The Fate of Nature

A science journalism expert who I really respect posted a terrific review on his Knight Foundation blog urging reporters covering the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to read the Fate of Nature. Here is a link and an excerpt:

The book comes out, after six years work, exactly when its lessons and observations on human society, selfishness, cooperation, and nature’s future have a premier news event unfolding to rivet its theme to your bones. … It quickly gets its hooks in deep. You’ll meet unforgettable people, learn things about the roots of conservationism and environmentalism you may not like, and wind up with something on which to loop a thread of hope. From Alaska, a planetary tome.

Appearing on CSPAN’s Washington Journal Saturday morning was fascinating. The spot lasted 45 minutes without a break. It was fast-paced, with questions from the host and from callers. And despite being national and pretty well viewed, it was quite casual in set-up. A small room overlooking the Capitol, cameras that don’t move, a young guy to bring coffee and apply some powder (no make-up or hair person, as unfortunately showed in my case!). Altogether, however, I thought it came out well, covering a lot of material quickly and with different perspectives. Here is the video.

Here’s a spot I did on a morning show in Washington DC. It’s so interesting doing interviews in these different settings, with different kinds of hosts, and trying to get a message across in a few brief responses. This one came across as very emotional.

This editorial in the Anchorage Daily News makes the point I’ve been making in my round of media appearances for my book. Setting up local citizen councils with funds to oversee their own waters, and the oil development therein, is easy and works. It should have been put in place nationwide after the Exxon Valdez. It wasn’t even done effectively in Cook Inlet, right next door. We always seem to address the disaster that’s just happened, not the one that will happen in the future. I hope we get more forward progress on the environment than this from the BP spill, but if we get only one thing, setting up citizen councils across the country would be the most important.

I’m so grateful to the Anchorage Daily News for the beautiful package of five excerpts from The Fate of Nature that they finished publishing today. The material is all collected up on its own page on the newspaper’s website, where you can read three chapters of the book and see pictures that I took and historic pictures researched by their photo editor.

Interesting interview this morning on NPRs Diane Rehm show (I’m about to go on the Kojo Nnamdi show on WAMU here in DC at 1pm). Allen fits the mold of the Coast Guard officer perfectly. They’re like firefighters–strong, earnest, can-go. But not skeptical or analytical. And they’re essentially on the oil company’s side because of the situation they find themselves in. The Coast Guard is nominally in charge, but BP has most of the assets and know-how, so the on-scene coordinator has to ask them to do things. A good relationship is essential for effectiveness, so Coast Guard officers end up sounding like oil company defenders. More deeply, with the guard in charge, it’s reputation is on the line for success. Same as the oil company. They both want the situation to look as good as possibe.

I’ll be speaking, showing slides, signing books and celebrating the publication of The Fate of Nature on Tuesday, June 8, at 7pm at the Wilda Marston Theater at the Loussac Library in Anchorage. Everyone is welcome.

The failure of the top kill procedure on the BP blowout suggests that this disaster may last months, and the damage may be on an unimaginable scale. There’s a responsibility at a time like this to keep aware and vigilent–to avoid letting public attention slip to other matters–and to begin to think about what good can come of such a horror.

The Exxon Valdez spill didn’t lead to as much good as it could have, but two important things happened. The concept of the Regional Citizens Advisory Council came into being in the United States, with a local commission given assured funding to oversee oil industry operations and campaign for improvements. It has working in Prince William Sound better than anyone predicted, and should be expanded all over the country. The other big change was to use money to protect habitat, by buying timber rights and protecting the land.

We should think bigger in the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, when it’s clear how much damage we can do, we need to take action. Passing strong climate change legislation would be a start. But every single person can also make changes. We need to change society itself, and this is a perfect time to begin.

No doubt there are clever political reasons why President Obama for the first month of the BP oil spill essentially took the company line, even himself repeating BP’s absurd point that the size of the spill didn’t matter. But now that the catastrophe is evolving as a worst-case-scenario, those reasons don’t really matter. Obama cannot recover his credibility in the realm of “Oil spill as problem to be solved.” As thick mats of oil smother the coastal marshes, the adminstration has bought this as partly its own disaster.

Oil spill veterans predicted we would get to this hopeless point, when it becomes obvious that there is no solution and that the promises of those in charge are not only empty, but reflect utter ignorance about the scale of the situation. In the coming days as the damage becomes more evident and heart-breaking, we’ll come to another phase, where the public, disillusioned and with eyes open, is ready to look at this and other environmental issues in a new way.

No national leader seized that opportunity after the Exxon Valdez spill 21 years ago. For that brief point in time, almost anything could have been accomplished.

Will Obama seize the moment now? Is it possible from Washington to see what’s really happening, not only in the oil but in the social and pychological world of ordinary people around the country? I’m skeptical that it is–but I also believe that’s the only lasting good that could come from this tragedy.

The scientists working in the Gulf of Mexico, many led by NOAA, are providing the most important information we’re getting, including the shocking discovery of enormous plumes of underwater oil. I learned covering the Exxon Valdez spill that scientists were sources who you could trust and who had answers. But as the spill progressed, that changed. Industry and government officials muzzled scientists, and then the lawyers fighting the oil spill litigation took over direction of their work, which they horribly botched. As I’ve documented in my book, the result was an enormous missed opportunity and wasted research spending of hundreds of millions of dollars. As the spill in the Gulf of Mexico evolves and becomes more organized, as lawyers become central to decisions, and as officials realize how badly the truth can make them look, it will be critical to protect the scientists, their free voices and independent funding, and their ability to direct their own research and ask their own questions.