Lawyers get into everything – that’s why I wanted to be an attorney. Early in my practice, the Legal Aid Society of St. Louis put me to work for clients in a poor part of town who were being doused with poisonous chemicals. Our opponent was a major chemical company and, since I had worked for a corporate firm, they figured I could handle it. In those days, there were very few environmental lawyers and they almost all worked for our opponents. Still, they were fascinating battles and we even had some victories. But sometimes the struggle wasn’t against the companies – it was politics. Sound familiar?
Working with an organization called Black Survival, I pulled every administrative lever I could while my clients organized a large petition drive until we got a meeting with Mayor Cervantes of St. Louis and finally convinced the Nixon White House to block the program. The Nixon White House had established the first Earth Day. My wife and I joined the demonstration on Forest Park in St. Louis. The Nixon Administration blocked the St. Louis program because the highway they wanted to build would have divided my client’s community – doctors from their patients, stores from their patrons, churches from their congregations and the damage to their jobs, services and the benefits of community solidarity would have been huge.
So here we are in New York more than half a century later and the Governor wants gas fired power plants. Haven’t we learned anything? Guess who I have to argue with? My sweetheart and I have only renewed our vows three times. We’ll need gas as a backup, she says. But a backup depends on what we build now and what it will handle, says me. But it also depends on the battery power available. But that depends on the battery power we install, says me. And the more gas power we use, the more power we will need for air conditioning, so it’s a vicious cycle. Even heat pumps, no matter how efficient, won’t work without power, says she. Yes, we’ll need power, but let it be electric power. And remember, car batteries can be hooked up in reverse. There’s lots of electric power available. And as for all these growing AI and so-called cloud memory storage systems gobbling up electric power, they can be required to build their own solar and wind electric power sources. I’m a hard liner – no new gas, oil or coal plants. No gas pipelines. Just call me rigid. But I’m thinking of the way the world will be for my granddaughters. And I don’t compromise on their health or lives. Tough luck. That’s my stand. Disagree? You can turn me off.
Politically, in this capitalist environment, we have force the oil and gas companies to take major stakes in electrical production by natural sources – by using solar panels to convert the sun into electricity and by using wind power – remember wind? It used to push ships all over the ocean and pump water for farmers. Use it to produce electricity. Require the companies to produce at least as much electricity via solar and wind power as they produce by other means. Then, maybe, they’ll wake up and start behaving like they have a stake in the human health of the people on this planet – including their kids and grandchildren whom they don’t seem to care about. Of course, they may dream of sending them all to other planets but they’re going to have a real problem finding oxygen anywhere but earth. So here’s my Christmas present – let them use solar and wind power.
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran. He enjoys the help of his editor, Jeanette Gottlieb
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