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GREEN WEB: A SWICKI IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
It can be pretty frustrating to search for eco information on the web. Even if you’re interested in something basic, like “greening” your house. Say you fancy making some modest changes to reduce its carbon footprint and increase its self-sufficiency. You logically Google the term “green house,” expecting to find a wealth of material on how to install solar panels and water conservation toilets. Instead, you get 19 pages of links that reference the term “green” in other contexts of the word. So you learn how to build a Victorian greenhouse…and how greenhouse gases are warming the earth…but you’ll have to Google less obvious terms like “greening house” or “house green,” to get the home improvement advice you’re really looking for.
Green Web attempts to address this predicament. It’s a swicki, which is a customized search engine, and it’s dedicated to gathering and prioritizing green information on the web. Green Web relies on the collaborative input of its users, who can “vote” on an entry by clicking a plus or minus sign, and thereby move that entry up or down the listing. Vote tallies are posted next to each entry.
Standard swicki features on Green Web include a “Comment Box” for users to post on a particular search, and a “Hot Searches” box, which is a sampler of recommended search terms. Some of these “hot searches” are unexpected, if not odd, though they’re based on user popularity. For example, alongside “green architecture” and “eco-organic” are bizarrely tangential terms like “tae bo” and “yoga mats.”
This quirky combination of high and low makes for entertaining browsing, but Green Web’s search and sorting ability can also deliver spot-on results. Type in “green house” on Green Web, and you’ll instantly access a treasure trove of helpful eco-oriented material. Unlike Google, this web tool speaks your language. Up pop links to catalogs with products for greening your home, an article on the “green” church architecture movement, another on organic gardening and one on solar roofing, and a video tour of the 2008 “Ultimate ‘Green’ House” contest winner. Bingo.
The occasional missteps in Green Web’s search results are due to its swicki reliance on user frequency and user voting, which puts the most popular entries at the top of the result list. This can lead to some off-topic segues, but at least they have a green twist. For example, a search for the journalist Will Potter (who covers environmental activism) brings up a dozen articles on Harry Potter before anything concerning Will Potter appears. So you may get pleasantly sidetracked, reading eco-minded pieces on Harry Potter, even though they’re not remotely related to your search. You may find it interesting that the publishing industry’s green revolution was jumpstarted by J.K Rowlings, when she learned that each Harry Potter installment uses 250,000 trees, and decided that the last one would use recycled paper. Following this kind of quirky chafe, however, the wheat awaits—a comprehensive list of Will Potter’s writings and website.
Aside from Green Web, there is at least one other worthwhile green search engine, www.greenmaven.com. The latter is a smartly packaged website rather than a swicki, so it lacks the user interaction that makes Green Web so personal and charmingly eccentric. As adjunct tools for environmental research, both searches deliver an abundance of valuable green information. But if you have the time and inclination for perusing an eclectic body of eco material, Green Web is a good place to start.
"ECO-TERRORISM" ON GREEN WEB
If you follow environmental activism of the radical kind, you know that the federal government’s anti-environment campaign of fear and loathing labels it “eco-terrorism.” And if you’re interested in the full spectrum of debate on this controversial term, Green Web is a particularly good research resource. Searching the hot-button phrase on Green Web brings up a great mix of pro and con material. Through its swicki formula of user frequency and voting, Green Web’s results cover both sides in nearly equal measure—and come up with material that doesn’t appear in “eco-terrorism” searches on other search engines like Greenmaven or Google.
On one side, for example, appears a provocative blog by conservative philosopher Onkar Ghate, a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. He argues that eco-saboteurs are terrorists because they attack the forces of social progress:
…It remains worrisome that we still dismiss such terrorists as deranged individuals who pervert the ideology of environmentalism. Even more worrisome is that few of us intellectually grasp, and then rise to defend, the irreplaceable values under attack by environmental terrorists. Their targets are not, fundamentally, a particular ski resort, logging company, meatpacking center or medical research project, but what these represent: human technology, human progress, human life.
Man's life is sustained--and made longer, healthier, happier--by industrial development and technological progress.
And on the opposing side is an op ed piece by David Roberts, a popular environmental blogger. Roberts attacks the faulty logic behind the FBI’s labeling of eco sabotage as terrorism:
"Terrorism is terrorism -- no matter what the motive," declared FBI director Robert Mueller.
What's the difference between burning trucks for kicks and burning trucks as an "eco-terrorist"? The motive. What's the difference between burning down an abortion clinic (crime) and burning down an animal-testing lab (terrorism)? The motive. Of course the motive matters -- that's how terrorism is defined. "Eco-terrorists" are being specially targeted precisely because of their motives. Mueller doth protest too much.
And finally, Green Web’s link to Bookrags provides a list of scholarly articles that weigh in with more objective views on the issue. Many of these pieces come from compendiums, encyclopedias and journals. An article in The St. James Encyclopedia neatly summarizes why the term “terrorism” applied to eco-sabotage prompts conflicting reactions:
…eco-terrorism is a highly contested term. Ron Arnold, a leader of the anti-environmental "Wise Use" movement, argues for a broad definition of eco-terrorism that includes almost every crime committed on behalf of the environment, even acts of civil disobedience. Many environmentalists, however, passionately disagree with this usage, preferring to distinguish between "eco-sabotage" (an assault on inanimate objects) and terrorism (an assault on living things). The environmentalist David Brower, for instance, has argued that the real terrorists are those who pollute and despoil the earth, not those who seek to protect it.
