Wisconsin's Secretary of State Doug La Follette is a wellspring of fascinating information on steady-state politics. In this episode, Brian and Doug continue their conversation from last week, exploring topics such as government-issued gag orders, the backlash to the population stabilization movement, and the Pope's implicit endorsement of the steady state economy.
Wisconsin's Secretary of State Doug La Follette is a wellspring of fascinating information on steady-state politics. In this episode, Brian and Doug continue their conversation from last week, exploring topics such as government-issued gag orders, the backlash to the population stabilization movement, and the Pope's implicit endorsement of the steady state economy.
Richard Tibbetts 00:01
From the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, this is The Steady Stater, a podcast dedicated to discussing limits to growth and the steady state economy.
Brian Czech 00:10
Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Brian Czech, and today we'll be continuing our discussion with Doug LaFollette, the Wisconsin Secretary of State. As we learned last week, Doug is just a goldmine of information on steady state politics. He's quite a political survivor too. This is his 11th term in office. That's 44 years’ worth. And yes, in case you're wondering, "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, Wisconsin's most famous progressive, was Doug's great uncle. At CASSE, we have a special appreciation for Doug because he really gets it about the limits to growth and the need for a steady state economy. Remember, he's on the shortlist — short so far, at least — of politicians who have signed the CASSE position on economic growth. So without further ado, let's continue the discussion with Doug LaFollette. You know, when you talk about the 1980s and the backlash, I have to think about Reagan and reaganomics and then, as you were doing just now, thinking to the here and now and "Dark Money," I forgot the author of that book, "Dark Money," but the Koch brothers and that huge matrix of academic programming and, you know, so-called think tanks that...they're out there just to propagate that propaganda that there's no conflict between growing the economy and protecting the environment. And now, yeah, with Trump, he doesn't even need to care about that. They were so effective with that backlash against the environment, it seems like a politician like Trump can just ignore the environment and like you say, boast about pulling out the environmental protections that were so hard fought for.
Doug LaFollette 02:19
And he has support in Congress, because the Congress has changed dramatically, and it's become polarized. And the Republican Party is now against environmental regulation and some of the democrats are not much better. There are a few people that still provide some leadership, but not very many. And I think with the climate issue, which has now become, I say, the forefront of environmental issues that people like me and others talk about, that's going to have to come to a head pretty soon. And if you want to try to be optimistic, Brian, for a moment, you can say that the young people who are protesting in the streets, led by that young woman in Denmark, I guess, her name is Greta I think, and many others, I think our optimistic hope, and I may not live to see it, are if the young people rise up in enough numbers to say "stop," and elect a bunch of people that understand the importance of environmental regulation, particularly the importance of regulation of Earth-warming gases: carbon dioxide, and methane, and chlorofluorocarbons, and say, "if we don't do something, the Earth is going to perish." And maybe they will be able to bring about the radical change that begins to address some of the issues that you fought for so long. Namely, there is a limit to how much we can grow on the planet Earth and we're pushing that limit past the end. We're past the end of that now. We need to back down a little bit in terms of our production of climate-changing gases and chemical pollution and population growth and all those things that you and I have talked about for 25 or 30 years now.
Brian Czech 04:34
Yeah. What about any politicians that you're aware of right now that you think would be good listeners, at least, and potentially doers about the problem? Do we have anybody at the national level or in Wisconsin that, you know, can get a head start on this? Because boy, I hate to think that we have to wait for, you know, the ones that are so young, out there demonstrating with the Greta Thunbergs and so on.
