Citizen's Guide to Colorado's Environmental Era

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I have more feel for environmentalism's thinking. If we resisted the lesson of Two Forks, it may be because many of us are romantics about "nature" and therefore determined to resist modern society. For a while, the movement flirted with the idea of violence, as in Abbey's widely hailed Monkey Wrench Gang, or Earth First! fantasies about blowing up Glen Canyon Dam. Attempts were made to use violence although that tactic was quickly abandoned. Not abandoned was the underlying attitude: hostility to working rural land - scapes—to grazing, mining, logging, dam building —and to the Western towns and rural people who live off those activities. Environmentalist Andy Kerr, who led the fight against old - growth logging in the Pacific Northwest, told displaced forest workers to find new jobs making Nikes and pouring cappuccino. The "cattle free" and "zero cut" campaigns created a public image of a movement that puts the earth first and people last. Every movement has its fringes. But no major environmental group has confronted the Kerrs and their anti -rural rhetoric. The movement's flagship, the Sierra Club, has even adopted a "zero cut" policy for public lands. In the West, the result has been to marginalize environmentalism.. By com- parison, the Denver metro water establish- ment appears to have moved miles, and the voters to have moved with them, in rede- fining the values of a major Western city. This is a grim view: elected and appoint- ed officials acting in a progressive way while the most public face of environmentalism, at least, still seems to be following an old model, in which good guys fight bad guys in no- compromise defense of Mother Earth. Not one tree is to be cut; not one cow is to graze; not one dam is to be built. It is a grim view because a strong and vital environmental movement is needed. Nationally, the environmental movement is publicly despairing in widely circu- lated papers within the movement carrying titles like The Death of Environmentalism by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus and Nature's Crisis by Dave Foreman, a founder of Earth First! Colorado and the interior West, at least, provide more reason for hope. While the public face of environmentalism may be con- frontational, and may be focused on endan- gered species and endangered landscapes, large parts of the movement have quietly changed. Many of those who won the Two Forks victory have continued to work on the problems of metro area water needs in coop- eration with the new water establishment. In the area of electric energy, which is a West -wide problem, Colorado -based groups are attempting to forge Two Forks - like solutions based on efficiency, fuel diversity, and renewable energy. More broadly, groups that focus on private land conservation, watershed res- toration, market -based approaches to land protection, solar and wind power energy and the like have quietly proliferated. So while Two Forks may not have had a profound effect on the public face of environmentalism, it may be emblematic of environmentalism's new approach to prob- lems. Unlike, let's say, a Denver Water Board or a Colorado River Water Conservation District, the environmental movement can- not turn on a dime in response to what works and what doesn't work. The last generation's emotions and experience and money are likely to keep the no- compro- mise, confrontational approach alive for a long time. It may take awhile for the new face of environmentalism to make it onto the evening news in a way that is recogniz- able to most viewers. So I'd like to close this piece with an anecdote about the nature of change. I serve on the board of a rural electric co- operative in Western Colorado. A few of us board members had been struggling for years to change the co -op's policy toward solar and wind energy when a young woman, a staff member of a local solar energy group, began attending our meetings. In a few months, this ex- electrician had convinced the board and staff to make it much easier for people to hook up small wind and solar units to our system. Delta - Montrose Electric Association would both be their battery and buy any excess electric- ity from them at our retail price. We are one of a very few co -ops to adopt this policy. I remember saying to her after the vote that she must stand out in her group since she came over as non - ideological, has a blue collar background, and was at home — actually, she enjoyed herself —in a board room made up of conservative ranchers and small business people in their fifties and sixties. "Not at all," she said. "Everyone I know in alternative energy is like me." I had just seen Two Forks writ small. ❑ ie Author: Ed Marston has published )ers out of Paonia, Colorado, since le is the author or editor of several .ncluding a 35,000 -word memoir in lo: 1870 -2000 by WH. Jackson and gilder. Federal District Judge Richard P. ssued an opinion finding that the U.S. nental Protection Agency (EPA) acted in vetoing the permit that would have Two Forks dam to be built. His opinion =d that the EPA showed 'record sup - the conclusion that even after midge- three proposals for the Two Forks dam esult in significant and unacceptable impacts. " ❑NMENTAL ERA 1 9