By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
October 27, 2000 (ENS)
Keep your heart clean with peace.
Don't get it dirty with greed.
It is not too late to clean it.
-- Kaila Spencer, Age 8. Friends' School, Colorado.
For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.
-- His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama's favorite Prayer.
Many conservative government officials, industry leaders and citizens believe that any sacrifice is warranted to protect short term profit. To these people, preserving ecosystems, species and human health does not make good business sense.
However, all their dire predictions of the collapse of the economy, widespread unemployment, and unprecedented corporate losses due to environmental preservation activities have never materialized.
Examples abound of fear mongering and deception by conservative
forces.
Here are a few examples:
Forest Resources
In May of 1991, an injunction from a Federal District Court banned timber sales on 24 million acres in 17 national forests in Washington, Oregon and northern California until the U.S. Forest Service could guarantee the safety of the northern spotted owl population.
Conservative forces spread fear throughout the affected states, predicting that 150,000 workers would lose their jobs and that hundreds of communities would become economic disaster areas. They predicted a depression that would take decades to recover from.
Workers and their families from towns where the main income base had been the lumber industry were made angry and fearful by well funded, conservative groups collectively known as the Wise Use Movement.
Their misinformation created an adversarial relationship between timber families and environmentalists. Many owls - most not spotted - were killed and nailed to federal offices or strapped to the grills of pickup trucks in open defiance of the court orders.
Rolling over the Earth (Photo (courtesy Adbusters.org)
Then President George Bush told mill workers when he toured the area in 1992 that "it is time we worried not only about endangered species, but endangered jobs." Oregon Congressman Bob Smith warned that reducing logging "will take us to the bottom of a black hole."
As we look back, we see outcomes very different from those predictions. Although timber harvests fell 91 percent on federal lands and 52 percent from their peak from 1988 to 1998, employment in timber related industries fell only 15 percent. In fact, total employment in the region actually rose 31 percent.
A report recently released by the Sierra Club called "Seeing the Forests for their Green," says that there were three main reasons that the timber cutbacks did not effect the economy as predicted:
1. The timber industry does not play a significant, foundational role in the American
economy.
2. The economic importance of the timber industry is shrinking compared to faster growing
industries.
3. Leaving federal forests unlogged has demonstrable, significant positive impacts on the economy from recreation and ecosystem health activities.
[Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at
jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his web site at
http://www.healingourworld.com/]
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/oct2000/2000L-10-27g.html
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