PA 395 Day 1
Non-Profits and the Environment
Gary Flomenhoft
June 6, 2003
Gijs Thieme drives his Zephyr raft under the dumping platform of the Rijnborg
just as two barrels of nuclear waste are dropped. (From The Greenpeace Story,
Brown and May, 1989)
My background
Co-Founder and Vice-President, Institute for Geonomics (Geonomy Society: 501c3),
Policy and Media Coordinator, Mindy Lorenz Congressional Campaign, Santa Barbara,
CA, 1990 and 1992
Outreach Director, Southern CA, Green Party Organizing Committee, 1985-89. Founding
member of CA and US Green party.
Director, Tuna-Dolphin Campaign, Earth Island Institute, Santa Barbara, CA, 1990
Solar Consultant, Designer, and Installer: Eco-Home Project, Los Angeles, CA, 1984-89
Systems Engineer: Ecological Life Systems Institute, San Diego, CA, 1984-89
Director: Steamboat Renewable Energy Center, Steamboat Springs, CO, 1981
Volunteer, Roaring Fork Energy Center: Aspen, Colorado, 1980
Volunteer, Windstar Foundation, Snowmass Colorado, 1980
Volunteer, SANE/FREEZE Nuclear Weapons Committee, 1983-1987. Test site actions
Volunteer, Clamshell Alliance, New Hampshire, 1977. Seabrook Actions
Member, Cousteau Society, Sierra Club, etc.
Politics: Geo-libertarian, decentralism, direct democracy
Course Goals
Historical:
Record Historical themes and trends
What worked, what didn’t work?
Shadowing/Internship Day
What worked, What didn’t work?
Compile into reference book.
Questions
Why is the ship dumping nuclear waste in the ocean?
Why is that guy doing this?
How did that guy get out there?
Was he ok?
Where did Greenpeace get the inflatable?
Did it make a difference?
Why do we need environmental NGOs?
Why doesn’t the government protect the public?
“There is nothing more difficult to carry
out, more doubtful of success, nor more
dangerous to handle, than to initiate a
new order of things. For those who
would institute change have enemies in
all those who profit by the old order,
and they have only lukewarm defenders
in all those who would profit by the new
order.”
Nicolo Machiavelli, 1490
Historical trends
First Wave: conservation of natural resources
Land resources, protection of specific sites,
preservation of wildlife species
Sierra Club, Natl. Audubon, Natl. Parks and
Consevation Assoc., Izaak Walton League, Natl.
Wildlife Federation
Second Wave: Scientific Environmentalism
(Carson, Commoner, Ehrlich)
EDF, NRDC, Greenpeace, FOE, Env Action, EPI,
Third Wave: Grassroots Groups
CCHW, Sea Shepherd, Earth First, Environmental
Justice, Environmental Equity
Evolution of Environmentalism, Costain, Lester
Conservation-Efficiency 1890-1920
Conservation-Preservation 1920-1960
Environmental Movement 1960-1980
Participatory Environmentalism 1980-
Conservation-Efficiency 1890-1920
“Elitism in Policy Making”: Corporations,
national and state agencies
Rational planning by government to promote
efficient development and use of all natural
resources
Gospel of Efficiency: Rational and scientific
method of making basic technological
decisions through a single, central authority
1)
Conservation is not the locking up of resourcesdevelopment and wise use
2)
Greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time
3)
Federal public lands belong to all the people
4)
Comprehensive, multiple-purpose river basin planning
and development should be utilitzed with respect to
nation’s water resources
Conservation-Efficiency 1890-1920
Scope:
Preservation
Dominant Policy:
Efficient use of Resources
Participation:
Elite-dominated
Policy stage:
Pre-problem stage
Level of action:
National government
Dominant concern:
Environmental science
Power Technique:
Technical negotiation
Conservation-Preservation 1920-1960
“Growth of sub-governments”. Local and national
voluntary orgs, Sierra Club, natl Wildlife Fed.,
Wilderness Society.
