots environmental activists planning a campaign. As the meeting started, we went around the table saying why we were doing this work. The answers were consistent, and exemplified by one person who said, simply, “For the critters,” and by another person who got up from the table, walked to her desk, and brought back a picture. At first, the picture looked like a high-up part of the trunk of an old-growth Douglas fir tree, but when I looked more closely, I saw a small spotted owl sticking her camouflaged head out of a hole in the center of the tree’s trunk. The activist said, “I’m doing it for her.”
##
The goal has been shifted, slowly and silently, and no one seems to have noticed. Environmentalists tell the world and their organi- zations that “it’s about us.” But some of us refuse to forget the last spotted owls in the last scrap of forest, the wild beings and wild places. Like Rachel Carson before us, there will be no peace for us if we keep silent while the critters, one by one, are disappeared. Our once and future movement was for them, not us. We refuse to solve for the wrong variable. We are not saving civilization; we are trying to save the world.
[And this part comes from the conclusion of the book:]
… throughout this book, we’ve repeated Naomi Klein’s comments about polar bears not doing it for her. Not to be snarky, but instead because that’s the single most important passage in this book.
Although we’ve spent hundreds of pages laying out facts, ultimately this book is about values. We value something different than do bright greens. And our loyalty is to something different. We are fighting for the living planet. The bright greens are fighting to continue this culture—the culture that is killing the planet. Seems like the planet doesn’t do it for them.
Early in this book we quoted some of the bright greens, including Lester Brown: “The question is, can we save civilization? That’s what’s at stake now, and I don’t think we’ve yet realized it.” And Peter Kareiva, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy: “Instead of pursuing the protection of biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake, a new conservation should seek to enhance those natural systems that benefit the widest number of people.” And climate scientist Wen Stephenson: “The terms ‘environment’ and ‘environmental- ism’ carry baggage historically and culturally. It has been more about protecting the natural world, protecting other species, and conservation of wild places than it has been about the welfare of human beings. I come at it from the opposite direction. It’s first and foremost about human beings.” And Bill McKibben: “We’re losing the fight, badly and quickly—losing it because, most of all, we remain in denial about the peril that human civilization is in.”
Do we yet see the pattern?
And no, we’re not losing that fight because “we remain in denial about the peril that human civilization is in.” We’re losing that fight because we’re trying to save industrial civilization, which is inherently unsustainable.
We, the authors of this book, also like the conveniences this culture brings to us. But we don’t like them more than we like life on the planet.
We should be trying to save the planet—this beautiful, creative, unique planet—the planet that is the source of all life, the planet without whom we all die.
We are in the midst of a battle for the soul of the environmental movement, and I, for one, will not forget the forests, the birds, the fish, the antelope, the bears, the spiders, the plankton — all those beings who hold the world together in their weaving, who share common ancestry with us. Nor will I forget the mountains whose minerals make up our bones, the rivers whose waters flow in our veins, the Earth itself who is our mother. These beings are family, and I will not turn away from them.
David happens to live in my hometown, Seattle. David – if you read this, I’d like to invite you to get a cup of coffee next time I’m in town. I’ll give you a copy of #BrightGreenLies and we can talk.
Postscript: The type of thinking being promoted by David Roberts has profound consequences for the living world. For the past two years, I’ve been fighting to “Protect Thacker Pass” — a beautiful, biodiverse sagebrush-steppe in the northern Great Basin of Nevada — from destruction for a lithium mine.
The Bright Green worldview sees lithium as a necessary resource to transition away from fossil fuels and save civilization from global warming, and so Bright Greens promote lithium mining, vast solar arrays in desert tortoise habitat, and offshore wind energy development in the last breeding ground of the Atlantic Right Whale. And if some endangered wildlife has to be killed, some water poisoned, and some Native American sacred sites destroyed, well, that’s just an acceptable cost to save civilization. And so vast subsidies (see the inflation Reduction Act, for example) are being mobilized to convert yet more wild land into industrial energy and mining sacrifice zones.
Around the world, nature retreats and civilization grows.
Featured image by Max Wilbert: a spring gushing from the rock high in the western mountains.
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