In The Camp Of The Luddites

Too often, Republicans will blindly defend anything that they consider supportive of American values, while remaining oblivious to America’s defects and flaws. But Democrats (especially in Vermont) seem just as blind in their criticisms of America’s free enterprise system, which they fail to see as the generator of America’s material benefits and prosperity and see only as a producer of "negative externalities."

Part of the reason for this is that the Democratic Party -- and the environmental movement in general -- have been taken over by more radical activists who seem to be inspired by the anti-technology Luddite movement of the early 19th century. To these environmental progressives, the West's progress, scientific advances and technological innovations have created more problems than they've solved.

And the only solution for our environmental problems, according to them, is to have additional controls, more regulations, and greater supervision of human activities. My recent visit to a conference in Randolph gave me a glimpse of the kinds of individuals and groups who make up a large part of Vermont’s environmental Left.

On a clear, sunny Saturday [November 17], I attended the 2007 Environmental Action conference held at Vermont Technical College. The conference was organized and co-sponsored by several well-known environmental groups: VPIRG, Vermont Natural Resources Council, Vermont Alliance of Conservation Voters, the Montpelier-based New England Grassroots Environment Fund (which finances small environmental initiatives around New England), and the Toxics Action Center (based in Boston). I've never thought of myself as an environmental activist but I do love Vermont and I was frankly curious to see what these groups were working on.

On my way in to register at Judd Hall, I passed a large sign that read in dramatic fonts: “One climate, one future, one chance!” The organizers seemed to be taking themselves quite seriously. Perhaps that is why I didn’t balk when they charged me $20 to register at the door. I will admit that I tried my best to get the fee waived -- due to my revolving status as a student, member of the press, and intermittently unemployed layabout. But they would have none of it. Progressives in Vermont may have bleeding hearts when it comes to inanimate objects like the trees, soil, and water, but they are as hard-hearted (and tight-fisted) as the most frugal of conservatives.

After getting my name tag, I grabbed a coffee and went inside to the exhibition hall to look around at the different information booths before going off to find the formal workshops. I saw all kinds of people walking around. They were all here: The requisite dazed hippie in tie-dyed shirt and Rastafarian hat; the Guatemalan pants and Andean wool sweater crowd; the unshaven, knobby-knuckled young activists in the Carhart pants; the idealistic pretty young things from Hanover high school; the university student activists from Johnson State College; the graduate students in environmental sciences; and a member of the Windham County Genetic Engineering Action Group.  There was also one solitary, disheveled anti-war activist who said little and on my way out of the first workshop, I met two guys from Boston in expensive outdoor (technical) clothing who drove up for the day because they were "concerned about the environment."

Throughout the day, I also spotted a tall, long-haired hippie who stalked the hallways and cafeteria holding several yellow, anti-nuke signs. His counter-part  seemed to also be there: An aging hippie grandmother hawking tie-dyed anti-nuclear T-shirts for $20 or $30 -- or "whatever you felt was fair." (see Image, right).

But despite the crunchy diversity, all of these people were united by their desire to “do something” about the environment in order to save the planet. They all wanted to be saviors. And as I listened to them speak in different sessions throughout the day, I was amused by the gosh-darn earnestness of some of the participants. These people may be seriously confused about the proper role of public policy in a free society, I thought to myself, but at least they were sincere about their environmental concerns.

* * *

The conference program itself offered a wide variety of sessions from which to choose. I could attend a workshop on effective public speaking lead by VPIRG’s executive director Paul Burns; or I could learn how to plan a rally from energetic young rabble-rousers from around the state. State Rep. Floyd Nease (currently House Majority Leader) spoke about what the environmental left can do to pass state-level action against global warming; Chris Williams, of the Citizens Awareness Network, and two other nuclear safety activists spoke about Vermont Yankee’s ongoing problems and its expected demise; Carl Etnier, director of Peak Oil Awareness, lead a discussion on declining oil production and the disruptive effects this will have on US food supplies; Jon Groveman of the Vermont Natural Resources Council spoke of the over-consumption and degradation of Vermont’s groundwater; Les Blomberg, founding executive director of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse (NPC) in Montpelier, spoke about the threat posed by community quarries; and VPIRG’s environmental health advocate Charity Carbine spoke of the nefarious presence of toxic cleaners and pesticides at home and in our state’s schools. 

