FSU: A Grassroots Response to the Betrayal of the Mainstream Environmental Movement "Like the original conservation movement it is emulating, today's big business conservation is not interested in preserving the earth; it is rationally reorganizing for a more efficient rape of resources ... and the production of an ever grosser national product." -Ramparts magazine, May 1970 "Subversive elements plan to make American children live in an environment that is good for them." -Mississippi delegate to the 1970 Continental Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution "They say, 'It's pinkos like you that freed the slaves', and they're right." -Phil Ochs This article isn't going to tell you the latest story about Greenpeace activists getting arrested and attracting worldwide attention with their powerful media skills to try and stop the clearcutting of a forest. It won't talk about how due to the Sierra Club's endorsement of Clinton and its subsequent environmental lobbying the planet is going to be "just fine". That we can all relax, watch TV, or curl up with a nice book, just so long as we pay our membership dues. Nor will we discuss how great oil companies like British Petroleum (BP), who recently committed to produce renewable energy, and other practitioners of corporate "environmentalism" will solve all our problems for us with their expertise, if only we just trust them. This article will not tell you that you don't have to act. For to save the planet, we need a grassroots movement that involves you. Yes you. For all together we need to act, to seize the control of the movement back from the mainstream who has compromised our aims by selling out for money and power and by doing so is endangering the future of our fragile planet. The environmental movement needs to be led by the grassroots, from the bottom-up, and the time for change is now! There are two environmental movements in this country, but from following the media you'd only know about the one. Everyone hears about the mainstream movement. The large groups with hundreds of thousands, even millions of members. We see them at press conferences, commenting on the television, and being interviewed in the papers. But there is also another environmental movement that escapes attention. It is composed of thousands of small grassroots groups that are run by hard working volunteers. That's how many mainstream groups once started. So what's wrong with the mainstream? How have they changed and betrayed their orgins? Why I'm raising such a big fuss? Well I'm worried about the corporatization of environmental groups. Follow the money. The top ten environmental groups made $10 million in 1965, $218 million in 1985, $514 million in 1990, and will easily make over a billion dollars in 1997. Not only is there a lot of money involved, but the income is unequally distributed. In 1993 ,out of the three billion dollars earned by environmental organizations, 70% went to the largest 25, with little left for the remaining 10,000 groups. If this were all donations from members then it would be one thing. But it isn't. Large corporations who are destroy the environment for a quick buck, are funding environmental groups. In 1988 the Sierra Club got money from ARCO, BP, Chemical Bank, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Pepsi, Transamerica, United Technologies, Wells Fargo and others through its corporate gift matching program. In 1988 the Audubon Society got money from Waste Management Inc., General Electric, GTE, Amoco, Chevron Du Pont, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Dow Chemical, IBM, Exxon, Ford, Coca-Cola and others. In 1988 the National Wildlife Federation got money from Amoco, ARCO, Coca-Cola, Dow, Duke Power, Du Pont, Exxon, GE, GM, IBM, Mobil, Monsanto, Tenneco, Waste Management, Westinghouse and others. In return it rewarded Waste Management, the largest disposer of toxic chemicals in the world, and notorious convicted environmental law breaker, by giving its CEO a seat on its board of directors! Mention the name to a grassroots activist who's fighting a Waste Management landfill or incinerator and their eyes will burn. A study in Z Magazine in February 1990, showed that 67 people associated with seven major environmental groups held upper level positions (like CEO) in 92 corporations. As ties between businesses and environmental groups grow, activists are on the way out and CEOs are on the way in. So first the mainstream gets cozy with business and then it starts imitating it. Trying to resemble corporations, they establish hierarchical structures of mostly white men, seek to "professionalize" themselves, and they start rely upon experts to impress lawmakers. The leadership becomes more comfortable lobbying wearing business suits in the corridors of power in Washington DC, than hiking in the wilderness which they ought to be protecting. By this transformation they alienate their constituency, deny the role of activism, and become totally cut-off from the grass-roots, leaving the members with little or no influence