Organized society would collapse quickly without rules. If you doubt it, try living in a country that has few rules or that enforces them randomly and arbitrarily. Rules operate for good or bad, but you have the power to change them.
“We learn that glaciers are melting and sea levels are expected to rise due to global warming – and in response we are advised to ride a bicycle to work.”
Nations, regions and towns create and change rules to protect natural resources, and to prevent pollution and destruction. Such rules don’t appear spontaneously. Organizations, people and coalitions fight for them. Corporations hire lawyers and lobbyists and contribute to political campaigns. People and coalitions protest, write letters and meet with lawmakers. Yet only a few citizens participate in collective activism. Instead, most people take isolated, individual action; they recycle, ride a bike to work or install solar panels. Working in harmony, they make a difference. However, sustainability won’t come from individual actions, but from changing social rules so everyone’s behavior changes. People must act big, act together and move fast.
“The transition to sustainability requires transforming the rules we live by.“
Are Pesticides OK?
Country doctor June Irwin lives in the Canadian town of Hudson near Montreal, Québec. In 1985, she became convinced that pesticides harmed her patients and everyone else in Hudson. She petitioned the town council and persisted for six years until a sympathetic mayor took office. In 1991, Hudson enacted a municipal-wide ban on nonessential use of pesticides. Lawn care and pesticide company lawyers argued that towns had no right to ban pesticides. Ultimately, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Hudson’s new rules. Towns and cities across Canada passed similar and even stricter rules. By 2010, legislation keeping areas pesticide free protected 75% of Canadian citizens. “Stunned” by the Canadian court decision, a coalition of pesticide interests in the US convinced “all but a handful” of US states to enact preemptive laws that forbid local governments from even trying to control pesticides. As a result, many American children play in toxic parks and on poisoned lawns.
“Rules and routines allow us to move through a complex world without subdividing our attention to the point of mental paralysis.”
LEED: Improving Building Design
The potential for change is real and substantial. Large-scale social reform is possible. Consider the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standard, referred to as LEED. Builder David Gottfried wanted to build environmentally friendly buildings. After working with the American Association of Testing and Materials (ASTM) for five years, he left and, with other leaders, formed the US Green Building Council, which developed the LEED standard in 1998. Builders around the world adopted it quickly. By 2010, one-third of all commercial buildings built in the US adhered to LEED requirements.
“If rules are to last, rather than be jettisoned at the first sign of waning support, the new rules must enjoy the support of diverse constituencies.”
Five years of effort means spending a lot of time to get something done. People, governments and organizations often prefer not to devote that much dedication and money to matters that benefit others. Persuading people, organizations and government officials to get on board may require offering them incentives or showing how acting to protect the environment would benefit them.
“The race to save the Earth will be won or lost one country at a time, as a result of political decisions made in almost 200 sovereign nations and their willingness and ability to implement reforms.”
The legacy of existing processes and rules creates a barrier against change even when change makes rational sense. Entrenched bureaucracy, standard operating procedures and habitual behavior prevent organizations from generating reforms or moving very quickly. “Businesses resist change and cling to the idea that ‘we’ve always done it this way’.” Governments institute rules to address one-off problems, but rarely address underlying issues. Despite the tendency of those in power to resist change, reformers can succeed through organized, collective efforts. They must align their desired changes with the self-interests of those who influence or make the rules.
“What we see might be a farmer in Brazil setting fire to a patch of forest to make way for cattle. But underlying this seemingly local and personal decision is an elaborate system of national rules shaping the farmer’s decisions.”
Conflicting Interests Can Stymie Change
Sustained environmental protection needs the teeth of social rules, as well as laws and regulations. Most people, despite their good intentions, can’t keep activist momentum going forever. After successful change, most reformers return to their normal activities instead of safeguarding their gains. Activists must institutionalize changes by establishing rules and laws that may be difficult to pass but that would be more difficult to undo. The visionaries responsible for the US Bill of Rights, for example, saw the need for societal rules to protect citizens’ rights. Enshrining the rules in fundamental law ensured their lasting influence.
“The old adage to think globally and act locally is just plain wrong.”
The paths of migratory birds, such as the cerulean warbler, illustrate the international tangle of rules that affect birds, people and the environment. The tiny blue warblers journey north from their winter home in Peru through the rain forests of Columbia and Central America, encountering both deforestation and bird sanctuaries, depending on the jurisdiction. By the time they cross the Gulf of Mexico, they form part of a massive cloud of migratory birds – more than one million each day – that cross into the US. There, myriad rules affect the warblers’ environment as they fly to their breeding grounds in West Virginia.
”Placing a solar panel on your home is a positive step; placing a requirement for renewable energy in government legislation is an outright sprint.”
Lax environmental rules there mean sparse tree cover, and that is hastening the loss of cerulean warblers worldwide. Despite a 75% decline in the birds’ population since 1975, authorities in the US won’t enforce existing laws to preserve it. Ironically, powerful industry groups remove West Virginia judges and politicians who fail to protect the interests of powerful, local coal companies.
“Whether we choose to notice them or not, social rules pervade every aspect of our lives.”