These examples provide a range of fresh, credible information and opinions on the subject of “eco-terrorism.” And they all appear within the first three pages of an “eco-terrorism” search result on Green Web. By comparison, only David Roberts’ blog appears on Google—and only after slogging through over 30 pages of search results for “eco-terrorism.” Such is the beauty of a customized eco search engine like Green Web.
It’s time to get acquainted with some of the less advertised consequences of global warming. Pesky problems, compared to the broader disasters of widespread famine, weather extremes, and an exploding refugee population. But these ripples of woe bring home how interconnected and far-reaching the tentacles of climate change truly are.
Say hello to toxic mold …the result of frequent, severe flooding caused by warmer water in the oceans, which “pumps more energy into tropical storms, making them stronger and potentially more destructive” (NRDC.org). The EPA states that flood-induced mold produces “allergens, irritants, and in some cases potentially toxic substances (mycotoxins).” It links these mycotoxins to “skin rashes, nausea, immune system suppression, acutre or chronic liver damage, acute or chronic central nervous system damage, endocrine effects, and cancer.”
Say hello to Lyme disease. As temperatures rise, the Lyme tick’s range is expanding, into regions far north and west of its original habitat. The CDC describes typical symptoms of Lyme disease as “fever, headache, fatigue, and a skin rash. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system.”
Say hello to artificial Christmas trees. Like the Lyme tick, the pine bark beetle is expanding its habitat range northward as temperatures rise. It feeds off pine trees, and as it encroaches into British Columbia, it is decimating swaths of pine forests.
Say hello to a tsunami of homeless kittens. Global warming is already extending the cat-breeding season beyond its usual springtime cycle, and putting cats in heat more often. Animal shelters are reportedly in crisis, deluged with abandoned kittens in ever increasing numbers.
Say hello to rampant poison ivy. The Los Angeles Times reports that “rapidly rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are driving noxious poison ivy and those annoying patches of dandelion to grow taller, lusher and more resilient.” In a test lab, poison ivy grew twice as large under present CO2 levels as samples grown under 1950 levels.
Say hello to dengue fever. Science Daily reports that “scientists…have predicted that rising global temperatures will increase the range of a mosquito that transmits the dengue fever virus. Dengue fever is now considered the most serious viral infection transmitted in man by insects, whether measured in terms of the number of human infections or the number of deaths.”
Say hello to heart disease. Dr. Gordon Tomaselli of the American Heart Association explains, “Rust develops much more quickly at warm temperatures, and so does atherosclerosis.”
Say hello to no sense of smell. Chronic air pollution damages the nose’s olfactory receptors, severely limiting the ability to smell even strong odors like coffee and bad eggs. Reuters reports that people in Mexico City are harbingers of this phenomenon. It quotes a researcher lamenting that “their noses are so badly damaged from a life inhaling toxic particles, they find it hard to detect the scent of rotten food.”
As these scenarios loom ever larger, who are the real terrorists? Environmental activists, who risk their lives to thwart the calamities of climate change? Or the political and corporate interests who dismiss global warming, and imperil our future?
If you follow environmental activism of the radical kind, you know that the federal government’s anti-environment campaign of fear and loathing labels it “eco-terrorism.” And if you’re interested in the full spectrum of debate on this controversial term, Green Web is a particularly good research resource. Searching the hot-button phrase on Green Web brings up a great mix of pro and con material. Through its swicki formula of user frequency and voting, Green Web’s results cover both sides in nearly equal measure—and come up with material that doesn’t appear in “eco-terrorism” searches on other search engines like Greenmaven or Google.
On one side, for example, appears a provocative blog by conservative philosopher Onkar Ghate, a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. He argues that eco-saboteurs are terrorists because they attack the forces of social progress:
…It remains worrisome that we still dismiss such terrorists as deranged individuals who pervert the ideology of environmentalism. Even more worrisome is that few of us intellectually grasp, and then rise to defend, the irreplaceable values under attack by environmental terrorists. Their targets are not, fundamentally, a particular ski resort, logging company, meatpacking center or medical research project, but what these represent: human technology, human progress, human life.
Man's life is sustained--and made longer, healthier, happier--by industrial development and technological progress.
And on the opposing side is an op ed piece by David Roberts, a popular environmental blogger. Roberts attacks the faulty logic behind the FBI’s labeling of eco sabotage as terrorism:
"Terrorism is terrorism -- no matter what the motive," declared FBI director Robert Mueller.
What's the difference between burning trucks for kicks and burning trucks as an "eco-terrorist"? The motive. What's the difference between burning down an abortion clinic (crime) and burning down an animal-testing lab (terrorism)? The motive. Of course the motive matters -- that's how terrorism is defined. "Eco-terrorists" are being specially targeted precisely because of their motives. Mueller doth protest too much.
