Monthly Archives: June 2018

Knock Me Over

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From left: Larry Larson; Maria Cox-Lamm, ASFPM Chair; myself; Ingrid Wadsworth, ASFPM Deputy Director

I confess: I was taken totally by surprise. Most of us, if we have a level head on our shoulders, do not do our work with the thought that we will some day be presented with a major award because of it. Especially those of us in the world of public service and nonprofits, where dedication to the greater good is a primary motive, even though we are not immune to thinking about raises and promotions, which, after all, may enable us to be more effective in what we do.

Consequently, when the Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) asked me to attend the annual ASFPM conference in Phoenix last week (June 17-21), I naively accepted the rationale that, since they had recently contracted with me as an independent consultant to lead the production of a Planning Advisory Service Report on climate resilience and capital improvements planning, under a Regional Coastal Resilience grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), they needed me there to discuss the project. I had helped write the grant three years ago while still leading the Hazards Planning Center at the American Planning Association (APA), which became the major partner to ASFPM in conducting the three-year project. Although I retired from that position a little more than a year ago, there was a great deal of logic in bringing me back to see at least that part of the project to a successful conclusion.

There was only one problem in Phoenix. No one seemed all that concerned about spending time talking to me about the NOAA project. I was certainly learning a great deal by listening to presentations, and I certainly enjoyed networking with colleagues at receptions and in hallways at the Phoenix Convention Center, but the question was bugging me: Why did they really want me out here?

On Thursday morning, June 21, before the morning plenary began in the Ballroom, I approached David Conrad and Larry Larson at a front table after initially parking my belongings at another table further back. David Conrad was once with the National Wildlife Federation and wrote a path-breaking report following the 1993 Midwest floods. Larry is the former executive director of ASFPM and now a policy advisor working with current executive director Chad Berginnis. Both are prominent in the field of floodplain management.

I patted David on the shoulder and with self-effacing humor said, “I used to sit at the front table before I retired from APA, but now I’m nobody anymore.” They chuckled, and ASFPM’s public information officer, Michele Mihalovich, said from across the table, “Jim, you’ll never be nobody.” We all laughed, David invited me to join them, and I moved to the front table for the plenary. All good for a laugh. Afterwards, Larry made a point of asking me to find him at a front table, off to the side, for the awards luncheon at noon. Still clueless, I assumed he was simply being friendly but honored his request when the time came.

Lunch was served, and Doug Plasencia, president of the ASFPM Foundation, and Diane Brown, retiring from her post as outreach and events manager at ASFPM after 35 years of excellent service, introduced award recipients and their achievements one at a time, with images on the screen, and each winner stood with presenters for a photo. Interesting, I thought, in considering the various prizes, but routine. I was happy for the winners, some of whom I knew. Almost every national professional organization does such things. Meanwhile, I ate my salad, the roast beef entrée, and the dessert. In a little while, it would all be over, and we would move on to an afternoon of presentations and discussions in a variety of concurrent sessions. I flipped through the program to see what looked interesting.

Finally, Diane Brown began to describe the winner of the highest honor ASFPM bestows, the Goddard-White Award, described thus on the website:

“The Goddard-White Award is named in honor of the contributions made to floodplain management by Gilbert White (1911- 2006) and Jim Goddard (1906-1994). This award is given by ASFPM to individuals who have had a national impact carrying forward the goals and objectives of floodplain management. It is an indication of the level of esteem the association holds for the two namesakes as well as the recipients and is ASFPM’s highest award. It is not necessarily presented every year.”

I’m not sure because one does not time such things. I believe it took about 30 seconds of Diane’s narration of the story behind this year’s award before it suddenly dawned on me that I was the person they were talking about. I had never spent one minute before that contemplating this specific award or how I might have anything to do with it. The revelation that I was a recipient struck me like a lightning bolt. Larry was looking toward me, and I pointed to myself silently as if so say, “Moi?” He kept his Cheshire cat smile and waited for the emcees to invite me forward. Larry, by the way, was in 1985 the very first recipient of this honor. He had known all along precisely what was coming. Diane invited me to the podium to say a few words. A few tears started to run down my cheeks, so I struggled to get them under control. At the podium, Diane asked, “Are you okay to talk?” I nodded yes.

