The Myth of the Spotted Owl or Let's Make Some Money

In 1986 a group of environmental activists commissioned the US Fish and Wildlife commission to save the spotted owl, a dark brown owl with white spots that had made it’s home in the lush old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, saving the owl could mean putting thousands of people out of work, who’s livelihoods depended on the logging industry. The two sides were diametrically opposed and, to make matters worse, each measured success by an entirely different rubric, with species and ecosystems on the one hand, and jobs and profits on the other. Compromise was impossible because one side couldn’t stand the thought of a beautiful species lost forever and the other couldn’t stand to see men loose their livelihoods over something as insignificant as a few birds.

In many ways, the opposite sides in our current environmental debate continue to see the conflict in these stark black and white terms. Depending on where you get your news the two sides might be described as:

A group of bleeding heart liberals, most of whom have never worked a day in their lives and have no idea whatsoever of the value of a dollar or the kind of labor necessary to put the clothes on their backs and gas to go in their VW Buses.

and

The soulless elite, too obsessed with lining their already bloated bank accounts to see the ravages they are inflicting upon the earth.

There are people like this in the world, to be sure, but most of us live somewhere in the middle. Most environmentalists, believe it or not, have jobs, families and credit card bills. Most of them like making money and wouldn’t argue with making a little bit more. Few businessmen enjoy looking out at a smoggy horizon, and few are looking forward to a planet ravaged by climate change. Most of us care about our environment and our bank account and most of us believethat we have to choose between them.

That is a lie.

Are there areas where environmental concerns come into direct conflict with economic ones? Absolutely. But there are also many ways that the proper environemental choice is the best economic choice.

Here’s an example. For the last 32 years the American big three auto makers have fought tooth and nail against the CAFE standards which would force them to produce more fuel efficient automobiles. They argued that these cars would be too expensive to produce, cut into corporate profits (which would effect millions of stock holders) and result in the loss of tens of thousands of American jobs. The car lobby has been extremely successful in reducing (or getting around CAFE standards). At the same time, European and Asian car companies were focusing on making more fuel efficient cars. The result? The big three are in big trouble. General motors, one of the worlds largest companies, has been loosing billions and thousands of American auto workers have lost their jobs. Imagine what would have happened if The Big Three had gotten behind higher fuel standards 30 years ago, rather than fighting them.

And what about the cars we bought? One of the way the auto manufacturers got around the CAFE standards was to classify SUV’s (the biggest auto boom of the 90’s) as trucks which didn’t have to meet the same stringent fuel efficiency requirement. Millions of SUV’s were sold. I bought one myself. We all know that gas guzzling SUV’s are bad for the environment but how are they on the pocketbook? That answer has become far more obvious as gas prices have risen towards four dollars a gallon.

Hurting the environment has made us poorer.

We are, today, absolutely dependent up on fossil fuels the, price of which, as limited resources, will continue to grow. As the cost of oil, coal and natural gas increases we will grow poorer unless we can find a way to change. Sustainable energy sources, solar wind, biomass etc. are currently more expensive than fossil fuels. However, as technology advances, those power sources will only grow cheaper and those who invest in them will grow richer.

It is true that a coal power plant is far cheaper to build than a solar or wind plant of similar size. However, once the plants are built the coal plant must buy coal to produce electricity while the fuel for the sustainable plants is free. It is the difference between renting an apartment and buying a house. In the long run, one produces wealth while the other only costs money. Sustainable power is money in your pocket.

Will a move to sustainable energy cost some jobs in the fossil fuel industry? It will. However, far more jobs will be created elsewhere. The sustainable energy industry have exploded in the last few years creating thousands of jobs. Imagine how many people we could put to work in this country by requiring that all future expansion in energy usage come from sustainable energy?

We all know how destructive a culture of consumption is to our environment. From Landfills filled with discarded electronics and plastic bottles to factory’s spewing smoke into our atmosphere, from strip mining to the destruction of our rainforests, our planet, no matter how vast, has a limited number of resources and can only absorb so much abuse. However, consumption is the engine that drives our economy. If we stop buying, we are told, our economy will collapse.

However, the reality is, that, for most of us, our culture of consumption does not create wealth. It destroys it. The axiom, “The more you buy the less you have,” is more true today than ever, particularly when much of what we purchase is almost instantly obsolete. This is the difference between consumption and investment. Consumption gives momentary pleasure. A meal that you consume is gone in a few minutes. A stylish outfit ceases to have value as soon as it is out of fashion. A cutting edge cellphone or camera will be obsolete in a few years..

The more you buy the less you have.

I’m not saying that all consumption is bad. On a basic level we must consume to survive but a culture of consumption is a road to poverty not wealth. The path to wealth is to make sure that what we invest our money in has real real value, not just in the pleasure of the moment, but for the future. And remember, many of the great joys in life, conversation, sports, nature, family, friends, can be had with a minimal cost to the environment or your pocket book.

Even the big corporations, the traditional enemies of the environmentalists, are beginning to make environmentally friendly decisions. Wall-mart, the symbol of American consumerism, has announced an initiative to reduce energy usage in its existing stores by 20% and in new stores by 35%. Google, who’s server farms consume as much electricity as a small city, is developing a system which they hope will produce 100% of their energy sustainably in the next five years. And even the venerable General Motors, who’s gas guzzling Humvee is the bane of most environmentalists, is pouring tremendous resources into their new plug in hybrid, The Chevy Volt, which they hope will stanch the corporate bleeding and bring them back into the black.

Are they doing this out of a sense of planetary consciousness or merely as a public relations move to placate the growing concern over the environment? For now, I don’t think the motives matter and if big corporations learn they can make more money being environmentally friendly, so much the better.

The truth is that the pursuit of sustainability doesn’t mean that all the corporations and people of the world will make less money it merely means less money for the same people. The building companies who fear innovation will no longer be able to compete in a world where energy, livability and sustainability are as important as an attractive facade. Manufacturers who continue to follow the paradigm of unlimited resources will find themselves out thought and out competed by new companies with new ideas. And the oil companies, who have made record profits as the price of oil has skyrocketed, will see their profits and political influence decline when they can no longer hold an oil-dependent world ransom.

The fight to save the spotted owl might have been a worthy cause but it left behind it an America, and perhaps a world, which perceived a stark division between the environmentalist and economist, the nature lover and the money lover. What we have failed to see, perhaps, is that the most powerful transformative force on earth, the human race, is not removed from the natural world but is rather a part of it and that a healthy economy is directly dependent upon a healthy ecology.

The forces of the economy, like those of nature, are not interested in our good intentions. They are only interested in what works. Destroying the only planet we have, like counting money in a burning house, is a fool’s business plan.

My hope, is that perhaps someday in the future, it will not be a coincidence that the color of money, in this country is green.