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Commentary

Chris Vargas

Do The Main Stream Environmental Organizations Deserve Your Blind Obedience?
Part II of III

(Editors note: originally this was going to be a two-part commentary but due to the tremendous amount of information covered we decided to turn it into a three-part commentary.  If you haven't read the first part of this commentary in the June issue of Smoke Signals, please follow the hyperlink; Part I discusses the impact on our economy and national security.

What have the main stream environmental organizations become; what is their ideology and current push for Wilderness Areas based on?

 "There is a lure in power.  It can get into a man's blood

just as gambling and lust for money have been known to do."

Harry S. Truman

    The following excerpt from and article published in the Blue Ribbon Coalition (BRC) Magazine by Douglas Hackey compares the current course of the environmental movement to other fanatically based organizations and their misuse of power:

    "The radical environmentalists mutated from a once noble cause: environmentalism.  After a childhood of Silent Spring, a lifetime of Earth Days and Superfund Sites, automatic endorsement of environmental causes and initiatives is ingrained in our culture.  Mom, apple pie and the environment are at the top of the common consensus list.

    I remember that the mujahadeen also sprang from a noble cause, the holy war to expel the infidel Russians form Islamic Afghanistan.  When the mujahadeen warriors had driven the Russians out and run out of targets, they were suppose to go back to subsistence farming (or back to the Islamic countries they came from). Instead, they reveled in their new-found power and status as holy warriors.  They sought new targets, evils and missions and became Al Quaida.

    The radical environmentalists walked a similar path.  After driving DDT, PCBs and egregious polluters from the land, the establishment of a cabinet level agency to safeguard our environment and eliminating almost all automotive emissions, they had run out of mainstream targets.  They too, were unwilling to give up their new status, power and position, and demanded new missions, enemies, and evils for their holy war to overcome.

    For years, we ignored the Al Quaida.  To date, we've ignored the radical environmentalists.  For violence, they are mostly known for destroying some vehicles, businesses, and homes.  For policy, they've been much more effective, achieving the elimination of shared use and or human access to millions of square miles of public lands."

"The environmental movement has shifted from being politically centered and science-based to having a strong left-wing rhetoric that has more to do with politics than science.  There is no reason why environmentalists should be left-wing.  Since I left Greenpeace, I have seen the movement drift into extremism, abandoning common sense and logic.  To a large extent, it is being hijacked by activists who are using green rhetoric to launch agendas that don't have much to do with ecology"

Dr. Patrick Moore

Founding member of Greenpeace and served for nine years as President of Greenpeace Canada and seven years as a Director of Greenpeace International.

I don't really think most of those every day citizens involved in the environmental movement, even the general public, realized the drastic changes in government and society that would be needed to achieve their policies.  As the form of their political shape begins to appear it, bears an uncanny resemblance to Communism and Socialism.  While the United States won the Cold War, the ideology we fought against has found a new home in the environmental movement.

On many occasions I have asked the supporters of the environmental movement, including a lady who claimed to have "face time" with former president Clinton (I don't think she meant the same kind of face time as Monica Lewinsky).  I asked her to please state the comprehensive economic plan that will be implemented with the environmental plan they hope to achieve.  She then began to bash President Bush and "Big Business."

The only non-bashing response I ever get is "we will have a sustainable economy."  My question has always been; what is a sustainable economy?  It amazes me that they are willing to lead us to this environmental paradise without explaining how we are going to pay for it and what effect it will have on our economy.  What will be the effect on companies, employment and our ability to fund social services as well as other critical services, including defense?

"Ecology is a limited science which makes use of scientific methods."
"...it should, first of all, be borne in mind that the norms and tendencies of the Deep Ecology movement are not derived from ecology by logic or induction."

Arnie Naess, Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, pgs 154-153

They attack the capitalistic system we are based on.  They do not respect private property rights.  They say they want to stop urban "sprawl" but how will this be achieved?  In order to achieve their "Wildlands Project" (to be discussed in the 3^rd part of this commentary to be published in the Winter Issue of Smoke Signals), and to address urban "sprawl," will government mandate where we live?  Legislation is already being instituted to address this environmental concern.  In the future will Americans be forced to live in high-density urban housing?  Will suburbs be extinct?

"We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects . . . We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land."

