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!!FOREST PLAN ALERT!!!
What's at Stake Part VIII: Ideology - 3rd World Development
July 18, 2004

"The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these 3rd World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don't suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them."
-Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...."
-The United States Declaration of Independence

Which statement advocates imposing on 3rd World Countries a type of "Eco- Imperialism" that dictates what their destiny will be? Which statement allows 3rd World Countries the freedom to choose their future for a better life?

The Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) are advocating their Forest Plan Alternative 6, which will protect endangered species by closing off our forests. As we explained in our past alerts, from 60 to 70 percent of our recreational access would be removed by their road and trail standards

Their trail and road standards (combined with their fire management proposals), will handicap management and severely restrict access. The Forest Service (after public input), did not choose their alternative; if you read the Sierra Club and the Center for Biodiversity's Alternative 6 you would understand why it was rejected.

In some ways we should consider ourselves blessed. We are not the only ones subjected to their "Eco-Socialist" and other policies. We have not suffered the wide scale deadly effects of their "Eco-Imperialist" policies toward 3rd World Countries.

As the Sierra Club and their allies in the environmental movement portray the United States as the source of all evil in the world, it is their "Eco-Imperialistic" policies, combined with their "Eco-Socialist" Policies that are denying 3rd World Countries the modern technology that would stop the death and environmental destruction that they are currently experiencing. Although political instability and war also contribute to the destruction and loss of freedom in many 3rd World Countries, many would greatly benefit from the technology being denied to them by the influence of the environmental movement.

How does the environmental movement address the problems facing the 3rd World Countries - such as the lack of safe drinking water and the deforestation created when forests are cut down for heat and fuel? We have the luxury of worrying about our environment, a luxury not shared by others in the undeveloped world that are much more concerned with putting bread on the table and a roof over their heads (and fuel to heat and cook with).

As I will show in this update, it is not the policies of the United States that are keeping the world's poor at deaths door, but the policies of the environmental movement. Many in the environmental movement accuse the United States of crimes against humanity. As the United States advocates the use of technology to better the lives of 3rd World Countries, the environmental movement opposes them. Just who is guilty of crimes against humanity?

In a just world, the environmental movement would be tried for crimes against humanity for denying the 3rd World Countries the very comforts of technology they enjoy. Is this not an elitist attitude for these "Eco-Imperialists" and "Eco-socialists" to have? To deny 3rd World Countries the freedom that they themselves enjoy? Do American environmental organizations abuse America's power (aided by the "Eco-Socialist" governments of Western Europe and the U.N.), by influencing policies that would deny others the freedom to choose what life saving technologies they can use? Is this not a type of genocide upon the poor of the world?

Even the people of third world countries understand the benefits of a strong economy; yet the environmental movement campaigns against economic development in these areas, which actually increases the degradation and results in many deaths. Nearly 2 billion people worldwide have no access to electrical power; they have no choice but to rely on cutting trees and using animal dung for fuel, which increases pollutants both inside an outside their shelters affecting air quality and their health.

Recent deadly mudslides in Haiti and the Dominican Republic were caused by deforestation, which was not the result of logging, but of the cutting of trees for cooking and heating. Many hours are spent gathering wood and dung by women and children adding to their burden.

The lack of power also has detrimental effects on the 3rd World Countries ability to provide waste treatment and clean water, which contributes to deaths from dysentery and other diseases.

"Wealthy countries want the earth to be green, the underdeveloped countries want to be fed."
-James Shikwati, director of Kenya's Inter-Regional Economic Network as quoted in Eco-Imperialism - Green Power Black Death

Although the environmental movement touts "renewable energy, it would take 13,000 wind turbines on thousands of acres to provide the power of one 555 megawatt gas fired power plant on less than ten acres. Plus, wind turbines have been blamed for increasing the deaths of endangered birds that fly into the turbines, one of the reasons why environmentalists fought a wind farm near the home of the endangered California Condor. The efficiency of solar power is not much different than that of wind turbines and would also require thousands of acres to match the generating ability of a gas power plant. Plus, if you don't have wind or you have cloudy or rainy days, this technology is useless.

