Interesting conversation today on Enviro-Mich about NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's column on the status of environmentalism. Bill Collins' reaction is also interesting.
Couple of excerpts from Kristof:
"The Death of Environmentalism" notes that a poll in 2000 found that 41 percent of Americans considered environmental activists to be "extremists." There are many sensible environmentalists, of course, but overzealous ones have tarred the entire field.
Comment: And the right-wing smear machine has done a good job of making the .1 percent of enviros who are extreme into an emblem of a movement. Still, given the reality of the framing the right has done, it is best for the environmental message to be delivered by doctors, parents, scientific experts, the clergy and others who share its values.
Given the uncertainties and trade-offs, priority should go to avoiding environmental damage that is irreversible, like extinctions, climate change and loss of wilderness. And irreversible changes are precisely what are at stake with the Bush administration's plans to drill in the Arctic wildlife refuge, to allow roads in virgin wilderness and to do essentially nothing on global warming. That's an agenda that will disgrace us before our grandchildren.
Comment: Which is exactly where most groups go -- and where public support is often weakest. Immediate tangible threats motivate people far more than something that might happen in 50 years. The point is, we have to work on both.
'I Have a Nightmare'**
*By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/12/opinion/12kristof.html?hp
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I have to agree with the article. I think he's very fair. I'm still waiting for the "Decade of the Environment" that was supposed to happen in the 90's. From our perspective in trying to protect regionally significant natural habitats, it sure feels like things are dead. I don't know if it was ever alive as most people don't get it. At best, their awareness is limited to a "Last Great Places" mentality.
On the other hand, "environmentalists" can hardly be blamed when they are up against big money and its greedy servants, whose brains squirm for a buck. The basic nature of most species seems to be an immediate preoccupation with consumption and reproduction, so it may be inevitable. To disguise the resultant destruction as a private right above all else, upheld by leagues of "professionals", only makes it disgusting. At least bacteria and viruses don't seem to know any better.
Another problem is that many threats to the environment come up repeatedly, so we are using resources to defend the same things time after time. The other side only needs to win once. Bush said something like that about terrorists. How many times has ANWR been targeted in the past few years? For these issues, there should be a law that puts them to rest, unless something substantially changes. Even criminals are protected from double jeopardy.
Anyway, talk about permanence, the posting by Frank Ambrose on March 8 about Mountain Range Removal in the Appalachians is a good chance for the environmental community to come together on a big issue that most people should be opposed to. Maybe the environmental community could reawaken and gain new life this year by coming together for Mountain Justice Summer. After we protect ANWR of course.
Bill Collins