Famed Labor Lawyer Ted Kheel on Sustainable Development

Theodore W. Kheel is an authentic giant of public life in the United States, the best known labor relations lawyer and mediator of his time, and the man behind dozens of philanthropic ventures. He has worked with and advised U.S. Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt onward, and has received many of the major awards that public life has to offer. A founder of The Earth Times during the process leading to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro — he served as publisher from 1991 to early 1994 — Kheel’s accomplishments have been widely celebrated in the media.

Kheel is credited with helping put the Earth Summit in the global consciousness through his extraordinary public awareness projects. He is also the author of Kheel on Labor Law, a definitive treatise on labor law, and The Keys to Conflict Resolution, a book on the basic principles of conflict resolution illustrated by disputes in many of which he had participated. Kheel gave an interview recently to The Earth Times. Excerpts follow. By Pranay Gupte.

Q: What was behind your decision to propose that Cornell University establish a Cornell Biodiversity Laboratory at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic where you have an interest in a major tourist destination called Groupo Punta Cana?

A: It was simply a coincidence of circumstances that enabled me to combine my interests in sustainable development with a great university. Our tourist destination at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic is committed to sustainable tourism and we have contributed 1,500 acres of our property to a foundation we created — Fundacion Ecologica Punta Cana — that is dedicated not only to the preservation of the ecological reserve but to the environment of Punta Cana as well… Our President, Frank R. Rainieri, is Chairman of the Caribbean Association on Sustainable Tourism I am a Cornell Graduate and many members of my family are also Cornellians. On a visit to Cornell a few years ago, I attended a lecture on biodiversity in the Amazon by Dr. Eloy Rodriguez, a renowned plant biologist of the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Eloy had been taking students to the Amazon to study that region’s vast diversity of species to gather and analyze plant products with health properties. In passing, Eloy mentioned the difficulty of getting to the Amazon. That led me to ask if he might be interested in having a similar facility in Punta Cana, pointing out that our resort is a lot closer than the Amazon and, with an increasing number of direct flights from the United States to our International Airport, a lot easier to reach. His affirmative response led to a negotiation between Cornell University and our Ecological Foundation with the encouragement and support of our tourist destination.

Q: What happened then?

A: Based on our mutual interest in sustainable development, we quickly agreed with Cornell to build and maintain a biodiversity laboratory in our ecological reserve and to rent the laboratory to Cornell for a dollar a year as long as Cornell maintained the laboratory as a teaching and research facility. The laboratory was recently dedicated in ceremonies attended by the President of the Dominican Republic, Hipolito Meija.

Q: And it’s a year-round facility?

A: Absolutely. An ongoing branch of Cornell University with classes of students and professors engaged in teaching and research and helping us promote sustainable development. The laboratory is not only being supported by the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences but the Weill Cornell Medical College as well. That great college of traditional medicine has recently created a Complimentary & Integrative Medical Center to combine the benefits of traditional medicine with what is sometimes called Alternative Medicine.

Q: Why a medical center on complimentary and integrative medicine?

A: As you know, over the years there’s been a continuing conflict between traditional and alternative medicine. In the past, advocates of traditional medicine were quick to denounce promoters of alternatives as quacks. But there has been a sea change with Cornell a principal trail breaker. Now two great colleges of Cornell–medicine and agriculture– have joined forces to find ways through biodiversity to advance human health. As Dr. Rodriguez explained the other day, the study and protection of biodiversity is not simply a matter of environmental concern but of human health as well. I am particular impressed with the approach since I see it as a form of conflict resolution, a subject that has attracted my interest over the years.

Q: How concerned are you that in the current political environment in Washington, issues such as biodiversity, environment and sustainable development are being pushed to the back burner?

A: I am very concerned. It is not only the environmental issues that are being pushed to the back burner, but virtually all federal initiatives other than national defense are under attack. The conflict is not new but it has intensified since the presidential election. The battle was fought out during the great depression that followed in the wake of the stock market crash in 1929. Herbert Hoover, then the President, was sincerely concerned about the suffering the depression created. But he was reluctant to have the federal government take a decisive role in coping with the problems the nation faced. Roosevelt quickly recognized that the problems were too great for the states or the private sector to address. The New Deal was the initial product of his approach to federal action. Other significant social and economic legislation has followed in its wake.

Q: And you’re saying that the New Deal is now unraveling?

