A new national nonprofit wants to redefine the environmental movement.
‘Nature is Nonpartisan’ launched its efforts in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, the geographical center of America.
According to a press release by the group, 'Nature is Nonpartisan' wants to become the nation's most influential environmental organization by creating a large-scale, cross-partisan movement dedicated to practical, long-lasting solutions. It's kicking off its first effort called 'Make America Beautiful Again.'
SDPB’s Lee Strubinger spoke to the group’s founder, Benji Backer, on Thursday. The interview has been shortened for clarity. Backer said the group wants broad investments in conservation.
—————————-
How will that work in this like particular political moment?
I think the polarizing moment that you're alluding to is exactly why we exist and exactly the problem, right? Americans want efficiency and effectiveness from all energy sources. They're not against solar and wind, they're not against hydropower, they're not against nuclear, they're not against natural gas. They don't want to have, you know, winners and losers chosen. The response to this administration is because of the pro solar wind only idea that has been pushed for a while and that wasn't right either. So I think the answer truly lies between those two, similar on the timber issue.
But the problem is there hasn't been the balance in the discourse. It's either cut everything down or don't touch it. It's just solar and wind or just oil and gas and neither of those are productive conversations.
How do you plan to manage this coalition and what does that coalition look like?
We're going to build coalitions around whatever push we're doing at that time. So right now we're pushing, you know, this administration to buy into a package that we're calling make America beautiful again. And so we're leveraging left and right leaning voices to push the administration to do that. That will be different than what we do in two or three years.
What we're being really intentional about is that for every liberal person or every liberal group or every liberal board member we have on board, we also have a conservative and that's the whole point. It's for us to bring uncomfortable conversations there. I've hired an evenly split political team, our board is that way, it'll never change. That's how our coalitions will work and we're going to make sure that we're resembling the bulk of America and everything that we do.
Sounds like a tightrope.
Somebody's got to do it and we're going to be the ones to do it is because there's proof in the past that this was possible.
Look at cultural transformation on issues like criminal justice reform or gay marriage or some of these other topics. Those are way harder topics to build consensus around. A love of nature, there's a reason why almost 80% of Americans self-identify as environmentalist in 1990. We can get to that again and we have to rebuild that or the group to do it.
