WORLDFIRE - Chapter 19, Part I

It's Not "The Environment"

“The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightening and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees—all these have voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related.” Thomas Berry (1914-2009)

Retracing my steps from Harpers Ferry National Park, I crossed the iron railroad bridge back into Maryland, where I retrieved the trike and continued down the trail. Knowing my days in the woods were now numbered, I pulled over at several vistas overlooking the rain-swollen Potomac River to soak in the beauty that so animated Jefferson, ending the day 24 miles closer to the nation’s capital at a riverside campsite called Indian Flats. Bathing in the peace and quiet, I had a fireside dinner, then retired to my tent and snuggled into my sleeping bag to blog. Sleep soon followed.

Overnight lows in the mid 20s made for a frigid December morning packing up, but it was the dog sled team rolling past me on wheels that convinced me it was time to start thinking about docking the rocket. Two miles further down the trail, I encountered another fossil fuel power plant pumping carbon pollution into the air and was happy to learn that the 853 MW Dickerson coal plant was in the legal crosshairs of a scrappy local green group called the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (ten years later, this plant, too, would be shuttered). With the coal plant in my rearview mirror, my attention returned to my glorious natural surroundings. Among the many picturesque locks I rolled past was Pennyfield Lock, which I learned was used by President Grover Cleveland as a fishing retreat back in the day.

30 miles of leisurely solo pedaling–just me and the now naked trees–led me to my final riverside campsite at Swain’s Lock. After setting up camp, I pedaled a couple miles down to the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center to fetch some water. Despite the riverside corridor having narrowed to a tiny sliver of tranquility, you wouldn’t know suburban sprawl pressed in from all sides, or that the concrete jungle of Washington, DC was a mere 17 miles away. But the signs of civilization around the visitor center were a melancholy reminder that the adventure was almost over.

December 5, my last day on the C&O, I rose with the sun, fueled up with some instant oatmeal and decamped, before pedaling down to the Great Falls. Because it was usually crowded with throngs of tourists, I was surprised to have the wooden boardwalk all to myself. Enjoying the quiet, I strolled in the morning light down the raised walkway toward the overlook, crossing a series of smaller falls along the way, each strikingly beautiful in its own right. Perched at the overlook, I was awestruck by the scene playing out before me. Always a sight to behold, the falls were especially spectacular from days of heavy rain. The Great Falls are not like Niagara Falls. They don’t drop off a giant cliff face. They’re more like gigantic rapids, dropping 76 feet over the span of a quarter mile. I stood there in silence for a long while watching the mud-colored water swirl over, around, and under massive black rocks jutting out of the river, one as big as a small house, before exploding into boiling cauldrons of frothy whitewater below. The immense power of that raging river made me feel small in comparison. It humbled me, but it also left me feeling invigorated and happy, like rivers always do. There is little in life that brings me more joy than floating rivers. But if the Army Corps of Engineers had had their way, the Great Falls would today be a great big hydroelectric dam, with the C&O Canal submerged all the way back upriver to Harper’s Ferry.

Contrary to popular belief, hydroelectric dams, which currently generate about 6% of U.S. electricity, are far from climate-friendly. Scientists are only now beginning to understand the true climate impact of dams and reservoirs. A factsheet produced by the conservation group International Rivers explains how methane and other greenhouse gasses produced from submerged rotting organic matter are released “across the water surface, in bubbles that rise from the reservoir bottom, and in the downstream degassing of water released through turbines and spillways.” You already know why this is a problem: methane is an atmospheric heat blanket at least 84 times thicker than carbon dioxide during the first twenty years after its release into the atmosphere. And this is without even considering the climate impacts of the deforestation done to enable these dams. When industrial-scale dams were first built, no one knew they would end up being major carbon emitters. Now we know.

