Commentary
Do the Mainstream Environmental Organizations Deserve Your Blind Support?
Part 1 of a 3 part series
By Chris Vargas
While mountain bikers have been concerned primarily with the mainstream environmental organizations' push for wilderness areas and loss of access, there is much more to their agenda that we should be concerned about.
For over the last quarter century the environmental movement has demanded the unquestioning support of the American public to the point where any attempt to hold the environmental movement accountable is met with vicious attacks on those questioning their claims or actions. A good example of this is Scientific American's editorial attack of Bjorn Lomborg's book The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (published by Cambridge University Press), which is detailed on the Greenspirit website at http://www.greenspirit.com/lomborg/. A review of the book was published on April 22, 2002, in the Orange County Register. In this review the author states that:
"The details are provided by a surprising source, environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish professor. Formerly a doomsayer, Mr. Lomborg challenged his students to find flaws in the optimistic arguments of the late economist Julian Simon (who challenged common mainstream environmental beliefs) in such as books as The Ultimate Resource."
To Lomborg's surprise, his research found that Mr. Simon mostly was right. Mr. Lomborg's findings so upset the doom-saying type of environmentalist that, during a speaking engagement in England last year, one threw a pie in Mr. Lomborg's face.
Some of the book's conclusions are backed by copious statistics:
� "We are not running out of energy or natural resources. There will be more and more food per head of the world's population. Fewer and fewer people are starving."
� Global warming is occurring but has been exaggerated, and "the typical cure of early and radical fossil fuel cutbacks is way worse than the original affliction, and moreover its total impact will not pose a devastating problem for our future."
� "Mankind's lot has actually improved in terms of practically every measurable indicator." He believes that much improvement still can be achieved.
"Censorship always defeats it own purpose,
for it creates in the end the kind of society
that is incapable of exercising real discretion."
Henry S. Commager
Is the mainstream environmental movement worthy of this God-like position? They criticize our president, saying that he demands unquestioning support in our current fight against terrorism, yet they have no problem operating in this manner. No one deserves our blind obedience.
In the first part of this two-part commentary, I will discuss how the mainstream environmental organizations have no answer as to what effects their policies will have on our economic and national security. While they have their environmental agenda, where is their economic and national security agenda?
The second part of this commentary, which will
be published in the September issue of Smoke Signals, will ask the following
questions: How moral are environmentalists? What threat do the mainstream
environmental organizations pose to recreation in the forest? What part have
they played in the destruction of our forests? And finally, what
should you do?
"To quell violence and disorder, to repulse barbarians and brigands, to rescue living souls from agony and torture, to save the nation from imminent downfall, these are the true ends of Humanity and Righteousness."
Yoshida Shoin
Economic and National Security Part I
Who will be the World's "Leviathan" in the 21st Century?
What I find astounding is how ignorant the majority of the mainstream environmental organizations are to not only economic threats, but national security threats as well. The same goes for most of the American public. We do not live in an economic vacuum. Terrorists, countries with repressive regimes and countries that wish to replace us as a world power welcome the "perceived" morality of the environment organizations. They welcome it not because they wish to adopt it but instead because they see it as a way to exploit our blind acceptance of it.
The mainstream environmental organizations have made the critical mistake of thinking that the world operates as we do here in the U.S.�and that is a fatal mistake. Our enemies do not value the environment, personal freedom or morality. They are driven by a philosophy that is in many cases totally foreign to us. These environmental organizations have their answers as to how to save the environment, but have they ever given answers to the following questions: How would the blind acceptance of their environmental policies affect our economy and government? What level of government control would be necessary? What would our standard of living be? How would we pay for our national security?
This is the danger in blindly accepting the "save the environment at all costs" mentality of the majority of the mainstream environmental organizations. This is not a world in which we should hobble our economic might, the number one thing that enables us to maintain our standard of living and have the capital and resources necessary to defend ourselves.
Am I saying that we should wholesale exploit our wild areas to the benefit of our economy and national security? NO. But we must understand that some of the agenda they are pushing would have a detrimental effect on our nation's freedom, economy and national security. I repeat: They have never given an answer as to what form our economy and government would take if all of the policies they expect us to blindly accept, which would require centralized planning and state control, were enacted. What would be the fate of our national security?
Throughout human history there has been a "Leviathan," a country that kept order and was what we now call the world's "superpower." From the Babylonians to the Egyptians to the Romans and on to Spain, France, England and finally the United States, there has been a country that has been the dominant power in the world (or the known world) and kept the peace. In most of the 20th century under the current leviathan, the United States, the world has been a safer place (except in the minds of some in the environmental movement).
