“Seeking the
Greatest Good” is nominally a documentary about Gifford Pinchot (1865-1964),
the first Chief of the United States Forest Service, often regarded as the “father
of American conservationism”. Pinchot was a close ally of President Theodore
Roosevelt, a progressive Republican, and was fired from his position as head of
the Forest Service by Roosevelt´s more conservative successor William Howard
Taft. Pinchot´s family later established the Pinchot Institute for Conservation
to continue supporting large-scale conservation projects of American forests. “Seeking
the Greatest Good” is really an extended pitch for said institute, clearly
directed at prospective donors. It´s interesting…in its own way.
Thus, the documentary
constantly emphasizes Pinchot´s good breeding and high level political
connections, and those of his family. JFK is featured as he was speaking at an
event organized by the Pinchot Institute. “The life of the mind” is said to be
important, as so is a serious commitment to your community and country, “seeking
the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run”. Not a single
colored person anywhere in this production – it´s lily White (and perhaps a bit
green). The Institute is housed in a fancy castle-like building in the lush
countryside. We are clearly dealing with the East Coast liberal establishment
here. It´s also interesting to see how the documentary-makers approach Theodore
Roosevelt. They like his way of using certain prerogatives of the executive
power to quickly rush through the creation of 21 national parks literally at
midnight before Congress knew what was going on. More annoying is the music in
the background, with its “Messianic” flavor.
But OK, I´m
waxing a bit ironic here. Actually, the Institute is doing useful things, too.
The
present-day Pinchot Institute is trying to preserve forests (together with
rivers and lakes) by working closely with the (relatively speaking) smaller
land-owners. The main reason why they sell their forests to big logging
companies is that they can´t afford health care insurance in old age. The
Institute therefore administers a comprehensive health care program for elderly
forest owners, on condition that they don´t sell their land or cut the trees. Apparently,
the health care is ultimately paid for by buyers of carbon offsets! In Vernonia,
Oregon, the Institute has convinced local land-owners to pay 10% of their
carbon offsets to a local fund to attract physicians to provide health care for
the struggling community. Also, they provide biomass for local electricity needs.
The community has built an entirely new community center and a public school thanks
to these efforts. In Delaware, conservation of the Delaware River and its
drinking water is high on the Institute´s agenda.
The
documentary also contains polemic against John Muir and his “preservationist”
perspective – Muir met and befriended both TR and Pinchot back in the days, but
his perspective was radically different. Today, Muir would presumably be
counted among the deep ecologists or primitivists. From a Muir-esque
perspective, Pinchot´s conservationism is really “conserve today, exploit
tomorrow”. The Pinchot Institute believes that Muir´s approach was unhelpful
and would never carry the day in the West, with its strong mining, logging and
cattle-ranching interests. Pinchot-style conservationism, by contrast, could be
sold as a compromise solution which would even benefit the business interests
in the long run. The need for pragmatism, bipartisan consensus and political
unity when dealing with environmental issues is constantly emphasized in this
production. And yes, it was made in 2012.
Today…well, the Pinchot Institute is
actually still trying to sound reasonable and bipartisanish when criticizing the
Trump administration, for instance over its failure to act in support of the
communities devastated by the recent catastrophic fires in California. Since TR
would have challenged Orange Man to a wrestling match to show who´s Alpha, I suppose the Institute should be commended for its moderation!
As for the
issues at hand, they are not simple – we need long-term sustainability to
survive as a species (and as a nation, if you´re American), but we can´t simply
stop using fossil fuels or nuclear power tomorrow morning either, unless a
massive economic collapse followed by a Sino-Russian nuclear first strike
appeals to you. Time will tell if the Pinchot Institute´s pragmatic approach is
the right way to go, and times is running short…
No comments:
Post a Comment