Pushing back against special interests

We’ve all long been accustomed to the reality of government decisions that don’t seem to align with what most of us would prefer to see.  We may be inclined to believe that those in power know best, but more likely we’re going to suspect that something a little more sinister is going on.

Let’s say you’re a citizen of Denmark (which for all I know you may well be).  Your country is one of a small handful receiving the highest possible grade on the Animal Protection Index for its legislative and policy commitments to the protection of animals – something that should please you and about which you should be proud.  Yours is generally a nation where compassion and kindness towards other species is well-entrenched in the culture.  Also not a whaling nation, which in any event would contravene E.U. regulations, even if it were widely supported.  Which it is not.

Now consider that way out in the North Atlantic, 300 KMs north of Scotland and about half way between Iceland and Norway, in what is technically a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, the most horrific things are permitted, indeed even encouraged, by the local government.  The Grindadráp is well known to the world – it is shocking, and it is ugly.  Now you can state with accuracy that the Faroe Islands have been essentially self-governing since 1948, and despite being a part of Denmark, they have long been in charge of their own affairs.  Terrible things that happen there are done by the local people acting independently.  Whether the Danish Parliament could put a stop to the violence and cruelty if they wanted to is an open question.  

However, this tacit acquiescence to Faroese sovereignty becomes something else entirely when Danish naval vessels, paid for by Danish taxpayers, and crewed by its citizens, appear in Faroe’s waters to protect the hunters.  This is overt support for what’s going on there.  Clearly the government in Copenhagen has made a decision as to which side it’s going to back – and it’s certainly not Sea Shepherd’s!

So I wonder, if you were to ask your fellow citizens “Do you approve of your government using your navy’s resources and personnel in support of this activity in the Faroe Islands?”,  I’m willing to bet that by a wide majority, the answer would be “No”.  Probably more like “Hell, no”.  Yet, the ship is there, nevertheless.  Why? 

How is it that the opinions of a few can so often take precedence over those of the majority?  That so often the action taken in one person’s self-interest will be permitted even when many more others find that action to be objectionable and unacceptable.  Looking over to Norway, were the people there asked whether they’re OK with restarting inhumane tests which involve the trapping and restraint of juvenile minke whales?  Experiments which will result in extreme, potentially fatal stress for the whales?  Tests whose sources of funding include defense agencies and the fossil fuel industry?  How most Norwegians likely feel about this doesn’t change the fact that the tests will go ahead anyway.

What would the results be if you surveyed the people of Canada with the question “Do you agree that federal, provincial or territorial regulators should continue to issue licenses for the trophy hunting of polar bears in Northern Canada?”.  That an iconic species already so under duress from the effects of climate change should also be hunted for sport is not a position that most Canadians would support.  Yet the licenses are issued all the same.     

One theory as to why policy makers make decisions which can be unpopular among the wider public is that those who have a vested interest in a particular policy position will make the investment necessary to ensure its continuation.  They’ll take the time to appear at public hearings.  To write the letters, take out the ads and put together the research papers.  Conversely, the vast majority who oppose the activity won’t take the time off work because, for them, the stakes are usually not so high.  

I agree that something like this is almost certainly at work in our public policy development.  But I think that in many cases it’s something more.  Policies like those listed above, or about things like Seafood Labeling or Ag Gag laws, routinely face down opponents who are vocal and well-informed.  It doesn’t seem to be a failure to step up on our side that makes the critical difference.  Despite our best efforts, egregious policies are nevertheless enacted much of the time.  We’ve had our many successes over the years, but if we had to identify the culprit that’s been underscoring our numerous defeats over that time, I’d say it has to be a fundamental flaw in how our political decision making process works.  In the end it really distills down to decisions by government representatives who understand very well whose financial support keeps them in power, regardless of where the majority of their constituents may land on a particular issue.  Well funded lobbyists in support of special interests threaten all of us, because the decisions they drive often have very little to do with the public good.

What are we going to do about this, whether we happen to live in Denmark, Norway, Canada or anywhere else?  Well for one thing, let’s make sure we provide the financial support to all those great organizations that have the research staff, the analysts and the lawyers to make a forceful and effective case when an issue does come up in public hearings.  That’s the Humane Society Internationals, and others like Greenpeace, Animal Justice and World Animal Protection.  Make sure our side gets heard.  A great many who can’t speak for themselves need our voices, be they minke whales or polar bears.  

Or, if you’re fortunate enough to be in a position to do so, start your own campaign on any issue that ignites your passion and about which you’re well-informed.  Our modern tools – including social media when you choose to use it wisely – can be a tremendous force for democratizing the decision making process and forcing government to be more responsive to the wishes of its constituents.  

There are a lot of ways to push back against political lobbyists and their well-funded PR campaigns.  In the public discourse meant to define what’s really in the public good, our representatives need to feel our dissatisfaction with the status quo.  Politicians are also moved to act when they feel the weight of our numbers.

The lobbyist has the advantage over you in that he can provide considerable resources which can be accessed in support of a political campaign.  You won’t be able to match that.  But what you can do is to help raise awareness until that elected representative worries that this dependable flow of money may not be enough.  That your vote, and those of so many others, may go the other way because of something you care about.  Bill S-203, which banned cetacean captivity in Canada, passed for precisely this reason.  Public opinion, backed by considerable expert testimony, grew to be too much to safely ignore.  By contrast, Honey the dolphin was never granted relief from her suffering because politicians there, in Japan, felt no such pressure. 

Finally, at a systemic level, there are a number of emerging trends pushing us towards greater sustainability and environmental responsibility.  One in particular I’d like to draw your attention to, as I believe it could, if widely adopted, become a game-changer.  It comes from the world of accounting & finance.   The key concept here is ‘accountability’.

The following excerpts are from Ron Gonen’s The Waste-Free World: How the Circular Economy Will Take Less, Make More, and Save the Planet, an excellent book published in 2021, which I highly recommend.  (Bolding is mine.)

“When it comes to levers to prod business leaders to more vigorously respond to the demand, one approach … is true cost accounting.  Only a tiny sliver of companies has performed calculations to estimate their carbon footprint, let alone the harm they’re doing to the planet in myriad other ways.  Even fewer have made the figures public.  The good news is that true cost accounting has come of age…

…Stanford professor Gretchen Daily has championed the Natural Capital Project, in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, which provides open-source software for true cost accounting; in Europe, the International Organization for Standardization has issued analytic tools for companies.  A push should be made to merge methods into one internationally agreed standard and to provide low-to-no-cost access to tools to do the number crunching.  But that’s just the beginning.  As [Jeffrey] Hollender and the Sustainable Business Council argue, companies should be required to publicly report on their environmental impact and consumption of natural capital throughout their supply chains, and to compensate the public for the taxpayer money required to address the harm they’ve done.  They’ve been free riders for far too long.  Meanwhile, the longer they continue polluting, pumping their products full of toxins, and paying punishing wages, the more vulnerable they are to public exposure and censure.”

By way of example, consider that a study on marine mammal economics by the U.S.’s Marine Mammal Commission found that the value contributed by a single whale over its lifetime is about $2 million dollars.  (That’s of course in addition to the immorality of killing a being as cognitively sophisticated as a whale.)  We may or may not be able to recoup the costs from the world’s remaining commercial whalers.  But at the very least, the transparency that would come about by requiring adherence to a higher accounting standard would force this evil into the public spotlight.  We would all benefit from that.

For The Orca’s Voice, 

Phil, Canadian Cetacean Alliance