June 28, 2005

Local Greens Give New Life to Old Movement

By Daniel Porras
Special to the Neighborhood Newswire

Oil-covered birds; satellite images of burning rainforests; a big-budget Hollywood climate change action movie: we’ve seen it all. After thirty years of gloom-and-doom environmentalism, most Americans don’t need to be convinced that the natural world is in peril. These days, even top oil executives are showing public concern about global warming. With environmental problems now in the mainstream of American discourse, what’s next for the environmental movement?

Now, people want solutions.

Around the Bay Area, environmentalists are trading in the shocking graphs and gloomy metaphors for a more positive vision of a sustainable world. Many San Francisco-based organizations are making deft use of science and embracing, rather than attacking, business and government. These ‘new’ environmentalists are transforming their movement from a reactionary ‘ism’ into a cutting-edge, proactive discipline. It’s no longer about scare tactics and confrontation, but solutions and collaboration.

“The question to ask is – Are we promoting alternatives?”, says Deb Janes of San Francisco-based Pesticide Action Network (PAN). Environmental groups have to find the balance between “giving the reality check and the vision for how it could be,” she says. PAN, which uses science to convey the damage that pesticides inflict on humans and nature, promotes alternatives to industrial farming like sustainable agriculture and integrated pest management. “We do the scientific research to back up the activists on the ground,” says Janes.

This budding ‘new environmentalism’ was evident at the recent United Nations World Environment Day (WED), during which policy makers, scientists, activists, and businesses from around the world gathered to explore innovative ways to make cities greener. While there were still banner-waving activists outside some WED proceedings in San Francisco, more pragmatic environmentalists on the inside had the ears of 70 of the world’s mayors. With that kind of audience, environmental groups need to have something constructive to say.

“It’s problem-solving,” says Jen Sramek of Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ). “You can’t just say - ‘hey shut down that power plant!’ -without putting alternatives in place.” LEJ will push alternatives with its soon-to-be-built Living Classroom, an “off-the-grid environmental education center” in Hunters Point which Sramek says will be the first building in San Francisco to run on 100% renewable energy.

San Francisco, often called a hub of the ‘progressive movement,’ is home to environmental groups advocating market-based solutions like emissions trading and fair trade organic agriculture. The Bay Area Progressive Directory (http://www.bapd.org) lists dozens of environmental groups working on everything from climate change and conservation to population. With such a high concentration of nonprofit groups in one area, there’s likely to be intense competition for funds. Luckily, San Francisco is also densely packed with generous individuals and foundations, which results in a relatively well-funded and collaborative web of environmental innovators.

“There’s a lot of exciting synergy,” PAN’s Deb Janes says about San Francisco’s environmental community. Working in tandem with other organizations, she says, ensures that environmental groups are not duplicating each other’s work. Two other groups work on pesticide issues in San Francisco, including the Natural Resources Defense Council. Rather than vie for resources, says Janes, the groups often give each other media and funder referrals.

Of course it’s not all hand-holding and back-patting.

“There’s never enough funding to do all of the things that we want to do,” says David Shaw of the Golden Gate National Park Association. “It’s always really competitive to get the money.” Still, partnerships are what sustains GGNPA, which Shaw calls “the leading example of a public-private partnership within a national park setting.”

While teamwork within San Francisco’s nonprofit sector may not help everyone get their slice of the funding pie, it certainly stimulates innovation, which helps San Francisco’s greens stay on the cutting edge of environmentalism.

Craigslist, the online community network that is spreading like wildfire around the world, is putting a digital spin on collaborative environmentalism. The Craigslist Foundation is sponsoring the Environmental Non-Profit Network (ENPN) which, according to lead steering committee member Sudeep Rao, will use Craigslist’s innovative online infrastructure to foster collaboration and efficiency among environmental organizations on a massive scale.

“ENPN is a modern tribe of effective environmental visionaries”, says Rao, who has a PhD in chemical engineering and works as an environmental consultant. The evolving ENPN will be a “one-stop shop” for Bay Area environmental organizations, activists, and foundations, says Rao, and will include features like a ‘relational database’ for easier online searching of environmental issues and organizations; an events calendar and discussion forum; a file library and donation processing tool, and other helpful items. ENPN will also help emerging non-profits with such things as logo design and web development.

The Earth Island Institute, a mainstay of San Francisco’s environmental scene, also collaborates with activists to form a web of semi-autonomous environmental projects. “Rather than having 38 small nonprofits out there,” says Associate Director Steve Zimmerman, “[activists] can use Earth Island’s infrastructure and focus on their programmatic work.” This strategy eliminates red tape and gives environmentalists valuable logistical and administrative support.

This type of coordination, according to Sudeep Rao, is how the changing environmental movement will meet its biggest challenge, which Rao describes as “actually making a difference.” The only way to overturn environmentally-destructive policies on national and international levels, says Rao, is by creating a critical mass of environmental innovators to offer coherent solutions to global ecological problems. The San Francisco Bay Area, according to many greens that work here, is the perfect place to launch this renewed vision of environmentalism.