Habitat more than sustenance. Increased leisure and
affluence, and growth of outdoor recreation. upper
middle class, hunters, fishers.
pure preservation vs Multiple-use
Issues: Water power, coal, flood control, wildlife
Conservation methods: technical negotiation,
corporate sponsors, small pressure groups.
Conservation-Preservation 1920-1960
Scope:
Conservation issues
Dominant Policy:
Multiple use of resources
Participation:
Sub-governments
Policy stage:
Agenda setting
Level of action:
National government
Dominant concern:
Technology and development
Power Technique:
Corporate pressure
Environmental Movement 1960-1980
“Pluralism in Policy-Making”
Bottom-up not top-down
Deep seated changes in the use of nature
Breadth of constituency
Methods: lobbying, litigation, media, electroal
politics, civil disobedience
Issue networks, policy communities
Environmental Movement 1960-1980
Scope:
2d generation issues
Dominant Policy:
Pollution abatement
Participation:
Pluralism
Policy stage:
Policy formation
Level of action:
National government
Dominant concern:
Economics and politics
Power Technique:
Middle-class politics
Participatory Environmentalism 1980Shift toward direct action
Advocacy Coalitions
“postenvironmentalism”; ecological productions
methods, industrial ecology
Participatory Environmentalism 1980Scope:
3d generation issues
Dominant Policy:
Pollution prevention
Participation:
Advocacy coalitions
Policy stage:
Policy implementation
Level of action:
State and Local govt.
Dominant concern:
Philosophy and environmental ethics
Power Technique:
Participatory democracy
Environmental laws
Environmental laws
Theories of Environmental Change-Costain/Lester
1) Cyclical Policy cycle
2) Policy Learning
3) Zig-Zag: patronage/backlash
Theories of Environmental Change-Costain/Lester
1) Cyclical Policy Cycle-Schleshinger
30 year Public/Private cycle, Liberal/conservative
Generational
1901 T. Roosevelt-Progressive Era
1930 F. Roosevelt-New Deal
1960 JFK-New Frontier
1920 Harding-Coolidge
1950 Eisenhower, McCarthy Era
1980 Reagan “Revolution”
“Creedal passion”-gap between ideal and real
Theories of Environmental Change-Costain/Lester
2) Policy Learning-Sabatier
Competing Coalitions. Triggered by external
events
A) Intermediate level of informed conflict between
two interest groups
Primary aspects of one group vs. core aspects of
another or
Secondary aspects of both
B) Forum is prestigious enough to force
professionals from different coalitions and
dominated by professional norms.
Theories of Environmental Change-Costain/Lester
3) Zig-Zag: patronage/backlash,
stimulus/response, Amenta, Skocpal
Class struggle/ competing coalitions
Policies of one era provide the stimulus for a reaction
in the next era.
Theories of Environmental Change-Flo
Punctuated Equilibrium
Free-Speech
Origins of the environmental crisis?
Adam Smith
Rivalness and Excludability
• Non-rival
– My use does not leave less for you
to use
– Market sells for a price,
discouraging use, but social cost of
use = 0, therefore market should not
supply
• Non-excludable
– One person can’t keep another from
using the good
– Consumer will not pay, market will
not supply
Must have a price to work in the free market!
Excludable
Rival}
Market Good:
land, timber, fish once
captured, farmed fish,
waste absorption
capacity?
Potential market good
Non-rival} but inefficient:
patented information,
pond
Non-Excludable
Open Access Regime:
Oceanic fisheries, timber
etc. from unprotected
forests, waste absorption
capacity, roads(congestible)
Pure Public Good:
climate stability, ozone
layer, clean air/water/land,
Biodiversity, information,
habitat, life support
functions, etc.
“Golden Rule of public companies:
“Maximization of Shareholder Value”
Full World or Empty World?