in the group's decisions. By involving themselves in the politics of compromise, the mainstream is working for reforms that limit the damage done to the environment, but within a framework of continued destruction. How can any more destruction be acceptable? Compromising taints. How can we ask for massive social change and have people believe us, if when we get a reformist legislative morcel passed that gives us a hundreth of what we need to come close to anywhere near saving the planet, we pat our lobbyist on the back and accept it? By settling for piecemeal and proposing piecemeal legislation, the mainstream groups are betraying themselves, betraying the movement, betraying humanity and all living creatures, and leaving the way clear for the possibility of an unprecedented ecological collapse! Why are corporations claiming they are interested in the environment? Doing so allows them to moderate the movement, to ensure future exploitation of resources and profits, to disempower grass-roots activists by misleading us to believe that technology and corporate leadership will save us, and to generate a good corporate image which will lead to greater profits. That's the bad news. The mainstream environmental movement isn't going to save the planet, and is constrained so much that they won't even try. Now I'll turn and tell the story of the true environmental movement in the US. The one that gives me hope. The story of the grass that refused to be trampled and stood-up. In the spring of 1988, a group of students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill placed a small ad in Greenpeace Magazine to contact any students and groups interested in forming a network. From the over 200 responses that they received emerged a national student group: the Student Environmental Action Coalition. Since then SEAC has held national conferences with as many as 7600 people, countless regional conferences, started a newsletter, provided resources and activist training programs, done field organizing, and otherwise attempted to network 2000 member groups from high schools, colleges, and universities. Since I started doing activism in college, I've only been involved with grassroots groups that took orders from no- one. We did and said what we wanted, chose which rules to follow, and which to break. An individual, alone, or with a friend, could implement a project. Anyone could be a leader or in charge of something if she spoke up. That is the fundamental ideology behind SEAC. Authority rests in grassroots groups and SEAC's mission is to empower these groups with resources, to help them, and to network them with other like minded groups. "SEAC is a student run and student led national network of progressive organizations and individuals whose aim is to uproot environmental injustices through action and education. We define the environment to include the physical, economical, political, and cultural conditions in which we live. By challenging the power structure which threatens these environmental conditions, SEAC works to create progressive social change on both the local and global levels." -SEAC's mission statement- What do I know about SEAC? Well a year ago I knew nothing, but decided that going to an environmentalist conference in the middle of PA, was the thing to do, even if it did take ten hours. Since then I've attended two regional SEAC conferences in PA, and wanting to do some good over the summer I hooked up with a SEACer from Philadelphia and spent my summer totally restructuring and updating the organization's database. While collecting data and hanging out with SEACers, I learned a lot about SEAC and environmental organizing. The capping experience of my summer was attending a four day Summer Training Institute with 35 SEACers from across the country in New York City. Here are some of the things I learnt about SEAC that I like: 1. Openness. SEAC is the most open organization of which I know. SEACers are incredibly conscious of sexism, racism, heterosexism, classism, and other forms of oppression that exist. SEAC has a caucus system which empowers members of the oppressed groups and encourages discussion of how we can end oppression both inside the environmental movement and outside. 2. Democracy. I've been a part of a SEAC regional meeting with over fifty people in which we achieved consensus on every single issue. At meetings we sit in circles, use facilitators, and everyone has equal right to speak and vote. Elected regional representatives form a national council that sets goals for SEAC and decides how to use our resources.. 3. Low-budget. SEAC regional conferences cost about fifteen dollars. This includes everything. SEAC national's budget has never topped $300,000. SEAC is not run by money. 4. Students. SEAC is totally run by students and has no ties to parent organizations that place limits on its activity. 