Research shows that carbon emissions from hydroelectric dams are far greater than most people think. One who has long been warning us is Colorado-based river protector Gary Wockner. In a commentary called, “Dams Cause Climate Change, They Are Not Clean Energy,” Wockner writes: “Studies indicate that where organic material is the highest (in the tropics or in high sediment areas) hydro-electric dams can actually emit more greenhouse gases than coal-fired powerplants.” In another commentary, “The Hydropower Methane Bomb No One Wants to Talk About,” he writes: “Construction of hydroelectric dams around the world is surging dramatically, guided by the false premise that they produce clean energy, even as study after study refutes this claim… Hydropower is dirty energy, and should be regarded just like fossil fuel. And environmentalists, far from embracing it, should be battling to shut down hydropower plants and block the arrival of new ones just as vigorously as we work to close and prevent construction of dirty coal plants.”

As it is, global drought is reducing water levels at many hydroelectric dams to where we may not be able to rely on them for power anyway. And the reservoirs they create are evaporating precious fresh water in an increasingly water-constrained world. Rivers are to Mother Nature what blood vessels are to humans. For health, they need to flow. Just like with nuclear plants, hydroelectric dams need to be phased out and dismantled as renewables are phased in to replace them. Fortunately, the Army Corps didn’t get its way and the Great Falls of the Potomac was never dammed. 

Traversing the long boardwalk back to the trike with the roar of the river in my ears, I thought about how one of the best things about solo adventures is how you never know what you are going to encounter around the next bend. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy traveling with others, but when I am by myself, I find I am that much more open and attuned to my surroundings for the simple reason that my attention is not focused on someone else. For me at least, traveling solo provides more room for synchronicity. Serendipity would soon pay me another visit as if to prove my point.

Nestled back into the trike and rolling down the C&O towpath, a flood of thoughts that had been building up since I departed Boulder were begging for release, so I pulled over to the side of the trail to let some of them out in the form of a video I shot called “Redefining ‘the environment.’” It’s a topic I want to explore with you now.

When the ecology movement was birthed in the late 60s and early 70s, the phrase “the environment” played a vital role in getting people to think about the value of the natural world. The phrase was probably still useful in the 80s (if the number of people scratching their heads upon hearing my university degree was in Environmental Conservation was any indication). But in the 21^st century, I believe the catchphrase is actually doing more harm than good. Before I explain why I think that, let’s review a little history of the “environmental” movement.

Many of the early seeds of the U.S. ecology movement were sown by people dedicated to protecting the land, with celebrated writers, inventors, philosophers, and adventurers like Aldo Leopold, Buckminster Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir blazing the trail. Leopold introduced a land ethic redefining the relationship between people and nature in his seminal book, A Sand County Almanac: “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” Fuller, a self-described “comprehensive anticipatory design scientist,” invented the geodesic dome and coined the iconic phrase “Spaceship Earth.” Emerson, in his spiritual essay, Nature, argued that truly experiencing nature requires solitude. Thoreau, in his famous book, Walden, wrote about the importance of living a simple life, drawing on his personal experiences walking on the inspirited Earth at Walden Pond. Notwithstanding his complex past, the imperfect (aren’t we all?) Muir similarly spent extended periods of time alone in the wilderness and would go on to found the Sierra Club to provide for nature’s defense. All five of these individuals were conservation trailblazers.

The ecology movement was also birthed in response to the polluted byproducts of the Industrial Revolution. One of those who pioneered in this arena was Barry Commoner, who TIME magazine dubbed the “Paul Revere of ecology.” In a 2017 tribute, author Peter Dreier wrote: “Commoner linked environmental issues to a broader vision of social and economic justice. He called attention to the parallels among the environmental, civil rights, labor and peace movements. He connected the environmental crisis to the problems of poverty, injustice, racism, public health, national security and war… He was one of the first scientists to point out that although environmental hazards hurt everyone, they disproportionately hurt the poor and racial minorities because of the location of dangerous chemicals and because of the hazardous conditions in blue-collar workplaces... He did not place the burden of blame on the consumers who buy these products or the workers who produce them. He believed that big business and their political allies dominate society’s decision making, often leading to misguided priorities, a theme that paralleled the ideas of economist John Kenneth Galbraith and, later, Ralph Nader.”