Will we continue to be the leviathan, and
if not us, who? Russia?
The European Union? Japan? China?
Russia's reform of its economic system is not as advanced as China's, which began around 10 years earlier. Russia, although a nuclear power, is not an economic threat, at least not in the near future. As far as a security threat, they understand that they are in no position economically to start a war. Russia has pulled back from most of it overseas bases. Its navy is in a state of decline, as is most of its military.
It has no effective mainstream environmental organizations, precisely because they have no effective economy. Their infrastructure is in decay; their environmental record is abysmal, as it was under communism. Infant mortality is rising and the average lifespan is dropping. Drug-resistant tuberculosis is a national heath threat, as is alcoholism.
Russia realizes its economic and national security is threatened. Did they turn to China or the U.S. for help?
From the May 27, 2002 issue of Newsweek:
"For 57 years, Russians and Americans have marked the May anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. This year that day took on a special resonance. When the U.S. Defense attach� at the American Embassy in Moscow was promoted to brigadier general, who was invited to help pin on his stars and epaulettes? A senior general in the Russian Army.
�Pause, for a moment, and savor the irony. Two decades ago Soviet troops were fighting a war in Afghanistan against U.S.�armed guerillas; now thousands of American forces are scattered across the region, in supposedly "temporary" bases that could well become permanent, all with Putin's blessing."
From the Associated Press story "Russia designated a market economy" in the June 7th issue of the Orange County Register:
"�For his part, Putin has actively pursued closer ties with the West as a way to bolster his country's efforts to recover from 70 years of communist central planning and lift the country's economic fortunes."
The European Union countries are still sorting out their economic union. Britain is hesitant to fully integrate because of fear of the loss of autonomy and national sovereignty. It will take time to integrate the various national cultures and economies with no guarantee of economic success. France's economy has been in stagnation for 15 years, with an unemployment rate of 9 percent. The European Union is also burdened by cradle-to-grave social welfare and declining birth rates. It does not pose a national security threat, especially in light of Britain's traditional independence and close ties with the United States. For the most part they also blindly support the agenda of the mainstream environmental organizations.
Japan has been in recession for 10 years, since the bursting of the investment bubble in the late 80s. A big challenge for Japan is the declining birth rate and the aging of the population, which has become such a threat to its economy and national security that the government is developing policies to encourage citizens to have children. Declining birthrates have become a problem in many western economies.
"Today Asia has emerged as one of the most dynamic and fastest growing regions in the world and has surpassed Europe as America's No. 1 trading partner. Over the past three decades, China has awakened and seeks to reassume its historic position as one of the great nations of the world, while Japan's economy has risen and fallen."
Ambassador John R. Malott
President of the World Affairs Council of Orange County
China's economic success in last 25 years was based on the policy of abandoning centralized planning and easing state control, the same as Russia. But they undertook reform before "bankruptcy" as the Russians did�why? China looked at reform as a savior for its country. After thirty years they have not been disappointed.
The following was taken from the Rand Institute report entitled "China and the World's Economy: The Short March from Isolation to Major Player" (http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1300/MR1300.ch9.pdf). The Rand Institute is a non-profit institution that helps improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis.
"The decision taken by China's leaders in 1978 to restore some property rights to farmers was a pivotal event in China's modernization and the near-simultaneous beginning of the opening of its economy was of equal importance.
"Openness is a crucial element in a strategy
for successful development. According to Sachs and Warner, no country in a
sample of 117 that pursued �appropriate' policies (involving a �property rights'
test and an �openness' test) in 1970�1989 had less than 1.2 percent annual
growth and not one of them having under $4,000 GDP
per-capita grew at less than 2 percent. They found that 37 countries acted to
open trade and grew an average of 1 percent more per year in the first two years
after liberalization and 1.3 percent more in the longer term by comparison with
the decade before liberalization."
"China has 700 million people. It is not a great power today. But in twenty years, it will be a great power and in fifty years it will be an enormous power."
General Charles de Gaulle � 1967
China realized it would never be able to provide for its people with an economy hobbled by the type of state control that the mainstream environmental movement's policies would bring about. Most analysts agree: in the future the one country that has the possibility to displace us as the leviathan, or world superpower, is China. Will the world be a better place? What threat does China pose to us today?
The following was taken from a Phoenix Consulting Group report entitled "Chinese Security and Economic Interests, American Technologies and Critical Information" (http://www.intellpros.com/lib/chinese.html). The Phoenix Consulting Group provides business intelligence and solutions.