And finally, Green Web’s link to Bookrags provides a list of scholarly articles that weigh in with more objective views on the issue. Many of these pieces come from compendiums, encyclopedias and journals. An article in The St. James Encyclopedia neatly summarizes why the term “terrorism” applied to eco-sabotage prompts conflicting reactions:
…eco-terrorism is a highly contested term. Ron Arnold, a leader of the anti-environmental "Wise Use" movement, argues for a broad definition of eco-terrorism that includes almost every crime committed on behalf of the environment, even acts of civil disobedience. Many environmentalists, however, passionately disagree with this usage, preferring to distinguish between "eco-sabotage" (an assault on inanimate objects) and terrorism (an assault on living things). The environmentalist David Brower, for instance, has argued that the real terrorists are those who pollute and despoil the earth, not those who seek to protect it.
These examples provide a range of fresh, credible information and opinions on the subject of “eco-terrorism.” And they all appear within the first three pages of an “eco-terrorism” search result on Green Web. By comparison, only David Roberts’ blog appears on Google—and only after slogging through over 30 pages of search results for “eco-terrorism.” Such is the beauty of a customized eco search engine like Green Web.
It can be pretty frustrating to search for eco information on the web. Even if you’re interested in something basic, like “greening” your house. Say you fancy making some modest changes to reduce its carbon footprint and increase its self-sufficiency. You logically Google the term “green house,” expecting to find a wealth of material on how to install solar panels and water conservation toilets. Instead, you get 19 pages of links that reference the term “green” in other contexts of the word. So you learn how to build a Victorian greenhouse…and how greenhouse gases are warming the earth…but you’ll have to Google less obvious terms like “greening house” or “house green,” to get the home improvement advice you’re really looking for.
Green Web attempts to address this predicament. It’s a swicki, which is a customized search engine, and it’s dedicated to gathering and prioritizing green information on the web. Green Web relies on the collaborative input of its users, who can “vote” on an entry by clicking a plus or minus sign, and thereby move that entry up or down the listing. Vote tallies are posted next to each entry.
Standard swicki features on Green Web include a “Comment Box” for users to post on a particular search, and a “Hot Searches” box, which is a sampler of recommended search terms. Some of these “hot searches” are unexpected, if not odd, though they’re based on user popularity. For example, alongside “green architecture” and “eco-organic” are bizarrely tangential terms like “tae bo” and “yoga mats.”
This quirky combination of high and low makes for entertaining browsing, but Green Web’s search and sorting ability can also deliver spot-on results. Type in “green house” on Green Web, and you’ll instantly access a treasure trove of helpful eco-oriented material. Unlike Google, this web tool speaks your language. Up pop links to catalogs with products for greening your home, an article on the “green” church architecture movement, another on organic gardening and one on solar roofing, and a video tour of the 2008 “Ultimate ‘Green’ House” contest winner. Bingo.
The occasional missteps in Green Web’s search results are due to its swicki reliance on user frequency and user voting, which puts the most popular entries at the top of the result list. This can lead to some off-topic segues, but at least they have a green twist. For example, a search for the journalist Will Potter (who covers environmental activism) brings up a dozen articles on Harry Potter before anything concerning Will Potter appears. So you may get pleasantly sidetracked, reading eco-minded pieces on Harry Potter, even though they’re not remotely related to your search. You may find it interesting that the publishing industry’s green revolution was jumpstarted by J.K Rowlings, when she learned that each Harry Potter installment uses 250,000 trees, and decided that the last one would use recycled paper. Following this kind of quirky chafe, however, the wheat awaits—a comprehensive list of Will Potter’s writings and website.
Aside from Green Web, there is at least one other worthwhile green search engine, www.greenmaven.com. The latter is a smartly packaged website rather than a swicki, so it lacks the user interaction that makes Green Web so personal and charmingly eccentric. As adjunct tools for environmental research, both searches deliver an abundance of valuable green information. But if you have the time and inclination for perusing an eclectic body of eco material, Green Web is a good place to start.
It’s likely that James Hansen’s House speech made enough of a splash to spur positive change in American environmental policies. The late June timing of the speech may have already influenced the international stage as well. For just two weeks after Hansen’s warm reception in Washington, President Bush did something quite uncharacteristic and unexpected at the Group of 8 conference in Tokyo. At this gathering of the world’s eight richest nations, the president led a pledge to “move toward a low-carbon society” by cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 (NY Times). As the New York Times noted, “The declaration by the Group of 8—the U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia—was the first time that the Bush White House had publicly backed an explicit long-term target for eliminating the gases that scientists have said are warming the planet.” Coincidence? Or an attempt to catch the wave of attention and adulation that Hansen’s recent House appearance generated in the media?
Bush’s proposal wasn’t ideal. It didn’t set a goal for cutting emissions over the next decade, and that angered environmentalists. However, it was a surprising reversal for the president, who had previously dismissed global warming as a speculative threat, and perhaps “naturally caused.” (tv clip link) The NY Times suggested that “For Mr. Bush, who has just six months left in office, (his Group of 8) declaration was part of a concerted effort to salvage his legacy on climate change before the next administration comes in.” It’s nice to think that Hansen’s House speech—which catalyzed the country into an urgent dialogue on climate change—helped inspire the president’s reversal. Whether his about-face was out of conviction or capitulation.
