Bridging the “Nature Gap”
How “Disagree Better” and the Civic Capacity Index is Being Used as A Backdoor to do what Natural Asset Companies tried to.
What are initiatives like “Disagree Better,” organizations like Better Angels, and indices like Tim Shriver’s Dignity Index and others like the Civic Capacity Index really about? While on the surface, these all supposedly seek to facilitate civic dialogue on polarizing political issues, they have a hidden agenda. The real goal is to create the need and infrastructure to measure a region’s civic capacity as a social determinant of health so that data can be used to argue for a land grab of Utah’s (and other states’) unprotected land.
In March 2023, The Department of the Interior released a proposed planning rule to guide the management of U.S. public lands. That rule was a way to allow for the creation and stock exchange listing of a new type of company called a Natural Asset Company (NAC) for public investment. The underlying goal of this venture was to provide a mechanism for public and private land to be permanently removed from productive use in the name of solving climate change. While this particular effort was rescinded for the time being because of the national backlash against it, attempts to accomplish the same agenda through alternate means have continued on.
New Arguments for Protecting Land
During the comment period at the Department of the Interior when this planning rule was being considered, a letter and document by the Center for American Progress was submitted. It contained three reports evaluating the potential benefits of the proposed Bureau of Land Management (BLM) regulation and laid out alternate means to accomplish its goals. One of these was a June 2023 report by Conservation Science Partners, “Quantifying the recreation value of unprotected BLM lands in response to a proposed plan for balanced public land management.” (Figure 1) It described an effort to identify BLM lands that could be used as areas for conservation and outdoor recreation to offset the impacts of high-volume recreation on national and state park lands while also providing access to nature for “underserved communities” to bridge what they call “the nature gap.”
In reality, the goal of this initiative is to develop a justification for increasing conservational protections of currently unprotected BLM lands and/or removing these lands from resource extraction activities based on their importance for “equitable” recreation; yet another way to accomplish what the now rescinded proposed rule and creation of Natural Asset Companies set out to do. Using the pretext that people of color have long experienced unequal access to nature in what could be called “nature deserts,” environmental justice will demand this situation be remedied for the health, economic well-being, and “resilience” of these “socially vulnerable” and “nature-deprived” communities (Figure 2).
Methodology
The total amount of unprotected BLM land area within four buffer distances–10, 25, 50, and 100 miles—of national parks, state parks, and “socially vulnerable” and “nature-deprived” census tracts were identified and quantified across the contiguous United States (Figure 3). The resulting buffers were then intersected with unprotected BLM lands using the pairwise intersect tool in ArcGIS Pro to identify areas that fell within each of the four buffer ranges. The most visited national parks in that buffer zone were also identified in order to determine which unprotected BLM lands are in closest proximity to these well-loved—and as a result often over-visited—parks that are also in closest proximity to communities considered “socially vulnerable” and “nature-deprived.” It’s then argued that the BLM unprotected areas that meet all these criteria could be reclassified as protected for recreational use and be used to 1) offset recreation pressure on nearby national and state parks and 2) increase recreation access for marginalized, “socially vulnerable” communities lacking access to nature.
How do you measure “Social Vulnerability”?
“Social vulnerability describes a community or individual’s lack of (or limited) access to political power, representation, physical and intellectual resources, social capital, physical health or ability, and infrastructure. Social vulnerability can also be defined based on one’s beliefs and customs or age.” (Figure 4) To determine who fell in this category, “an index previously developed by CSP (Conservation Science Partners) that incorporates factors such as income, education levels, prevalence of health issues, and other demographic characteristics” was used.
The Civic Capacity Index (CCI)
One of the metrics mentioned in the report that was used to measure social vulnerability was the “Civic Capacity Index.”(CCI) Developed by 3 colleagues at Colorado State University and the panel of 34 experts from the U.S. and Canada they convened, this tool is meant to measure the “collective capacity of a social system—neighborhoods, communities, regions—to respond to challenges and disruptions.”
According to these “experts”, civic capacity needs to be measured as a data set because its a social determinant of health that determines whether or not communities possess the characteristics needed to bounce back from disasters like COVID-19. It then uses the data collected through the index to “help inform, shape, and evaluate interventions designed to build civic capacity, respond to challenges and disruptions, develop equitable and sustainable policies, and solve community problems.” (Figure 5, emphasis mine)
Characteristics of communities capable of fostering constructive responses to disruptions and challenges included things like intentionally confronting historic
inequities and injustice (DEI policies), coupling an inclusive and engaging civic culture with institutions committed to community engagement (ESG policies), and an emphasis on acting collectively in pursuit of a common good (socialism).
Building “Civic Capacity” through Civic Dialogue
As mentioned in the Thriving Together Springboard, interventions that build “Civic Capacity” can be sought through bi-partisan organizations like Braver Angels that supposedly facilitate civic dialogue. This is the same organization that Governor Cox is working with to push his “Disagree Better” initiative, whose assessments are based off of Tim Shriver’s “Dignity Index” being piloted in Utah. In reality, these civic programs are being put into place to not only move agreement through civic discourse further to the left (progressivism) through programmatic intervention, and to eventually silence speech that isn’t “civil,” but also to track changes in the data (Figure 6) gathered by these civic indices to build a narrative that certain “marginalized” groups need more access to nature because they’re “socially vulnerable”.
Considering that Utah has FIVE of the ten national parks that fall in the category of being overused, and being in close proximity to “socially vulnerable” and “nature deprived” groups, (Figure 7) it seems there could be very nefarious, purposeful, and targeted reasons for these types of initiatives to be launched here.
Utahns should start asking questions, as they have the most to lose.
Lisa Logan is the host of the YouTube channel Parents of Patriots and author of the Substack Education Manifesto. As a wife, mother, and patriot, she has made it her mission to expose the sinister agenda behind Social Emotional Learning programs and other initiatives that seek to take away our liberties so that the children and future of our country can be saved.