Doug LaFollette 05:08
Well, I'm hard pressed to think of many names. I will mention one and that is Tammy Baldwin. One of our US senators is a woman named Tammy Baldwin, and she gets it. She understands. But in Washington now, she's in the minority. I can't think of many other members of Congress who are actively talking about these issues. There are some and of course you're closer to Washington than I am. I would think that you can probably think about it for a while and come up with a number, the few senators and a few members of the House that have signed on to this bipartisan climate action group that we know about. They don't get much publicity and they're in the minority. I think the last time I read there were like, maybe 10 democrats and 10 republicans that had signed on to this. So there's not very many, Brian. There's not a whole lot of Congress people at the moment, and the same in our legislature. There are two or three democrats in Wisconsin who get it, but the Republicans control the legislature in Wisconsin and I have to say this, the leadership of the legislature, the Republicans, they are totally with Trump on all of this. I feel very bad about Wisconsin right now, I have to be honest.
Brian Czech 06:42
I'm really sorry to hear that. That's discouraging, it seems to have, you know, slid a long way from those good old days of all that Wisconsin leadership and conservation and the environment. But certainly, it maybe is at the nadir now, with the Trump administration, generally, and now that's been manifest in some of the state houses as well. And, you know, one of the problems with that is the gag ordering phenomenon. You know, we can't even hear about some of the environmental problems, because it's not allowed by those who know the most about it, to even speak about them. You know, you probably remember that I was subjected to gag orders for most of my Fish and Wildlife Service career. I just wasn't allowed to even talk about the conflict between economic growth and wildlife conservation, even though that was the subject of my PhD dissertation. Now, of course, by the nature of gag orders, it's not easy to talk about them, especially if you're still employed in the civil service and maybe as a politician as well, but do you feel like mentioning a few examples that you're aware of? A few examples of gag orders? And any pertaining particularly to limits to growth? And would you have any tips for the civil servant out there for fighting back against these gag orders?
Doug LaFollette 08:14
Well, I must admit, I'm not an expert on gag orders. I'm aware of them, obviously, and I remember your history, back when we first talked about it. I think the current situation is where we have seen it in a extreme. And there has been many whistleblowers in the Trump administration, whether they are inspector generals who he fires, members of the groups that are trying to work on the virus issues and work on the pandemic, and he has put leadership in those organizations that have tried to stifle the scientists. They've taken science out of the websites of some organizations, they've shut down the advisory committees of scientists who advise organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department, etc. So we all have seen that. It's so obvious. It's blatant. And I'm disappointed with the Congress for not having taken a more active role in this, particularly after...When the democrats took control of the House two years ago, I was hoping they would take a more active role in calling out this suppression, this gag ordering of scientists within the government, but they have not done a good job I don't believe. And I think that the only answer is for scientists to have the guts to speak out and become whistleblowers, but that's tough. You have to pay the rent and you have to buy food for your family, so the chance of losing your job is very critical. So again, just, the economic system suppresses the truth in sort of a sad way by threatening people's jobs.
Brian Czech 10:27
Yeah, that's for sure. And, well, you know what, while you were saying that, I thought I've got to put in a word for PEER. That's Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. And they help to protect whistleblowers and they help the civil servant to get important scientific issues pertaining to the environment out there. They're very knowledgeable about what they do and very discreet. And so you know, usually I like to promote CASSE a little bit, of course, on these podcasts, but I want to put in word for PEER too, and encourage people to check them out and help them.
Doug LaFollette 11:11
That's a good organization. I have a good friend of mine, who is an attorney. She works for that group and you're absolutely right. They are essential for protecting people who want to speak out about abuses and lies and misinformation within the government agencies.
Brian Czech 11:33
Yep. That's PEER: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. All right now, Doug, how about your experience with the big environmental NGOs? I think you were on the board of the Sierra Club for quite a while, right? How did they deal with limits to growth?
