Beitzel: Cutting through the red tape to get to the green

A Greenpeace activist approached me on the street and asked if I’d like to fight for… A Greenpeace activist approached me on the street and asked if I’d like to fight for the cause. I replied, “Yes. May I have a flier?” She looked at me dumbfounded. “No. We’re Greenpeace.”

Environmentalism is difficult, because there is so much potential for hypocrisy, or at least inconsistency. Not everyone has to be as hard-line as Greenpeace. It’s important to remember that doing little things, like changing to fluorescent light bulbs, is better than doing nothing.

It’s been a bad year to be Gaia. The number of Americans who don’t believe global warming is a problem rose to 42 percent, according to Rasmussen polls. The air in Hong Kong got poisonous this week. The U.N. recently rejected trade bans and protections for polar bears, bluefin tuna and sharks. Tigers are almost extinct. And more children are growing up without access to syndicated episodes of “Captain Planet.”

These are some of the challenges President Obama faces in the coming year. With health care reform accomplished and overhauls in all levels of education underway, the environment represents the third priority in his domestic agenda.

That’s going to be tough without any Republican support. On Monday, Sen. John McCain said, “There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year.” The GOP is putting the Democrats on time-out for using reconciliation on the health care bill. Plus, a new Harris poll suggests that Republicans simply hate Obama. According to the poll, 67 percent of Republicans think he is a socialist, 24 percent said that he “may be the Antichrist” and 38 percent said he is “doing many of the things that Hitler did.”

Go, planet?

These people, or “hatriots” as author John Avlon has termed them, are lunatics with no grasp of history — or decency — but they are loud, and it is an election year. If cap-and-trade seriously makes its way to the Senate floor, prepare for protesters holding signs of polar bears with Hitler moustaches. We all know how much Hitler liked polar bears because of their whiteness. If Obama likes polar bears, then he may be even more like Hitler. It all makes sense when I draw connecting lines. Get Glenn Beck on the horn.

Unfortunately, this means that legislators are less likely to push for environmental legislation. Hard liberals and issue groups like Greenpeace will. But environmental legislation needs wider support.

This week, Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto rallied with environmental activists for better clean-air standards from the federal government.

According to the Post-Gazette, he wants to designate Tuesday as “Clean Air Act Day” in Pittsburgh. Higher air standards are laudable, Mr. Peduto, but Clean Air Act Day? Is that when Pittsburgh celebrates the day we began moving toward having the second most polluted air in the nation?

The American Lung Association ranks Pittsburgh as having the highest number of fine particulates in its air. That doesn’t mean that those particulates are sexy. It means our air is super dirty.

Clean Air Act Day doesn’t solve this problem. It’s lip service. At worst, it will only result in a lot of paper used to publicize it. Tougher federal regulation would help fight the problem, but this too must be more than a myopic stunt. A story in The New York Times details how Allegheny Energy’s effort to reduce its air pollution just resulted in increased water pollution. The wastewater used to trap airborne pollutants is now dumped into the Monongahela River, “which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh,” according to the article.

Meanwhile, Pitt student groups are getting involved in environmental efforts with the Green Fund. Basically, it’s a proposal to start a new group called the Student Sustainable Projects Committee. This group would raise revenue with a $5 per-semester fee from students, donations and recycling revenue and then decide on which projects to spend the money.

This could create some fresh ideas on how to turn Oakland green. Oakland — and Pittsburgh really — needs more bike lanes and a better mass-transit system. But without a plan to spend the money, the Green Fund risks appearing like a naive, feel-good slush fund. Right now, the proposal intends to collect a fee without a plan to spend it. It’s like saying, “We don’t know what we’re doing, but pollution is a problem you should care about, so we’ll take your money in the meantime.”

A better environment isn’t just for white seals and Walt Whitman scholars. It benefits everyone, in health and even possibly in employment.

Same as Peduto and the Green Fund, Obama has to explain why his forthcoming green initiatives are more than just chatter. He has to ensure that they address the beating the earth has been getting, and he has to ensure that they don’t deliver a new beating to an already struggling working class. He cannot allow Americans to think he’s spending their money on vagaries.

He can do this by linking environmental efforts to jobs and the economy. “Tired of paying for gas? Buy the new Chrysler electric car. Here’s a tax credit.” “Tired of taking paycuts to keep your dead-end job? Apply for positions with these green start-ups. Here’s some grant funding.”

Much like an ecosystem, a green economy is complex. It is layered and intertwined within itself. A bustling renewable energy sector creates jobs. Its creative and lucrative nature attracts smart, inspired workers. They expand an industry, which pays federal taxes that can be used to reduce deficits or reinvest in research and development. Better technology and return on investment opens these goods up to consumers. When they’re involved en masse, supporting a green economy with a green lifestyle, proportionate reduction in pollution follows.

Whoa, I’d better pump the brakes. All this trickle-down has got me sounding like a Republican. Or maybe all this green talk has got me sounding like an environmentalist.

But it can’t be both because they’re supposed to be mutually exclusive. Conservatives hate conservation   — almost as much as they hate cooperating with liberals.

E-mail Dave to get his real address for paper mail at drb34@pitt.edu.