by Jeff Gillman
HOW THE GOVERNMENT GOT IN YOUR BACKYARD
HOW THE GOVERNMENT GOT IN YOUR BACKYARD
Superweeds, Frankenfoods, Lawn Wars,
and the (Nonpartisan) Truth
About Environmental Policies
JEFF GILLMAN ERIC HEBERLIG
Copyright © 2011 by Jeff Gillman and Eric Heberlig.
All rights reserved.
Published in 2011 by Timber Press, Inc.
The Haseltine Building
133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450
Portland, Oregon 97204-3527
www.timberpress.com
2 The Quadrant
135 Salusbury Road
London NW6 6RJ
www.timberpress.co.uk
Printed in The United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gillman, Jeff, 1969–
How the government got in your backyard : superweeds, frankenfoods, lawn wars, and the (nonpartisan) truth about environmental policies / Jeff Gillman and Eric Heberlig. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60469-001-9
1. Environmental policy—Political aspects—United States. 2. Agriculture and state—United States. 3. Agriculture and politics—United States. 4. Science and state—United States. I. Heberlig, Eric S., 1970– II. Title.
GE180.G54 2011
363.7’05610973—dc22
2010028452
A catalog record for this book is also available from the British Library.
For Suzanne,
Catherine, and Clare
—Jeff
For Tracy, Colin,
Mena, and Ellie
—Eric
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: Science, Political Science, and the Science of Politics
2: Organic Food: Safer, Friendlier, Better?
3: Pesticides: How Dangerous Is Dangerous?
4: Fertilizers: Good for the Crops, Bad for the Water?
5: Alternative Energy: Is Ethanol Overrated?
6: Genetic Engineering: A Time Bomb Waiting to Explode?
7: Plant Patents: Protecting Plants or Profiteering?
8: Invasive Plants: Kill the Aliens?
9: Legal and Illegal Plants: Why Are the Bad Guys Bad?
10: Local Restrictions: Is Your Backyard Really Yours?
11: Global Warming: Natural or Man-made?
12: Conclusions: Balancing Nature and Politics
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
WRITING A BOOK takes a lot of effort, even when the work is split between two authors. First we would like to thank our families for allowing us the time to work on this project. Evenings and weekends were all too frequently divided between them and chapter revisions. We need to thank Jay Schaefer for taking this book apart and helping us rebuild it into something better, and Peggy Flanagan for catching errors and cleaning the text up so that it reads smoothly. We would also like to thank the fine people at Timber Press for taking a chance on a book that’s a little bit different from what they’re used to, particularly Juree Sondker and Neal Maillet. Jeff is indebted, as always, to Chad Giblin for helping run things while he was busy writing, and also to Eric Watkins, Tom Michaels, Gary Johnson, Alan Smith, and especially Esther McGinnis for their insights into various bits of science used for this book. Eric relied upon Chase Woodall for research assistance.
Introduction
IN A CORNER of Atlanta, a factory quietly relieves itself. Columns of gray smoke billow from its overfull belly, creating the only mark in an otherwise clear blue sky. The population below accepts the factory as a necessary evil. Some people even like the factory, thankful that it provides so many jobs. Some just ignore it. But there is more to the smokestack than meets the eye.
At the top of the tower sits a small box. Invisible to anyone below, the box constantly monitors the tower, day and night, rain or shine. This box tells the people in the factory what comes out of the tower. This box costs a great deal of money to install. It costs a great deal of money to monitor. It will cost a great deal to replace when it breaks, and it will, eventually, break.
The people who run this factory don’t want this box in their tower. It slows them down, catches their mistakes, impedes their progress, and costs them time and money. But most of us outside of the factory are happy that the box is there. We like to know that the factory keeps tabs on the waste that exits the tower—waste that could cause acid rain and global warming, potentially devastating our environment and ruining our health. We like to know that if something is wrong the factory will shut down. We like to think that this makes our lives better. But does it?
In Iowa, stalks of corn grow tall in a field that stretches as far as the eye can see. A farmer sighs and smiles, happy that his plants are strong and prices are good. He didn’t have to spray for insects at all this year, thanks to the seed he planted, which contained new genes that scientists have introduced into the corn, and for which the farmer paid extra money. The fact that he used this corn also means that he won’t be able to save any seed from the corn he grew this year to replant next year. He is confident that having the cure to what were once devastating insect problems is worth it. But is this farmer’s cure worse than the problem it solves?
In a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, a young mother walks into a supermarket intent on purchasing some vegetables for dinner. Her eyes scan to the right and to the left while she picks up a bag to hold the tomatoes she has selected. And then she stops and puts them back. There, just down the aisle, is a bin labeled USDA Organic. She goes over and selects some fine-looking produce, happy that she has avoided exposing her children to carcinogenic pesticides. But has she?