Would James Hansen’s speech to the House last week have inspired national headlines (and a wave of blogs) if it hadn’t coincided with the twentieth anniversary of his first address to Congress? Probably not. If it weren’t for its dramatic timing, the maverick scientist’s return to Washington would have made barely a bleep on the national radar.
In the twenty years since his groundbreaking predictions met with almost total skepticism, Hansen has become known and respected for his work on climate change—but his symbolically charged House appearance became a magnet for media coverage. The press loves the dramatic hook of an anniversary, especially when it has apocalyptic imagery and the urgency of a ticking bomb.
That Hansen’s recent address occurred in an election year makes it all the more newsworthy. With the price of gas rising to stratospheric heights, and a general consensus about the need for energy conservation, the public is more than ever tuned into the environmental agendas of their local and national politicians. So when an eminent scientist like Hansen warns an assembly of politicians that we are on the brink of a “global cataclysm,” it makes for great copy.
And Hansen was more than forthright on environmental politics. Arguing for immediate and bold energy initiatives, he declared to the House that:
The next president and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation…. I argue that a path yielding energy independence and a healthier environment is, barely, still possible. It requires a transformative change of direction in Washington in the next year.
With his impeccable science, fire and brimstone message and symbolic timing, it’s no wonder that Hansen’s House speech has captured the media’s attention and imagination.
James Hansen has every reason to boast, for if anyone was ever in a position to say “I told you so,” it’s this NASA scientist who sounded the first alarm on global warming to Congress twenty years ago. Hansen’s return to Washington last week, to address the House Committee on Global Warming on the anniversary of his earlier speech, was trumpeted in the green blogosphere as a bittersweet triumph. No one, certainly not even Hansen, savors his earlier warning of climate change being vindicated. But as we’re well on our way to such a prospect, most eco-bloggers embraced Hansen’s 20th anniversary speech as the heroic missive of a reluctant prophet.
To mark this 20th anniversary with positive action, three high-profile, well-regarded blogs threw a five-day online symposium, dedicated to discussing “ideas the next president can adopt to take on climate change” (grist, UN Dispatch and On Day One). Dr. Hansen joined in on the last day, with his call for a moratorium on coal-fired power plants, and a carbon tax with a 100% dividend return. (To give an idea of his iconic stature in the green blogging community, grist labeled its coverage on the scientist’s appearance at the symposium “Tall, Dark and Hansen.”)
A grist blog by Kate Sheppard on Hansen’s anniversary House speech casts the scientist in a similarly dashing role, that of patriotic messenger. In “Paul Revere rides again,” she wryly recounts his first address, in 1988, when unseasonably warm 98 degree heat accompanied his testimony about “the probability of extreme events such as summer heat waves.” Sheppard then focuses on the radical solutions to climate change that Hansen proposed to the House last week, including the moratorium on coal-fired power plants and carbon tax. She concludes with an amusing quip by the House Committee Chair Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who also calls Hansen “a latter-day Paul Revere, warning of the dangers to our planet.” Markey jokingly observes, “When Al Gore wins a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for a slide show based on what Dr. Hansen has been saying for years, you know the debate is over.”
Two prominent bloggers on the NRDC’s blog “Switchboard” covered Hansen’s House speech as well, taking different tacks on his message—one historical, the other more pro-active:
Peter Lehner decries how “Hansen’s message has been ignored, and science distorted,” and offers what he calls “a little perspective.” He pinpoints the beginning of environmental crisis awareness to a President’s Science Advisory Panel statement back in 1965, and traces the sad pattern of denial and neglect through succeeding decades, including Congress’ lack of response to Hansen’s 1988 address.
In a more inflammatory vein, Phil Gutis weighs in on a controversial aspect of Hansen’s address to the House Committee—Hansen’s charge that “CEOs [of fossil energy companies] should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature,” for their self-interested dismissal of global warming. Gutis writes, “I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I do believe massive malfeasance is at work.” Unlike Hansen, Gutis sees signs of hope in corporate America, in organizations like the United States Climate Action Partnership, which brings together environmental groups like The Nature Conservancy and the NRDC, with big businesses like Mobile, Chrysler, Pepsi, and Alcoa. Gutis shifts the blame that Hansen puts on industry to “our political leaders,” whose crime against humanity and nature is their appalling failure to pass climate legislation this year. Gutis cites Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma with special contempt, for his “obstructionist roadblock” of that legislation. Forget the CEOs, Inhofe is saying—in the annals of American history, Inhofe and his “cabal” are “likely to be judged criminal in the broadest sense of the word.”
In his piece on Hansen’s House speech, blogger Tomgram of Canadian Dimension is critical of the entire lot of them—fossil energy CEOs, and politicians who thwart progressive environmental action: “…while (Hansen) was at it, he probably should have thrown in George W., Dick C., and crew. What they haven’t done (and what they’ve blocked from being done) over these last eight years may turn out to be their greatest crime of all.”
If James Hansen’s climate predictions were heeded twenty years ago, the earth would no doubt be in much better shape now; this time around, as these bloggers suggest, his warnings are being taken much more seriously.
