Thankful to be Back in the Steady-State Saddle

by Brian Czech

One thing about American holidays – there’s no mincing of words. Thanksgiving Day is as self-explanatory as it gets. And from where I write, it happens to be easy, giving thanks this time around. For starters, it’s a crisp fall day in Virginia!

But I’ve a bonus to be thankful for. Twenty days and three hours ago, I turned in my retirement papers at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters and immediately went to work as CASSE’s executive director. In a way, I feel back in the saddle. Let me explain…

A long, long time ago I rode horseback from Benson, Arizona to Kuna, Idaho. With no company apart from Red and Jake (my late horses), my mind wandered to whatever I observed. And that’s how I started thinking about the problem of economic growth.

I could see the economy – especially its infrastructure and extractive sectors – seeping into the basins and deserts of the Southwest. I could hear it too, up in the air, down in the towns, and off on the distant highways. I’d wanted wilderness, not the economy; that’s why I rode out of Benson to begin with. You might say (with music optional) I fought the economy, but the economy won.

Well, I’m back in the saddle again, thinking about the problem of economic growth and seeking to address it from new angles. This is a far cry from Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters, where I was prohibited from even talking about economic growth. It’s good to be back on a meaningful, big-picture journey.

I am also thankful to you, readers of the Daly News, for your patience as the blog went dormant for the past two years. In case you’re not aware, CASSE is a tiny non-profit organization. (It may not seem that way to casual visitors, due to our large volunteer presence.) When I filed CASSE’s incorporation papers in 2004, becoming the first CASSE volunteer, I ran it on nights and weekends. Eventually we developed a modest budget, and over the years we’ve had four full-time paid employees – never more than two at once – and I make the fifth.

CASSE has been through the ups and downs of most tiny non-profits as they struggle for traction. But some things never change. My reason for establishing CASSE 13 years ago is the exact same reason I took an early retirement 3 weeks ago. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a gag order a few years into my FWS career, prohibiting me from talking about the trade-off between economic growth and wildlife conservation. So I established CASSE in order to “speak truth to power.”

Serving also as a visiting professor in Virginia Tech’s National Capitol Region, I had three distinctive hats to wear, depending on topic and venue. Always, though, the topic that kept me awake at night and motivated my activities by day was the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection, economic sustainability, national security, and international stability. But my daylight hours were dogged by the FWS gag orders.

Over the years at FWS, the gag orders never really expired. Instead, I accumulated a collection! The pressure to ignore the “800-pound gorilla” was intense in recent years. I’ll have a lot more to say about this in the book I nearly completed while still working for FWS. But for now, I am just thankful; thankful to be working for CASSE, thankful for Daly News readers, and thankful for a crisp fall Virginia day.

Unfortunately it won’t be easy for any of us to be thankful in the coming years of the 21^st century, unless we succeed with steady statesmanship. Problems will abound as nations pull out all the stops for economic growth, far exceeding their ecological capacities. So let’s do our best to steer them otherwise with common sense and steady state economics.

Meanwhile, let’s be thankful for that opportunity.

Happy Thanksgiving!