In a Philadelphia suburb, a man enters a nice two-story home and closes the door tightly behind him. He greets his wife, takes out the garbage, and checks the messages on his answering machine. Hearing nothing of consequence, he continues his evening ritual. Entering the basement, he is enveloped by a bright light emanating from a far corner. Walking down the steps he notes how splendidly his crop is growing. There is a constant hum as water and nutrients are pumped into and out of horizontally oriented tubs set against a far wall. Hanging from the ceiling above the tubs is a row of high-intensity lights providing the energy for the crop whose roots dwell in a nutrient solution while its leaves reach for this artificial sun. Only a weed could prosper so well on this herbal equivalent of life support; and weed is exactly what’s growing here, forced into this dungeon because the outside world doesn’t want it around. But is the world singling out this plant unfairly?
For almost 250 years, our government has been involved in making laws that govern the way we live. These laws are intended to make our lives better, our society richer, and our planet safer. Many of these laws are consistent with common sense: don’t kill anybody and don’t take property that doesn’t belong to you. But some are a little kooky: in Pennsylvania it’s illegal to sing in the bathtub, and in New Hampshire you can’t sell the clothes you’re currently wearing to pay off a gambling debt. With some laws it’s immediately obvious that they will have a positive impact, but with others it takes years to discover what their impact will be. Indeed, even after a law’s consequences have been realized some people may still argue whether the law had a negative or a positive effect on our society (do Pennsylvanians benefit or suffer from their lack of bathtub singing?). Governmental policies that deal with our environment almost invariably fall into the latter category. It is the government th
at requires towers to have apparatus for measuring emissions. It is the government that certifies food as organic. It is the government that restricts the growth and sale of genetically modified plants. And it is the government that restricts growing certain plants at all. Are these policies helpful or harmful to our society and environment? There is no single answer, and that, in a nutshell, is what this book is about.
As the government conducts its business, righting our environmental wrongs and helping the economy in the process, something is often lost in the mix: how all these changes affect us, the citizens. This is a shame, because when it comes right down to it, it’s our backyards, lawns, gardens, and even dinners that are at the center of the environmental debate. Something as obscure as how plant patent laws are written and interpreted can affect whether you’re eating genetically modified corn tonight. If the government restricts pesticide use, it’s going to be your backyard that is covered with dandelions. If you live in a neighborhood with restrictions on what constitutes an acceptable lawn, you could go to jail for letting yours die. There is no escaping governmental control. If we don’t appreciate and understand where this control comes from, then we’re not going to be able to do anything about it.
Discussing Politics
They say that there are two things you should never discuss: one is religion, and the other is politics. We beg to differ. We have made our livings as a political scientist and a plant scientist, and these are the realms where we are most comfortable. And within these realms we see misunderstanding and paranoia drive governmental policy toward our environment. This is wrong. Policy needs to be driven by something stronger: facts, and consideration for all sides involved, not just the self-interest of an individual, a company, or even an environmental group.
A person’s politics are, fundamentally, their opinions and thoughts about governmental policy. It is not only appropriate, but also necessary for us to enter into discussions about politics to understand the reasons why policy is made and how policy can affect us and the world around us. So many books are written that promote a political agenda without appreciating the arguments from the other side. This is not one of them. If you like your opinions and don’t think that appreciating the other side of an argument is important, then we encourage you to put this book down right now, because it wasn’t written for you. This is a book for uniters, not dividers. It’s for those of you who want to understand the other side of the argument even though you may not be able to agree with it.
Your political leanings are driven by your values. If you value “naturally grown” foods, then you may cheer when a judge stops the use of alfalfa that is genetically modified so that it can’t be killed by the herbicide Roundup. On the other hand, if you are a farmer who grows alfalfa, then you probably value higher yields and lower costs of production, so you may well find yourself on the other side of this argument. Likewise, if you value food that hasn’t been treated with synthetic pesticides, then you may have been pleased when the government passed a set of rules that dictated what may and may not be used by producers if they are going to sell food as USDA Certified Organic. But if you think that the government’s rules that proclaim a food to be organic do little to promote sustainable, local production of agriculture, you would probably be less enthused about government certification. Or perhaps you don’t care. The silent majority comes into play in almost all policymaking because politicians try their hardest to anticipate what will motivate this large and silent group to act (or more precisely, to vote). Most people don’t know enough to care or don’t care enough to know about many of the policies being made. They just go with the flow. This book is intended for people who want to make educated decisions about where they stand on the environmental policy questions that confront our government today and in the foreseeable future. Making these decisions based on facts that are, admittedly, imperfect isn’t easy to do, but for citizens of a civilized society, it is a necessity.
* * *
This is a book for uniters, not dividers. It’s for those of you who want to understand the other side of the argument even though you may not be able to agree with it.