Innovative Solutions
The odds seem stacked against environmental reform, yet advocates and their government allies often succeed by using persistence and innovation. For example, in the late 1970s, after decades of citizen activism, the US government determined that leaded gasoline drastically harms the environment and people’s health. The government imposed gradually increasing limits on leaded gasoline along with “tradeable permits“ that allowed the producers who reduced their usage most quickly to sell their permits to laggards. This win-win strategy gave producers an incentive to go quickly beyond mere compliance. By using clever incentives and enlisting industry to police itself, the government saved “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“Every business and every community, every religion and nonprofit organization, every terrorist network, taco vendor and art museum relies on social rules to achieve its ends.”
Governments use citizen activism to help enforce environmental rules. For example, in the US and South Africa, any citizen can sue anyone, including government agencies, for violating or failing to enforce the law. Now, US citizens bring three-quarters of all environmental court cases.
“Rules and creativity are not at odds – they are, in fact, close allies.”
Rules Do Work
Good laws enable commerce to operate smoothly, while corrupt governments impede business. In Peru and Kenya, democracy and capitalism struggled for decades. In contrast, professional, capable civil services vaulted Singapore and South Korea into prosperity.
“Lasting change requires modifying the very rules that societies live by.”
Even in advanced economies, however, rules often create perverse incentives. For example, the price of gas in the US doesn’t factor in the cost of stationing troops in the Middle East to protect oil transports. Likewise, the cost of electricity doesn’t pay for the environmental damage that coal mining causes, including the emissions from burning coal. If consumers paid these costs directly, they would have an immediate, pressing incentive to switch to alternative energy sources.
“Those…who assume that power is unassailable are controlled and manipulated with great efficiency because we impose constraints on ourselves, relieving those in power of the burden of responding to a coordinated challenge.”
Oil, gas and other industries fight regulations, arguing that the compliance costs harm them unfairly. But regulations can spur innovation that benefits industry in the long run. New laws may spur fresh production methods that save money and make businesses more competitive.
Who’s Got the Power?
Multinational corporations and international nonprofits play an important role in harming or advancing environment causes, but they cannot match governments’ influence and power, especially national governments, which make the rules that everyone must follow.
Top democracies often perform little better than dictatorships in protecting the environment. A political party or ruler’s length of terms in office matters, because the longer a party or regime retains power, the better the chances are that its environmental reforms will take root. Wise activists enlist the support of many lawmakers and affected populations. For example, officials are more likely to enforce a national government’s regulation of a wildlife preserve if local peer pressure also discourages violators. In such cases, political winds can shift without undermining local support.
Environmental efforts wax and wane as political parties and regional authorities exchange power. In the US, decades of environmental leadership from the 1960s to the 1990s gave way to governments that tend to oppose environmental protection initiatives at home and abroad. The US has become one of the developed world’s worst actors. In other nations, short-term initiatives start and stop based on political realities revolving around gaining and keeping power.
Action and buy-in are necessary on all levels Environmental activis ts must work to influence their governments. National and international bodies should coordinate with local and regional parties to make sure that good rules are instituted and enforced. However, at present, no international body has the teeth to enforce ecological or climate rulings. The UN, Interpol, the International Criminal Court, and other bodies can’t do very much when nations simply ignore their edicts.
The European Union
As a central government that speaks for 27 nations, the European Union represents unprecedented international unification and cooperation. Its accomplishments include environmental rules protecting the air and water; regulations on food, waste and toxins; and rules setting an allowable volume of emissions. The EU represents the best hope for improving current laws and gaining cooperation among a number of sovereign nations.
Generally, such power resides chiefly at the national level. The growing influence of transnational bodies, such as the EU, runs concurrently with local and regional gains within nations. National governments increasingly cede authority to these governments, so local politics and activism play an indispensable role in conservation and sustainability.
Cooperation Is Critical
Ecologist Garrett Hardin wrote about the “tragedy of the commons” in 1968. He argued that any shared resource – pasturelands or ocean fisheries, for example – invariably suffers depletion. Everyone benefits individually from exploiting a resource while the overall population suffers just as much from its destruction. People grab what they can, as fast as they can, while they can. Hardin ignored thousands of years of successful management of the commons – mostly at the local level – conducted by cooperating citizens who voluntarily adhered to rules and quotas.
In general, local decision making seems to work. For example, in the US, state governments take responsibility for implementing federal pollution standards and may improve them if they wish. Two-thirds of US states voluntarily exceed federal standards, largely because of citizen activism. Where citizens don’t participate, state politicians place much less priority on the environment. Politicians avoid risk, but they crave visible wins to maximize their chances of re-election. As decision making devolves to local governments, local successes will show politicians what’s possible and will inspire more action.
“Controlling the Rule-Making Process”
Super rules determine what political bodies are empowered to discuss and change, and who gets to speak. Before a group makes rules, its participants must agree to super rules that determine the nature of their interaction, what they can discuss and who is allowed to speak. Super rules outline the methods on hand “for bringing about change in the world.” In some authoritarian nations, rule makers imprison, torture or even kill environmentalists. Such governments create rigid parameters to constrain activism. Even in democracies, powerful parties forestall challenges by withholding information or by creating preemptive rules so issues don’t surface. To attain their goals and gain a share of power, citizens must change the super rules.