BP ’s recent “internal investigation” of the Macondo well “incident” was decried as “self-serving” by many of the company’s partners, and in fact BP’s report did little more than fault itself for “trusting” its partners, when in fact BP’s dirty hands were in the stewing pot every step of the way. Once more, a corporation out to save money by cutting safety corners wound-up costing the environment, the livelihoods of tens of thousands, and itself billions of dollars instead. Will no one ever learn that in the long-run, cutting corners on environmental safety simply does not pay?
In his book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” Jared Diamond asks the following question: “At what point do we as individuals prefer to die than to compromise and live?” Some answers to this question run circles around it if not evade the issue altogether: “The free market will come-up with technology that will solve everything” or “We can’t do anything about it because it is all part of God’s master plan.” Both the right and the left blame overpopulation, and suggest that continued immigration into this country will inevitably lead to environmental collapse. But the flaws in this argument are obvious; China today has nearly four times the population of the U.S. on a similar land area with even fewer resources—and yet it is touted as the next world superpower. Another flaw is the assumption that immigrants have the same mania for material goods as white America, consuming ever more natural resources. And it also means, of course, passing the buck to the party least responsible for the sham of environmental protection. Meanwhile, the rich who are hoarding their wealth instead of investing it in the economy seem to think that they can escape the impending misery by hiding behind isolated enclosure like Prince Prospero in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death.”
In regard to policy, the Left can be faulted for engaging in a lot of talk, and Democratic politicians too craven before corporate interests to take serious measures to protect the environment. On the other hand, Right-leaning “thinkers,” politicians and constituencies can be accused of being delusional and prone to the disease of short-term thinking. Diamond offers as an example the Bitterroot Valley in red-state Montana. On the surface it appears to be a pristine paradise (at least in the summer), but in reality it is an environmental ticking time bomb. The “old-time” residents generally range from conservative to extreme right, with plenty of anti-government militia and white supremacist types. Although many wealthy people live part-time in the valley or have set-up businesses there, the county in which the valley resides is one of the poorest in a state that is the 49th poorest in the country. Not surprisingly, a “hands-off” attitude toward government and regulation has had consequences.
Mining was once a major driver of the economy, as testified by 20,000 abandoned mines that dot the country, and their toxic residuals are a threat all over the state of Montana. In the beginning, nearby mines and mine workers in Butte were supplied with wood from Bitterroot, until most of the forest land on the hills was denuded, and the Butte mines closed. After the forests recovered somewhat, logging returned. A toothless U.S. Forest Service allowed loggers to practice every destructive method in the book, in what would become known as the “Clearcut Controversy.” The reality is Montana’s climate and rainfall does not allow rapid regeneration of forests, so the timber industry is a “cut and run” occupation. Another problem was suppressing naturally-occurring forest fires, which because the fuel load (underbrush) was thin and fires didn’t to spread into the crown of the more fire resistant mature trees, in fact had positive effects on maintaining forests. The man-made suppression caused an increase in underbrush and saplings, and eventually the tactic backfired, creating more fuel for fires which then engulfed the mature trees.
The Bitterroot has poor soil, but irrigation temporarily created a temporary apple orchard “boom” as well as cattle grazing, which effected serious soil erosion, soil exhaustion and salinization. Only one-third of the “pristine” valley’s watersheds are considered to be in “good” shape. Bitterroot’s principal waterway, the Bitterroot River, is heavily affected by increased sediment from soil erosion, fires, road building and decreasing water levels. Less water also means that most native fish species have also declined precipitously. Whirling Disease, caused by a non-native parasite that infects juvenile fish and causes deformed development, has been blamed for reducing Rainbow Trout populations by as much as 90 percent. Another “introduced pest” responsible for Chronic Wasting Disease, has devastated whole populations of deer and elk; the human equivalent of the disease—Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease—is incurable. Two toxic non-native plants, Spotted Knapweed and Leafy Spurge, have devastated native grasses, especially in grazing land; once established these plants secrete poisons in the soil that kill native plants, and because the Knapweed’s root systems is weak, contributes to soil erosion.
So there is a problem. Because of these problems, the economy of the Bitterroot Valley, and in Montana in general, has been in decline well before the present time; half of all income “earned” by Montanans comes from out-of-state, mostly from government programs and private retirement accounts (the irony is too much for me). What is being done about it? There are “progressive” elements in the valley that demand environmental change, and while there was some action in the 1970s, such voices are merely loud rather than effective. Montana once enjoyed an “egalitarian” society—that is to say, nearly everyone save mine owners were poor. Today, there has been an influx of wealthy newcomers, with different ideas than the “old- timers.” There is, of course, the life style clash, but differences go well beyond that. One irony is that rich residents moved to Montana because of the beautiful landscape and seek to preserve it, while the less wealthy “native” residents wish to exploit the land and use methods destructive to the environment in order to make a living. The newcomers tend to be more moderate than old-time residents, and more supportive of land use regulation. Many of the original valley residents came from the old Confederacy, and others came to escape from urban areas, thus the area swings heavily right. Because they out-number newcomers, zoning laws regulating land use are regularly defeated. But opposition to land regulation in fact has the opposite effect intended: instead of preserving the land, it is being destroyed. Diamond recalls an anecdote where a county commissioner merely called for a public meeting on the feasibility of land use planning; a group of “tough-looking” anti-government militia members packing guns showed-up at the meeting, and it all came to nothing.
Diamond blames the failure to compromise human needs and corporate greed with environmental preservation on such things as “short-term focus,” mob mentality, groupthink and denial. Denial is probably the most pertinent individual explanation; people simply do not wish to face the truth, because it would force them to change, and they do not want to do that. They expect the “government” to keep them safe, even when they oppose needed regulation on environmental protection. In localities with more liberal constituencies, land use regulations can find support, but this isn’t the case in the generality. Case in point is the indecision over global warming, which the Right has obfuscated into incoherence in favor of corporate interests. But the reality is that global warming or no global warming, unregulated green house gases still pose a threat to humans and the environment. Voters could vote out pro-polluters and vote in environmentally-conscience lawmakers, but they do not. When there is gridlock in Washington, they blame the “federal government.” But the blame should fall squarely on the shoulders of those voters who simply do not care about environmental protection. Not really. It just isn’t happening for them.
Another failing is the fact that human effects on the environment often occurs gradually, and catastrophes present themselves seemingly completely unexpectedly, so people naturally excuse themselves by deluding themselves that these disasters are not really happening. They simply don’t see them coming, and even when warned that it would happen, still did nothing, or failed to support measures that counteracted the problem. And all too often, as we have seen in recent mining disasters and the BP oil spill, the public failing to demand of their lawmakers to pass adequate protections—especially those on the Right—or giving perpetrators a relative free hand to ignore safety regulations in the name of “jobs,” has consequences well beyond one’s back yard. Life is short, but the human race continues—but for how long? The question then is how many generations must pass before one will properly answer the question asked above, before it is too late.
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