Add Ted Nordhaus to the list of people I hope to meet someday. I wouldn’t know him if he walked past me, but he delivered a spectacular and thought-provoking presentation at Lewis & Clark Law School on November 12, 2025.

After I read it a third time, the voice in the back of my head said, “Gee, I wish I’d said that.”
Then it added, “Wait a minute, Jim. You’ve said it many times.”

Nordhaus titled his presentation “Protecting the Environment after Environmentalism.” He openly admits, “The whole reason I got into environmental politics was to change the world.”

My goal when I started The Evergreen Foundation in 1985 was far less lofty. A group of Southern Oregon lumbermen and loggers asked me to help them navigate the U.S. Forest Service’s first decadal forest planning process.

I agreed—without realizing there were six forest plans in the Southern Oregon–Northern California region, each delivered in a 14-pound cardboard box. Thousands of pages. Alternatives ranging from a “max timber plan” to a “no action” option.

I had unknowingly arrived on the leading edge of the Spotted Owl War—easily the nastiest and most grueling environmental conflict in our nation’s history. Hundreds of rural timber communities were crushed. Thousands of woods and sawmill workers lost their jobs.

The Gordian Knot

It seems likely Nordhaus arrived on the front lines around the same time I did. He may well have helped shape some of the rules and regulations that later formed what Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas called “the Gordian Knot.”

That knot became so tightly interwoven it made active forest management nearly impossible. Not much changed until June 2024, when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 6–2 that federal agency staff could write binding rules without direct congressional approval.

We would welcome the opportunity to interview Nordhaus. He says his older self sees the world differently now. So do we.

As a 501(c)(3), we don’t litigate. We advocate for science-based forestry. Our work in grizzly bear habitat conservation in the Bull River Valley of northwest Montana is a good example. We use thinning and prescribed burning to reduce wildfire risk in forests that have grown too dense to sustain themselves—or to support wildlife, especially threatened grizzlies.

We’re working on private land because the 1974 Endangered Species Act leaves little room for active management on federal lands. Natural recovery alone can take centuries.

A Longer History of Concern

We are not the first to worry about forests. Nor is Nordhaus.

By our reckoning, the first to fret loudly and publicly was George Perkins Marsh. In 1864, with the Civil War raging, Marsh wrote Man and Nature, warning about the consequences of converting forests to farmland in Vermont.

His self-published book became a jumping-off point for tracing the roots of the American environmental movement.

The Early Environmental Movement

Nordhaus followed his father into environmentalism. His father, Bob Nordhaus, worked in the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson and helped draft early federal environmental statutes, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s foundational authorities.

In the push to improve air quality, early environmentalists understandably focused on emissions. Photosynthesis—the basic biological exchange of CO₂ and oxygen—received less attention in policy conversations.

Trees remain the only major structural building material that is renewable, recyclable, and biodegradable.

Polarization and Diminishing Returns

Nordhaus argues progress slowed for two big reasons:

1) Organized resistance from business interests
2) Political polarization

He notes that early environmental wins targeted “low-hanging fruit” with broad public support and low economic cost. Later regulations brought smaller gains at higher cost.

He observes that after about 2000, benefits often became theoretical while political resistance grew. Aligning environmentalism closely with one political party fueled backlash and public skepticism.

Litigation Culture

Nordhaus quotes his colleague Elizabeth McCarthy in calling NEPA litigation a “hydra”—an all-purpose tool for relitigating decisions already approved by accountable policymakers.

His core challenge to young lawyers:

“The question is not who you will stop, but what you will build.”

That question lands like a spear point.

Climate change and biodiversity loss, he argues, are generative problems. They require building new systems—energy, food, and land-use systems that support eight billion people living modern lives.

China and India are not waiting for Western permission to develop. Global biodiversity will be protected by producing more food on less land, not by freezing landscapes in time.

What Must Change?

Nordhaus asks which parts of the environmental regulatory structure are no longer fit for purpose. If reform is inevitable, what stays and what goes?

He calls for humility and less technocratic hubris. Environmental progress, he argues, flows from modernization, development, and innovation—not opposition to them.

Growth and technology are both the source and the solution to many environmental challenges. Law works best when it aligns with those currents.

Two Final Observations

First: Lumbermen have been leaders in wood-processing technology since the 1970s. Modern mills prefer mid-sized, high-quality logs. Very large logs often sell at a discount, not a premium.

Second: Trial lawyers now watch from every corner of American life—not just forestry. That should concern all of us.

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