"THE RADICAL CENTER"

Dear Jim, My apologies for the delayed response to your article in the June/July 2005 Zephyr, "The Greening of Wilderne$$ in Utah." I do not have a subscription, but receive my copies second-hand, so have just read the article and the feedback in the following issue. On the other hand, considering that you said it took you three years to write your article, I expect you might be sympathetic toward someone who took a few extra weeks to write a response. Although your article is based on three years of research, I would like to point out a large gap in it that contributes to the perceptions several of the respondents reported. According to Gary Eschman, you were merely "railing against the inevitable" and implying "there are no solutions." Christa Worthy wrote: "Solutions, we want solutions." Filling in the gap will offer a realistic alternative and potential solution to the problems with environmentalism that you identify, a basis for renewed optimism, and suggestions for where those who want to support the environmental movement financially, but don't want to contribute to the kind of development of the West you describe, can send their dollars. You limit your characterization of the conservation movement to a dichotomy between "the more idealistic Thoreau-types and the New Environmentalists who have embraced the kind of land preservation strategies that concern me so deeply." Perhaps this is because you focus mostly on SUWA and the Utah environmental groups you are most familiar with. However, there are more varieties of conservation than just two. The adherents of an alternative approach call themselves "The Radical Center." They have become aware of the limitations and outcomes of both types of environmentalism that you describe and are developing a new approach that does not pit environmentalists against rural resource users. In the case of ranching, their approach is to find ways to work with ranchers to make ranching more ecologically and economically sustainable in order to keep ranchers on the land and improve rangeland health at the same time. Instead of environmentalists versus ranchers = development, their approach could be characterized as environmentalists + ranchers + land management agency personnel + academics versus development. The Quivira Coalition formed to promote this approach and has achieved much success in New Mexico and Arizona.

http://www.quiviracoalition.org/) While Quivira is New Mexico-based, its approach has inspired the formations of an organization in your own neighborhood. The Utah Range Coalition, encompassing Carbon, Emery, Grand, and San Juan Counties, formed in 2002 in order to help keep the ranching industry alive in Southeastern Utah. URC's goal is "to improve rangeland health through collaboration using grazing as a management tool." Its members include ranchers and representative from soil conservation districts, county extension, environmental groups, and federal and state agencies. So far it has sponsored a grazing conference, range management schools, and a field trip to view grazing techniques taught at the schools. URC would benefit from greater public recognition and support, in particular from your readers in the Moab area. Contact them. Go to a meeting. Find out what you can do. For more information or to offer support, you can contact URC's current Chairman, Roger Barton (Ferron, UT): 435-381-2300 ext 113 or roger_barton@ut.nacdnet.net. Also see http://www.westernrcd.org/success_stories/story5_1-05.htm. "The Radical Center" does not limit its efforts to ranching. There are many other collaborative approaches to conservation underway in the West. A workshop called "Saving the Wide Open Spaces: How to Conserve Biodiversity and Sustainable Ranching, Forestry, and Farming in the American West" recently brought together academics, conservationists, land management agency personnel, ranchers, farmers, and forest workers engaged in collaborative approaches to conservation to brainstorm ways to encourage and support collaborative conservation throughout the West. Meeting notes and suggestions for future action can be found at http://www.environment.nau.edu/food/WideOpenSpaces.htm. I see this article, like yours, not as a sign that environmentalism is dead, but as a sign that is it alive and evolving as we continue to learn from previous efforts. Sincerely,Julie Brugger Escalante, UT

A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING?