"Environmental activists 'romanticize poverty' then they fly to 'eco-summits' like the one in Johannesberg, where they stay in 'five-star hotels, talking about poverty but not giving options to people who are actually poor to come out of poverty."
-Barun Mita, President of the liberty institute of Delhi India as quoted in Eco-Imperialism - Green Power Black Death

The environmental movement denies 3rd World Countries the comforts of modern technology that their members enjoy - as well as the ability to rise above their circumstances; in the environmental movement's psyche to do otherwise would deny the "Green" God.

"I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems"
-John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

The environmental movement's opposition to drought and insect resistant Genetically Modified Crops (GMC) increases water and pesticide use and also increases erosion. Many of these GMC's are high yield, decreasing the amount of land in cultivation. Some of these crops also address vitamin deficiencies that are the cause of much suffering and death. These crops have been used in the west but denied to the people of 3rd World Countries by pressure from environmental organizations.

"Zealous researches alleged, for example, that monarch butterflies might be harmed by biotech corn, which contains a bacterium gene (Bacillus thuringiensis) that makes the corn toxic to insects to chew on the plants. They also claimed that feeding transgenic potatoes to rats might damage their immune systems. Both "studies" were quickly seized upon by the Times and tabloids to generate hysterical reactions. Both were subsequently pilloried by scientific panels.

More careful studies found that the number of monarch butterflies and larvae actually increased in the fields where Bt corn was grown, probably because the use of pesticides was greatly reduced in those fields. A review of the potato study concluded that the rat's immune systems were damaged because they were being fed only potatoes, and their diets were devoid of essential nutrients."

-As quoted in Eco-Imperialism - Green Power Black Death by Paul Driessen

The well researched and footnoted book further states:

"Opposition to biotechnology is a 'northern luxury,' says Kenyan argronomist Dr. Florence Wambugo. 'I appreciate ethical concerns, but anything that doesn't help feed our children in unethical.

Greenpeace co-founder and ecologist Dr. Patrick Moore echoes her sentiments. Now an outspoken critic of the group he once led, he underscores the 'huge and realistically potential benefits that genetically modified crops could bring 'for the environmental and human health nutrition.' He calls the war on biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMO) 'perhaps the most classic case of misguided environmentalism ' in memory.

'There are no know serious negative impacts from growing or ingesting the GMO's that have already been distributed,' Moore continues. 'Yet every half-baked sensationalism and contrivance from activists with no training in science gets airtime on the evening news. Even the Golden Rice, a GMO that may help prevent blindness in half a million children a year, is rejected out of hand by these anti-humanists, who put unfounded fear-mongering ahead of the worlds poor'"

To further quote from the book:

"James Shikwati, director of Kenya's Inter-Regional Economic Network, raises additional questions that weigh heavily on the minds of people in his part of the world.

* Why do Europe's developed countries impose their environmental ethics on poor countries that are simply trying to pass through a stage they themselves went through?

* After taking numerous risks to reach their current economic and technological status, why do they tell poor countries to use no energy, and no agricultural or pest control technologies that might pose some conceivable risk of environmental harm?

* Why do they tell poor countries to follow sustainable development doctrines that really mean little or no energy or economic development?"

To deny economic development is to deny the key to population growth in 3rd World Countries. In the developed western world, native populations are declining. In Japan and Italy the dropping of birth rates is becoming a national crisis. In the majority of western countries, it is immigration that is responsible for population growth. Why is this?

In most third world countries your children are your social security. With high rates of infant and adult mortality, and the lack of modern farming and manufacturing methods, large families are the norm and needed to insure someone survives to take care of you when you are old. Think of our own history during the first 125 years of our country in which farmer's preferred large families.

In Western countries, technology allows us to provide for our needs efficiently without intense labor. Modern technology has raised life expectancies and lowered infant mortality, making large families unnecessary. Of course some of the population growth in 3rd world countries is driven by local customs or religious beliefs, but with education this can and has been addressed.

