No Silver Bullet Can Replace The Hard Work Of Knowledge, Activism, Organizing, And Building Power
No Mention Of The Fact That Corporate Power Captures, Corrupts, & Dominates Government, Law, & Regulation
Activism, Individual Agency, Solidarity, & Collective Action – Not Fear, Despair, & Prozac – Are Solutions To Young People’s Legitimate Mental Health Problems In The Face Of Climate And Ecological Collapse
A Rights Based Litigation Strategy Is Anti-Democratic & Anti-Government Diversion From Necessary Political Work
“That’s not a loophole, its a policy choice” ~~~ Ray Cantor, NJ Business And Industry Association (3/7/24, testimony on SCR 43)
“Every word you are saying is being recorded. We have a court stenographer here. We’re going to provide a record of this hearing to all of the legislators …. so be careful what you say, …. it is being recorded” ~~~ Chairman Bob Smith warning to Maya Van Rossum, immediately after she requested an amendment to SCR 43 to include climate and urged NJ to become the first state where the Constitution “speaks directly – directly – to ensuring a safe climate for present and future generations.” (at time 1:10:15)
Part One
Let’s start with the (elephant) whale in the legislative hearing room:
The object of the hunt is a massive white whale, Moby Dick, which, in a previous encounter, maimed the ship’s captain, Ahab, by biting off one of his legs. The self-destructive fury of the quest, much like that of the one we are on, assures the Pequod’s destruction. And those on the ship, on some level, know they are doomed — just as many of us know that a consumer culture based on corporate profit, limitless exploitation and the continued extraction of fossil fuels is doomed. […]
Those who see where we are going lack the fortitude to rebel. Mutiny was the only salvation for the Pequod’s crew. It is our only salvation. But moral cowardice turns us into hostages. ~~~ “We Are All Aboard The Pequot” (Chris Hedges)
Yesterday, the NJ Senate Environment Committee held a hearing to take testimony on Senate Concurrent Resolution 43, to amend the NJ Constitution to provide various rights to a clean and safe environment. You can listen to the testimony here.
Listening to the testimony this morning validated almost all of the criticisms I have of my former environmental colleagues. They are lazy, cowards, opportunists, and simply can’t tell the truth. Let me offer just 3 examples:
1) The “green amendment” in Pennsylvania (enacted way back in 1971) was touted as a model, and the leading case cited was a 2013 Supreme Court decision that basically ruled that local governments could zone to prohibit fracking. That was a huge victory for anti-fracking activists.
That legal victory should have prompted a tidal wave of local government zoning ordinances to ban fracking across Pennsylvania. But that would require a LOT of good old fashioned grassroots organizing and lobbying of local governments. Sadly, that never happened – activists did essentially nothing with this huge legal victory.
But instead of that, take a look at what actually happened (source: Frack tracker)
(Caption: Figure 1. Part of a dense cluster of wells in Armstrong County and Indiana County
PASDA has another dataset of wells that has even more locations, 220,015 in total as of January 11, 2022.
2) Here in NJ, over 30 years ago (1990), clean water activists won a huge legal victory when the NJ Supreme Court killed a toxic ocean wastewater discharge from the notorious Ciba-Geigy chemical manufacturing plant in Toms River. The Court ruled that the DEP had failed to conduct a legally mandatory “anti-degradation review” during the permit process.
Again, that legal victory should have prompted hundreds of challenges to DEP water pollution permits, virtually none of which had conducted the required anti-degradation review the Court cited as the basis for killing the Ciba-Geigy DEP permit. And again, the NJ environmentalists did nothing with that huge legal win and they still do nothing with it. Yet anti-degradation policy was the basis of the DEP “Category One” waters 300 foot wide buffer regulations and the Highlands Act (but not because environmental groups demanded it – it was because I drafted those provisions of the Act!)