Editor’s Note: I rarely allow a letter to be printed without a signature. In this case however, because the author is a working parent and worried about retribution, and because I know the writer and respect her honesty, I have chosen to print it. If Mr. Michael Liss questions the accuracy of the comments that follow, we welcome his reply in the April/May issue (there is not a Feedback section in the Feb/Mar edition...JS

Dear Jim, Several months ago I was the server for Michael Liss and a group of people that he brought to Moab to participate in the Cloudrock design charettes. I normally make a point of trying not listen to the conversations at my tables; however, this group was seated in a small private room, and it would have been impossible not to hear their discussion. Regardless of this, the discussion went on as though I was not there, and I would like to share with you my account of that evening. The mood was quite self-congratulatory. There was a tremendous amount of back patting and ego-massaging regarding the success of their charette. The discussion led to making fun of some unavoidable physical traits of several local people (council members, financial backers) who had participated in the charettes. Then came the real meat of the discussion. They pondered the impact they had made on the locals. Michael speculated that he had done what he needed to draw the environmentalists to his side; however, he worried that in campaigning to them, he had alienated the right wing conservatives in the area. The gentleman at the table that seemed to be his right hand man, an architect I believe, stated, "these people (the locals who were not backing their project) don't understand culture." The phrase 'these people' was said with such disdain and judgment it made me feel uncomfortable. To support his point, he brought up the median decision that the town had made last spring. He said something to the effect of---they had free money to build a median to beautify Main Street and they did not do it. It was obvious he thought Moab was comprised of idiots. Unfortunately, when someone else at the table asked WHY the locals were against it, Mr. Right Hand Man could not tell them why. Listening to their discussion that night made it clear to me that 'those people’ had no understanding of our community, of the reasons why we live here in the west, of our values, lifestyle and really who 'these people' are. But it is clear that they did enough campaigning and ass kissing to win us over. Lance Christie wrote about how sincere Michael Liss seems. It is a shame he cannot hear what Liss and his helpers have to say, when they think no one is listening. Sign me...

Heard you Loud and Clear.

LANCE CHRISTIE ADDENDUM ON ‘RE-WILDING’

