US military protects wildlife and habitat on bases

US Military in Iraq, February 2008. Photo by Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images

I am still trying to grok this news from the New York Times promoting the US military’s role in wildlife and habitat preservation on its 270,000 acres of bases in the US. Some of the activities sound ridiculous: like carving holes in trees “so the woodpeckers did not have to toil for six months carving the nests themselves.” On the other hand, controlled burning probably does increase wildlife habitat.

There is a realism beneath this change in policy: by preserving wildlife the military reduces the number of species designated as endangered and allows the military more freedom to to conduct training on their lands.

It’s hard for me to support the idea of nature preservation which will then allow more destruction. Does nature really benefit from bullets, tanks and bombs? But the cold logic behind this policy suggest that almost any large organization can find benefits in supporting bio-diversity. Despite the PR nature of this story and the ultimately violent nature of this organization, the military’s change in attitude about its role as a property owner is at once revolting and cause for optimism.

(Check out New York Times video, too).

Creating a common vision for green cities

Reading about the drastic budget cuts in my home state of California makes me wonder about the potential future of green cities in that state and in the United States. After months of political deadlock, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and a divided state Congress agreed on $US 30 billion in cuts over two years to schools, colleges, health, welfare, prisons, recreation and other services.

A New York Times analysis quotes University of California, Berkeley professor of political science Bruce E. Cain saying, “In the end, we do not know for sure whether the California public really wants the California dream anymore. The population is too diverse to have a common vision of what it wants to provide to everyone. Some people want the old dream, some want the gated privatized version, and some would like to secede and get away from it all.”

The conventional wisdom that California or the United States has no “common vision” reflects a political and cultural deficit, and will create more long-term damage than the economic downtown. For many government and educational authorities, diversity makes a convenient excuse for an unwillingness to invest in social programs that broadly benefit the public good. Nostalgia for previous boom times obscures the massive investment and cultural change needed to create green and sustainable cities.