I cannot repeat verbatim what I said because it was all spontaneous, but I know that I began by saying that we in the hazards world are “supposed to be prepared. I am not. You caught me off guard.” I took the crowd on a two-minute tour of what we had achieved together in the partnership of recent years that I helped construct between ASFPM and APA, and said, “Eventually, you look back and ask, ‘Did we do all that?’” I then explained that it was not just me. I had learned a great deal over the years from many other people, that big achievements require collective effort. And I thanked everyone for this high honor before stepping over to the curtain for a photograph that you see above.

I checked later and found that only 24 people have received this award, including former NOAA Coastal Services Center administrator Margaret Davidson, a truly memorable individual, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, a perennial warrior for better disaster legislation, and French Wetmore, who helped create the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Community Rating System for the National Flood Insurance Program. All I can say is, Wow. What a band of high achievers and visionaries I have apparently joined.

It is hard to top such an honor, except in one way: It is important not to rest on these laurels, but to continue to contribute, to encourage others to find their passion, and to remain an effective voice for positive change. I hope I am doing that and can remain part of the action for many years to come. Thanks, ASFPM. I hope I can prove you right.

Jim Schwab

Stop the Madness

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I am angry on Father’s Day. I am deeply disturbed by what I am seeing. I am a Christian who is insulted by the use of the Bible to justify the separation of children from parents who brought them to the U.S. border in search of safety and political asylum. First, it is a policy decision of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration that the United States will not consider flight from violence and gang warfare a reasonable excuse for seeking asylum. The families now being torn apart with minimal ability even to find out where their parents or children are made a dangerous trek across hundreds of miles in the belief that this country would treat them with some sort of dignity once they surrendered at the border with a request for asylum. Few, if any, expected the treatment now being imposed upon them.

The news reports are now widespread and, however painful to read, I encourage readers of this blog to follow them. The tactics in practice by U.S. border authorities remind us of horrors long ago that we thought this nation had put to rest—slave fathers and mothers sold away from their children, never to see them again, while auctioneers were deaf to their pleas for mercy, American Indian children removed from reservations to be sent to distant “Indian schools” where they punished for speaking English. Are we still no better than that?

I have been a father for decades. My wife and I became foster and adoptive parents in the 1990s, and we know firsthand the difficulties of locating children in a new environment when the state has determined that the birth parents have failed in their duties through neglect or abuse. It is difficult even then but often necessary to protect children whose health, safety, and welfare are in jeopardy. That is and long has been a primary state responsibility. But even then, courts and social workers provide notice of what is expected and give parents an opportunity to improve before taking more drastic steps. And yes, it is true that convicted criminals are removed from their spouses and children when they are incarcerated, but if the convictions are just, we can at least say that the crime was a choice made by the parent, not the state. And despite all this, my heart aches when it becomes clear such intervention is necessary.

It aches even more in this situation because very young children are being pulled away from their parents with no idea why, no idea where they are going, and no idea when or whether they will ever see them again. Even in cases of convicted criminals, the family can visit the prisoner and knows where he or she is and the length of the sentence. In foster care, parents typically have visitation rights. None of that appears to be happening with these refugees.

I find myself all the angrier when I hear people justifying the current Trump administration policy by comparing asylum seekers to these situations by saying the parents at the border are breaking the law. International conventions on asylum do not at all contemplate that asylum seekers will be treated by democratic nations as criminals upon arrival. They need a fair hearing to demonstrate their claim for asylum. In the vast majority of cases, their clear motive for making the dangerous trip across Mexico to the U.S. border from nations in Central and South America and elsewhere is not to commit a crime but to protect their families from political and gang violence and, in some cases, sexual and physical abuse tolerated by a foreign government that is either unwilling or incapable of preventing it.

Quoting Bible verses about respecting the law is no defense of unjust laws and never was, even in Biblical times, when St. Peter once stated, “We must obey God rather than men.” His assertion was the very basis of the insistent rise of Christianity through what was effectively a form of civil disobedience because Christian faith was illegal in the Roman empire, which required primary fealty to the emperor. I do not wish to engage defenders of administration policy in a battle of Bible quotations because such battles generally involve short passages taken out of context amid a larger failure to understand the comprehensive message of Jewish and Christian scriptures, but if there is one passage that may highlight that larger message of Jesus, it is in Matthew 25, and for that reason I have used it before because it goes to the heart of Christian morality:

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

Jim Schwab

Paris Minus U.S., One Year Later

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Last Friday, June 1, marked one full year since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from participation in the Paris climate accords that President Barack Obama had signed just two years ago. As too often is the case in this administration, one wonders how much of this move was driven by Trump’s anxious desire to wipe away the achievements of the Obama presidency out of sheer animus, and how much of it, if any, was informed by any serious knowledge of the relevant issues. Trump’s grasp of environmental issues can most generously be described as tenuous.