Dear Jim, In the last issue of the Zephyr you saw Dave Foreman and myself as naiveidealists because we were pursuing the implementation of ecological restoration and conservation in the face of a tsunami of human overpopulation sweeping away nature before it. The first thought I had when reading your editorial comments was, ok, so what do you suggest we do? I don't entertain helpless despair as a hobby. Mike Roselle's comments years ago about saving some of nature so ecological recovery is possible after civilization collapses somewhat resembles the more sophisticated agenda I have in mind currently. I want to blueprint and begin to implement a viable alternative - restoring and conserving ecological integrity - to the consumption of natural capital by the industrial growth culture. I think that human tsunami is going to break and recede in time that ecological cores can be restored and survive to re-integrate a larger landscape on which the footprint of homo sapiens will be greatly reduced. Some of that reduction may be due to fewer homo sapiens, but it will mainly be due to our per capita ecological footprint shrinking from adoption of alternative technlogies and land occupation patterns forced by the restriction in, nature, and cost of energy needed for transportation, production, and housing. Various recent studies on carrying capacity and limits of growth seem to concur that homo sap has far overshot the current sustainable carrying capacity of planet Earth. We are literally eating fossil energy. As WorldWatch has been documenting, worldwide production of grain, fish, and all other forms of caloric food per capita has been dropping. We have had a world grain shortfall for several years now, and because the absolute amount of farmland and irrigation water is dropping while the number of human mouths is increasing, grain reserves are nearly depleted and we are about to hit a Malthusian wall. I was predicting we would pass the Hubbert Peak for world oil production around 2008, but I now believe that we hit it in November, 2005, because I had not predicted the increased petroleum demand from India and China. In third world countries where the majorityof world population increase is occurring, there won't be affordable food reserves to ship to relieve famine. Nations with grain shortfalls and large trade surplus cash balances like China and Kuwait will bid for exports, driving up food prices worldwide. This is already occurring; wheat prices were up 23 percent as of six months ago. In the United States, what we will predictably see is much higher food and energy prices consuming a much larger percentage of household income. This will reduce consumer ability to spend on retail goods, housing, automobiles, et cetera, which in turn will reduce the volume and profitability of these economic sectors. The most likely outcome is an economic deflation like that which occurred in Japan from circa 1982 to 2004, when the Japanese economy finally began growing again at a very slow rate. If our huge trade account and federal budget deficits finally convince foreign investors that our Treasury securities are "junk bonds," then they will demand junk bond interest rates. Over 80 percent of the money which finances our federal budget deficit currently comes from foreign investors from the Pacific Rim, Persian Gulf, and European Economic Union buying our securities. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has repeatedly warned Congress that failure to reduce the federal budget deficit will lead to high interest rates, which in turn will choke off economic expansion and real estate values in the U.S. Population demographic studies have documented again and again that, when a favorable economic climate goes into deflation and depression, the birthrate drops dramatically. European nations, Japan, and South Korea have below-replacement birth rates. In the United States, most of our population increase is due to immigration. During the Great Depression in the U.S., immigration fell from an average of 305,000 from 1925-29 to an average of 53,000 per year in the 1930's - including a net exmigration in 1932 when more people left the U.S. than immigrated into it. Another factor which reliably lowers birth rates is the education and economic emancipation of women in a society. As immigrants assimilate in the U.S., birth rates drop from generation to generation until they resemble the below-replacement rates of we Anglos. A few decades ago, dictator Pol Pot's Luddite regime in Thailand ended up killing off about one third of the population. Currently, AIDS in several African nations is having a similar impact. In nations where population has been sharply reduced by genocide or disease, there has been a strong tendency for the surviving population to consolidate and for large areas in the more rural or marginal agricultural areas to be depopulated of human beings. A number of observers have documented nature reclaiming these abandoned areas. Even in the United States, the overall demographic tendency is for population to concentrate in urban areas. Although the tendency of the rich to colonize rural areas is highly visible, this tends to be concentrated in areas with rich environmental and recreational amenities. The choice to move out in the country and commute a long way to anything in particular - grocery stores, pharmacies, health care, schools, transportation hubs, jobs - is strongly influenced for all but the very rich by the cost of transportation. Fuel prices are up by 74 percent in the last four years. When we had fuel cost spikes and shortages during the Carter administration, rural resort areas such as Fairfield Pagosa went into severe economic tailspin. High energy and food costs and the consequent economic deflation of the U.S. economy will predictably cause radical retreat of the bulk of people from living in dispersed, remote locations in the outback. Putting together core ecological habitats and connectivity corridors that don't conflict with human habitat is going to get easier, not harder. The "Buffalo commons" of the upper midwest is losing population because it has neither economic opportunity nor environmental recreational amenities for residents by current human standards. The climate sucks from the viewpoint of a retiree or an educated person of leisure who can live anywhere and wants something "interesting" to do there. I also think that there is a psychology among the rich which will limit their dispersal into wild areas. What is the point of having a "trophy house" if you cannot display the trophy to envious admirers? To engage in ego-inflating "conspicuous consumption" requires an audience. Thus, I think we can expect conclaves of the rich to continue to form in places with high prestige value because of scenery and/or recreational opportunities, but not elsewhere. The fact is, Jim, you and I are not "normal." We like to be in a place where we can't see our neighbors. If we bought a large acreage fronting on a highway, we'd put our house somewhere we couldn't see or hear traffic on the damned road. Just drive down a highway and see where 99% of people put their houses on such parcels! So be of good cheer! The Bush administration seems to be aiming to win the "Pol Pot environmental award" with its economic and environmental policies, invoking a karmic equivalent of the second law of thermodynamics: for every action, there is an equal an opposite reaction. The trick is knowing when to duck to avoid the recoil. Lance Christie Moab. Utah

