Above, Panelists Terry Kellogg and Daniel Katz with moderator Bryan Walsh, center, at the SXSW Eco conference held in Austin Oct. 7-9.

Oct. 15, 2013

The future of the green movement in the U.S. is by no means assured, warned two panelists at the SXSW Eco conference in Austin last week.

In their conference-wide address, Terry Kellogg, the Chief Impact Officer of 1 Percent for the Planet, and Daniel Katz, founder and chairman of the board of the Rainforest Alliance, told the crowd gathered at the Austin Convention Center that the rocky recent past for climate action and environmental causes suggests activists must make tactical changes.

Kellogg and Katz cited the inability to get Congress to pass climate legislation, the fact that green causes receive only a tiny fraction of the dollars donated to charity in the U.S., and the disconnect between large environmental non-profits and grassroots groups as sobering disappointments that should be ringing alarm bells. 

Still, both men said they were optimistic about the future of the environmental and social justice movement if groups take a lesson from the past. Among the hopeful signs they said was the robust attendance and energy exuded by those at SXSW Eco, which brought together more than 3,000 entrepreneurs, activists, artists, designers, sustainability managers and nonprofit leaders for three days of dialogue at the third annual conference, the largest so far.

Kellogg and Katz spent their Tuesday morning session, moderated by Bryan Walsh, a senior writer at Time magazine, offering a critique of how and where environmental groups have stumbled and describing their vision for a path forward. 

For starters, Kellogg said, green leaders should dump the "doom and gloom" messages about the impending climate catastrophe, because it's paralyzing to the public, not motivating. Instead of getting them off their couches, it makes them feel hopeless, he said. It would be more effective to focus on a positive vision that can rally the masses, he said.

Below, polar bear on a melting iceberg, courtesy of WWF.

As evidence that a new tack is in order, he displayed a pie chart of total charitable U.S. donations that showed only a sliver going to green groups. That people donate so little to the biggest problem around, climate change, shows that something about the present approach is not working, he said.

Green leaders might find more success if they throw open the door to a wider range of groups, including those that may be politically different, but are working to further sustainability and conservation. He noted that Ducks Unlimited, which would not be considered an environmental group had nonetheless restored vast acres of wetlands -- on behalf of ducks and duck hunters.

"People want to engage, but it needs to be made easy," he said. "It needs to be made accessible."

Katz, too, said the movement needs to create a bigger tent. He chastened mainstream nonprofits or NGOs for not reaching down to collaborate with smaller grassroots organizations that have mutual interests. A Harvard study, he said, pinpointed this failure as a key contributor to the inability to win climate action legislation in Washington.

"The reason we didn't win is that the big groups didn't build in the grassroots groups, where the people live, where the people are most impacted by these issues. 

"If the organizations want to try to go it alone they're never going to win. A movement takes people. The problem is those groups are run by community leaders and people working on tiny budgets. There's a disconnect."

Katz sees signs of hope, however, in the more collaborative efforts of some groups. He gave a shout out to Phil Radford, head of Greenpeace, for fundraising for small groups, not just his own.

Katz also lauded the new group Tar Sands Blockade, a coalition of environmentalists, landowners and clergy which has been protesting the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas and Oklahoma, as an example of people reaching across demographics and ideology to work together.  

Above, pipeline protesters, courtesy of Tar Sands Blockade.

More than 300 speakers from business, government and NGOs appeared on panels in small and large sessions at the conference, Oct. 7-9. To see who else spoke, visit the website at www.sxsweco.com.


 Barbara Kessler is a Flower Mound-based writer, a former Dallas Morning News reporter and the founder of Green Right Now, a syndicated green living news site. Contact her at bkessler@greenrightnow.com.

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