Most people who care are already well aware that Trump’s decision left the U.S. as the only nation in the world that is outside the Paris framework. At the time Trump withdrew, only Syria and Nicaragua had not joined the agreement, and Nicaragua objected only because it felt the agreement did not go far enough. Last November, Syria became the last nation to join, leaving the U.S. alone in its reactionary stance.

The problem is that the U.S. remains the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China, which has four times the population. China, however, is taking significant steps to reduce its emissions amid growing concern that industrialization has brought deadly levels of air pollution to Chinese cities. There is no Chinese hoax here, as Trump once claimed. What is happening is a clear recognition by the Chinese government, despite its many missteps in the realm of environmental regulation, that acting to clean up its urban air and its contributions to global warming is in its own self-interest. One wonders why that logic is so hard to sell to Republican policy makers in Washington. How, for instance, will allowing U.S. manufacturers to produce more polluting products make American cars, appliances, and other products easier to export? When other nations are ratcheting up their standards, who will want those products unless they comply with international agreements to address this global problem?

Wind energy in New Zealand.

It is that very question that is producing a reaction within the U.S. to maintain a presence in the Paris climate accords even without the participation of the federal government. Certain economic trends already are working to undermine the Trump agenda in this regard. Despite administration efforts to prop up aging, polluting coal-fired power plants, for instance, the number of coal plant closures continues to increase. Some 12,000 megawatts of coal-fired power are expected to shut down this year. The major reason is that coal is no longer competitive or cost-effective in the long run in comparison with natural gas and renewable sources. The International Renewable Energy Agency, for instance, notes that costs for utility-scale solar photovoltaic electricity have fallen 73 percent since 2010. Renewables are expected to reach parity with fossil fuels by 2020, but the two categories are headed largely in opposite directions. A president supposedly dedicated to free enterprise is so blinded by his own assumptions that he is wrestling with the free market even more than he is wrestling with environmentalists.

The result is that 17 states and numerous cities have joined the U.S. Climate Alliance, launched by Govs. Jerry Brown of California, Jay Inslee of Washington, and Andrew Cuomo of New York, to counteract the federal government’s retreat on climate change and maintain a vigorous U.S. presence in climate discussions, even as major corporations like McDonald’s and Walmart have pledged compliance with the international agreement. Brown is hosting a Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco September 12-14. Trump may have withdrawn, but states, cities, and numerous companies have sustained a U.S. voice in support of international cooperation on climate change.

Needless to say, the official U.S. stance is neither encouraging nor helpful. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been effectively rendered useless as a source of creative energy for forward-looking U.S. policy on climate change. But there is great reason to remain both hopeful and active. Climate agreement supporters have shown that we are not and need not be completely reliant on the White House for positive change. The 2016 election is not the final word on this issue if scientists who can speak to the facts, and activists who can provide commitment to addressing those facts, can keep this issue alive. This fall, there is a major opportunity for all concerned to question candidates and office holders relentlessly on their plans to address climate change and their willingness to reverse course toward a more positive collaboration with the rest of the world. If we must throw out the bums, we should not be bashful about doing so. In numerous state-level and special elections, voters seem to be awakening to this challenge. If we install new members of Congress, new governors, eventually even a new president, willing to confront the reality of climate change, there is still time to generate major progress toward leaving our children a habitable planet later in the century.

Although it probably will have to be in the short term, this also should not ultimately be a strictly partisan issue. It has not always been. Under the administration of President George H.W. Bush, EPA Administrator William Reilly was an active participant on behalf of the U.S. in the Rio de Janeiro climate summit. Beginning with the Republic rebellion in 1994 led by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, anti-environmental forces hijacked a Republican party that, until then, had often helped forge bipartisan agreement on numerous environmental issues. A strong vote for change may yet force a reassessment of that stance, but it may not be easy or pretty in the short term. But it is clear that advocates for change can tap into considerable momentum if they are willing to present a strong case in both environmental and economic terms. Let’s make it happen.

Jim Schwab