Then there was the great conservationist Rachel Carson, popularly known as the mother of the ecology movement. Carson’s 1962 New York Times bestseller, Silent Spring, awakened millions of Americans to the deadly impacts pesticides were having on birds and the rest of the natural world–and the threat these poisons posed to humans. Her pioneering book catalyzed a new paradigm of protective government regulations. It laid the foundation for the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It famously sparked a nationwide ban on DDT for agricultural uses, helping save America’s beloved Bald Eagle. It set the stage for Earth Day. Credited with having said, “The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized,” hers is a question that will soon be answered.

Another great movement icon is Lois Gibbs, the fierce mom who helped inspire my own life’s journey through her heroic efforts to defend her children from the horrors of toxic waste. As described by the Goldman Environmental Foundation: “In 1978 Gibbs, a housewife with two young children, became concerned about reports of chemical waste in her neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York. She wondered if her children’s unusual health problems and those of her neighbors were connected to their exposure to leaking chemical waste. Gibbs later discovered that her neighborhood sat on top of 21,000 tons of buried chemical waste, the now infamous Love Canal. With no prior experience in community activism, Gibbs organized her neighbors and formed the Love Canal Homeowners Association. She led her community in a battle against the local, state, and federal governments. After years of struggle, more than 800 families were eventually evacuated, and cleanup of Love Canal began.” Gibbs’ untiring work led to the passage of the 1980 Superfund law, which grants the EPA the authority and funding to clean up toxic waste sites.

And then there is David Brower, the daring mountain climber and World War II veteran who went on to become the first executive director of the Sierra Club in 1952. By the end of his tenure in 1969, Brower had grown the organization into the nation’s largest green group. In the process, he helped win passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act and successfully prevented two dams from flooding the Grand Canyon, thanks in no small part to brilliant full-page ads his group placed in the Washington Post and New York Times. They captured the public’s imagination by pointedly asking: “Should We Also Flood The Sistine Chapel So Tourists Can Get Nearer The Ceiling?” Brower fought hydroelectric dams to protect the rights of rivers long before we learned industrial-scale dams were major methane emitters.

Often described as the most charismatic and controversial planetary protection leader of the 20^th Century, none of my contemporaries has influenced me more than David Brower. Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times for his tireless efforts to protect the Earth, Brower shaped the modern ecology movement through the groups he founded (Friends of the Earth, Earth Island Institute), co-founded (League of Conservation Voters), and led (Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and Earth Island Institute). He inspired that same movement with the principled guiding philosophy he embraced: “We are to hold fast to what we believe is right, fight for it, and find allies and adduce all possible arguments for our cause. If we cannot find enough vigor in us or them to win, then let someone else propose the compromise.”

Before becoming Executive Director of the National Forest Protection Alliance (NFPA), I consulted for the group during the 2000 presidential primaries, when I had the great fortune of befriending David Brower. Despite battling cancer, David was eager to join me on a quest to inject a sense of ecological urgency into the 2000 presidential campaign. With the help of his trusted assistant, Mikhail Davis, Dave rallied his frail body in the dead of winter to travel to the early presidential caucus and primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively, for a series of NFPA-sponsored campaign rallies and events. I will never forget the first time I saw the “Archdruid” being wheeled by Mikhail down an airport corridor at the Des Moines airport. He looked so fragile, but also so vibrant and happy to be there. When he got up out of that wheelchair, the fierce green fire I saw in his eyes burned all the brighter.

