The Environmental Movement and Rivers

Ben Mackay

During a cloudless July day last summer in Montana, I was on the East fork of the Gallatin River not catching any fish. With no luck, my concentration shifted from fishing to a different topic. There are two rivers in the environmental movement. The first is a mountain stream which feeds into all other major rivers. It flows fast and straight out of the steep mountains, but reaching the gradually sloping low-land fields, it slows to a meandering brook — constantly changing course. It dries up when the snow is gone. It’s called the Litigation and Legislation Stream.

The second river of the environmental movement draws its water from all sources including a portion from the Litigation and Legislation Stream. It’s a wide river with extreme, silent power and its course changes slowly. However, its flow is constant and will never dry up. This river is called the Emotional and Empathetic Grass Roots River.

The environmental rivers are in peril. No longer do people pay attention to the Emotional and Empathetic Grass Roots River. People change when affected by the Litigation and Legislation Stream. In other words, people aren’t making decisions based on personal ethics relating to the environment. Rather, they look at the rules and act accordingly. This action creates a parent-child relationship.

The law becomes the parent telling us what to do; in America, people do what they want, when they want. We are the children—constantly defying the rule our parents put in place for our protection. In other words, we are trying to get around the laws that were put in place because our personal ethics weren’t strong enough to protect the environment. External pressures such as economics and need for acceptance prey on our ethics, dictating our decisions. We are in a dangerous position as Americans whose actions are checked by laws rather than internal knowledge of what’s right. Laws are there to keep us on the right track, but sometimes following the laws is like eating roadkill - it’s not your best option. Where laws fail, there must be conscience to take over; this conscience is what we lack.

What is diverting people from doing the right thing? I’ve identified two powerful external pressures or tools which are creating the diversion; there may be more. The first tool is economics. Unarguably one of the most powerful forces of change relating to human culture. The vernacular source for life support. When people become successful after playing the economics right, their choice of how to spend that money plays into the second tool.

Personal Image and Social Acceptance is the second tool. Less well known, when Personal Image and Social Acceptance is combined with economics, the power is greater than the ‘Dark Side’; not even Luke Skywalker could resist it. In most cultures, people hold personal image above all else. People want to be cool, good-looking and successful. The weak point of the Personal Image and Social Acceptance tool is in how its core values are defined. What makes someone cool? What is good looking? What constitutes successful? The answers to these questions make up the definitions of the American Personal Image and Social Acceptance tool. These definitions drive American people to purchase a certain good over another, behave a certain way or even pick a certain career path. These definitions impact our ethics and conscience without us making a conscious decision. The definitions can drive someone against his morals if he isn’t careful.

Americans need to change the current definitions in order to acquire a different environmental ethic. To create real change American attitudes must be changed so it is no longer cool to drive an SUV, buy up land and subdivide it or use a Jet Ski on the Yellowstone River. This will float America on the Emotional and Empathetic Grass Roots River. No longer will people be fighting for ways around the law — the law will come from within. The masses will be doing the right thing because of their personal ethics which are supported by the personal image and social acceptance tool.

So, let your emotions well-up inside you like water from a perpetual spring. Do what’s best for the land, express those emotions, tell people what you think and feed the Emotional and Empathetic Grass Roots River.