Environmental Teach In

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first National Environmental Teach In, which has since been renamed Earth Day. As Idaho Statesment writer Rocky Barker notes, the Teach In changed the Antiplanner’s life, as I had been interested in becoming an architect but decided to go to forestry school instead.

As I noted two years ago, I had already started my first environmental group — we called it the “Environmental Research Center” –at my high school in 1969. We had perhaps a half dozen active members who went to hearings, wrote letters, and took other steps on land-use and pollution issues. When we heard about the Environmental Teach In, we were ready to take advantage of it, and I suspect we had the biggest teach in at any Portland high school. Speakers included several major politicians, including two future mayors of Portland and two future governors of Oregon, plus experts from state agencies and other sources.


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The Teach In had a profound influence on the Forest Service, as I was not the only person motivated by the Teach In to become a forester. As I recounted in this article in about 1994, before 1974, most forestry school graduates were ruralites with a rural “wise-use” land ethic. After 1974, due to Earth Day, most graduates were urbanites with an urban “preservation” land ethic. By 1990, people that the Forest Service hired after 1974 were reaching positions of power within the agency, which contributed to the 85 percent drop off in national forest timber sales after 1990.

This is just one example of the major influence the Environmental Teach In had on our lives. I still think we face serious environmental problems, but they aren’t the same problems I worried about in 1970. Some of 1970s problems — especially air and water pollution — have been greatly reduced. Others, such as overpopulation, probably aren’t as bad as we thought then considering that population growth has slowed in much of the world. And, of course, I now think that the problems that remain should be resolved using markets and incentives rather than regulation and subsidies. Regardless of my political beliefs, I am grateful to Gaylord Nelson for thinking up the idea of the National Environmental Teach In.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

16 Responses to Environmental Teach In

  1. Scott says:

    It’s a shame how many enviro positions are against human rights, putting a higher priority on other flora & fauna.

    I’v never seen any reason on the importance of any endangered species or certain places to be off-limits, like ANWR. Don’t get me wrong, nature & parks are great, but there are many anti-development stances beyond that. It’s funny that those who really like the suburbs & large yards like nature more than dense city dwellers. Aslo, cars give so much more access to nature than public transit.

  2. bennett says:

    Good post Mr. O’Toole.

  3. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    I do not always agree with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, for it is far too reflexively supportive of the Inside-the-Beltway Republic Party apparat.

    Having said that, there are two good op-eds on the WSJ opinion page today:

    Climate Science In Denial

    Environmentalism as Religion

  4. ws says:

    While water has gotten drastically better, it is still a major, major concern.

  5. Frank says:

    Scott said:

    “It’s funny that those who really like the suburbs & large yards like nature more than dense city dwellers. Aslo, cars give so much more access to nature than public transit.”

    I moved to downtown Portland from a national park. It was a shock, and I don’t know how I survived two years there without a car. Getting to nature, and more specifically nature away from the noise and crowds and stress of a city environment, was extremely difficult without a car. Mt. Saint Helens? Forget it. Mt. Hood? No way. The Gorge? Not without paying a hefty fee to go on a tour, and then solitude would be impossible.

    Now, I live just 10 minutes from the Gorge and its solitude and waterfalls.

    I don’t take public transit any more. Being without a car imprisoned me in the smelly, loud, and crowded cement jungle. Having a car allows me to freely visit nature and experience solitude.

    There is no way I will ever go back.

    Happy Earth Day.

  6. the highwayman says:

    Though Frank you could have just rented a car when you needed one.

    Any ways Earth Day is pretty much hype, I spent the day mostly fighting government & as well as promoting industrial development.

    I am a pro commerce conservative after all.

  7. Frank says:

    the highwayman said: “Though Frank you could have just rented a car when you needed one.”

    Not without a credit card.

  8. Dan says:

    Poor Lindzen. His audience keeps moving down the education scale. Look what he is reduced to these days. Nevertheless, we’re going to need a lot more teach-ins to figure out how to deal with our multifold issues with the ecosystem changes, that’s for sure.

    DS

  9. bja009 says:

    Wow Frank, no credit card? Props to you, man. You’re one of a dying breed.

  10. bennett says:

    I also don’t have a credit card! Props to Frank.

  11. Frank says:

    Thanks.

    I had a credit card in college with a $1000 limit and maxed it out in no time and struggled to pay it off. I learned a lot from that experience.

    A few years later, at the same time I was living downtown Portland, I worked for Wells Fargo credit card services (and had to commute an hour each way on the MAX to Hillsboro) and saw firsthand the sleaziness inherent in the credit card industry.