Dave Foreman, former Earth First! Leader and one of the founders of the Wildlands Project
quote taken from Confessions of an Eco-Warrior

Here in Orange County, would Santa Margarita, Ladera, Foothill Ranch, Aliso Woods and the other South County cities exist if their agenda to address urban "sprawl" was the adopted policy, legislated by law, before these communities where built beginning in the late 60's?  If this policy to combat sprawl were in place, would the citizens and future citizens of Orange County at the time be forced to live in constructed high density housing in Santa Ana, Anaheim, Buena Park and the other cities that existed at the time?

"Ecosophy, or Deep Ecology, then, involves a shift from science to wisdom."

Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, pg 27

Deep ecology it one of the beliefs of the Earth First! movement, as is removing all the dams in the United States as expressed on their web site at http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/efj/primer/different.html At a time when we are suffering a national drought is this sound policy?

They constantly bash "big business" and our capitalistic system.  They attack property rights and the future right to live where you desire.  They state the need for "Global Sustainable Development," which means social and economic policies that would place limits on the United States and its' economic might.

What form of government does this sound like?

"Socialism makes the change in property relations which provides a sound basis for bringing the production system into harmony with nature.  Socialism can end both the exploitation of labor and the exploitation of nature.  It can make possible the planning of production for the needs of the people and for sustainable ecosystems in a sustainable economy….  The environment that sustains us can be saved only by changing our economic system….  The Communist Party of the United States sees the capitalist ruling class as the enemy of both workers and the environment…(thus)…we need socialism."

1992 Communist Party USA Declaration

    Who is to blame for this?  We are.  We have abdicated reason and let their emotional appeals to "save the environment" govern us.  We are not God and thus imperfect.  Sometimes we are slave's to our emotions and the casualty of this is reason.  Who has emboldened the radical environmentalists to have such power over the mainstream environmental movement?  We have.

    As Niccolo Machiavelli, the author of the great 16^th century political masterpiece The Prince, points out:

"He who causes another to become powerful ruins himself, for he brings such power into being either by design or by force, and both of these elements are suspect to the one he has made powerful."

Are the mainstream environmental organizations as "moral" as they claim to be?

    How corrupt are their methods and how far will they go to destroy the lives of American citizens by callously taking away their way of life?  Are their actions always based on reason and science - or are they sometimes based on emotion bordering on fanaticism.  The following examples detail the corruption of the environmental movement:

Example 1: from the Orange County Register:

    "In the Klamath basin along the California-Oregon border, the federal government in 2001 choked off the supply of water to the drought-stricken farmers so that levels in the Klamath Lake would climb higher to protect the suckerfish and Coho Salmon.

    The diversions ordered by the U.S. Department of the Interior were so severe that it disrupted an entire community, causing the destruction of farms and businesses dependent on the farmers.  The normally peaceful community erupted in protests, with some farmers forcibly taking over the water supply until the federal government arrived.  In early February 2002, a preliminary federal report completed by the National Academy of Sciences argues that the efforts not only caused severe hardship on families living in the area, but didn't do the fish much good, either.  In fact, the higher levels were in some instances even harmful to the salmon.

    "The committee concludes that there is no substantial scientific foundation at this time for changing the operation of the Klamath Project to maintain higher water levels in Upper Klamath Lake for the endangered sucker populations or higher minimum flows in the Klamath River main stem for the threatened Coho population," according to the report.

    The study found a variety of reasons for reductions in the fish population, many of which were unrelated to water levels.  The report also calls the explanations for the reduction in fish populations to be "incompletely documented."

    The net result of this attempt to circumvent science and base policy on agenda resulted in severe economic consequences on the very people organizations such as Farm Aid attempt to help, the small farmer."
 

Example 2: from the Wall Street Journal

    "In 1989, global-warming enthusiast Stephen Schneider, one of the anti-Lomborg attackers in Scientific American, confessed "[We] are not just scientists but human beings as well.  And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place.  To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination.  That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage.  So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. . . . Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

Some examples of this:

"The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer" - Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb, (1968)

"I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000" - Paul
Ehrlich in (1969)

"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)

The current alarming message from the environmental movement is Global Warming. It wasn't always that way:

"This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century." - Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976

"The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population." - Reid Bryson, Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man, (1971) 

"There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon... The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it." - Newsweek, April 28, (1975)

"This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000." -
Lowell Ponte - The Cooling, 1976

"If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age." - Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

Example number 3: from the Wall Street Journal

     "In December, a scandal broke over a high-profile survey to count threatened Canada lynx.  Seven employees from the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service and a state agency submitted hair samples from captive lynx and tried to pass them off as wild.  When caught, the employees claimed they were testing the DNA identification process.  Another explanation is that they were falsely attempting to establish the presence of lynx in places where they aren't, potentially blocking national forests to human use."