If you want to be scared witless, read the speech on global warming that NASA climate scientist James Hensen made recently to a House committee. It’s available in my Yale RSS feed, e360.yale.edu, and made headlines in various newspapers around the world. Twenty years ago Hensen was the first high-profile scientist to sound the alarm against climate change, in an address to Congress that was eerily predictive of the critical state we’re in today; this week, on the anniversary of that groundbreaking speech, he returned with an update that raised hairs and concerns among his audience.
Basically, we must immediately move to carbon-free energy sources, or mass species extinction, rising sea levels, food shortages, and climate extremes are some of the consequences we can look forward to.
In this portrait of a dire future painted for the assembled House committee, Hensen makes an indictment that is breathtaking in its bravery and fury:
Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link…
CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.
Sorry Mr. Hensen….as you’re well aware, our government is way too busy chasing down “eco-terrorists”—citizens who risk their lives protesting our environmental crisis—to go after these rapacious, self-serving corporate entities. But thank you, Mr. Hensen, for reminding the House committee—and the American public—who the real criminals in our doomsday scenario are.
MY PAGEFLAKE
RSS Feeds:
The RSS feeds I’ve chosen reflect the spectrum of eco-minded subjects and literary styles that one generally finds on environmental websites and blogs; there are chatty musings and formal essays, personal accounts and factual news bulletins, on feeds with different levels of expertise and radicalism. With the exception of UrbanConservative.com (whose staunchly right-wing posts dismiss global warming as liberal propaganda), these RSS feeds share a concern for the environmental crisis, and their posts are cast as agents for positive change.
On the lighter side of my RSS feeds is ecomoderate.com, whose posts are written by “Linda,” and mix personal asides with folksy advice. Typical posts debate the eco dilemmas of daily life: comparing the energy usage of microwaves versus conventional ovens, and the benefits of recycling your tennis shoes. This is a quirky but practical feed.
Surprisingly the RSS feed from the esteemed Natural Resources Defense Council features chatty, intimate blogs written in the first person, often by high-profile authors outside the eco sphere. Onearth.org addresses environmental issues with an emphasis on the writer’s personal perspective and experience.
An RSS feed of a more radical bent is Will Potter’s GreenIsTheNewRed.com. Will injects his unique brand of informed wit and indignation into his updates on the eco front, with special emphasis on the U.S. government’s ongoing harassment of eco activists. His pithy post “Garden Gnome Liberation Front” is a hilarious classic.
For straightforward news updates on the latest global environmental developments, I rely on two RSS feeds: The United Nations Environment Programme (unep.org) and environmentnews.it. Each of these feeds casts a wide net, with objective reporting on such diverse international subjects as hazardous waste in Nairobi, the impact of natural disasters on worldwide refugees, and the death rate from air pollution in Canada.
The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies also addresses every aspect of the global environment in its scholarly but lively RSS feed, e360.yale.edu. It addresses heavyweight topics like water scarcity and the risks of nanotechnology with an unexpected boldness; its expert authors often suggest radical, provocative solutions to environmental crises.
Finally, for entertaining bits of eco-oriented material, there is the RSS feed of greendaily.com. A smattering of lightweight, topical issues, the feed often inadvertently borders on farce—as in its posts about the “Eco-tini” vodka cocktail promoting New York City’s parks, and the billboard of green lettuce that McDonald’s recently installed in Chicago. Consider it diverting eco-lite.
Active Searches:
As the focus of this blog is radical environmental activism, I limit my search terms for Universal News and Blog searches to the single word “ecoterrorism.” It brings up a wide enough range of material on the subject, running the gamut from straight news reports to colorful opinion pieces.
Zotero Bibliography:
Of the four books listed in the bibliography, two are anthologies of essays on a broad spectrum of environmental subjects; the other two books specifically address radical environmentalism, the subject of my blog, from negative points of view.
American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau is a comprehensive historical survey; its collection of over one hundred entries embraces environmental writing in its broadest sense—essays, letters, fiction and even song lyrics offer a valuable scholarly context for contemporary eco issues.
Conserving the Environment, part of the popular Opposing Viewpoints Series, juxtaposes pro and con essays on topics relating to environmental problems, with an emphasis on conservation and energy sources. The anthology’s format fosters critical thinking on environmental issues, and offers an objective view of both sides of heated eco debates.
In Eco-Terrorism: Radical Environmental and Animal Liberation Movements, Don Liddick cloaks his anti-environmental stance in facts and figures about the animal rights’ movement. In Environmental Mafia, Richard O’Leary argues that environmentalist activists would trample our liberties in the name of wildlife protection and land preservation.
Social Bookmarking Soulmate: Del.ic.ious flake: Newearthling
Newearthling’s bookmarks focus on a few core environmental issues, and the government and corporate policies that impact them; their main topics are energy conservation, food crises and carbon footprinting. Newearthling offers a valuable, select list of primary and secondary sources that are heavy on facts and light on editorializing.
It’s not coincidental that the two books I’m annotating are essay anthologies. The decision came about for two reasons. First, the concept of “the environment” is so broad that some of the best eco writing focuses on just a single aspect of it, often in essay format; second, “environmentalism” has so many contentious, hot-button issues, it’s useful to be familiar with a range of writings about them when formulating one’s own.
