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Trip's Vision of Earthjustice and the Environmental Movement
Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen offers some of his views of Earthjustice, the environmental movement and how the organization will meet future challenges
About Earthjustice… There's no simple label for what Earthjustice is and what we do. We function like a law firm in some ways because we represent clients and we don't go to court in our own name. The clients' effectiveness is strengthened by the legal clout and other skills we bring to the issues on which we work together, and the breadth and depth of our work depends on our working with clients. But, we are not like a law firm in the fundamental sense that we identify critical issues and strategies that need to be moved forward, rather than just wait for clients and cases to show up. We think about what kinds of clients are needed to best advance the particular cause. We bring judgment, experience, and strategic leadership to the problem, working with the clients to figure out what needs to be done in court and elsewhere to achieve lasting results. Our powerful and diverse array of regional offices take on litigation that will make a difference in the places they know best as well as cases that will set nation-wide policies that other groups can use in their own advocacy. In addition to our unparalleled litigators, we have lobbyists in Washington D.C. who are skilled at moving the politics forward and at protecting our victories from Congressional attack. We have built a fantastic communications department that works with clients and media to help the public understand the problems we are working on, why our cases are important in solving those problems, and how people can act to help solve them. Our bottom line is using the courts to protect wild places and wildlife, reduce pollution and protect people's health from all kinds of environmental problems, and move us all forward on addressing global warming. We are here "because the Earth needs a good lawyer." About the environmental movement… It's very clear to me that voluntary actions by individuals and businesses, no matter how widespread and well-intentioned are important but are not sufficient to bring about the change we need. We will always need a powerful environmental movement that can affect policy, and to be effective that movement needs a powerful litigation organization like Earthjustice. Over the coming years, we will continue to have an enormous amount of work to do to prevent the environmental legacy of the Bush administration from taking hold permanently. The roll-backs that the administration has already achieved will need to be undone, and they will rush more efforts to gut our environmental rules before they leave office. They are also conducting an absolute fire sale on permits for all kinds of mining, oil and gas development, and logging between now and next January. We can't fool ourselves into thinking a new administration will undo all of this on its own. Earthjustice's litigation will be essential in this effort for several years to come. The public is with us on this. People want environmental protection, they want their health protected, they want to stop climate change and to develop renewable energy sources. Increasingly, people recognize that environmental problems aren't only off somewhere in the wilderness, that their daily quality of life and the well-being of their children and grandchildren is affected. People often talk about the environment in bleak terms, emphasizing huge threats and gloomy trends. The challenges shouldn't be underestimated, of course, but I think it's a time for great hope. Across the globe, people are connecting the dots between the environment and the economy, the environment and human health, the environment and poverty, the environment and energy. There is no way to foresee all of the results of this, but it signals a profound shift in the right direction.