Dave was the headline speaker for our kick-off rally in downtown Des Moines, where he shared some Earth-honoring wisdom with our group before the event. He said that any new ideas we come up with need to be preceded by the question: “[W]hat does it cost the Earth? We haven’t asked that question. The candidates right now are not asking that question. It hasn’t occurred to them.” Speaking at the rally, he reminded everyone that harming the Earth harms the Earth’s ability to keep us alive: “We are not a capitalist country. We’re ignoring our capital, our natural capital. And if you’ve forgotten that, stop breathing for three minutes and see where you are.” After the rally, our delegation of farm, labor, and forest activists delivered a “People’s Challenge”–which included a call to end the commercial logging of America’s national forests–to the headquarters of the Gore, Bradley, Bush, and Forbes presidential campaigns. One of the most memorable moments of our time together unfolded at a Bill Bradley campaign event in New Hampshire, where the former mountain climber insisted on walking with his cane down a snowy hillside to the edge of a frozen lake to hear Bradley speak. Afterwards, as we slowly climbed back up the hill, Ted Koppel of ABC Nightline fame rolled down his car window and asked me if that was David Brower. When I said yes, he called out to Dave before spending several minutes visiting with him. I heard him tell Dave what an honor it was to meet him and that he had followed his work for years with great admiration. That was pretty special. So was the half hour we had on the campaign bus with the candidate’s undivided attention. Dave fought the good fight to the very end, his lifetime of work probably best summed up by a quote attributed to the poet Goethe that he lived by, and that I also try to live by: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” It was the daily reminder of that quote on my office wall, more than anything else, that found me sitting in my rocket trike on the C&O towpath thinking about David Brower, who through the example of his life and how he chose to spend his last days on this planet, taught me, more than anyone else, about the power of perseverance.

So the ecology movement had many prominent spokespeople, but the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, was when the movement fully found its voice. Most everyone has heard of Earth Day, but few remember the powerful role Project Apollo played in launching it. You have no doubt seen the famous “Earthrise” picture taken during the Apollo 8 mission that flew our astronauts around the Moon and returned them safely home. It is one of the most widely reproduced photographs ever. That was the first time many Americans had seen our living blue marble of a planet surrounded by the dark void of space. It is not a coincidence that Earth Day blossomed 16 months after astronaut Bill Anders took that glorious photo.

On that first Earth Day in 1970, an estimated 20 million Americans took to the streets in defense of the planet. Countless people, irrespective of their political party affiliations, participated in teach-ins. Amazingly, Earth Day was inspired by a sitting United States Senator, Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), who called for a “national teach-in on the environment.” Wisely tapping into the energy of the anti-Vietnam War movement, Senator Nelson also astutely reached across the political aisle and recruited Congressman Pete McCloskey (R-CA) as his Earth Day co-chair, tapping solar power advocate Denis Hayes to serve as the event’s national coordinator.

The spark for Senator Nelson was the massive 1969 oil spill near Santa Barbara, California. Many others were motivated by Cleveland’s polluted Cuyahoga River catching on fire. Others were fed up with living in smog-choked cities. Still others were galvanized by the rapid die-off of our national emblem from DDT poisoning. The resulting mass outpouring of public support for protecting the planet in the form of rallies, marches, and teach-ins, combined with the ousting of anti-Earth members of Congress, led to the formation of the EPA and passage of the Clean Air Act (which passed the Senate in a 73-0 vote), the Endangered Species Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, all of which–believe it or not–were signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon. It is hard to imagine in today’s toxic political environment, but there was a time, not so very long ago, when bipartisan cooperation was not uncommon in the nation’s capital.

Famed anthropologist, Margaret Mead, poetically described Earth Day as “the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord… devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature." Reflecting back on that first Earth Day, Dennis Hayes recounted how the success of the national teach-in exceeded his “wildest dreams” by leading to the passage of these and other landmark laws in the six years following Earth Day: Clean Water Act; Environmental Quality Improvement Act; Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act; Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act; Toxic Substances Control Act; Safe Drinking Water Act; National Forest Management Act; and Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Hayes fueled my hope for similar progress today when he reminded us that “powerful laws that had been unthinkable in 1969 became unstoppable by the end of 1970” thanks to Earth Day. As transformative as that single day was–and it was immensely transformative–one day a year is hardly sufficient to properly honor the Earth that keeps us all alive. Imagine what might happen with the sustained focus of a 365-day long Earth Year. Imagine what might transpire during an Earth Decade.