American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2008) is a comprehensive historical survey, featuring over one hundred selections that fittingly begin and end with the first true American naturalist, Henry David Thoreau (in his own writings, and as interpreted by a contemporary essayist, Rebecca Solnit). With a foreword by Al Gore, this anthology is a fascinating, eclectic mix of essays, letters, fiction, and even song lyrics—an overview of environmental writing in its broadest sense. The editor, Bill McKibben, is a prolific author in his own right, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, and a prominent peaceful eco-activist. McKibben’s approach is scholarly and objective; he precedes each entry with an informative description of the author, their work, their point of view, and a justification for their inclusion in the anthology.
Much current environmental writing is in the form of persuasion—arguments for conservation, government and corporate policies, radical activism, etc. One of the values of American Earth is that it provides a vibrant historical context for these concerns, with sources that can be drawn upon as precedents. Evidently the idea of environmental stewardship is a quintessentially American notion, originating as a response to the sublime beauty of Western wilderness in the nineteenth century, and then spreading like cast seeds across our rapidly developing nation. Thus the baton in American Earth passes from Thoreau’s transcendent solitude in Walden (1854), to John Muir’s passionate defenses of Yosemite (1867-1912), to the discourses of Appalachian Trail founder Benton MacKaye (1928), to the almanac essays of Aldo Leopold (1949), and on to the more contemporary writings of Wendell Berry, Edward Abbey, Alice Walker, and Michael Pollan, with dozens of other voices in between.
McKibben posits that “an argument can be made that environmental writing is America’s single most distinctive contribution to the world’s literature.” American Earth is a unique and indispensable resource for that contribution, documenting its origins and scope, and eloquently establishing it as an honorable, ongoing national tradition.
Conserving the Environment (Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006) is an equally valuable but very different sort of anthology. As part of the popular Opposing Viewpoints Series, it juxtaposes pro and con essays on topics relating to environmental problems, like conservation, energy sources, and the roles of institutions and individuals in resolving these issues. The aim of this format is to encourage both open mindedness and critical judgment in the reader, leading him to informed opinion. The essays are written by a wide range of authors, from experts in the field to novice writers recounting a relevant personal experience.
A chapter preface introduces each topic and then outlines the issues at stake. For example, “Conserving the Environment,” has three issues for debate: whether the earth really faces an environmental crisis, whether global warming poses a serious threat, and whether deforestation threatens the environment. Each of these three issues has one pro and one con argument, excerpted from a book or magazine in which it was recently published. The authors’ contrasting backgrounds makes for lively juxtapositions: on the issue of deforestation, the argument that deforestation damages the environment is made by a forest preservationist and carpenter, while that which dismisses deforestation concerns is made by a Danish statistics professor. To further stimulate objective thinking, the editors preface each pro and con essay with questions for the reader to consider when formulating an opinion on the debate.
Opposing Viewpoints’ approach perfectly lends itself to the polemical nature of environmentalism; it articulates both sides of heated eco debates in an objective, thought-provoking context. For anyone building their case on a controversial environmental subject, this anthology offers useful counterpoints to be anticipated and refuted. Its essays may not alter your opinion on a particular issue, but they will offer powerful ammunition for your argument.
Newearthling’s bookmarks focus on a few core environmental issues, and the government and corporate policies that impact them; their main topics are energy conservation, food crises and carbon footprinting. As a whole, this collection is tightly focused and serious-minded; it offers a select list of primary and secondary sources that are heavy on facts and light on editorializing. As such, it is a useful tool for researching current eco topics and debates.
Dismissing Newearthling’s occasional forays into arts-related subjects, of the 54 bookmarks, five are food or agriculture references, four are energy conservation references, four are carbon footprinting references, and the rest are policy and statistics references on those subjects. Each of the bookmark categories has a balanced mix of practical tools, objective information and analytical reportage.
For example, on the subject of carbon footprinting, there is the “Life Cycle Assessment Calculator,” which calculates the carbon footprint of any product you plug into its formula; the “Terra Pass,” which allows you to purchase carbon offsets for the environmental impact of your daily activities; guidelines from a European industry consortium for designing eco-friendly products; something called “EXIOPOL,” which is a mathematical framework for environmental policy analysis; and, finally, an essay on Economist.com which analyzes why people avoid convenient energy savings. No speculative essays, no angry diatribes—just straightforward and relevant information for original, in-depth environmental research.
Despite the scholarly nature of Newearthling’s bookmarks, his bookmarking practices are casual and erratic. Less than half of the 54 bookmarks (23) are annotated, with brief comments—lifted from the source’s text—that give just an inkling of what lies within. There are over 100 pages of bookmarked text in Newearthling’s collection, so there is a wealth of material, but it requires laboriously opening and then skimming most of the links to determine their topic and gist.
The tag list for Newearthing’s sources is also surprisingly random and unhelpful. It cites over-generalized words like “development” and “quality,” and nonsensical words like “of” and “uncertainty.” Tagging is definitely not a priority for Newearthling, and the tag list should be ignored.