Doug LaFollette 11:53
Yeah, I was on the board for three years. It's an election system. And I was elected to a three year term. And then I was not reelected, partly because I spoke out too much on the issue of growth, population growth, economic growth, which of course, the Sierra Club wasn't happy about that. It's interesting, again, these environmental organizations, many of which I support, and I contribute to them, they have gotten very big and they depend upon on financial support to maintain their staff and their membership. So they've been reluctant, quite honestly, to challenge the issue of growth, particularly population growth, which is so controversial. It's interesting. We can talk a whole nother hour about population issue. But in 1970, Gaylord Nelson openly and always mentioned population as part of the problem, and nobody said much. And a man named Paul Ehrlich [unintelligible] at Stanford, he wrote a book called "The Population Bomb," and he called for the limits of two children. And he was an environmental person. He said the population growth is critical to protect the environment. And I remember he was on Johnny Carson, who was one of those late-night commentators on television. And he had Paul Ehrlich come on the show twice and talk about population growth and the need to limit population. And nobody said much about that. Nobody got upset. But then, as the backlash began, it became controversial, primarily because of birth control, and abortion, and sex education, and all that began to wind into the issue, and it basically shut down conversation about population growth. And that has continued sort of up until the present time. And so it's kind of interesting to see how those issues were able to limit that issue. And [unintelligible] a piece of history that people should be aware of.
Brian Czech 14:28
Well, Doug, this is a great conversation and I want to get right back to it, but right now we need to take a short, non-commercial break with Rick Tibbetts.
Richard Tibbetts 14:43
Hi there, we hope you're enjoying the show. I just wanted to take this brief intermission to announce some good news here at CASSE. We just published a new book called "Uncommon Sense: Shortcomings of the Human Mind for Handling Big-Picture, Long-Term Challenges" by author Peter Seidel. We promise you this book is a true page-turner. It's already received high praise from fellow renowned author Alan Weisman who said, "The premise behind Uncommon Sense is the biggest question in human history. Ingenious as our species may be, is it also wise enough to do what it will take to keep our civilization viable before it's too late? Peter Seidel lays out all that ails the earth in this make-or-break century and leaves it to us to decide whether our saga continues, or ends all too soon." You can get your own copy today by going to steadystate.org, panning over to the Discover button, and clicking "Steady State Press" in the drop-down menu. Now, back to the show.
Brian Czech 15:41
We just had a webinar last night with the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science and population came up as one of the main topics, and is it possible that there wasn't enough attention paid to or enough respect given to, say, for example, the Catholic population in the US and the Catholic Church in general? Maybe just not enough of a respectful approach to population and the considerations, you know, the Catholic theology and stuff because I remember hearing some really rough cop stuff back then. You know, accusations against the Catholic Church that were very blunt and just non-diplomatic.
Doug LaFollette 16:44
Yeah, I agree. You always have to be cautious as how you approach people who don't agree with you about some issue and the environmental movement, I think, has faced that continuously for the last 50 years, whether it be population, whether it be the limits to growth that you've worked so hard on, whether it be the production of agricultural chemicals, whether it be the burning of fossil fuel which we know now is critical for the climate issue. On all those issues, there's been an adversarial situation developed very quickly between people on the environmental side, if you will, and the people on the other side. The Catholic Church, The Manufacturers Association, the chemical industry, the petroleum industry, etc. And I don't know how that could have been avoided because the sides have such a totally different opinions. You either say, 'have two children please' or you say, 'no have as many children as you want.' Now how do you get in between that? And I think it would have been somehow wonderful, and we're looking back now on what happened and we can't change it. It would have been wonderful if there could have been a better accommodation between The Catholic Church, for example, or the petroleum industry, and the people who were trying to do something to save the earth from too much, whether it's much people or too much too much television sets or too much cars. The limits to growth has two components: the pure production of stuff and the production of people, and those both are key to protecting the earth. And I think you and I would agree that on both counts, we've now surpassed the carrying capacity of the earth. The earth can no longer support as much stuff or as many people as we currently have and that is a tough thing to face up to.
