Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (104 page)

versity Press, 2001); and Spencer Weart,
The Discovery of Global Warming
(Cam
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).

Three classics in the large literature on human population are Paul Ehrlich,
The
Population Bomb
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1968); Paul Ehrlich and Anne
Ehrlich,
The Population Explosion
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990); and Joel
Cohen,
How Many People Can the Earth Support?
(New York: Norton, 1995).

To place my assessment of the environmental and population problems of my city of Los Angeles in a wider context, see a book-length corresponding effort for
the whole United States: The Heinz Center,
The State of the Nation's Ecosystems:
Measuring the Lands, Waters, and Living Resources of the United States
(New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Readers interested in more detailed statements of the dismissals of environ
mentalists' concerns that I list as one-liners may consult Bjorn Lomborg,
The Skeptical Environmentalist
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). For more
extended responses to the one-liners, see Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich,
Betrayal of
Science and Reason
(Washington-, D.C.: Island Press, 1996). The Club of Rome study
discussed in that section of my chapter is Donella Meadows et al.,
The Limits to
Growth
(New York: Universe Books, 1972), updated by Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows,
The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
(White
River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Green, 2004). For the issue of how to decide whether
there are too few or too many false alarms, see S. W. Pacala et al., "False alarm over
environmental false alarms"
(Science
301:1187-1188 (2003)).

Some entries to the literature on the connections between environmental and
population problems on the one hand, and political instability on the other
hand, include: the website of Population Action International,
www.population

action.org

); and Thomas Homer-Dixon, "Environmental
scarcities and violent conflict: evidence from cases"
(International Security
19:5-40
(1994)).

Finally, readers curious about what other garbage besides dozens of Suntory
whiskey bottles drifted onto the beaches of remote Oeno and Ducie atolls in the
Southeast Pacific Ocean should consult the three tables in T. G. Benton, "From castaways to throwaways: marine litter in the Pitcairn Islands"
(Biological Journal of the
Linnean Society
56:415-422 (1995)).

For all of the 12 major sets of environmental problems that I summarized at the be
ginning of Chapter 16, there already exist many excellent books discussing how

governments and organizations could address them. But there still remains the
question that many people ask themselves: what can J do, as an individual, that
might make a difference? If you are wealthy, you can obviously do a lot: for example, Bill and Melinda Gates have decided to devote billions of dollars to urgent pub
lic health problems around the world. If you are in a position of power, you can use
that position to advance your agenda: for example, President George W. Bush of the
U.S., and President Joaquin Balaguer of the Dominican Republic, used their posi
tions to influence decisively, albeit in different ways, the environmental agendas of
their respective countries. However, the vast majority of us who lack that wealth
and power tend to feel helpless and hopeless in the face of the overwhelming power
of governments and big businesses. Is there anything that a poor individual who is neither a CEO nor a political leader can do to make a difference?

Yes, there are half-a-dozen types of actions that often prove effective. But
it needs to be said at the outset that an individual should not expect to make a
difference through a single action, or even through a series of actions that will be
completed within three weeks. Instead, if you do want to make a difference, plan to
commit yourself to a consistent policy of actions over the duration of your life.

In a democracy, the simplest and cheapest action is to vote. Some elections, contested by candidates with very different environmental agendas, are settled by
ridiculously small numbers of votes. An example was the year 2000 U.S. presidential election, decided by a few hundred votes in the state of Florida. Besides voting,
find out the addresses of your elected representatives, and take some time each
month to let them know your views on specific current environmental issues. If representatives don't hear from voters, they will conclude that voters aren't inter
ested in the environment.

Next, you can reconsider what you, as a consumer, do or don't buy. Big businesses aim to make money. They are likely to discontinue products that the public
doesn't buy, and to manufacture and promote products that the public does buy.
The reason that increasing numbers of logging companies are adopting sustainable logging practices is that consumer demand for wood products certified by the For
est Stewardship Council exceeds supply. Of course, it is easiest to influence compa
nies in your own country, but in today's globalized world the consumer has
increasing ability to influence overseas companies and policy-makers as well. A
prime example is the collapse of white-minority government and apartheid policies
in South Africa between 1989 and 1994, as the result of the economic boycott of South Africa by individual consumers and investors overseas, leading to an unprecedented economic divestiture by overseas corporations, public pension funds,
and governments. During my several visits to South Africa in the 1980s, the South
African state seemed to me so irrevocably committed to apartheid that I never
imagined it would back down, but it did.

Another way in which consumers can influence policies of big companies, besides buying or refusing to buy their products, is by drawing public attention to the

company's policies and products. One set of examples is the campaigns against ani
mal cruelty that led major fashion houses, such as Bill Blass, Calvin Klein, and Oleg
Cassini, to publicly renounce their use of fur. Another example involves the public
activists who helped convince the world's largest wood products company, Home
Depot, to commit to ending its purchases of wood from endangered forest regions
and to give preference to certified forest products. Home Depot's policy shift greatly
surprised me: I had supposed consumer activists to be hopelessly outgunned in try
ing to influence such a powerful company.

