Q&A with JK and THK about “This Moment on Earth”
Amanda Griscom Little of Grist got to do what many would like to do. Sit down and talk with John and Teresa about their new book. Here are some of the questions she asked.
When you’ve finished reading, please add the questions you would like to ask about “This Moment on Earth” in the comments and I’ll pass them along.
<!AGL: There are so many topics that you could have covered on the heels of your 2004 election experience. Why did you decide to focus on the environment?
JK: It presents the most important challenges in front of us.
AGL: Can you elaborate? There are certainly plenty of politicians and Americans who would argue that the war is the greatest challenge in front of us.
JK: Global climate change is a security issue on a planetary scale. There are millions of lives that may be impacted by it. But it’s not just climate change that presents critical challenges—it’s overfishing, it’s acidity in the oceans, it’s the mercury in our lakes, streams, and rivers that contaminate our fish. What does it say about a country like ours when 40 percent of our rivers, lakes, and streams are too polluted for fishing or swimming? Our water bodies and air quality are challenged beyond any point in our history. It’s a disgrace, and it’s a challenge to all of us to get it right.
AGL: Your book is very hopeful. What inspired you to write a hopeful book at a time when the challenges are so vast?
JK: This is not at all a Chicken Little doomsday deal. There are tremendous economic opportunities in addressing these problems, climate change in particular. Here you can improve the environment and public health, but also create jobs and strengthen national security. The potential economic byproducts of addressing this issue are enormous. Not only that, the tipping point is near.
THK: The 2004 election convinced both of us of the need to connect the dots for people—between the threats, the solutions, and all the concerned citizens who are working to reverse our downward course. We met so many wonderful people while campaigning who were tackling all different kinds of environmental challenges, and creating solutions at a grassroots level. We were very moved by this hopeful surge of activism. [...]
AGL: The activists you spotlight embody what you call a “bottom-up” approach to environmental activism. You argue that it’s more effective than a “top-down” approach. How so?
THK: Whenever we’ve had systemic and sustainable change in this country, it’s because the grassroots has been ready to accept it. Top-down activity from the government cannot take root unless there’s bottom-up acceptance. In other words, I don’t think the feds can implement aggressive, massive change unless there’s a readiness at the ground level. I think we’re at that moment right now.
JK: You’re going to have to do both. You can’t deal with global climate change unless there’s a government policy to have carbon priced, to have an economy-wide cap, to create incentives for capital to flow toward solutions. But the pressure to make all that happen is going to come more from the bottom up. That’s what spurred the first environmental movement in the 1970s when we got the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, marine mammal protections, and all those other laws. We believe that a similar explosion of grassroots activity is happening today.
AGL: It seems to me that the common thread that unites most of the activists you profile is environmental justice, and yet that term only comes up in a few instances in your book. Why did you decide not to use that as a unifying phrase?
JK: Many of the people we spoke with didn’t consider themselves “environmentalists” or part of any particular movement—they just thought they were making a commonsense choice between right and wrong. We’d ask, “Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?” And they’d invariably say, “Not really,” or “No, I don’t,” or “I never think about it.”
Ultimately, we believe, the labels are not important. In fact, the labels can sometimes get in the way—they tend to polarize and isolate. What we want to do is prove that this is inclusive around a bigger set of values and principles that people can all embrace.
You can read the complete interview at Grist. When you have, come back and let me know what questions you have for JK and THK. I’ll pass them along and we’ll put up the answers next week.
6 Comments
New comments for this entry are closed.
I was part of a conversation with Senator Kerry today about his new book.
You can read about it here:
<a href=“http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/2007/03/john_kerry_and_.html”>http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/2007/03/john_kerry_and_.html</a>
Senator and Mrs. Heinz-Kerry,
First, please allow me to say it was a wonderful book. You listed several ideas for how to solve the prblem. I was wondering, if there was one thing you wanted everyone in America to do, what would it be?
Thanks a lot,
Thomas Senecal
The Senator makes an excellent point about the economic benefits that corporations are beginning to realize by addressing environmental issues. We are missing out on opportunities to strengthen our country’s economy if we allow other nations to take the lead on inventing a way out of dependence on nonrenewable energy sources.
But it’s not just an economic issue for countries and corporations. Individuals can invest in saving the planet.
I had a really tough time trying to explain to my financial advisor that I wanted to invest in ‘socially responsible funds’, and when I finally pointed him to a place to find them, many of the funds included oil company stocks and others that weren’t quite what I had in mind.
I fully understand that it’s the function of a fund manager to put together investments that make sense economically for the investor, but I also know there are good companies out there, and the managers of these funds should be able to come up with something that’s both financially and morally sound. I found a couple that were acceptable, but none that were exactly what I wanted.
I’m not one to give out financial advice (because I’m terrible at it), but I do know that investing in companies that are environmentally friendly is a good long term investment in a way that’s more important to many of us than a quick financial return.
If you’re an investor, even a small time one like me, check to see where you’re putting your money and weigh your options.
By the way, the blog post that Rev. Currie provided the link to a couple of comments upthread has a podcast recording of the conference call that Senator and Mrs. Kerry held with a group of bloggers yesterday. It’s well worth listening to what he and she have to say in real time for yourselves as well.
Opportunity to put Environment & Sustainable Development on the table during the Presidential Campaign
Dear Senator Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry,
It is interesting that you point to the media in terms of not picking up on the efforts you made to address environmental problems during your run for the Presidency. I doubt that it was the media that failed in this regards however. It is a matter of creating a context. In order words perhaps you and your campaign just did not take the steps needed in order to make the environment and sustainable development a major issue in the campaign. And unless someone makes a sufficient effort now, it is likely that this will happen again - the same as it did in 2000 during the Gore campaign as well as in 2004.
However, we still do have a major opportunity that the Democrats have continued to ignore to put the issue of the environment and sustainable development squarely on the table. All of the UN Member States agreed during the World Summit on Sustainable Development not only to create a National Strategy for Sustainability but also to begin to implement it by 2005. The Clinton Administration took some first steps in this direction in response to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit with the work of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, but nothing has been done on this since.
You have rightly now begun to talk about major challenges that we must face, such as the health of our lakes and waterways, the toxic pollutants that are killing both people and the natural environment, and the depletion of our natural resource base as we throw away billions of tons of wastes each year. If you had drawn attention to these problems linked with the need for creating a robust National Strategy for Sustainability in order to overcome them, the media could not have ignored these matters and Bush would have looked like the lying hypocrite that he is in regards to most environmental issues.
So, I ask, what better time than now to draw attention to the commitment that the US government made, along with all of the others, to create and begin to implement a National Strategy for Sustainability and to ask each of the Presidential Candidates what they will do to see that this happens. Thus, would you be willing, Senator Kerry and Mrs. Heinz Kerry, to work with me and with the US Citizens Network for Sustainable Development along with other environmental organizations to introduce legislation in Congress that would require the US government to create a National Strategy for Sustainability - building off of the work that was begun by the President’s Council for Sustainable Development during the Clinton years and to use this as a springboard to draw much more attention to these issues?
If so then you, and/or your staffs, can contact me via the email address provided with this post, or through the website linked to from my name.
Thank you,
Rob Wheeler
US Citizens Network for Sustainable Development
World Movement for Global Democracy
no access to TV out here in the boonies of Cape Cod, in the land of 24/7 work schedule, so I’m hoping and pleading that the heroes of johnkerry.com can somehow come up with a link for the Bill O’Reilly interview. .any chance?