    My rejection of credit card companies was partially by choice and partially dictated by my low income. Now that I make more money, I still refuse to get a credit card.

  12. Scott says:

    Rent a car for times when it’s needed? (BTW, a debit card works)
    And use public transit for most movement?
    Well, if you want to limit your destination choices.
    Sounds expensive, inefficient & overall a drawback.

    Why not just own a car?

  13. Frank says:

    Having also worked for a car rental company, I know their restrictive rental policies. Most car rental companies will not rent to a local resident with just a debit card. (Alamo will with a round-trip airline ticket.) The few that will (such as Enterprise) require a hefty (about $500) deposit plus the amount of the rental up front.

    I was working for $11/hour plus commission at the time. Rent and food and student loan payments ate up most of my money. I never had enough in the bank to cover a hold of $600, which might persist for up to two weeks. Also hard to afford $160 a month for parking.

    Eventually, I wised up, got my teaching certificate, got a higher paying job, and moved out of expensive downtown. The quality of life downtown Portland is really wretched for low-income people; I had to schlep groceries a mile from Fred Meyer on West Burnside (the closest grocery store) and put up with vagrants, gangs, shootings, frat boy invasions, and incessant cacophony.

    The only way I’d do it again would be in a large condo in a high rise with a great view, parking, and a grocery store across the street. But that’s still out of my budget.

    And that’s why I now live in the suburbs and own a car. I’ve been liberated.

  14. Borealis says:

    There is something about the Manhattan-style living of high rise condos and no car that is just hard to believe is a great environmental lifestyle. I admit I am biased because it seems to be the polar opposite of respecting nature. But I also wonder if there is also some flawed analysis that rates that lifestyle so highly.

    Manhattan certainly could not exist without the cheap labor of immigrants and low-paid people throughout the metro area, so those impacts are implicitly tied in. But also, the heart of Manhattan is world finance, and a large part of that is natural resource development around the world. So part of the profit from trade in fishing, farming, mining, energy, etc. around the world is siphoned off and funding the Manhattan lifestyle. If an analysis included those impacts, then the environmental impact of Manhattan would be off the charts.

    Thus, I have strong doubts that the Manhattan lifestyle is even possible, much less desirable, as a widely used way to reduce environmental impacts of human living.

  15. Scott says:

    Many people want the availability of NYC public transit, without realizing the conditions necessary for that to exist (NY MTA still needs heavy tax support), plus the many negatives, mainly high housing price.

    Manhattan gets a lot of extra taxes with the ~million incoming workers & has fewer expenses with residents too, due to fewer children. That’s true with many core cities. Yet there are claims that tax revenue in high density supports “stuff” (?) in low densities. No specifics are given.

    In higher densities there are higher costs of: living, construction, land, parking, gov (per capita), etc. All opposite of what the dumb-ass-growthers claim.
    How is it that low density is more expensive & paid by “other” (?) ?
    A large majority of the US live in low density.
    A larger portion of the poor live in high density [& in rural also].
    Over a decade ago, Manhattan had a million on welfare.

  16. Ron H. says:

    Dan said:

    “Poor Lindzen. His audience keeps moving down the education scale. Look what he is reduced to these days.”

    Typical Dan: You are unable to refute Lindzen, so you try to insult him AND his audience. I suspect his audience has not so much changed, as grown to include WSJ readers. They should be offended by the elitist, insulting tone of your comment.

    “Nevertheless, we’re going to need a lot more teach-ins to figure out how to deal with our multifold issues with the ecosystem changes, that’s for sure.”

    You’re kidding, right? Do you really think there’s anyone on the planet who hasn’t been exposed to the shrill cries of global warming alarmists by now? What possible purpose would “a lot more teach-ins” serve? Those who don’t believe that drivel by now, won’t likely change their views because of your teach-ins.

    By the way, I had a very positive experience on Earth Day. The supermarket where I shopped was promoting the use of reusable cloth shopping bags by asking each customer if they would like to buy a bag for the NEXT customer. “Pay it forward” they called it. Apparently the customer ahead of me agreed to buy one for me.

    When the cashier advised me that the nice lady ahead of me had bought me a bag, I declined it, reminding her that the resources and CO2 emissions involved in the manufacture of that cloth bag was equal to that required for 100 plastic bags. That meant that if I shopped once a week, it would be almost 2 years before I could start saving the planet. Meantime, I had done more harm that good.

    I also mentioned that I used plastic grocery bags for my trash, and if I didn’t get them with my groceries, I would have to buy rolls of plastic trash can liners.

    I also asked for double plastic to bag my groceries.

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