Environmentalists Learn to Save the Planet a Sound Bit at a Time
5/1/97
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Headline: Environmentalists Learn to Save the Planet a Sound Bit at a Time
Source: U.S. News and World Report
Date: 5/1/97
Author: Betsy Streisand
Copyright: U.S. News & World Report, Inc.
Send comments to webmaster@usnews.com
Basic training for tree huggers
At action camp, environmentalists learn to save the planet a
sound bite at a time
Shining Wind, a young activist, smooths his dreadlocks
and stares at the aspiring environmental superheroes holding
hands in a circle on the bluffs above the Indian Arm Inlet in
Vancouver, British Columbia. "I want you to dig deep into your
hearts and souls and find the strength to admit what you've
done," he says.
Wind is in a snit worthy of an evangelist over a few empty beer
cans left by last night's campfire. It's all part of "action
camp," a combination boot camp and scouting jamboree for
environmentalists put on by the Ruckus Society, a Missoula,
Mont.-based group. For six days, more than 75 campers and
trainers have pitched tents at this secluded site to practice the
fundamentals of peacefully saving the planet in the '90s:
climbing trees, scaling walls, unfurling banners, boarding ships,
and controlling the media spin dial. (Question: If a tree falls
in the forest and CNN isn't there, will it make a sound?)
In between the Tarzan stuff, activists spend hours in bull
sessions earnestly hashing over everything from tactics to
tattoos. "This is basically a graduate-level course in civil
disobedience," says Mike Roselle, director of the Ruckus Society.
Roselle (nicknamed Baloo after the Jungle Book character) is a
god among greens. He cofounded Earth First!, the group whose
machine-destroying "monkey-wrenching" tactics defined radical
environmentalism in the '80s, and led Greenpeace's first direct
action team. He has been arrested more than 30 times in two
decades, including once at Mount Rushmore for hanging a gas mask
on George Washington's face. He has also mellowed considerably
since the days when he was hiding 11-inch nails under the bark of
1,000-year-old trees to bollix the chain saws coming at them.
"Earth First! put the War in the Woods on the evening news," says
Roselle, 42. "But their tactics [of destroying machinery] were
too scary. They turned off the public."
Despite the focus on "action," this camp is not really about
saving the environment one tree at a time. It's about
manipulation of mass media and public images. Television
training, with cameras and monitors--even when they have to be
powered by generators--is one of the most popular and important
parts of action camp. In fact, the last day of camp ends not in a
protest but with a real press conference to put logging companies
on notice that it's going to be a busy summer. "This whole camp
is about trying to make things more visible," says Jason Salzman,
director of Rocky Mountain Media Watch and a media trainer for
Ruckus.
Maybe not all things. Salzman, whose primary job is to
teach young activists the art of the sound bite, also
advises them to leave their nose rings, lip rings, and other
assorted facial hardware at home on protest days, a suggestion
that is often followed by Talmudic debate over lifestyle
conformity. "They alienate people and get in the way of the
message," Salzman insists. As for responding to press inquiries,
few questions throw an inexperienced activist locked to a gate,
tree, or piece of machinery off message faster than the media
favorite: "How do you go to the bathroom?" The right answer:
"It's a problem, but not as big of a problem as the one we'll
confront if Corporation X continues to destroy Environmental
Resource Y [or whatever]." The truthful, but distracting, answer:
"Diapers."
PR for trees. Ultimately, symbolism is what this camp and the
environmental movement are all about. No action can last forever.
"You create symbols, then manipulate them so the public sees
things the way we want them to," says Howard "Twilly" Cannon, a
Ruckus founder, who refers to the movement's particular brand of
political performance art as "working the McLuhanesque static in
the message." Even Greenpeace, the epitome of environmental
macho, is quietly seeking public-relations advice on how to
improve its image and appeal to a broader constituency.
Cannon's image workshop includes an evening slide show of great
moments in environmental publicity stuntery. There are protests
and lockdowns and clever banners swathed over various corporate
towers and smokestacks. There are Globezilla, the giant
inflatable planet capable of making a mockery out of the
oil-gushing Exxon Valdez, and the crowd-pleasing Tumor Derby, a
faux fishing contest in toxic waters put on for the benefit of
local news cameras.
Since the Ruckus Society sponsored its first action camp in 1995,
more than 600 activists from various peace, justice, and
environmental groups have taken the training at camps in Montana,
Oregon, California, and Georgia. "Clean drinking water and fresh
air are part of the sustainable-life thing for me," says
participant Matt Lowe, 28. "People need to get beyond recycling."
As many as seven camps may be held this year, nearly double last
year's four. And each is likely to be oversubscribed. There were
more than six applicants for every space at the Vancouver camp.
And the ratios are expected to be even less forgiving this summer
when a larger and longer "national" camp is held in the
Southeast.
Action camp is not Harvard in its selectivity. There are no
formal prerequisites for admission, although most participants
have blocked a road or tried to save a spotted owl somewhere
along the way. If there is a civil-disobedience equivalent of the
SAT, it's the rap sheet. Roughly two thirds of participants have
been arrested (the others can only hope) and training sessions
typically begin by letting them feel good about it with a show of
hands. Action camp is free and vegetarian food is plentiful.
Ruckus prefers campsites of the mountain-man--outhouse variety
(they're more intimate), although some have indoor plumbing.
Vancouver broke new and embarrassing ground: It had a salad bar.
Camp grads won't be at a loss for ways to put their training to
use. They dislike both the Republican Congress and the Democratic
president. Ruckus and the groups it helps support won't discuss
upcoming actions. But they're looking for future campsites near
water.
Cops and loggers. "Your knots are your life," yells climbing
instructor John Sellers as a young woman, strung up with ropes
and a harness like a marionette, negotiates five stories of
scaffolding. Scaffolding is the closest portable thing available
to simulate a bridge or building. Some will attempt falling off
to see how their ropes hold. But with two trainers assigned to
every climber--and an herbalist on the ground doling out sunblock
and water ("I heal the people, who heal the trees," she
says)--the comfort zone is considerably larger than on a real
action. Sellers has had the authentic experience of having his
lines get tangled while dangling from the side of Chicago's
110-story Sears Tower while trying to unfurl a 2,500-square-foot
banner in high winds. The banner, a montage of nuclear nightmare
symbolica, turned into a giant sail, sending Sellers two stories
into the air like a piece of fluff. Had the winds not died down
quickly, the apocalypse might have been his.
Not far from the scaffolding, real trees offer some useful
training opportunities. These trees are not the old-growth giants
that need rescuing, but they are big enough to give climbers a
challenge. Their skills will be tested later during a
role-playing exercise called "Cops and Loggers," in which some
campers play anti-Earth forces and others hug trees. The mere
mention of tree sitting, where activists become human shields for
trees by living in them, sends trainer John Quigley into rhapsody
as he describes "the most perfect relationship of my life." He
called her Mowita, for the native mother of the four directions.
She was a 150-foot Western Hemlock from the Bella Coola region of
British Columbia. Last summer, Quigley spent two weeks in her
branches reading mythology and having weird dreams. "I was
keeping her alive. She was keeping me alive," he says. In the
end, only Quigley survived. But he made a point--and the papers.