The lynx hair sent to the lab came from a lynx that lived in a cage at a tourist attraction where people pay $8 to see animals — miles away from where the biologists claimed they found the hair.  "The only reason that this came to light is because a retiring employee... blew the whistle," said Jim Beers, a retired biologist who was with the Department of Fish and Wildlife for 30 years.  Beers says he's seen his agency change from promoting science to pushing fanatical environmentalism.  "The agencies today are staffed with environmental radical activists," he stated, adding that these activists do not want people to use the forests.

Beers says that one way to keep the forest free of people is to find endangered species.  "Once you establish that there are any lynx in the area and you say there were some lynx over in this area or there, the areas in between suddenly become very urgent to not allow the road to be built, not allow the ski slope to come in... not allow grazing... ultimately, not to let you or I drive our wives and kids in for a picnic," Beers said.

Example 4: "Mountain Biker's For Wilderness

    Since we first broke this story about this fraud being perpetrated by Senator Boxer and Wilderness proponents, they have continued to attempt to fool the public into believing IMBA "Chapters" and the majority of California mountain bikers have endorsed the wilderness bill.  The web site for "Mountain Biker's For Wilderness is http://www.mb4w.org/advocates.htm

    We have a part of a column from the San Francisco Chronicle on our web site, written by Tom Stienstra, who used information from this so-called organization in his article "MOUNTAIN BIKING GROUP WINS COUP" .  Click here WildernessAlert16.html to view the article and the update that exposed this fraud.  Here is the information from this group that Tom Stienstra used in his story.

    "In turn, several chapters of the International Mountain Biking Association have also announced support for the bill, including chapters in Placer and Nevada counties in Northern California, and Santa Barbara and San Diego counties in southern California."

    Senator Boxer is continuing to perpetuate this deception by posting this endorsement on her web site at http://boxer.senate.gov/senate/b_2535.html  with the statement "Mountain Bikers Announce Support For California Wild Heritage Act."

    As anyone who is familiar with IMBA knows, IMBA does not have "chapters" they have affiliated clubs.  There's no such thing as an IMBA "chapter."  The clubs don't support the wilderness bill. How do I know? The presidents of these "IMBA chapters," I mean clubs, are members of the Warrior's Society.

    This is a deliberate attempt by Boxer and her wilderness supporters to fool the public into thinking IMBA and the majority of California mountain biker's support the wilderness bill.

    When our Santa Monica representative, Jennifer Klausner, first received the press release from an aide to Senator Boxer in late July, we emailed them at the address provided (mb4wletter@hotmail.com .), and asked them to prove that the San Diego and Santa Barbara "chapters" of IMBA support the wilderness bill by sending out a statement from the presidents of these clubs, Andy Darragh (San Diego Mountain Bike Association) and Chuck Anderson (Santa Barbara Mountain Bike Trail Volunteers).

    If you notice, their names aren't on the pro-wilderness petition on their web site.

    But it doesn't stop there.  In an attempt to add legitimacy to the press release, they quoted a representative from one of IMBA's corporate sponsors, Patagonia, who were only too willing to take part in this fraud.

    Want proof?  Read this statement from the "Mountain Bikers For Wilderness" press release:

    "Senator Boxer's Wilderness bill (S 2535) gives mountain bikers access to their favorite trails, and protects important threatened wild places," said John Sterling, Director of Environmental Programs at Patagonia, Inc.  "As a company that both makes mountain biking products and employs avid mountain bikers, we fully support S 2535 - it's a balanced and fair proposal."

    Our researcher did speak at length with John Sterling at Patagonia to confirm this statement.  Those quotes on the MB4W press release are his. He is also on the board of the California Wilderness Commission.  Patagonia's mission is to "protect the wilderness."  Their methods can be seen as zealous or terrorist depending on which side of the fence you are on.  He admitted that the MB4W is a recent thing, a response to IMBA opposition to S 2535.