Today’s ecology movement stands on the shoulders of giants, but even some of them, I suspect, would agree that the catchphrase “the environment” has outlived its usefulness. Calling the natural world “the environment” implies there is something out there to protect that is somehow separate from us. In the 21^st century, we know there is no separate. We are not apart from nature. We are part of nature. Deep down, I think most people intuitively understand, even if they have intellectually forgotten, that humans are but one strand in the larger web of life, and that every strand of that dew-dropped web that is destroyed weakens the strength of the web. “The environment” is not simply something to be checked off in a box as one in a long list of issues for politicians to grapple with. “The environment” is life. It is us and everything around us. Look around you. Unless you have a space rock sitting on your mantle, everything you see, all the objects you own, came from the Earth. Everything.

In his groundbreaking encyclical, Laudato Sí, Pope Francis made a similar point when he wrote: “When we speak of the ‘environment’, what we really mean is a relationship existing between nature and the society which lives in it. Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it.” A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change makes the same basic point: “Our ecological emergency is a larger version of the perennial human predicament. Both as individuals and as a species, we suffer from a sense of self that feels disconnected not only from other people but from the Earth itself… We need to wake up and realize that the Earth is our mother as well as our home—and in this case the umbilical cord binding us to her cannot be severed. When the Earth becomes sick, we become sick, because we are part of her.” Thich Nhat Hanh, the global spiritual teacher and Buddhist monk, once famously said: “What we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying.”

Lamenting our disconnection, the Catholic priest and theologian Thomas Berry once wrote: “We can no longer hear the voice of the rivers, the mountains, or the sea. The trees and meadows are no longer intimate modes of spirit presence. The world about us has become an ‘it’ rather than a ‘thou.’” For us to blithely view “the environment” as a thing shows just how estranged most humans have become from our once familiar earthly home. Objectifying nature also makes it easier to view that “thing” as nothing more than a material resource for humans to exploit. Human beings did not create the Earth. It is disrespectful in the extreme to view Mother Nature’s gifts as mere commodities for humanity’s use. Similarly, slapping the well-worn label “environmentalist” on Earth protectors makes it all too easy to put that person in a box that has long been used by Earth despoilers to demonize people who only want to protect the Earth that protects us all. It’s time to flatten that box. If I am right that repairing our severed connection to Gaia is the key to unlocking the door to a quantum leap in human consciousness, then we must also evolve our vocabulary. Words matter.

Another who shares my dislike of the phrase is Earth protector Wendell Berry. As reported by Vox in 2019, he “hates the vague term ‘the environment,’ preferring to discuss trees, insects, soil – the concrete things we can see and work with.” Yet another is award-winning author David James Duncan, who expressed this point beautifully in an interview with Grist: “The word ‘environmental,’ I’m sorry, is not big or lovely enough... Say it aloud. Environment. Hear the technoid ring? If Genesis began, ‘In the beginning, God created the environment’ instead of ‘the heavens and the earth,’ the Bible would be out of print.” Duncan continued: “The word’s lack of musicality prevents… rallying around ‘the environment’ with sufficient love and passion. What we seek to defend is a holiness… but there is a soullessness to the word… Those of us engaged in the earth’s battle for survival need deeper, higher, more lovable descriptions of our daily efforts. The ‘environmental movement’ is a caterpillar in the process of being transformed into a much more beautiful butterfly. It’s time to let the e-word go and find a butterfly of a word.”

I have not yet stumbled upon that “butterfly” of a word (maybe you will), but if what drives you is a desire to protect the planet, maybe instead of calling it the “environmental movement,” we call it the planetary protection movement, since that is what we are doing. Maybe instead of using the e-word, we call it the Pro-Earth movement, since that is what we are for. Maybe we simply call it the Earth movement. Regardless of what musical language we adopt, what matters most is that we dedicate ourselves to caring for our Earth mother like she so generously cares for us. There are many Indigenous cultures that have never stopped doing this, but most of modern industrial society has long since forgotten how. It’s time to tap into our cellular memory and remember. We need not only a butterfly of a word; we need a butterfly of a metamorphosed movement.

NOTE: The written form of WORLDFIRE is the authoritative version. Any inadvertent errors in transcribing the recordings are mine and mine alone.