* * *
Polarized Politics
Unease in talking about politics (or religion) is usually due to a person’s desire to stay on good terms with friends, neighbors, co-workers, family members, or anyone else with whom the person regularly interacts. Politics is contentious and sometimes downright divisive. In fact, there’s good reason to believe that discussing environmental issues has become more difficult for Americans over the past decade because environmental issues have increasingly become a source of division between the Democratic and Republican parties and thus between our associates who align themselves with a different party than we do.
Gallup public opinion polls clearly show how our environmental opinions increasingly reflect our political party affiliation. In 1998, Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to believe that global warming had already had an effect on the environment. By 2009, however, 76 percent of Democrats thought that it had, while Republicans were actually somewhat less likely to think so than they had been a decade earlier (41 percent in 2009 to 46 percent in 1998). Similarly, in 1998, Republicans were only slightly more likely than Democrats (34 percent to 23 percent, a difference of 11 points) to think that the media was exaggerating global warming; by 2009, the difference was 41 points (59 percent of Republicans to 18 percent of Democrats). Where there had once been a mix of pro-environment and pro-development voters in both parties, now pro-environment voters have largely shifted to the Democratic Party and pro-development voters have shifted toward the Republican Party.
This polarization of public opinion on environmental issues has a direct consequence for politicians. If Democratic and Republican voters are dividing sharply on environmental issues, Democratic and Republican politicians need to appeal to very different groups of voters to win nomination for office in party primaries. In Democratic Party primaries, candidates in most areas of the country certainly want to be seen as “green” and to have the endorsements of environmental groups. In Republican primaries, being “green” can be a liability, as the conservative activists and the business and development activists are quite suspicious of the claims of environmentalists and fearful of the costs that government environmental regulations impose. Given our primary system of elections, politicians will polarize in ways similar to the voters.
Back in the “good old days” of greater bipartisan cooperation on the environment, President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, led the charge to protect wild lands from development by creating national parks and monuments. The Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970, during Richard Nixon’s Republican administration, with a strong push from a Democratic Congress. Republican President George H. W. Bush and a Democratic Congress cooperated to pass the 1990 Clean Air Act. But cooperation between the two parties on environmental issues has ebbed dramatically. From 1970 to 1998, the voting records of Democrats were on average only 20 points more pro-environment than those of Republicans on a 100-point voting scale (100 = solidly pro-environment; 0 = pro-pollution), according to the League of Conservation Voters. From 1998 to 2005, however, the 20- point gap became a 70-point gulf. The Democrats consistently attempt to appeal to liberal “green” voters who participate in the Democratic primaries, while the Republicans consistently attempt to appeal to conservative, pro-development voters who vote in Republican primaries.
These trends on the environment mirror a broader ideological sorting of the parties, with Democrats consistently voting liberal and Republicans consistently voting conservative. It’s true that in practice the need to serve one’s constituents can, and often does, trump ideological purism. Although a Democratic senator may be opposed to, say, excessive greenhouse gases as a rule, that same senator would like to minimize the economic impact of a law limiting their production on businesses in his or her state. Similarly, although a Republican senator may be infatua
ted with the idea of letting businesses make their own decisions about handling their toxic wastes, that same senator will aggressively seek government funding to help pay for the cleanup of a spill in their home state. Still, it’s apparent that it’s harder for Democrats and Republicans in Congress to cooperate in making environmental laws because they increasingly see the world very differently and are responding to very different constituencies.
Polarization on the environment is not just a matter of party politics. It’s also based on the fact that the mix of environmental issues that we face has changed. Early environmental laws focused on broad goals that were highly popular—saving scenic places and cleaning the air and water—rather than the means or the costs of achieving them. Today, the problems seem much more complex. If we have difficulty understanding global climate patterns, how can we predict with confidence the ecological and economic effects of our efforts to control them? Genetically modified organisms seem pretty safe at the moment, and they reduce the use of dangerous pesticides, but will we ultimately find that they are “Frankenfoods” that damage human or ecological health? Today’s environmental issues practically define the word uncertainty, which makes decisions hard for those who live in the political world where one wrong move can lose an election.
The result of these changes in American politics is that there are fewer environmental laws being passed by Congress. Political scientists Christopher Klyza and David Sousa (2008) report that only two out of forty-five major environmental laws were passed between 1991 and 2006: the California Desert Protection Act (1994) and the Food Quality Protection Act (1996). In contrast, twenty-three major environmental laws passed between 1964 and 1980. The other twenty laws were passed prior to 1964. Although the writers of the U.S. Constitution wanted to make it hard to pass new laws—to discourage people from using the power of government to benefit themselves at the expense of their neighbors—the way politics is practiced today takes the Founders’ desire for slow motion to extreme lengths.