Those were just a few of the 27 different workshops offered -- more than enough to leave me feeling like a nervous wreck at the end of the day. There seemed to be threats lurking around every corner and in every home!

In fact, after listening to different speakers -- they were actually called “facilitators” here -- and browsing through the material available at the information booths, I began to see why so many environmentalists are less than joyous about the world. There was information about the evils of clothes-drying machines and the sins of drinking bottled water. One person spoke to me about the dangers of household cleaning products, while another gave me pamphlets about the crisis of affordable housing and the disaster of US health care. There was even a pile of information about the pollution problems caused by simply driving over 55 mph -- right next to a booth on the problems caused by driving itself!

Water, cars, light bulbs, detergents, you name it. Nothing seemed to be off-limits. At the end of the day, I had what felt like several pounds worth of informational material. (I thought about asking how many trees went into producing all that material but didn’t want to be a smart-aleck.) The material seemed to address everything in my life not already taxed by the IRS, monitored by state agencies or controlled by federal law. The message to me was clear: Where the government fails to control and regulate people sufficiently, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and non-profits are only too willing to step in.

* * *

I spent most of the day drifting in and out of workshops. At my first workshop, titled “The Art of Executing a Great Event” and attended by over 30 people, I heard speakers explain how to plan events, target audiences, and identify “contingencies.” A paper handout recommended that activists have weekly meetings and regular communiqués with their cadres in order to maintain “momentum.” The two main facilitators of this workshop were Katey Gordon and Will Bates. Interestingly, Bates was co-organizer -- along with Middlebury College professor, and environmental activist Bill McKibben -- of the national “Step It Up!” campaign earlier this year, which called for immediate federal action on global warming. Gordon, however, in particular, caught my attention because she said she had just spent some time at a retreat at the Blue Mountain Center in upstate New York.

I used to date a girl who worked at the Center and I know something about it. Though not advertised as such, the Blue Mountain Center is a notorious, left-wing Adirondack lodge used to provide radical artists, progressive writers, and other left-wing activists with a place to work away from normal, day-to-day distractions. (It’s local analogue is the Kopkind Colony in Guilford.) The founding director of the Center is Harriet Barlow, co-founder of the progressive Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis and trustee of the Harold K. Hochschild Foundation, which had $30 million in assets in 2002. (The latter organization has given millions to all sorts of progressive and left-wing groups throughout the US and Canada.) I’ve even been told that Barlow once made a face after seeing a picture of me wearing an American flag patch on the sleeve of my ski jacket.

I chose to check out the “Anyone Can Run” workshop as well. There were only four people in the audience. A young man named Matt from Howard Dean’s Democracy for America spoke first. He talked about the importance of setting ideas down on paper (“if it is not written down, it doesn’t exist”); he emphasized the need for strategic fund-raising (“the candidate is always the best fund-raiser”); he spoke wistfully of a future in which all campaigns will be publicly-financed; and he questioned the usefulness of yard-signs (“the people who decide based on yard signs generally don’t vote”). 

During young Matt’s closing, he spoke about the fundamental importance of involvement -- in anything. “Get involved and join local civics committee, any group that you can,” he said. “Be visible, be out there, get name recognition, build up your name … [and] think about the kind of viral effect you can have.” (That is good advice for all of us, actually.) 

Newly-elected State Rep. Christopher Bray (New Haven, Addison County) spoke next. He described his successful campaign against Harvey Smith, a four-term incumbent (with a Vermont family going back 100 years) and member of the House Agriculture Committee. Though the margin of victory wasn’t great, Bray said his personal visit to the home of almost every voter in his district -- he visited 1,351 houses, representing 90% of his district -- certainly helped. (This is something Senator Bernie Sanders does as well, to great effect.) Bray also echoed young Matt’s earlier comments about participation. He told the audience to participate -- in anything. “Step up and see what will happen,” he urged. “It’s all just about participation.” Another way of saying this, I thought to myself, is “You’ve got to play to win!” (something many of us have forgotten).

I attended several other workshops but, aside from hearing over and over again about the ills of nuclear power, the perils of carbon emissions, and the environmental damage caused by the excesses of capitalism, feel I got little out of them. One underlying theme, however, was the importance of participation and involvement in our respective communities -- a message that was hammered into participants in all the workshops (and an area where the progressives in Vermont have really trounced the rest of us).