These procedural lapses aside, the strengths of Newearthling’s bookmarks are two-fold: they include a half-dozen primary sources for hard environmental data and statistical models, that can be drawn on to construct and support an eco-oriented argument; and they offer important corporate and government websites on environmental policy, that provide useful economic and legislative contexts for green issues. Clearly Newearthling is an admirably serious thinker, interested in the practical, social and political aspects of the environmental crisis, and the complex mathematical models which shape them.
POST ONE
Anyone who made it to the sixth grade probably remembers thrilling to the account of the Boston Tea Party in their history books. That night in 1773 when American colonists invaded a ship in Boston Harbor, and dumped 45 tons of tea to protest unfair taxes by the British, is revered as an example of social dissent and patriotism. This dramatic chapter in our past taught us that certain principles (in this case liberty and independence) are more precious than property and institutions.
This lesson in civic values seems newly relevant today, as our government takes an increasingly hard line on property sabotage by environmental activists. It seems what was admirable and patriotic about social protest in our colonial past no longer holds in the present.
Like those angry Bostonians who destroyed a boatload of British tea, today’s radical environmentalists target interests that have symbolic meaning for their struggle. Suburban sprawl, SUVs, the logging industry, and bioengineering labs are some of the iconic objects of their sabotage.
In the aftermath of 9/11 and the Patriot Act, the federal government has stepped up their offense on these eco-motivated acts of arson and vandalism. Playing on the public’s fear of random violence—and driven by a desperate need to capture “terrorists” of any stripe—it has cleverly demonized radical eco-activism as “domestic terrorism.”
This rabid persecution of radical environmentalism is playing out in the media and courtrooms with a shocking intensity and bias. Environmentalists refer to it as Green Scare, citing frightening parallels with the Communist-baiting, McCarthy-era Red Scare. They vehemently reject the government’s definition of crimes against property—with no loss of life—as “terrorism.” As Jeffrey St. Clair wryly notes, this draconian portrait of ecotage isn’t just about national security, it’s about defending corporate interests:
Even the feds can’t cite a single death resulting from an alleged act of eco-terrorism. But that doesn’t matter. After the horrors of New Orleans, it should be clear to all that it’s the protection of property, not people, that really gets the feds going.
What’s most appalling is that the court can apply a “terrorism enhancement” statute to crimes of vandalism committed as social protest, but defined as terrorism. This can multiply a prison sentence six-fold. As St. Clair laments,
Destruction of property in the name of a political cause is now deemed an act of terrorism that can carry with it prison terms equivalent to first degree murder…
There’s a cruel irony in the government’s punitive sentencing of environmental protest:
The same arson or sabotage that would get anyone else a mischief charge and a suspended sentence is considered domestic terrorism if committed by people who care about the environment. (Emerald City Scion)
No doubt in some cases the vandalism and arson committed by green activists is more extreme than good old-fashioned tea-dumping…and deserves to be punished by law. But a double-standard of justice that ups the penalties for environmentally-motivated protest is blatantly undemocratic. If a prankster only gets 6 months’ probation for spray painting “CLEAN ME” on your dirty SUV, why should a green activist get 5 years in prison for scrawling “POLLUTER” on it? Punishment based on ideology has no place in our Constitution’s guarantee of “equal justice for all.”
Having failed spectacularly at combating genuine political and religious terrorism, the government’s witch hunt of environmental activists comes off as a misplaced and desperate attempt to appear tough on “domestic terrorism.” But it’s a trumped up war it’s fighting. This blog examines some of the battles being waged in this war.
POST TWO
One of the most engaging and articulate bloggers on radical environmental activism is the journalist Will Potter. Based in Washington, D.C., where he is pursuing a master’s degree in writing at Johns Hopkins University, Will blogs weekly, often bi-weekly, about animal rights and topical green issues on his website, GreenIsTheNewRed.com. As a respected journalist whose work has appeared in mainstream textbooks and newspapers, and is referenced in non-partisan web news articles, Will manages the near-impossible: to wear his radical sympathies on his sleeve and remain a legitimate, respected voice in today’s heated environmental debates. His blog has an authority ranking of 73 on Technorati.
The dozens of essays featured on Will's website demonstrate his gift for synthesizing facts into insight, and tooling insight into powerful argument. A post from April, 2006 entitled, “The New War on Terror,” is probably one of his best known essays. It’s included in the popular Thomas Gale series Opposing Viewpoints, which pairs pro and con arguments on controversial topics; it also appeared in Z and Counterpunch. This essay analyzes the FBI’s pursuit of seven activists who shut down an animal testing lab through lobbying and grass roots demonstrations. Although the activists committed no violence or vandalism, the government indicted them as “terrorists.” Will brilliantly skewers the ludicrous logic behind this “terrorist” charge:
That’s like saying the Montgomery bus boycott, a catalyst of the civil rights movement, was terrorism because it aimed to "intentionally damage and cause the loss of property" of the bus company.
He concludes that the “War on Terror” is actually a front for corporate interests:
This is what the War on Terror has become: the Bush Administration can’t find real terrorists abroad, yet it spends law enforcement time and resources protecting corporations from political activists.