3) The final witness to testify was a teacher at Hopewell Valley Central High School (both my kids graduated from that school). She presented stunning data on the mental health problems of young people in the face of climate and ecological collapse, citing this study from The Lancet:
Findings
Respondents across all countries were worried about climate change (59% were very or extremely worried and 84% were at least moderately worried). More than 50% reported each of the following emotions: sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty. More than 45% of respondents said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning, and many reported a high number of negative thoughts about climate change (eg, 75% said that they think the future is frightening and 83% said that they think people have failed to take care of the planet). Respondents rated governmental responses to climate change negatively and reported greater feelings of betrayal than of reassurance. Climate anxiety and distress were correlated with perceived inadequate government response and associated feelings of betrayal.
But this teacher seemed to believe that passing a Constitutional amendment – whose implementation would be totally reliant on expensive lawyers, arguing esoteric legal concepts, conducted in closed courtroom proceedings with no public input or democratic control, decided by one person (predominantly white, male, old and right wing) – was somehow the emotional salve to these mental health traumas!
The most effective psychological relief for this very real trauma and suffering of the children is LEARNING AND ACTIVISM! Learning, activism, solidarity, organizing, civic participation in governing, and collective action cultivate individual agency, empowerment, and build self confidence, not helplessness and despair.
As my good friend Bill Neil once wrote, we need “Citizens, Not Spectators”.
But the proposed SCR 43 totally defeats activism and civic engagement!
Another example of a totally misguided but well meaning person.
But I’m getting way ahead of myself. Lets get back to the testimony on SCR 43.
I wrote a critical set up piece last week, see:
In terms of the hearing testimony, Ray Cantor, NJ BIA gets the quote of the day. He and other Big Oil and corporate lobbyists defended the corrupted status quo because he knows his corporate members own it.
No need to take my word for it, just read the scholarly work of Princeton political scientist Martin Gilens, who wrote:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. (“Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”, 2014)
Or read another Princeton political scientist, Sheldon Wolin’s book “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy And The Specter Of Inverted Totalitarianism”. Wolin goes into great detail to explain how democracy has been hollowed out and captured by corporate power.
But, unfortunately, the environmental groups backing SCR43 could somehow not muster the courage to tell these truths: the system is rigged, captured, and corrupt to the core.
Instead, they all pulled punches and tapped danced around by claiming that there were “loopholes” and “gaps” and “unknown problems” in the current body of environmental law and regulation.
Before I get into writing about the hearing, we need to lay out some basic strategy considerations.
The real questions to ask are:
“how do we fix it?”
“How do we make government protect the public interest, not corporate interests?”
“What are the most effective strategies and tactics to build the kind of political power required to struggle against corporate power that has captured government and flip the script?
Corporations have lots of money, scientists, lawyers, and lobbyists. These highly paid professionals have created the framework of environmental laws and regulations currently in place and they have tremendous undue influence on the implementation of those laws and regulations, as well as the media’s coverage of those issues. Those are their strengths.
Corporations do not have public support. Corporations don’t have the facts, the science, and the public interest. Those are their weaknesses.
Environmental groups lack money, scientists, lawyers, and lobbyists that can remotely compete with the corporate resources. Those are their weaknesses. Environmental groups have strong public support and an ability to frame issues and generate media. Those are their strength.
History has shown that incremental reforms have been made by a combination of factors: activism and political organizing, media,
Part Two
So, let’s weigh those comparative strengths and weaknesses in light of SCR 43.
SCR 43 is a rights based litigation strategy.
That strategy relies on money, scientists, and lawyers. Those are corporate strengths and environmental weaknesses. Oh my: this one’s for you Janine Bauer
A decade after the Flint water crisis was exposed, the city’s residents still haven’t been compensated from the $626 million legal settlement. Meanwhile, the lawyers and the administrators have already received millions in fees…And Flint still doesn’t have clean water.
Litigation strategies do not lend themselves to public involvement. (to be continued … more to follow in Part Two coming soon)