* * *

Later on, when I got home, tired and a bit numb from the full-day conference, I began to look at all the informational material I had brought home.  Reading a bit more, I noticed that there was an underlying theme which seemed to unite all the groups I had met in Randolph and helped explain their negative view about, well, nearly everything. In the words of another writer, they were all progressives against progress. 

In one small, yellow pamphlet given out by the Vermont Peak Oil Network, I came across a passage that is particularly representative of all the groups I had met. The pamphlet is a small introduction to the “triple-crisis of civilization” -- that is, energy, climate change, and population growth. The pamphlet praises the work of 18th century political economist Thomas Malthus who first advanced the alarmist notion that the exponential growth of human populations would eventually outstrip food supplies, leading to global crises. Another passage refers to another now-discredited book, The Population Bomb (1968) by scare-monger Paul Ehrlich. His main thesis was that population growth would become unsustainable and that the drain on resources would force the long-term price of all commodities to rise inexorably.

But in fact, Ehrlich’s thesis was disproved quite easily in the 1980s when the [now deceased] economist Julian Simon famously won a bet arguing that, in the long-run, the price (in real dollars) of commodities has tended to go down (not up). The reason is a combination of factors including improved extraction and harvesting methods, increased technological sophistication, and just plain old human ingenuity. These are the material benefits and technological innovations that the progressive Left fails to see and that the environmental movement refuses to anticipate. 

Simon once told me during a phone interview that the problem with most environmental activists -- and, by extension, the progressive Left in Vermont -- is that they are steeped in Malthusian thinking, motivated by Ehrlich’s alarmism, and seemingly ignorant of the fact that every new human being is not just a consumer of current resource levels, but also a potential future producer as well. (Thus, Simon called human beings the “ultimate resource.”) 

From the looks of things at the conference in Randolph, the environmental Left continues to be inspired by Malthus and Ehrlich. This is deeply troubling -- not only because of the command-and-control policies that progressives in Vermont seems to advocate but also because during the 20th century, neo-Malthusian thinking has been used to justify the most horrific types of population control efforts (including forced sterilizations and the infamous "Eugenics Survey" in Vermont between 1927 and 1931). 

I think the most important thing I learned at the conference is that the environmental Left in Vermont is driven by a dangerous mindset that rejects the idea of progress and wants to turn the clock back to some idealized and highly stylized vision of a bucolic America. This vision, combined with an enviable zeal for activism, if left unguided and unchecked, will continue to spread virally (and with great vigor) throughout Vermont. Unfortunately, it is a vision that is shared by a wide variety of groups, which form an intricate network of overlapping environmental organizations, foundations, and associations crisscrossing towns throughout Vermont and around New England. It is this progressive network -- this infrastructure of the counter-culture, if you will -- that is their fundamental strength. 

But there is no reason why those groups should be the only ones to benefit from the strength of networks and collaborative relationships (and, similarly, there is no reason why they should also have a monopoly over concern for the environment). Those of us who love rural Vermont -- and who believe in the ingenuity of man, the benefits of free enterprise, and the possibility of progress -- just need to work a little bit harder to make ourselves heard.

Comments

So tell me how you keep Vermont rural without imposing some type of Government restrictions?

[Katey Gordon]

Glad you attended the workshop I co-led with Will Bates. I am sorry that your impression of the day was so entirely dark. Personally, I am a "glass half-full" kind of gal and feel excited by the challenges we face because I believe we CAN and WILL find our way through it all. I don't think the problem is with the material being dark and scary and overwhelming. Instead, it is our fear of getting in on the project, a fear of failure etc that keeps folks hanging out in the doom and gloom parade. I met many people at the Conference that day who are inspired, energized, positive, light, and lovely to be around. I understand your sentiments; though I believe the power is yours to interpret, translate, and take action in a way that feels good. Yes, there is hard work to do...I say let's enjoy one another's company, be nice to each other :) and get it done. The power of your words and expression equals the power of that conference to create/manifest change... You are an artist with your words. Do right by your community and give credit where credit is due. Many people work hard to address the problems we as a global community face; their intentions are good. Let's all lighten up a bit and work together ~name calling is just so unhelpful.

