Our Relationship With Other Organizations

Our group’s rights-based legal framework is clearly different than the traditional regulatory approach to environmental protection.  The goals and objectives of these two different frameworks may match, but their strategies and tactics differ substantially.  Such differences, however, can be viewed as right or wrong, attractive or repulsive, good or bad.

Is it really this black or white?  Or, instead, can we imagine a gauge of collaboration?

How does the NO COAL! group view these differences?  How do we view traditional environmental organizations?

Consider a soccer match.  A player on the home team is cooperating with ten others while competing against 11.  There’s cooperation and competition happening simultaneously.  Consider the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society.  Very similar values; different branding, mission and tactics.  Their ‘true north’ compass needles most likely point in the same direction but their pathways differ.  They want to get to the same place yet they also compete for funding, staff and members.  Simultaneous cooperation and competition.

Which group – which framework – which strategy – which tactics – will successfully stop coal trains from traveling through our community?

Really, who cares?  If we achieve the goal of stopping the trains, all involved organizations, our community and the planet in general, win.

For want of a better analogy, let’s consider a similar situation in warfare.  When numerous branches of the armed forces are sent into battle, which one will make the kill shot?

Again, who cares?

But let’s go deeper.  Consider for a moment that you’re going to enlist into one of the branches of the armed forces.  Which one will it be?  Probably the branch that you believe is the most effective; the branch most likely to make the “kill shot”.  Say you believe this is the Air Force so you enlist there.

Although you will gladly cooperate with a Navy seal, there’s also a sense of competition, right?  He thinks he’s got the right tools; so do you.  You both go into battle cooperatively along with some degree of competition.

Enough analogies.  Here’s our point.  We don’t care who makes the “kill shot” so long as we stop the insanity of coal trafficking and the burning of a fossil fuel whose time has come and gone.  Sure, we believe that we have the right tools to do the trick.  And the traditional environmental groups believe that they have the right tools.  And only time will tell which, if either, or both, will do the job.

Although from our perspective the regulatory approach appears too little/too late, others may believe that our rights-based approach is too much/ too soon.  Let’s put on our respective tool belts and get this work done………….. cooperatively.

“If we don’t all hang together, we’ll all hang separately.” – Benjamin Franklin

Let’s embrace one another, recognizing our common goals and objectives; respecting each others’ strategies and tactics; acknowledging both cooperation and competition are at play.  Ultimately we must keep our eyes on the horizon, the big picture, and get this compelling work done.  Our great, great grandchildren are counting on us.

“Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production.” – Edward Bellamy

We will sink or swim together.