Source:
Ecological
Economics
Principles &
Applications,
Farley and
Daly
Fossil Fuel Age
Figure 2
The Composition of U.S. Energy Use
Source: (Hall et al., 1986)
100
75
coal
wood
oil
50
gas
25
animal
feed
electricity
0
1800
1825 1850
1875
1900 1925
1950 1975
2000
ESA Listings and GDP
1400
$10
1200
$9
1000
$8
800
$7
600
$6
400
$5
R2 = 98.4
200
0
1973
$4
$3
1980
1990
2001
Source: The Wildlife Society Technical Review 2003-1.
Grow out of poverty?
Poverty rate vs. GDP per Capita (1996$)
$35,000
20%
18%
$30,000
16%
$25,000
14%
$20,000
12%
$15,000
10%
8%
1
9
5
9
1
9
6
1
1
9
6
3
1
9
6
5
1
9
6
7
1
9
6
9
1
9
7
1
1
9
7
3
1
9
7
5
1
9
7
7
1
9
7
9
1
9
8
1
1
9
8
3
1
9
8
5
1
9
8
7
1
9
8
9
1
9
9
1
1
9
9
3
1
9
9
5
1
9
9
7
1
9
9
9
2
0
0
1
$10,000
per capita GDP (1996$)
poverty rate
Full World or Empty World?
Development of Science
Merchant: Descartes, Newton
Mechanistic vs. Organic worldview
“Great Transformation: Subsistence/feudal to
industrial/market
EB White-Judeo-Christian ethic
George Catlin-Natl Park Idea
Henry David Thoreau
Frederick Law Olmstead
George Perkins Marsh
John Muir
Alexis De Tocqueville
Essays on Civil and Political associations
Interest Groups and Social Movements
Interest Group: “Organized body of individuals who
share some goals and who try to influence public
policy.” -Berry
“Any group that, on the basis of one or more shared
attitudes, makes certain claims upon other groups in
society for the establishment, maintenance, or
enhancement of other forms of behavior that are
implied by the shared attitudes.”-Truman
“Advance the the common interests of groups of
individuals.”-Olson
Organizations which seek incremental changes in laws,
regulations, or judicial decision through institutional
means. McAdam
Interest Groups and Social Movements
Social Movement: tactics, non-incremental
“A process in which people seek a better world by
means of collective action which, with the proper mix
of circumstances, can challenge the existing social
order.”-Boggs
an attempt to change existing relations of authority
between groups of people, or to change the
fundamental values on which the social system is
based.- Rochon
Those organized efforts, on the part of excluded groups,
to promote or resist changes in the structure of society
that involve recourse to non-institutionalized forms of
political participation (c.d. and direct action).”McAdam
Interest Groups and Social Movements
Choice of means:
Assess the Structural arrangements of the Political
system to determine likelihood of access and
policy success.
Structural arrangements of political process may
determine choice of means.
Theories of Interest Groups: Ingram, Colnic, Mann
1) Rational Actor Thesis: Mancur Olsen. Groups are most likely
to form and to maintain themselves in direct proportion to their
ability to offer selective benefits to their members. Salisbury:
Entrepeneurs concerned with ensuring group maintenance
(and their own employment through staff position) rather than
imp[acting policy outcomes.
2) Holistic: Paehlke, Gottlieb, Fitzsimmons. Transformation of
fragmented narrow, particularlistic lobbies into a broad-scale
social movement that would change the nature of American
politics.
3) Pluralist: Fragmented, piecemeal. Group membership
motivated by idealogical appeals, concerns over public policy,
and successful mobilization. Influencing policy dependent
upon effective leadership, the emplyment of appropriate
strategies, and forging of coalitions to alter the distribution of
power within the political system.
Group of Ten
Organization
Sierra Club
Audubon
Natl Parks and Conservation
Izaak Walton League
Natl Wildlife Federation (AWI)
Wilderness Society
EDF
Year
Founder
1892
1905
1919
1922
1935
1935
1967
Muir
Grinnell
Mather/Yard
Dilg
Darling
Marshall
Yannacone/Wurster
EPI
FOE
Natural Resources Defense
Council
1969
1970
Brower