Needed: New Stories About Clean Water

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Author: Guest blogger: Rebecca Wodder
Note: From time to time, we are lucky enough to have guest bloggers on the habitat blog. Today, Rebecca Wodder shares her thoughts following the recent mid-term elections. Rebecca Wodder is a member of the Board of Directors of River Network, a national association that empowers local river champions, and served for more than 16 years as President of American Rivers. Rebecca was also River Network's 2014 Compton River Achievement Award Winner.

The results of Election Day 2014 don’t bode well for effective action to avert the climate crisis and protect our clean water supplies. When asked what he will focus on accomplishing, expected Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell prominently mentioned approving the Keystone XL Pipeline as one of his first priorities. And in my home state of Nebraska, where farmers, ranchers and conservationists banded together to protect the Ogallala aquifer from potential contamination by pipeline spills, Governor-elect Pete Ricketts strongly supports the project’s construction.

In analyzing election results, pundits pointed to polls showing that a large majority of Americans don’t like the direction that the country is headed. As a nation, we are also quite distressed about the problems we are passing off on future generations of Americans. I count myself among this dissatisfied and distressed majority and believe that we should be heading in a very different direction, to create a more resilient society. For example, I disagree with many national politicians that extracting oil from Canadian tar sands, moving it via the Keystone pipeline, and continuing down the dead-end path of fossil fuel dependency is the right way to go. Instead, we need to stop polluting our atmosphere with more and more carbon, and get very serious about addressing now-urgent climate threats, including extreme droughts, floods, and wildfires. In place of political dithering, we need an upwelling of civic leaders, young people, and local communities banding together to protect both close-to-home places they love and planetary systems that sustain human life.

Naomi Klein observes, in her new book, “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate,” that most of the time, fights over extracting, transporting and burning fossil fuels are really about protecting our sources of clean water. That means that local river and watershed groups have a key role to play in shaping our national response to the climate crisis and securing a livable future for our children. Across America, these community-based organizations have succeeded in working together to protect the watery places they love and the natural hydrological systems that support their community’s economy, public health and safety, and the quality of life they enjoy and want to pass on to their children and grandchildren. In addition to restoring some of their natural capital, these communities also expanded their social capital – their ability to collectively solve problems and make progress.

In her book, Klein points to a Grist article that appeared shortly after the 2012 elections (Jan. 9, 2013). Entitled “Climate-Proofing Cities: Not Something Conservatives Are Going to be Good At,” writer David Roberts, observes, “the ingredients of resilience [are] overlapping social and civic circles, filled with people who, by virtue of living in close proximity and sharing common spaces, know and take care of one another. The greatest danger in times of stress or threat is isolation. Finding ways of expanding public spaces and nurturing civic involvement is not just some woolly-headed liberal project – it’s a survival strategy.”

Klein also references the work of University of Oregon sociologist, Kari Norgaard, who observes that “a great deal of the work of deep social change involves having debates during which new stories can be told to replace the ones that have failed us.” Local river and watershed groups are writing new stories that inspire us and point the way to a new path, one that is sustainable and fair. For example, River Network recently honored Margarita Diaz Lopez for her sustained efforts on behalf of water quality protection in the coastal community of Playas de Tijuana and throughout Baja California. Over the past 13 years she has mobilized more than 35,000 volunteers; coordinated the removal of nearly 200 cubic tons of trash; trained over 400 youth leaders; and become a guiding citizen in coordinating efforts to protect not just the region’s beaches, but all streams, creeks and waterways in the Tijuana River Watershed.

So, this is my post-election pep-talk for river-loving friends and colleagues in countless communities across America . As you ponder the challenges of the next few years, the prospect of continued political gridlock in Washington, or even worse, backsliding from our national commitment to protecting clean water and wild rivers in order to keep feeding our addiction to fossil fuels, know that through your work, you are writing new stories that will eventually replace the old, failed old ones, and that you are developing the civic leaders and social capital that will support a viable survival strategy for us all.

http://www.rivernetwork.org/blog/11/...ut-clean-water


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