"From the Chinese perspective, qiuji�or global citizenship�depends on global power; global power depends on national power; and national power emphasizes the role of two of those new items on the list: science and technology, and economics. Science and technology have become the centerpieces for China in its intense drive toward the achievement of its Four Modernizations. In a circular way, economic development depends on�and in turn fuels�scientific and technological progress. For the Chinese, there are no class identification issues here: science and technology are considered as global collective goods. As a global citizen, China is clearly entitled to a share of those goods in much the same way as she developed in the nineteenth century under the concept (and dilemma) of ti-yong�how to use foreign technology in developing and strengthening the essence of China itself."
"Since the 1970s the PRC (People's Republic of China) has been dedicating increasing amounts of its resources to research and development in such areas as energy technologies, materials, computer systems, lasers, aerospace systems, high-energy physics and genetic engineering. China's defense industries, as discussed later, are becoming more and more technology-drive and in turn, stimulate advanced technology spin-offs for dual uses within the civilian economy. The Chinese recognize that creating new high technology organizations in such areas as microelectronics, software, advanced materials and biotechnology will, in turn, strengthen their defense industrial base. Fundamental to creating such a base is the transfer of advanced technologies from other nations, research institutes, universities and national and/or private enterprises."
What is the current state of China's military forces? A report on Mainland China's military threat to Taiwan "China vs. China: a West Pacific anomaly soon celebrates its 50-year anniversary" written by Sten Raendi http://www.hhs.se/eijs/anomaly/ROCvsPRC.htm from the Stockholm School of Economics http://www.hhs.se states:
"People are still China's greatest resource. China has a population of some 1.2 billion, with the world's largest army: some 3.2 million men under arms. And today it has what is probably the world's fastest growing military budget, while other super powers are reining in military spending. Fuelled by an economy that is solid and steadily growing, the Chinese military establishment is now not merely a force to be reckoned with because of its dimensions. It is increasingly better equipped and trained at lower echelons, and dramatically more effective and well equipped with the types of sophisticated heavy weapons a super power would use to project force, to impose its will not only on its contiguous neighbors but to any global point it feels it has a vested interest."
"�In the past six years, the PRC leadership has used the economic boon to fund a whopping 140% increase in military expenditures. A great number of used and new techniques have been delivered to PRC, the recent purchases include the following:
� Submarines: previously restricted to patrolling beneath the seas in a fleet of outdated Romeo-class submarines, China has obtained four Russian- built, Kilo-class submarines, considered some of the best diesel-powered subs in the world.
� Aircraft: In the last year alone, China has made a quantum leap in its air-force capability. Previous air-defence and long-range, maritime strike aircraft dated from the 1950s and �60 s. Now, China has acquired 26 of Russia's most advanced fighter jets, the su-27. Beijing hopes to build an additional 300 of the planes in its own factories. China also is hard at work on a home-grown copy of a U.S. F-16 presented to China by Pakistan.
� Missiles: In fulfillment lf several years worth of dire predictions from Western observers who have trumpeted China's development and subsequent testing of a thermonuclear device, Beijing has indeed produced a long-range intercontinental missile-a mobile weapon capable of targeting Europe or California."
China is a supporter of the Kyoto Treaty to address global warming, they are also exempt from its requirements as part of the treaty. The environmental organizations demonize the U.S. for not signing the Kyoto Agreement because of the detrimental affects it will have on our economy yet remain silent on China's exemption.
What about other threats? India and Pakistan are close to war over Kashmir and other historical issues. A war between these two nations would be catastrophic because they posses nuclear weapons - and may be inclined to use them. The U.S. has taken the lead to pressure both nations to solve their differences diplomatically. Again, a leviathan is needed. I pray all nations join together to solve this crisis.
Another threat to our national and economic security (and our forests) is an attack by terrorists. They seek to build a paradise on earth and will use any means possible. In their minds, the end justifies the means to the point of using 14-year-olds on pipe bomb suicide missions, as they did in the West Bank of Palestine. Their "perceived" morality of action will never result in the "actual" morality of result. Our economy and strong military have so far proven effective in currently addressing this threat.
One point made by Art Muir that is consistently ignored by the mainstream environmental groups is the fact that the only way we will be able to improve the quality of life and preserve our planet is through the advances made in science and technology. The same businesses and government agencies that are attacked by the mainstream environmentalists are the groups that fund and foster advances in science and technology. One of the arguments used by these folks is that technology is often destructive and used irresponsibly and therefore should be controlled and stifled. Of course playing ostrich and sticking your head in the sand because there may be something dangerous near by is as stupid as it sounds. The Chinese (as well as several other nations) have no issue with funding and promoting research into all the areas that the mainstream environmental organizations want to ban.
