Environmentalists Address Priorities

Bob Keller is a retired history professor who has worked on local Greenways campaigns. He currently serves on the boards of Whatcom Land Trust and the Dudley Foundation. His opinions here in no manner reflect policies and beliefs of those organizations.

Social/political discourse in America during the recent election campaign has been damaged by contrived use of language. Instead of thinking and analyzing, we too often shouted slogans and responded to stereotyped labels. Such over-used propaganda terms include “conservative, liberal, right wing, left wing, socialist, reactionary, liar, big government.” If we cannot rationally sort out our everyday language from the trash, we have little chance of understanding each other and perhaps even ourselves.

This applies to the label “environmentalist” which has replaced the traditional tag of “conservationist.” (For some odd reason, the title “conservationist” has never meant being a “conservative.”) Environmentalist now supposedly refers to over-sensitive, naïve persons also known as three-huggers, bird-watchers, animal lovers, campers, kayakers, hikers and bikers among others.

For me, the term environmentalist has a simple, clear definition. It identifies a person who has his or her priorities in order. At the top of my own priority list are clean water, then farmland followed by clean air, in that sequence. Behaviors and laws that enhance protection of our water, food and air are positive; those actions which compromise our three highest priorities must be examined for benefits and impacts, then limited and controlled for potential damage. What benefit is worth destroying potable tap water, healthy fish streams, productive farmland, or worth breathing poisons?

If the return of Lake Whatcom watershed lands from state management in Olympia to local county control protects, much less improves, our drinking water, that alone trumps other possible benefits. Much of my childhood took place at a family cabin on Clear Lake near Eatonville. My father pumped drinking water directly from lake to cabin, no filters, no purification, no problem. When I first began hiking and climbing in the Cascades and Olympics, we drank from clear-flowing mountain streams. No longer. But, unlike 80 percent of the world, in Whatcom I can still turn on a faucet in my home for a drink, then flush it down the drain later with potable water.

Yes, timber harvest from Lake Whatcom’s surrounding hills provides jobs and funding of public education. Which exposes another dirty word — clear-cutting. We must sustain sound logging in Whatcom and Skagit counties, but we also need to reform how we do it. As a method of managing forests, clear-cutting with its destructive side-effects has become obsolete and unnecessary. In southwestern Germany’s Black Forest, for example, the maximum allowable clear-cut is one hectare and even that requires a special permit, yet through selective management Black Forest lumber mills export wood products to many other locations in Europe.

Even more obsolete is our century-old practice of funding school districts through Department of Natural Resources timber revenues. We obviously require good public schools, but above all we want healthy, well-fed, thirsty children who can enjoy breathing deeply during a foot race or while climbing a hill: clean water, safe food, clean air come in first, second, and third.

If that makes me an “environmentalist,” I wear the label proudly.