Mr. Carter has not been able, apparently, to overcome the persuasiveness of Mr. Schlesinger. And Mr. Schlesinger, with his old training as head of the Atomic Energy Commission, the CIA, and the Department of Defense, is not really the sort of person who can build faith around the world about what U.S. intentions are in respect to nuclear. Mr. Carter is saying he doesn't want more proliferation, but he is offering to sell reactors to a lot of shaky governments, and this is a two-step route to proliferation not only of nuclear reactors but of nuclear weapons.
For that reason, I think Carter's campaign promise that nuclear was to be the last resort has been violated. The people who trusted him on this, along with me, are being disillusioned.
Mr. Carter's been receiving a lot of evidence as to what the alternatives can be. Amory Lovins* has met with him and explained these. But Carter still seems to be under an enormous amount of influence from Mr. Schlesinger, and I think that Mr. Schlesinger was a most unfortunate choice, and continues to be more unfortunate day by day. He should try other work. [Brower might be pleased to learn that, just recently, Mr. Schlesinger criticized the Bush administration for failing to take effective steps to reduce American consumption of gasoline and other oil products].
Brower: Yes-if we don't change our course, nuclear war is inevitable. I think that will be so clear in the next few years that we will change our course; that's why I'm guardedly optimistic.
Mariah: But there seems to be little the average person can do to help change that course.
Brower: People who are deeply concerned about the environmental ramifications of nuclear experiments have not yet expressed their concern well enough. They've been sitting watching and waiting. They haven't thanked the President for what he did do, for his veto of the Clinch River Breeder, which was the bravest anti-nuclear move had has made so far. When constituencies don't speak, they share the guilt for what happens politically. If the environmental constituency sits on its hands, the environmental opportunities of the leader vanish into thin air.
Mariah: How do you feel about your nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize?
Brower: There are quite a few nominations. The committee, I understand, does a very thorough job of seeing what the qualifications are. If Sadat doesn't screw up, of course, he'll get it. It as honor enough being nominated-too much. I'll have no problem keeping my expectations low-about six feet under, maybe.
Mariah: You once described Friends of the Earth as "small, poor, flexible." Wouldn't you rather see it large, powerful, and influential?
Brower: I would like to see us be more influential, but power is a word to be used very carefully. I'm not looking for power. Influence through persuasion, yes. I'm afraid that what happens as you get bigger is that you get more and more wrapped up in the structure of bureaucracy. The flexibility goes; it takes longer to reach decisions, and sometimes there isn't much time. Flexibility has been extremely important tour global effort in 18 countries. This is one of the things that's enabled us to do as much as we've done, with as small a budget as we have.
Mariah: How do you define an environmentalist?
Brower: I worry a little bit about labels. Environmentalist is just a polysyllabic way of saying conservationist, and even that has too many syllables in it. We are trying to get it down to conservers-conservers of society, as opposed to the consumers of society. There is an incipient environmentalist in everyone. Everyone who wants to stay alive and wants a planet to stand on has got to worry about the environment.
Mariah: What country do you think has the highest degree of environmental awareness?
Brower: The United States. I suppose the simple answer is that we raised so much havoc with our environment, so fast, that we saw the dust behind us and knew we'd done it. Other countries went slower, and they aren't quite sure what happened.
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