EDITOR’S REPLY: "Naive" is NOT a word that would even remotely come to mind when describing the environmental philosophies of either you or Dave. But especially in your case, because of the numerous emails I've read from you on a wide variety of related issues, over the last few years, I get the impression that you believe the population issue is beyond our reach---that when it comes to dealing with future environmental crises, an expanding population is a "given," at least for the forseeable future, and that we must operate within that framework when shaping our future battles. It's as if so many in the environmental community are saying, "OK...we can't do a thing about population growth, so what can we do to make things better, given the fact that we're going to become a nation of 400 million people by the middle of this century?" For instance, if we can find a way to more efficiently use and produce electricity, so that a United States with double today's population would use no more energy than now, would that be considered a great environmental victory? I often hear liberals say that 'conservation technologies' will actually stimulate economic growth and create more jobs and expand the Gross Domestic product. Is that a good thing? You recently wrote, in an email to Ray Wheeler, "Yes, population increase is the problem that undoes all efforts to build a sustainable, ecologically-compatible life-support system for homo sap.Given what I see in the modeling of the Limits of Growth and other sources like Murfin, I think we are already past the point of no return for massive population reduction by "natural" forces. All you have to do is look at the declining per capita production of grains, fish, and all other forms of food to read the writing on Malthus' wall. We are very close to the point where there will be no "surplus" grain or food to send to third-world nations suffering famine from drought, pestilence, and/or war. We haven't taken care of the population and carrying capacity overshoot problem intelligently, so Momma Gaia will do so in her usual fashion." If that's true, why do we waste our time doing things like praising the Pitkin County, Colorado commissioners for requiring more energy-efficient homes for the billionaires in Aspen? If a world-wide economic collapse is coming, does it really matter if we replace all gas-powered SUVs with more efficient hybrids? Isn't this just 'Band-aid on the avulsed wound' stuff? Why aren't we demanding that we ALL pursue a simpler, less consumptive lifestyle? Why not encourage us to prepare for the inevitable? Those of us who are living that simple life when the hammer falls would be much better prepared to deal with "Momma Gaia," so why do we continue to promote (or at least remain conspicuously silent on) an environmental strategy like the 'amenities economy,' for example,that encourages unlimited growth and development and the ever increasing consumption of natural resources instead of demanding sacrifice and true economic reform? I don't think being honest amounts to "hopeless despair." I know that you're trying to find something positive in all of this, Lance, but how can you, for example, defend the likes of Cloudrock, the mega-resort development being planned near Moab? You recently commented in the Moab Times-Independent: "As to Cloudrock, I think demonizing the development is misplaced energy. To give credit where credit is due, every firm Mr. Liss has hired to do engineering, planning, or architectural work for Cloudrock is first rate. In every encounter I've had with him he came across as sincere and gave voice to progressive ideas and values." What is progressive about a $600,000 building lot? Despite his public relations claims that he will downsize the project, his development targets clients who consume massive amounts of natural resources. Mr. Liss's attempts to assuage the concerns of the environmental community have been incredibly successful. How can that be? It may be true that his "engineering, planning and architectural" associates are top notch. But it's still a mega devlopment, to be built on hundreds of acres of open space and out of the economic reach of 90% of Moab's current population. It begs the question, "Is rape also ok if it's done well?" Liberal Democrats aren't a hell of a lot different from conservative Republicans in one regard. Neither group wants to see us live with less---Republicans think we should continue to live extravagantly and are convinced our energy resources will last forever. Democrats want to be able to live as extravagantly, but think we can live extravagantly in a more energy-efficient manner. When critics asked Democratic presidential candidate Kerry how he hoped to pay for his massive health care bill, his answer was simple. He said, "We'll grow the economy to pay for it." That means more big homes and expensive cars and massive shopping malls and extravagant lifestyles and a materialistic society that sees more value in "things" than anything else. And I see no one out there on the political landscape willing to ask his countrymen to live with less. I plan to publish in an upcoming Zephyr some population projections by the US Census Bureau, prepared in the early-90s. In predicting future US growth, they offered three models. The worst case scenario envisioned a U.S. population exceeding ONE BILLION people by 2100. It also projected, in its worst case scenario, that the US population would reach 295,911,000 by 2005. In 2005 we are approaching 298 million...we are running three million ahead of the worst case scenario! So while, for instance, you continue to believe that the Great Plains will remain empty because "the climate 'sucks'" and "there's nothing 'interesting' to do there," if our country grows to a billion people by 2100, finding a place where there's nothing "interesting"to do might well become the most cherished kind of landscape to experience, regardless of the inclement weather. It would seem to me that if Armagedden is the only viable answer to the population problem, we at least have a responsibility to prepare for it. And that means being painfully honest. Instead most environmentalists seem to be embracing 'feel-good' causes that allow them to think they're contributing to "The Cause," while continuing to ignore the problem. The fact is, in this Global Economy, an expanding population is absolutely necessary---it requires that we constantly think of new products and services for that burgeoning population to buy. That's where the cycle has to be broken. It would be painful in the short-term but no more so than waiting for Momma Gaia. Environmentalists at least have the responsibility to say all this out loud. If that kind of plain speaking causes "hopeless despair," then so be it. Despite our differences I appreciate the opportunity to discuss those differences. As you know, many environmentalists have assumed a bunker mentality when it comes to the truly hard questions....JS