    It is Patagonia's policy to support wilderness bills.  Remember, wilderness advocates got only about a quarter of the land they originally wanted in this bill, and I guarantee that in future bills they will continue to seek these areas and others.  They will not be satisfied. Many of these areas do not qualify for wilderness but they have continued to change the definition of wilderness to the point where any area is wilderness if they think it is, not if it meets the original requirements of the wilderness bill.

    Since it is Patagonia's policy to support wilderness bills, it would have endorsed the bill even if all of the originally proposed wilderness areas were in it, which would have been devastating to mountain biking in the National Forests.  It would have resulted in the loss of 99 percent of our riding areas here in Orange County.  The San Juan Trail would have been but a memory to the mountain bike community, along with many other well known trails in the National Forest.

    Patagonia is a corporate sponsor if IMBA while at the same time it supports legislation that would be devastating to its members.  As I mentioned, it is Patagonia's policy to support every wilderness bill no matter how mountain bikers are affected.  With friends like this who needs enemies?

    Several of our researchers provided the following info on who was behind the group, "Mountain Bikers for Wilderness."

    1. "Mountain Biker's For Wilderness" is a "new" organization.  The group claims to be mountain bikers but they are actually rafters and kayakers that want the Wild and Scenic Rivers designations passed.  We found this out by the meta tags in their web page html code.  These are used by search engines to help locate web references to paddling were in these codes.

    The keywords on this web page:

    <META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="Mountain Bikers for Wilderness, MB4W, Mountain Bikers 4 Wilderness, California Wilderness, Friends of the River "> which shows that it has a Friends of the River connection.  You can expect this text to be dropped in the future.

    The domain name is registered to Don Massie of Chico who registered the site a week before the press release was made public.

    A little more on Don Massie.  He's listed on this document of attendance at a public meeting.  He is listed as representing the Chico Paddleheads.

    Chico PaddleheadsM axe to grind is apparently to stop the hydro dams on the rivers N. Fork Feather River:

    2. "Mountain Biker's For Wilderness" is not an IMBA affiliated club, although now that we have exposed them that may change in the near future.  We, as true mountain bike activists, haven't stooped to the level of starting a sham club of kayakers to get press and sway those that aren't in the know.  Instead, we chose to fight our battles on the merit of a bill that eliminates miles of mountain bike trails and is bad for cycling as a whole.

    These types of tactics and corrupt methods used by Senator Boxer and her supporters show her desperation.  Remember this when Senator Boxer comes up for re-election in 2 years.

In an email sent to the Warrior's Society on August 23^rd, Jim Hasenauer of IMBA wrote:

    "I agree, we need to confront Boxer and the CWHC campaign to tell them Mountain Bicyclists are not supporting bill yet.

    The Mountain Bikers for Wilderness are certainly entitled to their opinion, but they are not representative of the mountain bike community.

    The four IMBA clubs that are identified as chapters (minor misstatement) endorsed proposed wilderness in their areas after negotiating bicyclist priorities.  They did not endorse the bill (major misstatement)."

    Jim is very gracious in describing this fraudulent press release by Boxer and her supporters as "misstatements" instead of what they are, an attempt to deceive the mountain bike community as well as the general public.  If nothing else, IMBA should realize that Boxer and her supporters will stoop to any level of lies to get this wilderness bill passed.

Example number 4: personal experience

    This example was posted by Frank Lurtz, a well-known pro-wilderness and anti-mountain bike activist. This statement was taken from the IMBA list server and was Frank's response to a posting by Mark Flint, a mountain bike advocate from Arizona.  In the posting Mark described the unfair closure of the Cactus Forest Trail, which Mark referred to as a "single track trail" in Saguaro National Park:

    "Wrong.  There is no such thing as a "single track trail."  This term is used by mountain bikers to refer to trails that were never built to accommodate mechanical vehicular traffic."