As explained by Berkeley Professor of Energy and Resources Jack Hollander in the introduction to his book "The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty, Not Affluence, Is the Environment's Number One Enemy":

"One of the greatest success stories of the recent half-century is, in fact, the remarkable progress the industrial societies have made, during a period of robust economic growth, in reversing the negative environmental impacts of industrialization. In the United States the air is cleaner and the drinking water purer than in any time in five decades; the food supply is more abundant and safer than ever before; the forested area is the highest in three hundred years; most rivers and lakes are clean again; and largely because of technological innovation and the information revolution, industry, buildings and transportation systems are more energy - and - resource efficient than anytime in the past. This is not to say that the resource/environment situation in the United States is near perfect or even totally satisfactory - of course it is not. Much needs to be done. But undeniably, the improvements have been remarkable.

The media have played a major roll in encouraging the growth of environmental pessimism and technophobia by focusing on worst-case, doomsday scenarios in reporting environmental subjects and consistently underplaying the remarkable progress being made by the affluent societies in enhancing the quality of the environment.

The real enemies of environmental progress are poverty and tyranny, not technology or global markets. On the contrary, technological innovation enabled by affluence and freedom are a major source of the environmental progress already made by the industrial societies, and the global penetration of innovative technologies will most likely be a crucial ingredient for achieving a future sustainable environment throughout the world. Unfortunately, the reality of environmental progress and promise is obscured by the doomsday rhetoric propounded in recent years by many environmental groups and amplified by the media...

Typical of today's environmental pessimism, these doomsday pronouncements contain grains of truth imbedded in a sea of exaggeration. Without jumping ahead into the details of the scientific subjects they encompass, which is the task of subsequent chapters, I assert here that such broad brush statements mislead the public and, in some instances, are scientifically inaccurate. For example, they usually represent environmental quality as rapidly deteriorating, which is not the case. They usually represent the earth's productive capacity as rapidly diminishing, which is not the case. The usually represent population growth as a global threat, which is not the case. And they usually represent global warming as definitely linked to human activities, which has not been established. Countering such environmental pessimism with factual basis for environmental optimism is one of the objectives of this book."

I suggest everyone read this well researched and documented book.

"In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish."
-Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)

Where will you place your trust? In the environmental movement that views mankind as a pox on the world; it wishes us to return to the Stone Age and advocates policies deadly to 3rd World Nations - or in mankind's ability, through freedom and technology, to overcome the threats we have faced.

Is the environmental movement's policy of "Eco-Imperialism" and "Eco-Socialism," which has opposed the development of 3rd World Countries, their chosen future for us? What have their actions shown...?

Their actions have shown that the environmental movement, originally founded for good purposes, is in its current state morally and ethically bankrupt. It is an elite ideology in which the failed Socialist policies of doomed regimes have found a home. It is an ideology that hates mankind and dismisses the needs of the world's poor, apathetic to the cycle of death and poverty that is their reality. The ideology of the environmental movement denies 3rd World Countries the technology to choose their destiny and instead it promises them a life of living hell.

It this not a crime against humanity? Is this not genocide against the worlds poor?

"I have long believed that the guiding hand of Providence did not create this new nation of America for ourselves alone, but for a higher cause: the preservation and extension of the sacred fire of human liberty. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of these United States are covenants we have made not only with ourselves, but with all of mankind. Our founding documents proclaim to the world that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few, they are the universal right of all God's children."
-Ronald Reagan (1991)

You are being given the opportunity to protect your freedom to access your public lands by commenting on the future of your forests; please take this responsibility seriously.

We will be evaluating and commenting on the forest plans before the comment period ends in August. We will be releasing these comments to our supporters to evaluate with an email address to the Forest Planning Team so you can comment too. Please do your part to protect your access by visiting our web site for this information or sign up on our email list to be kept informed on the forest plans.

If you missed our past Forest Plan Updates:

What's at Stake Part I (fire management)
What's at Stake Part II (roads/Access)
What's at Stake Part III (mountain biking)
What's at Stake Part IV (Vision)
What's at Stake Part V (The Wildlands Project)
What's at Stake Part VI (Ideology/economic and governmental)
What's at Stake Part VII (Ideology / Nature)

you can view them by clicking on the "view recent forest plan alerts" drop down list on the top of this page.


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