HATES ED ABBEY

Dear Mr. Stiles: Please consider printing the following "alternative view" of Abbey in your feedback section: Commenting on the state of environmentalism in "The Road Goes On Forever" (Canyon Country Zephyr, Oct/Nov 2005) Mike Roselle asserts "Ed Abbey is still the best example of what is good about our movement." This is one of many accolades for Ed Abbey found repeatedly in the pages of the Zephyr and other environmental publications. Edward Abbey a model of environmentalism: nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, everything about his life screams HYPOCRITE. If he was concerned about overpopulation, he certainly did not have the self-discipline to keep his libido in check (or use birth control), having had multiple children with multiple women. His outdoor excursions were the antithesis of low-impact, generally consisting of cross-country forays in a Ford pick-up, at the end of which he would stagger out, torch a bonfire and pass out. (Lest we forget, he was an irresponsible alcoholic who died from complications of cirrhosis of the liver). I admit Desert Solitaire is a good read if a bit juvenile, but most of his work is misogynist tripe. A true conservationist ethic embodies discipline and unglamorous hard work. In contrast, Abbey represents the worst type of environmentalist: all talk. Sincerely, James F. Lombardo Layton, UT Editor’s Reply: I find these kinds of hate letters bewildering. As far as I can determine, Dr. Lombardo is, otherwise, an intelligent and progressive man who has publicly opposed the Iraq War and toxic waste incinerators. Yet he seems to personally despise Ed Abbey, to the point he would take the time to write a letter like this.

For the record, Ed Abbey never called himself a 'model environmentalist." He called himself a writer and a human being and always acknowledged his own shortcomings. He complained frequently about being called an 'environmental guru. "I'm not a leader," he often said, "I'm not an activist, I'm not a role model...I just like to throw words around." He did THAT very well obviously, because 17 years after his death, Abbey still gets under the skin of people like Lombardo, who respond in a most malevolent and bitter and unpleasant way. People like him never 'got' Abbey. Some of his staunchest supporters didn't either. My take on Abbey was always that he looked at life with a wink and a nudge and many, at both ends of the political spectrum, took him way too seriously. It's why in the last year of his life he went out and bought a gas-guzzling red Cadillac convertible, just to annoy and bewilder his friends and enemies alike. If other people like Roselle and me, among many, choose to honor Abbey, it's not something that Ed sought or should be attacked for. It's our choice.

Bottom line. Ed's personal life should have NOTHING to do with his role as a reluctant public figure. His stature, whether interpreted to be large or small, should be based on his writing, not his drinking or sexual behavior. Following Lombardo’s line of thinking, I can only assume that he also supported Republican efforts to impeach Bill Clinton. My take was always that Clinton’s personal life should never have come into play with Ken Starr and his henchmen. Clearly, for Lombardo to be consistent, he must also align himself with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who takes demented pleasure in trying to destroy good but imperfect men....JS POPULATION REALLY IS "EVERYTHING"

Jim, "It's EVERYTHING." Well said. I was sitting in the Moab Diner last week, feeling guilty about eating the Mountain Biker Breakfast (I am not a mountain biker), when I read those words of yours. I doubt that I can adequately describe my feelings upon finally seeing a statement like that in a quality publication that speaks to the environmental community, made by a well respected member of that community (An assumption on my part. Do I err?). Now that you have said it, I hope you will continue to say it. Loud and clear. Often. The check for my subscription to the Zephyr is in the mail. I would call it a renewal, but it has been over 10 years since I last subscribed. Be well. Bill Norman Queen Creek, Arizona

EDITOR’S NOTE: At last...a kind word. Thanks...JS