Macro, Mezzo, Micro

I think there is a societal perception that lobbying is inherently evil, but it is essential to many goals of the social or environmental justice movements and nonprofits. There is a clear benefit to allowing nonprofit groups, who are potentially experts in their field, to represent their cause in the legislature. It can bring widespread awareness to a particular topic and give a community the tools to improve their situation. Within limits there is a purpose to nonprofit lobbying.

In most cases however, lobbying means top-down change because one is addressing only lawmakers, but top-down is not always successful. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is a great example of this. One provision in this federal law required that firearms be removed from the home of anyone arrested on a domestic violence charge. In Missouri, we have no specific law requiring this to be done, so Missouri law enforcement does not have the jurisdiction to remove the firearms. They must call a federal agent to remove the firearms, which rarely happens. The bill to change the Missouri law to match VAWA has failed to pass the Missouri legislature nine times. The top-down mandate didn't create tangible change on the ground level because it did not have the support of the local community.

Laws mean nothing if they are not enforced and convincing a community to enforce an unpopular law takes a culture change. Advocacy and grassroots organizing are crucial to the success of any cause. People need to believe that what you promote is in their best interest or the community's best interest. Culture change is a slow process; sometimes it means talking to individuals one at a time. This can be disheartening and we may never see the results of our work, but that does not make the work less important. We need the board room types and we need the people on the ground.

Even if you have only changed one mind today, you have still advanced the cause: one person closer to culture change.

Operation Cat Drop

One of my favorite cautionary tales about the interconnectedness of all things:

http://catdrop.com/

As part of anti-malarial campaign in the northern states of the island of Borneo in the late 1950’s, the World Health Organization sprayed DDT and other insecticides to kill the mosquito vector for malaria. During this campaign, DDT was sprayed in large amounts on the inside walls and ceilings of the large “long houses” that housed an entire village in these areas. As a consequence of this effort, the incidence of malaria in the region fell dramatically. However, there were two unintended consequences of this action. There was an increase in the rate of decay of the thatched roofs covering the long houses because a moth caterpillar that ingests the thatch avoided the DDT but their parasite, the larvae of a small wasp, did not. Also, the domestic cats roaming through the houses were poisoned by the DDT as a consequence of rubbing against the walls and then licking the insecticide off their fur. In some villages, the loss of cats allowed rats to enter, which raised concerns of rodent-related diseases such as typhus and the plague. To rectify this problem in one remote village, several dozen cats were collected in coastal towns and parachuted by the Royal Air Force in a special container to replace those killed by the insecticides.

This is interesting and still relevant in the context of modern malaria prevention. We can't rush into a seemingly simple chemical solution (currently pyrethrin on nets and some DDT for indoor residual spraying) that will have potentially devastating long term consequences.