Most examples of consumer activism have involved trying to embarrass a com
pany for doing bad things, and that one-sidedness is unfortunate, because it has
given environmentalists a reputation for being monotonously shrill, depressing,
boring, and negative. Consumer activists could also be influential by taking the ini
tiative to praise companies whose policies they do like. In Chapter 15 1 mentioned big businesses that are indeed doing things sought by environmentalist consumers,
but those companies have received much less praise for their good deeds than
blame for their bad deeds. Most of us are familiar with Aesop's fable concerning the
competition between the wind and the sun to persuade a man to take off his coat:
after the wind blew hard and failed, the sun then shone brightly and succeeded.
Consumers could make much more use of the lesson of that fable, because big busi
nesses adopting environmentalist policies know that they are unlikely to be believed if they praise their own policies to a cynical public; the businesses need
outside help in becoming recognized for their efforts. Among the many big compa
nies that have benefited recently from favorable public comment are Chevron-
Texaco and Boise Cascade, praised for their environmental management of their
Kutubu oil field and for their decision to phase out products of unsustainably man
aged forests, respectively. In addition to activists castigating "the dirty dozen," they
could also praise "the terrific ten."

Consumers who wish to influence big businesses by either buying or refusing to
buy their products, or by embarrassing or praising them, need to go to the trouble
of learning which links in a business chain are most sensitive to public influence,
and also which links are in the strongest position to influence other links. Businesses that sell directly to the consumer, or whose brands are on sale to the con
sumer, are much more sensitive than businesses that sell only to other businesses
and whose products reach the public without a label of origin. Retail businesses
that, by themselves or as part of a large buyers' group, buy much or all of the output
of some particular producing business are in a much stronger position to influence
that producer than is a member of the public. I mentioned several examples in
Chapter 15, and many other examples can be added.

For instance, if you do or don't approve of how some big international oil company manages its oil fields, it does make sense to buy at, boycott, praise, or picket
that company's gas stations. If you admire Australian titanium mining practices
and dislike Lihir Island gold mining practices, don't waste your time fantasizing

that you could have any influence on those mining companies yourself; turn your attention instead to DuPont, and to Tiffany and Wal-Mart, which are major retail
ers of titanium-based paints and of gold jewelry, respectively. Don't praise or blame
logging companies without readily traceable retail products; leave it instead to
Home Depot, Lowe's, B and Q, and the other retail giants to influence the loggers.
Similarly, seafood retailers like Unilever (through its various brands) and Whole
Foods are the ones who care whether you buy seafood from them; they, not you,
can influence the fishing industry itself. Wal-Mart is the world's largest grocery re
tailer; they and other such retailers can virtually dictate agricultural practices to
farmers; you can't dictate to farmers, but you do have clout with Wal-Mart. If you
want to know where in the business chain you as a consumer have influence, there
are now organizations such as the Mineral Policy Center/Earthworks, the Forest
Stewardship Council, and the Marine Stewardship Council that can tell you the an
swer for many business sectors. (For their website addresses, see the Further Read
ings to Chapter 15.)

Of course, you as a single voter or consumer won't swing an election's outcome
or impress Wal-Mart. But any individual can multiply his or her power by talking to other people who also vote and buy. You can start with your parents, children,
and friends. That was a significant factor in the international oil companies beginning to reverse direction from environmental indifference to adopting stringent en
vironmental safeguards. Too many valuable employees were complaining or taking
other jobs because friends, casual acquaintances, and their own children and
spouses made them feel ashamed of themselves for their employer's practices. Most CEOs, including Bill Gates, have children and a spouse, and I have learned of many
CEOs who changed their company's environmental policies as a result of pressure
from their children or spouse, in turn influenced by the latter's friends. While few
of us are personally acquainted with Bill Gates or George Bush, a surprising num
ber of us discover that our own children's classmates and our friends include chil
dren, friends, and relatives of influential people, who may be sensitive to how they
are viewed by their children, friends, and relatives. An example is that pressure from
his sisters may have strengthened President Joaquin Balaguer's concern for the Dominican Republic's environment. The 2000 U.S. presidential election was actually decided by a single vote in the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision on the Florida vote challenge, but all nine Supreme Court justices had children, spouses, relatives,
or friends who helped form their outlook.

Those of us who are religious can further multiply our power by developing
support within our church, synagogue, or mosque. It was churches that led the civil
rights movement, and some religious leaders have also been outspoken on the envi
ronment, but not many so far. Yet there is much potential for building religious
support, because people more readily follow the suggestions of their religious lead
ers than the suggestions of historians and scientists, and because there are strong
religious reasons to take the environment seriously. Members of congregations can