[Greg Decker]

The better question is to what extent will we allow government restrictions to interfere with our individual right to the pursuit of happiness? Perhaps some people want development? Should ones interest in rural living supersede another's interest in economic development?

Remember, the Constitution only guarantees the right to the "pursuit" of happiness. It does not guarantee actual happiness. If one man pursues development the other is still free to pursue a rural life.

On the other hand using the coercive force of government to assist one in the pursuit of rural living is a real and significant governmental intrusion on the other man's rights.

[GreggB]

All of that Constitutional stuff is well and good. However what I really want to know is how 'inspired, energized, positive, light and lovely to be around' plus a group hug is going to help pay my bills, find fortune, and prosperity~ for me-here in VT. If I have to, I guess I'd be willing to work for it. But then I don't want to be forced to share my earned prosperity with a bunch of anticapitalistpotheaddirtyhippies.

Oh Gregg, you're so witty and wise. Nothing like bringing validity to an economics argument by calling people pothead hippies. Government interference into protecting our natural resources is not stopping your pursuit of happiness. In fact, only 10% of land in our country is protected by the Government. I should think that the other 90% of private land will suit you just fine, this is a big country.
No one is going to argue that you shouldn't be able to pay your bills, in fact, if you asked any intelligent (truly) person, they would tell you that there are many ways to earn economic benefits while protecting the natural world. In fact, a shift towards a more sustainable world would bring about thousands of jobs.
We can all agree that we enjoy a rural lifestyle or we wouldn't live in Vermont in the first place, and crucial to our economic (and social) well-being as Vermonters, is protecting the natural environment. If these things don't concern you (building a sustainable, natural resources minded economy) than by all means leave the Green Mountain State. I'm sure China (or Greenwich, Connecticut) would love to take you.

[GreggB]

I'll pass on China, but Greenwich sounds nice. Of course I'll have to live someplace between here and there to recover financially before We could swing moving to Greenwich. I'm all for protecting the planet, but whenever I hear folks sprouting off about sustainability I get suspicious that they are in fact 'closet communists.' [There is a new book about McCarthy called 'Blacklisted by History' haven't read it yet] Perhaps I'm wrong about the communists- some of the time. As long as the green stuff doesn't get more gov't subsidies than the brown stuff it's OK with me. Of course the green tech companies should be making fast tracks to venture capitalists and leave the tax proceeds to the teachers union.

[Greg Decker]

Lets stick to the facts:

100% of the land in the United States is protected by some form of government regulation. Think EPA, Act 250, zoning, etc.

There are any number of reasons why somebody might live in Vermont - rural living is but one of them.

We don't really know if China of Greenwich would take Mr. B.

[GreggB]

Greenwich has always been very kind to me- Every time I've driven through the police have simply followed me to make sure I kept going. Never so much as a ticket, much less a beating and a night in the clink. And Greg what are the odds that my truck was inspected at the time? Nice bunch of folks there.

[Mario]

Thanks to everyone -- especially to Katey Gordon -- for their comments. Though we may not all agree on approaches, I appreciate very much Katey's participation and willingness to contribute to dialogue (and to what some call a deliberative process). I look forward to more, next time. Cheers!

[James Ehlers]

Tough to log in a city, and, ironically, in Vermont's woods. Vermont would stay rural if rural undertakings such as logging were not regulated into fiscal uncompetiveness, as just one example for the poster looking for ideas.

Historically, however, those interested in perpetuating a vision of rural, as opposed to rural reality, did not include men, chainsaws and trucks in their diorama. Sadly, that view has had political favor for the better part of the last 25 years here. And now we have to resort to discussions about how to make Vermont rural ... Silliness, really, when one considers most people are not interested in an authentic rural Vermont.

How many Vermont parents actually encourage their children to forego college to milk cows, haul logs and quarry stone? It is a good thing they don't, though. Our legislators don't truly encourage it, either. Sure, they say they do, but reality exists in their actions, not their words. There would be no need to "save" land from development if it were actually profitable to log it, mine it and farm it. But let's talk about a Green Economy, shall we? As if selling carbon offsets is going to keep Vermont "rural". Carbon offsets are sold in an office ... and most likely will be based in another state, eventually--just like Efficiency Vermont. Ever wonder why that is? It might just have something to do with the cost of doing business.

[Geoff]

Instead of Progressives, let's call them Regressives.