RYAN SAWTELLE
Contributor
All too often, people support certain mantras without ever questioning the premise or substance of that belief. They do so out of ignorance or ulterior motives. For instance, many people believe poverty causes crime. If this is the case, wealth then must cause virtue. This obviously isn’t the case, so why do so many people go without questioning this worn-out adage? Is it to redirect responsibility? To promote a socialized agenda? Well, it’s both. Such self-supporting claims do not require any inquisition from those who are ready to promote its cause.
Environmentalists have become professionals in using such tactics. They have used green rhetoric to simply hide behind an agenda that is more anti-capitalism, anti-corporatism, and anti-man than it is about saving the environment. In fact, Patrick Moore, one of the founders of the ultra-environmentalist group Greenpeace, left the organization because of the organization’s abandonment of logic and science and the inclusion of a new motivation fueled by leftist politics.
If it were the goal of environmentalists to do what is best for man (the most important part of nature), they would embrace industry and development — the very things that have helped cure diseases and advance the standard of living. Instead, they are against everything that helps enhance the life of man such as drilling in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), logging, development and nuclear power. Somehow, to environmentalists, man is not part of nature, but is getting in the way of nature.
If the business logging is so evil, do environmentalists also have a campaign to stop beavers? The beavers log trees for the same reason man does, to help prolong his life by using the environment to his benefit. To environmentalists, beavers are more a part of nature than man is. The beaver is given a pass but it tags man’s conscience as being evil because he uses the environment to enhance his living through development and industry.
It is because of this hatred of man and industry that environmentalists start believing in crackpot theories that quickly spread to the general public as fact in the form of hysteria. Environmentalists say that we must recycle paper because evil corporations are ruining our forests. Yet, paper and most lumber originates from trees that are grown on tree farms specifically for that purpose. In fact, we have three times the amount of trees now than we had 100 years ago. We are hardly at a shortage of trees. Ironically, in the name of preserving natural habitat, it is the environmentalists who cause trees harm by pushing for legislation to end brush clearing and forest thinning. What do environmentalists think is worse for natural habitat: extracting dead trees and underbrush from a forest or a massive wildfire fueled by the refusal to do so?
We hear from environmentalists that industry is to blame for all of our pollution woes. Industry is not the problem. The United States is the most industrialized nation in the history of the world. Yet, in a list of the top 20 most polluted cities in the world, not one city falls in the U.S. In a list of the world’s 25 cleanest cities, five are in the U.S. while the only Asian cities represented are located in Japan, another country known for its industry.
Their hatred for man and industry does not stop there. Environmentalists are also against exploration drilling in ANWR. Their argument is that the drilling would upset wildlife in the area — drawing some to death and others to relocation. This claim couldn’t be further from the truth. Surprisingly to some, drilling underground does not affect the life above it. In fact, our oil fields in Prudhoe Bay have not scared away or killed any Caribou; instead, their population has increased nine-fold since exploration began. The fear of an accident causing an oil spill in the area is more legitimate, but our technology has improved (thanks to industry) over the years and refineries are much more efficient and safe. With this having been said, the United States has not built a new refinery in 30 years because of environmentalist opposition. Which does the environmentalist think is more of a risk to the environment: building new, technologically advanced refineries, or relying on the decades-old refineries to not fail?
Are there well-meaning industry supporting environmentalists out there? Of course. Unfortunately, too many in the environmentalist movement today are followers, not leaders. They act out of political emotion, hatred of man, and not reason. They are influenced by people like National Park Service ecologist David M. Graber, who said, “Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth … Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”
03-20-2008