Technology can be good or bad, but it is inherently neither; it is the keeper of the technology that determines how it is used, which nation should hold the keys to the future? China? Iraq? Pakistan? Or the US�
"It is only human nature to refuse, in a time of rejoicing, to listen to arguments that would turn the substance of it to a shadow."
Titus Livius
Economic and National Security Part II
Sustainable Resource Recovery and the Role of "Big Business" in Our Economy
"Poverty can be brought about by law;
it cannot be forbidden by law"
Isabel Patterson
What I also find disturbing is the attitude among the majority of mainstream environmental groups not to support any method of sustainable resource recovery. This criticism extends to the Nature Conservancy, as reported in the April 4, 2002, issue of the Orange County Register:
"It's played a key role in the preservation of 92 million acres in 28 countries and operates the largest private system of nature sanctuaries in the world. Its 5 million U.S. acres make it one of the nation's largest nongovernmental landowners. It spent $400 million in 2000 alone to buy new land�often acquiring entire ecosystems, not just piecemeal parkland.
"While the Sierra Club may be better known, the Conservancy has 10 times the annual revenue. But some critics look at what Conservancy Chief Executive Steven McCormick calls savvy pragmatism and see greed. Of particular concern: the organization's deal allowing ExxonMobil to drill gas wells on a Texas preserve in return for royalties, and similar arrangements with timber corporations such as Weyerhaeuser to log at preserves in Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia and Maine."
Native American Tribes understand the need for balance. They depend on the resources their native lands provide to help economically with their survival.
The following is part of an Associated Press Story by Brian Melley titled, "Apache pray for rain as livelihood turns to ash - A blaze ravages forests that support the Arizona tribe's key tourism and lumber industries," published in the Orange County Register on June 28, 2002:
"FORT APACHE INDIAN RESERVATION, Ariz. � As a flaming orange moon rose in the smoky sky, an Apache medicine man raised his voice in song to pray for rain to save the Indians' land and their livelihoods.
The colossal, 640-square-mile wildfire that has destroyed hundreds of homes in non-Indian communities in Arizona is also raging across the reservation, inflicting economic disaster on the White Mountain Apache, who rely on the lumber business and tourists who come to gamble and hunt.
Timber is one of the main sources of income for the tribe, half of whose 13,000 members live below the poverty line. But now a huge swath of its forests is blackened or burning and probably will not fully recover for two lifetimes. More than 70 sawmill and forestry workers are expected to lose their jobs permanently. .."
The Apache and other Native American Tribes managed their lands and understand the need for logging as one method to do that - and provide income. Other tribes also mine on their lands. Without the income provided by these activities the tribes could not afford to manage their lands or feed their people. Yet they are able to do so without destroying the very thing that defines them - their land.
The Forest Service tried to take steps to prevent the destruction of their land and their livelihood and prevent such a catastrophic fire. The Forest Service for years has been trying to manage the forest and such fires by the use of logging to thin out the forest and remove diseased trees. The following was taken from a June 29, 2002 story in the Orange County Register by by Mark Flattan and Dan Nowiki titled, "Activists' suit barred tree thinning - Forest Service had planned to reduce fire danger in Arizona area now burning.":
"Plans to cut fire danger by thinning trees in an Arizona forest area now ablaze were stymied for three years by a Tucson environmental group's lawsuit, court records show.
The plan to thin trees and remove combustible debris in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, now consumed by the Rodeo-Chediski Fire, was approved by a U.S. Forest Service supervisor in September 1999
.
But it was stopped after the Center for Biological Diversity appealed the decision, then sued in May 2000, claiming the Forest Service had not followed all laws and regulations."
I will discuss this further in the second part of my commentary in the September Issue of Smoke Signals.
Even Robert Redford realized he'd have to develop his property in order to sustain its upkeep. The Sundance Institute came out of this need. If all the policies of the environmental groups were enacted, again I ask�what kind of economy would we have? I repeat: I have yet to hear an answer as to this question and the bigger question as to how we would remain a world leader. Will we be the leviathan, and if not, who will?
The environmental movement has become a
religion based on faith, and it is a faith that does not take into account the
willingness of those seeking to replace us as the leviathan. And because they
operate on faith and not on reason, that makes them false prophets, or just as
deadly, fanatics. Their "morality" is the morality of fools, for the greater
question is not the perceived morality of their policies but the actual morality
of the outcome.