    I responded to Frank Lurtz:

   In the Trabuco District of the Cleveland National Forest, North of Ortega Highway and South of the 91 Freeway, what we call "single track" were once mining roads, then "double tracks" then finally "single tracks."  They were built originally as roads.  The majority of trails currently in the County reserve system, which were once private lands, were originally deer trails then cow trails, then used by motorcycles, particularly in one area known as "Honda Hills."  The majority of legal trails were never "built" to accommodate hiking "specifically" or "intentionally."  I'm sure many of the trails in the United States came into creation the same way.

    But hey, like the examples previously mentioned, Frank doesn't let facts get in the way of his claims.  Too bad he can't make up false data to support his claim.  There may be more examples that have yet to be discovered.  Their self-deceit ruined the lives of farmers and attempted to limit our freedom to responsibly enjoy the forest.  The wilderness battle here in Orange County is just one example.  We need alternative designations.

"Liberty is the great parent of science and virtue;

and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free."

Thomas Jefferson

    Am I saying that all studies justifying closures are corrupt?  No.  Mary Thomas, the local Forest Service Biologist is a person I deeply respect for her integrity and knowledge.  She was responsible for monitoring the Arroyo Toad Closure of Maple Springs.

    Even though we are forced to live with seasonal closures here in our district due to the presence of the endangered Southwestern Arroyo Toad, the closures are not caused by her studies indicating the presence of the Toad, but rather by the law and subsequent ruling that is the consequence of her studies.  The closure does not discriminate; hikers aren't allowed access either.  I believe measures can be taken to mitigate access during the breeding season of the toad.  The road will not be closed in 2002 due to lack of rain, which prevented toad reproduction.

    The role that the policies of environmental organizations have played in this year's devastating fires also comes to mind, but I'll save that commentary for a future issue of Smoke Signals. 

"Self-deceit, this fatal weakness of mankind,

is the source of half the disorders of human life."

Adam Smith

    William F. Buckley wrote the following:

    "To believe that capitalists will behave honorably just because they are engaged in capitalism is akin to believing that no priest will engage in pedophilia simply because he is a priest."

    I think Mr. Buckley would agree with me that the following has just as much validity:

    "To believe that environmentalists will behave honorably just because they are engaged in protecting the environment is akin to believing that no priest will engage in pedophilia simply because he is a priest."

    The true question, as I've often stated, is not if the "perceived" morality of a law is justified but if the "actual" morality of the outcome is.  Laws that do not stay true to this process, or fail to seek reasonable remedies, cause most of the threats to our, access,  freedom and economic/national security.

    Ask yourself the following questions:  Should I support the agenda of the environmental movement?  Should I hold them to the same standard they impose on "Big Business," or allow them to continue to operate under the assumption that the end justifies the means?

    Will the environmental organization's perceived "morality" of solution result in the "actual" morality of the outcome, particularly in regard to the U.S. remaining the "Leviathan" of the world?  Or in their minds is that the root of all of our problems?

    Their policies would require a total change in our government and economic system, with the main policies requiring state control, resembling the socialist model more than the capitalist economic system that our country was founded on.

    As I mentioned in the first part of this commentary, do they feel China would be a better alternative as the world "Leviathan" and would China embrace their environmental agenda?  Is this why they exempted China from the requirements of the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, which limits so-called "greenhouse" gases?  Congress was not willing to support this treaty -including the Democrats who are traditionally allies of the mainstream environmental organizations.

    What would happen if they attempted to protest as forcefully in China as they do here?  Would their human rights be protected or would they share the same fate as those seeking religious freedom or reform of the Chinese government?

    I think we all know the answer to that last question.  The fact of the matter is that the Chinese do not have the luxury to care about the environment.  Americans have the luxury to care for and protect the environment.  We must protect our environment.  We must protect our economy, national security and way of life.  These decisions must be based on science and reason, not on a hostile ideology bent on state control.

    We must always consider not only what the environment will be like if their agenda is achieved, but also what form our economy and government will take.  What effect will their policies have on our freedom?  How will we survive in a world where time after time tyrants have risen and attempted to conquer the world? 

    In light of all the rhetoric they spout I wonder; does the mainstream environmental movement consider America the current tyrant?

Part III of this commentary will be published in the Winter Issue of Smoke Signals

In Part III of this commentary, we will ask the following questions:

What is the Wildlands Project?

What is the future of recreation if their agenda is achieved?

What is the role of IMBA?

And finally, what should you do?

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In accordancde with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

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