Brian Czech 19:10
Yeah, we'd have to agree with that. You know, I was thinking, though, while you were describing some of the conflict there between those for population stabilization and the supposed enemies and, well, the real enemies and then maybe some that were incidentally, automatically in what would be considered the other camp. What if we'd had this Pope Francis as the pope back then? Maybe it would have turned out much differently. This pope has said things like, 'well you don't have to necessarily be for abortion to realize that you don't have to breed like rabbits.' I'm paraphrasing, but I think he did actually use that phrase, "don't have to breed like rabbits," and his encyclical, the Laudato si, I read that and I thought to myself, my gosh, this is like an implicit prescription for a steady state economy. He's all over limits to growth and the need to protect the environment and even the need for more science in the service of environmental protection so, I don't know, maybe there's some hope in that as well, Doug.
Doug LaFollette 20:26
I hope so. I mean, just the other day, the pope came out with what was considered to be a radical statement, that he thought people who could be involved in marriages or not marriages, but agreements between husbands and wives of opposite sexes and things. And then that was radical, and he'll be criticized for it. What's amazed me, in my life, is how people get so excited about and fight so hard against change. And the Catholic Church, unfortunately, is an example of that, whether it be allowing women to be priests, allowing priests to get married, or whatever. And, you know, I personally don't have any problem with priests getting married, but the Catholic Church does, and it's complicated. And it's those kinds of situations where change is so critical, whether it be the change from burning coal to solar energy. That's an important change. And yet people fight that. Part of this is because of the miners who lose their jobs, but part of it is just people are reluctant to make change. And that has been a problem, as you and I have worked so hard to make change in our economic system and how we limit the growth of it in the planet Earth?
Brian Czech 20:28
You know what? That's a perfect segue to our last question, because I don't want this to end without getting some more tips from you. You know what we're all about here at CASSE. And that's why we chose such a mouthful of a name: Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy. We put our mission right into the name. And you also know we're a 501(c)(3) educational organization and our educational focus is on raising awareness of the conflict between economic growth and four really important things: environmental protection, economic sustainability, national security and international stability. So Doug, a few questions in this ending here. What can we do to more effectively speak truth to power at the state level? And are there particular states where we should be focusing at this time? And then are we better off dealing with legislators or with governors or political appointees or with civil servants in the agencies? What kind of advice would you have for us?
Doug LaFollette 22:10
Well, that's a tough one. I will say, to start out, you know, all of the above. You know, of course you have limited resources as well. I think one thing that you sort of left out, and I hark back to what I said a few minutes ago, I think the young generation are the people who you need to make sure that they understand this, because they're the ones who are going to ask for the change. And if we don't get change in the next 20 years, I think the earth is in real trouble. I don't need to talk about the climate issue. We know what's going on, the forest fires, the hurricanes, etc. And people now begin to see them. So whether you focus on electing members of Congress who understand the limits to growth, or talking to governors about it or state legislators...I think one important area which I've always talked about are economic professors. I'm still amazed that the limits to growth concept and sustainable economics is not the main economics that are being taught. Now, maybe I'm wrong, and you're the expert, but to my knowledge, Herman Daly-type economics is still not the major thing that's taught in colleges and universities across this country, and it should be of course. So I think that reaching out to young people in high schools and colleges and having them begin to understand the limits to growth concept would be probably the best thing that can be done, if it's possible.
Brian Czech 25:20
Okay, that gives us some great ideas, I think, well, for future podcasts as well as some projects. Well, Doug, thanks so much for the fascinating conversation and for the tips on how to raise awareness of limits to growth and the need for a steady state economy. Best wishes to you over your remaining term as Wisconsin secretary of state and please come back on the podcast again.
Doug LaFollette 25:49
Yes, I'd be glad to, and I wish you well, and I wish everyone who hears this good health in this horrible time of virus. Stick together. We're gonna make it.
Brian Czech 26:05
Well folks, that about wraps her up. We've been talking with Doug LaFollette, the longtime Wisconsin secretary of state. It's been such an educational and inspiring two-part series. Like I said last week, hopefully you can bring some of Doug's wisdom to your state and your State House. With that, I'm Brian Czech and you've been listening to The Steady Stater podcast. See you next time.