Breakthrough: Economy Trumps Environment

The economy trumps the environment - that's the hard lesson we were reminded of yesterday when Brazil's Environmental Minister Marina Silva suddenly stepped down, taking two other top environmental officials with her. From the Guardian:

In a letter to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Ms Silva said that her efforts to protect the rainforest acknowledged as the "lungs of the planet" were being thwarted by powerful business lobbies. "Your Excellency was a witness to the growing resistance found by our team in important sectors of the government and society," she wrote.

Environmental groups are up in arms over the news, calling this a disaster for both the Amazon and President Lula's administration - robbing the former of its "guardian angel," and embarrassing the latter in the eyes of the rest of the world, in the words of Frank Guggenheim, executive director for Greenpeace in Brazil.

But it's environmental groups like Greenpeace that should be embarrassed, because they've spent years pursuing a failing strategy. Silva's resignation shines a light on the global pattern of environmental ministers stepping down when they find their efforts ineffectual. It's even happened in the U.S. - Christine Todd Whitman, Administrator of the EPA, stepped down in 2003, citing Vice President Dick Cheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls.

Environmental ministers around the world have little authority, but economic ministers have a lot. So why are environmentalists pinning their hopes on people like Silva, who, despite her best intentions, can't protect the Amazon? The lesson is clear: if you want to save the environment, don't talk to the environmental minister - talk to the economic minister instead.

Environmentalists' response thus far has largely been to shake their fists in anger, and then up the ante on the same old failing strategy. But environmentalists from wealthy, developed nations don't have much leverage; in 2007, responding to an intergovernmental report on global warming, Lula said,

The wealthy countries are very smart, approving protocols, holding big speeches on the need to avoid deforestation, but they already deforested everything.

Wealthy countries destroyed their forests to develop, and we can't blame Brazil for wanting the same thing. It's time to try a different approach. As long as it's a choice between ending poverty and protecting the rain forest, it's clear what President Lula will choose. To succeed in Brazil, environmentalists must speak to its national aspirations. If the wealthiest countries in the world want Brazil to develop sustainably, they must help it achieve what we ourselves achieved at great expense to our own forests.

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