5. Revolutionary. Many SEACers realize that we need to fundamentally change society if we are going to save the planet. SEAC goes beyond pure environmentalism and calls itself an environmental justice organization. We recognize that all forms of oppression are connected and that we need to unite to end them all. Hearing the experiences of SEACers and their views has inspired my critique of mainstream groups. Many believe in deep ecology, sympathize with Earth First!, and occasionally get arrested for civil disobedience. SEACers are dedicated to taking risks, putting the earth first, challenging society, and fucking shit up (FSU). 6. Hard work. SEAC has been run solely by volunteers for the last year, since all the staff was either laid-off or quit due to a financial crisis. SEACers study, work, and still find time to organize winning campaigns. 7. SEAC, and other grassroots groups, are the embodiment of what we want society to be like after the revolution. The group and its structure are living examples. Unlike the high paid executives and lobbyists of mainstream environmental groups, we not only talk the talk, but also walk the walk, and live the dream. SEACers across the US are working to free Burma from the SLORC military dictatorship and restore democracy by putting economic and political pressure on the regime. In a campaign similar to the anti-apartheid movement of the eighties, actions by SEACers and fellow grassroots activists has caused Pepsi, Heineken, and more recently Texaco to pull out all of their investments from Burma. Activists have passed selective purchasing legislation in Massachusetts, as well as in numerous counties and cities, which has banned governments from doing business with companies that do business in Burma. SLORC has been getting a constant stream of bad press over the past several years. On a smaller scale I know SEACers who have been working with a group called Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL), of Chester, PA. Chester is the unlucky recipient of toxic waste from surrounding counties and states. A veritable dumping grounds. One of the worse polluters is a Westinghouse Incinerator who has been fined over $400,000. Remember Westinghouse? Yes, they donated money to the National Wildlife Federation in 1988. They're one of those nice environmental corporations. Funny how the community chosen was 70% African American, now has the highest infant mortality rate in the state, and a lung cancer rate 60% higher than Delaware county from where most of the waste comes. No, it's not funny. It's environmental racism: an issue which the mainstream groups, unlike the grassroots ones, have been neglecting. Meanwhile CRCQL and SEACers working together just defeated an additional proposed soil treatment plant for Chester. A big victory! Through education and action they pressured the Department of Environmental Protection into refusing the permit. These are but two examples of thousands of current grassroots campaigns. Also SEACers are ever vigilant on campus, fighting for recycling programs that work, exposing environmental abuses that exist, and trying to make campuses a model of environmental and social responsibility. SEAC it isn't just about students. SEAC's goal is to give people the knowledge and skills to be life-long grassroots activists in their communities for the rest of their lives. What you do today on campus is just a start! Currently I'm a SEAC coordinator for the Great Lakes region. I'm trying to network all student environmental groups in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan because there wasn't anyone else doing it. There are some very non- lucrative regional organizing openings if you are at all interested. You'll meet amazing people. I also chair the SEAC database committee. Your easy connection to SEAC and the grassroots environmental movement is Notre Dame Students for Environmental Action (SEA). We meet at 7pm on Sundays in the Center for Social Concerns, and would love for you to drop by! And finally, it must be said that the mainstream environmental movement is doing some good. At the minimum they are staving off ecological collapse with their reformist lobbying, and at their best, pressured by a strong grass-roots activist movement, they may break free from corporate power, transform themselves back to what they once were, and contribute to permanently saving the planet. Maybe in the year 2000 we can have a real Earth Day. But while we wait for mainstream to change, save one tree only to see ten others fall, while our land, water, and air continues to deteriorate, while species go extinct, new toxins are introduced, the ozone layer thins, and the climate is undergoing unprecedented rapid warming. While the mainstream worries about lobbying and getting small concessions: SEACers and a couple thousand grassroots groups are going to FSU! Come join us. -Aaron Kreider (published in Threshold and Common Sense, both Nov. 1997) For more information check out from Hesburgh library: "Earth for Sale: Reclaiming Ecology in the Age of Corporate Greenwash", by Brian Tokar. Also for more on SEAC checkout the webpage www.seac.org, locally the Notre Dame SEA page at www.nd.edu/~sea, or email me at Aaron.Kreider.1@nd.edu.