A: I am saying that the federally sponsored social and economic programs that started with the New Deal and have become an integral part of our society are under attack in a number of ways. For one thing, the tax cut that will force reductions in the programs for lack of funds. But many important programs are under direct attack with the control of carbon dioxide emissions a main target. During his election campaign, President Bush said that he favored reducing the level of carbon dioxide emissions. That lessened the importance of the issue during the campaign since, together with more than 100 countries including 36 other industrial countries, we were parties to the Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997. That treaty called on the signatories to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by 2012 to 5.2 percent below the levels in 1990. When, after Bush was declared the election’s winner, the power companies loudly complained about the high cost of replacing fossil fuels, Bush not only repudiated his commitment but also announced that the United States was not interested in abiding by the commitments of the Kyoto Protocol. The President’s repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol understandably angered the signatories to the treaty especially since the United States is currently responsible for 25 percent of the greenhouse gases and, the treaty is likely to collapse. Europe’s newspapers reported on their front pages that Bush defended his decision by telling the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder when he protested that “We will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America.” But global warming is sure to harm the economy of every country in the world including the United States. It has to be viewed as a global concern every country in the world has to address.

Q: How do you address that concern?

A: The concept known as sustainable development contains the answer. It is the message that the Earth Summit sent the world in 1992 when it addressed the major conflict the world is facing: environmental protection versus economic development. Sustainable development tells us that we must and can have both environmental protection and economic development. Sustainable development points to a solution and challenges to find ways in which that can serve our dual goals.

Q: What explains your own drive and involvement in sustainability issues?

A: I am motivated by the critical importance of sustainable development in addressing what is probably the greatest single threat to the existence of life on our planet as we know it. It won’t be easy but we have no real choice. We must make sustainable development work. The renowned international artist, Robert Rauschenberg, stated the case when, in 1972, he incorporated the following words borrowed from a poem by William Burroughs in a print series he created: “They did not fully understand the technique. In a short time, they nearly wrecked the planet.”

Q: How would you articulate your own personal philosophy?

A: That’s a difficult question to answer in general terms since we face so many different challenges. I do have a simple philosophy for living successfully with our neighbors. It is derived from a motto Ralph Ingersoll adopted for a newspaper called PM he launched many years ago: “We are against people who push other people around.” I subscribe to that motto. It recognizes that people should believe whatever they please to believe and have the freedom to carry out their beliefs providing they do not simultaneously push other people around.

Q: When you look in your own career and interests, what threads do you see running through labor law, conflict resolution, and sustainable development?

A: Conflict resolution is the thread that connects my interests in many fields: sustainable development for the conflict between environment and development; complimentary and integrative medicine for the conflict between traditional and alternative medicine; collective bargaining for the resolution of labor/management conflicts; and alternative dispute resolution for through the voluntary techniques of negotiation, mediation and arbitration in place of costly and protracted litigation.

Q: How do you see business playing a more effective role in promoting sustainable development?

A: Industry holds the key to the solution. But it is industry’s customers that can entice companies to realize that it is good business to believe in and practice sustainable development. The challenge we all face is to help make development that is sustainable financially rewarding.

Many companies are now finding that sustainable development can be good business. In an op-ed piece in The New York Times on April 1, William K. Reilly, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency in the first Bush administration, noted that 11 major companies, eight of them American, have committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by a total that exceeds the reductions required of Britain under Kyoto, that United Technologies, IBM, Baxter, Polaroid and others have committed to improve energy efficiency, or to cut carbon dioxide by at least 25 percent and that DuPont, the nation’s largest chemical company, has already reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent and promises to cut them by 65 percent by 2010. That’s great and those companies should be commended for what they have done. But they have just been sent a disturbing signal by the leader of the free world. What can we expect from companies in the business of making a profit if the President of the United States tells them that we will not abide by the Kyoto Protocol. We have to convince people to think in terms of how we can make sustainable development more attractive than indiscriminate development.

That will not be easy. But it can be done. A mentor of mine once said that he wished he had the power to make flowers grow faster than weeds. But gardeners successfully cope with weeds every day. We should not simply say America First. We must understand that global warming is neither good for America or the world. That is sustainable development’s message to the world as well as to industry.

Q: As you know, next year is going to be Rio Plus Ten, the 10th anniversary of the Earth Summit. Are you heartened, or disheartened by progress made, not just at the UN, but generally at national levels?

A: I am heartened by the knowledge that we have no choice except to promote Rio’s message of sustainable development. Rio Plus Ten should be an occasion to re-emphasize the importance of sustainable development as the only way for us to protect the environment and advance economic development at the same time.

Q: Why do people — although they might support environmental protection — continue believing that somehow it’s going to hit at their pocketbook?

A: Because it does have that possibility and that has to be taken into account.

Q: How do you inspire the young to be more engaged with sustainability issues in the political and business arenas?

A: I do find that a growing sense of the importance of protecting the environment more among young people than those set in their ways. But even for the young, it is necessary to make clear the connection between environmental protection and economic development. And that needs to be restated over and over again.

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Pranay Gupte is editor and publisher of The Earth Times. Copyright 2000 Earth Times News Service, all rights reserved. The Earth Times is a GreenBiz News Affiliate.