Hub takes pragmatic approach to environmentalism

Alex Coolman

COSTA MESA -- A meeting of environmentalists is just getting started in

an old office building on 17th Street when the word comes: The room

they’re using is needed for something else. The group has to make itself

scarce.

In another setting, the news might be the cause for real consternation.

In this building, however, all it means is a move down the hall.

That’s because this building, whose second floor is affectionately known

as the Hub, is home to seven environmental groups, from chapters of the

Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club to smaller organizations such as

the Earth Resource Foundation and Anybody’s Earth Press.

And though it’s a decidedly down-at-the-heel space, with dirty carpet and

offices that sometimes have the odor of old fruit, it’s a place where

minor obstacles are seldom allowed to stand in the way of getting things

done.

The Hub was started about six years ago by Costa Mesa resident Douglas

Bader, 39. He runs the space with money provided by several benefactors

and helps to offset the rent of some of the tenant groups.

Originally, the engagingly eccentric Bader said, the mission of the space

was essentially spiritual. He hoped the Hub would be a center to foster

peace and awareness.

The Hub’s focus, to an outside observer, seems to have changed since

then. But Bader said the environmental emphasis is only a new way of

moving toward his original goal.

Ecology “is the familiar and nonthreatening conversation,” he said. He

calls it a “vehicle” for his broader spiritual concerns, which involve

building greater inclusiveness and openness.

When Bader speaks about those concerns, happily displaying the

“enlightenment wallet card” that spells out the various steps of his

program, and delving into the etymological roots of words like “family”

and “community,” he can seem rather abstract. Behind his oval glasses, he

looks like an amused scholar of some lost, nearly incomprehensible

language.

For all his talk about enlightenment, however, Bader is a man whose

approach to environmental matters is decidedly pragmatic.

“He’s almost otherworldly in his effervescence and his enthusiasm and his

idealism, but he gets things done,” said Nancy Gardner, president of the

Newport Beach chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. “That’s the other part

of him. He manages to get a tremendous amount accomplished. It’s quite a

combination.”

The groups that cluster together at the Hub seem to share Bader’s sense

of practicality, whether or not they subscribe to his overall beliefs.

“The downfall of a lot of environmental groups, I think, is that they

have a tendency to stand on their own,” said Mark Cleeg, a field manager

for the Costa Mesa office of the Fund for Public Interest Research, which

is housed at The Hub. “[Bader] has tried to build relationships between

communities.”

And Bader’s own organization, Anybody’s Earth Press, takes a much more

flexible approach to engaging with the world of commerce than some more

strident groups, such as Greenpeace, have in the past.

Elizabeth Edwards, who is both a staffer at the Press and Bader’s fiance,

said this kind of approach is the way smart environmentalism needs to

work today.

“We create alliances,” she said. “Too many environmentalists have created

enemies. It doesn’t pay to shun the developers. Let’s work with them.

Let’s create a neighborhood, a sense of community.”

Once those relationships are established, Bader said, it’s possible to

work on the bigger concepts of consciousness and accountability.

That’s what he said he likes about environmentalism: “It gets you

inevitably to the heart.”