The mainstream environmental organizations constantly criticize "big business." Where does their fundraising money come from if not directly or indirectly from the very same big business that the environmental movement fights against? Do you realize how many people these industries employ, either directly or indirectly? Do you realize the capital that these companies inject into the economy, either by direct payment to employees, sub-contractors or stock earnings? How do people buy houses, bikes or food or go on vacation (or for that matter pay for their contributions to these organizations) if not because of the direct or indirect economic benefits that the big business they railed about provides?
To be intellectually honest, should the environmental groups accept money from big business either directly or indirectly through big business foundations or grants? How many SUVs have to be made or barrels of oil drilled to pay for these contributions? They constantly criticize SUVs for being gas guzzlers, but that did not stop the California Wild Heritage Wilderness Campaign's representative, who met with us last fall in Orange County, from driving down to our first meeting alone from Los Angeles in either a Chevy Suburban or Tahoe SUV.
When I have pointed out these concerns or incidents to those who debate me on environmental issues (one person claimed to have had "face" time with President Clinton), they can't or won't answer�so they start bashing Republicans and cite Enron's donations to Bush. What about Enron's support of them? Enron was known to donate money to the environmental organizations and considered in some circles to be a "green company" because of its support of the environmental organizations' cause. Will the environmental organizations give back the money they received from Enron? What about the money they receive from other big business organizations or their foundations? What big business stocks do the major well-funded foundations of the mainstream environmental organizations invest in?
Hypocrites.
While they are
quick to blame our current economic state on President Bush, the majority of the accounting
corruption related to Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, etc and the investment bubble
in the tech market occurred during the Clinton Administration.
Clinton was the hero of the mainstream environmental organizations and supported their initiatives. The health of our economy during his administration, much like his morality, was just an illusion. We are paying the price now, and will continue to over the next few years.
I wonder how well funded they would be if we had a Third World economy with all the baggage that comes with having one � poverty, hunger and corruption; it makes the our political system look like a well-run machine. One only has to look at the former communist block countries and the environmental devastation that occurred under communism to see how blessed Americans really are.
I sometimes fear that if we had the type of economy the mainstream environmental organizations seek people would not care about the environment at all, but only about putting bread in their mouths, and especially in the mouths of their children. These organizations forget how dependent they are on our economy and the big business that keeps their coffers filled.
We cannot protect our wild lands, much less our country, if we do not have the economic power to provide the funding necessary to protect them from threats, both domestic and foreign. To stop sustainable resource recovery, thus making us even more dependent on foreign sources, is economic suicide and a fatal mistake.
The thought of this catastrophe brought upon our country is what motivates me to get involved in these issues. I want to protect our environment, I want balanced use and sustainable use, I want to protect our freedom to enjoy our forests�but none of this is possible if we do not protect our economic and national security from those interests in the world that seek to destroy us or replace us as the leviathan of the world.
The majority of the mainstream environmental organizations view of America and all we represent is that of a glass half empty instead of half full. They seem bent on a course in which the blind acceptance of the "perceived' morality of their policies will result in the actual "immorality" of result, particularly regarding our freedom and economic and national security.
"Those who deny freedom deserve it not for themselves;
and under a just God, cannot long retain it."
Abraham Lincoln
The next time a mainstream environmental organization asks for your support for their plans to "save" the environment, ask yourself: What is their "economic plan" to address the changes that their "environmental plan" will bring upon our freedom, economy and national security?
And finally, the next time the mainstream environmental organizations state that they want to save the environment for our children, ask them how they will put bread in the mouths of our children and provide the capital necessary to protect them from terrorists.
"Thus, the more socially and economically
advanced the times, the more necessary it is for the leaders to maintain a sense
of their societies' fallibility and vulnerability:
that is the ultimate defense against catastrophe."
Thucydides
We have to be sure that we leave an environment
for our children to enjoy and cherish. We also must be sure we leave behind a
country that will remain a world leader that continues to be the beacon of
freedom to the world. I want to leave my son and all future Americans the legacy
of beauty, freedom and economic and national security that I have enjoyed.
We must defend our wild lands, but we must also defend our freedom, economy and national security. We must do it not with anger but with reasoned words that force the mainstream environmental organizations into the light by demanding answers to the many questions I have stated in this commentary.
In the September issue of Smoke Signals I will continue the second part of this commentary and ask the following questions: Are environmentalists as "moral" as they claim to be; in their minds does the end justify the means? What is the future of recreation if the main stream environmental agenda is achieved? What part did the fanatical policies of the mainstream environmental organizations play in the destructive fires that raged in Arizona and Colorado?
I will also discuss what environmental organization provides for the protection and responsible access to our wild lands. I will also evaluate IMBA and question their direction and policy.
And I will ask the question: What should you do?
To view the second part of this commentary in the Fall Issue of Smoke Signals click here.
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