Compromise and Win

There are some people who are so single-minded about saving the earth for the creatures who live here, that they forget that we humans live here, too. They would, it seems, throw the baby out with the bath water. Returning to a primitive lifestyle, eschewing technological advances, economic progress, and our modern way of life, is not only impractical, but it is also absolutely impossible.

Such naivete is a luxury that many in the environmental community refuse to give up. Their hearts and their ideals are in the right place, but their understanding of political reality is seriously flawed. Why be an advocate for a solution which hasn't a ghost of a chance of being realized? Why not expend your energies in a more productive venture?

Then there is the other side which values commerce above common sense. Ignoring the environmental impact of human commercial endeavors is the worst form of short-term thinking, and we’ve recently been shown previews of the evils of short-term thinking.

Short-term thinking puts this quarter’s profits above everything including long-term viability (Enron). It puts a company’s stock price and personal enrichment above its business plan (Worldcom, Healthsouth, Tyco, et al.) It puts profit from natural resources (oil drilling in the Arctic, the burning of forests in the Amazon) above the long-term viability of the ecosystem. Short-term thinking promotes the institutionalization and rationalization of greed -- it promotes individual aggrandizement at the expense of humanity. Short-term thinking jeopardizes the future health and the very viability of our planet, and short-term thinking is winning disciples who are eager to prosper at any cost.

On the one hand we have a coalition of environmental concern which realizes that a future without a robust ecosystem and flourishing wildlife would be a depressing prospect. They realize that when America the Beautiful ceases to be an uplifting hymn, and instead becomes an vapid, ironic dirge, the United States of America will no longer have the history to inspire, the resources to empower, or the political will to lead. When the resources are used up and the land is scarred beyond recognition the music of liberty will stop.

On the business and energy side, we have interests which realize that our productivity and the economic engine of our progress require fuel. Our military strength and our ability to defend our freedom depend on energy. Our world class economy and the employability of our citizens depend on power sources. To surrender our energy sources would turn us into a third-world country bound in extreme poverty and fearful for our autonomy and our very existence.

Both sides have their heels dug in for fear that to give an inch would lead to ultimate surrender of those things held dear. Both sides seem to want a better world and a motivated existence, but have great difficulty in compromising their positions in order to harvest solutions.

But solutions always lie in accepting reality and working with truth. We must accept the reality of our environment, our economy, and our technologies, and design solutions around the premise of ensuring our long-term survival as individuals, as families, as a society, and as a planet.

Environmentalists must realize that our economy and our very freedom depend on being able to keep the economic engine running and the wheels of progress turning. If we do away with technology and a fuel-consuming economy we will lose our way of life and risk losing our autonomy and our freedom.

Commercial interests must realize that raping and polluting our planet is a short-sighted philosophy destined to short term viablilty at best. If, in fifty or a hundred years, we have used up all of the oil and timber on the planet and destroyed the ecology and the natural beauty in the process, will we feel better off? Would life be worth living in such a world?

If either side gets what they want, no one will get what they want. Either of the extremes will result in the impoverishment of our society and the surrender of our nation to those that would destroy us and our way of life.

Green energy sources must be pursued, discovered, and developed. Clear-cutting, strip-mining, and fossil fuels have to be replaced with eco-friendly alternatives. But unrealistic environmental demands must also be replaced with feasible alternatives. Somewhere in the middle is a robust economy fueled by environmentally friendly energy and moderated natural resource usage. In this Utopian middle ground, metals, minerals, and fibers would be aggressively recycled and remediation of present-day pollution would become a self-sustaining industry.

We cannot deny economic and cultural progress and return to a pre-industrial age. Nor can we continue on the present path to environmental anihilation. In order to succeed as a nation and ensure a bright future, positions need to be altered, philosophies transformed, and hard lines softened.

The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives. -- Sioux proverb