Values drive eco-groups

I feel compelled to respond to Lincoln Merchant after reading his Sept. 9, editorial "Survival First, Ideals Later." And for the first time in my adult life, I am free to respond without concern for my boss, my clients, or my job. \nThroughout my career, I have been either an environmental regulator or consultant, one of the very people that Merchant would have controlling the environmental movement. The problem is that in any occupation, personal beliefs are necessarily limited by a client\'s concerns. Passion is sacrificed for strategy. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.\nEven with these limitations, I have made small contributions to the environment. But getting things done has not always been easy. Many times, radical - some would say "grass-roots" - environmentalists have aggravated the process. Nasty editorials, unruly public meetings and even traffic delays have been used to thwart my best ideas and efforts. \nI have spent many sleepless nights cursing the naiveté and nerve of these "braying radicals." Noisy environmentalists have cost my clients time and money to address inane and prejudiced ideas. But guess what? Many times, these radicals have improved on my carefully considered plans.\nAs an employee with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, I was responsible for developing permit conditions that would control unregulated toxic air pollution from nine planned garbage incinerators. \nAt the beginning of the process, there was very little interest from the general public. Mainstream environmental groups were relatively silent because they had promoted incineration as a viable alternative to landfills. Incinerator suppliers said pollution control would cost too much and we knew too little about the effects of these toxic pollutants. County officials were pushing for leniency since they had already received grants from another state agency to build their incinerators. I was concerned that the board members would not listen to my recommendations because of the pressure being exerted by these interested groups.\nThen the environmental radicals got involved. They made a big mess of the whole process. They held news conferences and protests. There were chanting people wearing gas masks at board meetings. They said that the effects of toxic pollution would pose a very real risk to those who lived near proposed incinerator sites. They also presented information that recycling was a better way to manage waste.\nIn the end, most of the incinerators were built. But the permits for the incinerators included not only strict toxic air pollution limits, but also required plans to divert mercury-containing materials from the incinerator waste stream. Their initial protests, with new-found public support, ultimately put recycling on the agenda in Minnesota.\nEnvironmental issues can indeed be very vague and seem totally disconnected from our lives. Keeping it that way makes the lives of regulators and corporate leaders very easy. Business interests constantly play on the fear of average Americans at the expense of "uncertain" environmental benefits. Public protest can break this spell of disconnection. It can bring the specific back to the process. \nThe key to environmental progress is not in the presentation of interested parties, but in their ideas and values. The environmental counterculture becomes a contributing subculture not when it, as Merchant says, becomes moderate. It is when their inconvenient "NO!" is attached to a concrete and positive vision of the issues that connects with the general public.