A recent post from March 2008, entitled “Before the Smoke Even Clears, Bringing Out the T-Word,” showcases Will’s rousing but cool-headed tack in the environmental debate. When four mansions in a model home development outside Seattle burned to the ground on March 3, investigators and the press rushed to judgment, claiming the fire was the work of “eco-terrorists.” Not surprised that the FBI would stoop to unfounded speculation, Will aims his sword instead at the press:
Nobody injured, nobody home. But before the smoke had even settled, before the ashes had even cooled, before the Feds had even sorted through the debris, a chant of “Terrorists! Terrorists! Terrorists!” had started rising from politicians, corporations and, most disturbingly, the press.
Will claims that the headlines of the L.A. Times, N.Y. Times and the London Telegraph rushed to scream “eco-terrorists!”—despite the fact that no incendiary devices were found at the scene. He condemns these newspapers for not raising the alternative possibility—that the homebuilders set the arson themselves, because the houses had been sitting on the market for months. By the end of his post, the astute Mr. Potter has indulged in some indicting of his own.
Obviously GreenIsTheNewRed.com is a touchstone for this writer, and will be a major source of information and inspiration for this blog. I expect I’ll be checking in with Will regularly, for his authoritative and trenchant take on breaking green news.
POST THREE
If she was a track star, Judith Lewis would compete in both the 26 mile marathon and the 50 yard dash. She’s a respected journalist who writes in-depth articles on complex environmental issues for the L.A. Weekly—and she’s also a witty, engaging blogger. Her blog AnotherGreenWorld is a forum for her personal, shorthand takes on green affairs. Judith began blogging four years ago and tackles an array of topics, from nuclear energy and alternative biofuels to eco-activism and environmental politics.
Judith’s posts are fact-based arguments, and as such they don’t take many poetic turns—but they do feature powerful, hard-hitting language and a blistering logic. There are a number of recurring literary devices: snazzy titles, conversational opening remarks, serial questions that construct her case, alliteration and word repetition for dramatic effect, and punchy concluding sentences.
A case in point is "Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back In The Tap Water," from August 2007. In this essay Judith recounts her eco-minded switch from bottled water to tap water, and her subsequent appall over the government’s impending fluoridation plan.
True to form, the blog’s title is a wry allusion to an exasperating dilemma. And its opening lines set its withering tone:
That nutjob senator from Oklahoma had it wrong. It’s not climate change that’s the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American People. It’s bottled water.
Judith uses sarcasm to evoke the impossibly long journey of such so-called natural water, “transported from Australia/Fiji/England/France/Venus in plastic.” Then she repeats the word “plastic,” evoking a sense of its ubiquitous danger:
…after reading about plastic in the oceans, plastic in the landfills, the environmental cost…of plastic bottles…I’ve become a tap-water fascist.
Judith playfully admits, “I gently lecture everybody…,” and she proceeds to cloak a bunch of dry facts about bottled water in a first-person recitation. “I recite statistics about…,” “I remind them that,” etc. Casting boring information in friendly confidences, Judith makes her complex case against bottled water engaging …and easy to agree with.
The second phase of her argument begins with a metaphor:
But just as this movement (of drinking tap water) was gaining steam, along comes the Metropolitan Water District, hell-bent on going through with its four-year plan to fluoridate Southern California’s tap water.
The image of a steam engine stopped cold by the Metropolitan Water District effectively conjures the overpowering negative impact the fluoridation plan will have on tap water.
Judith then frames her position against fluoridation in a series of rhetorical questions:
Why?. . Does it matter if children…get little white spots on their enamel…called ‘enamel fluorosis’? Or if several studies have strongly suggested that fluoridated drinking water may disrupt thyroid function…?
The alliteration of the phrase “several studies have strongly suggested” adds to the prose's dramatic impact; this subtly underscores Judith’s argument, as does the use of repetition in her conclusion: "This is crazy. The more I read about it, the crazier it gets."
Judith posits that the American Dental Association is behind the fluoridation plan—because it will prevent low-income people from getting cavities, and thus free up dentists to perform expensive cosmetic procedures on their better-off patients. She tugs on her audience’s heartstrings by linking her charges against the ADA to two hot-button minorities—Indians and children:
Better that adults should come in to have their teeth capped…than that a dentist should have to fill another child’s cavity on an Indian reservation in Alaska.
It’s an effective, if clichéd, manipulation.
Another post, entitled "Enviros to Container Ships: Slow the Fuck Down," employs similar literary devices in its argument that sonar exercises by the Navy are the likely cause of whale disorientation and death along California’s coast. With its eye-catching obscenity, the post’s title is attention-grabbing to say the least. The column’s opening lines then set Judith's familiar conversational tone:
Okay, those aren’t exactly the words the Center for Biological Diversity used in its…press release today. But it’s the basic sentiment.
As in the previous post, Judith builds drama with devices like alliteration:
If you live in Southern California and pay any attention at all, you know that three blue whales…have turned up dead…
And with word repetition:
This exact sonar has killed other whales before…Three of those dead whales had bloodied eardrums, another had bleeding on the brain.
Just as she argued against the government's fluoridation plan with probing questions, so does Judith protest the Navy's sonar exercises:
What causes a deftly echolocating beast to collide with a speeding tanker that can be heard three days away?... How the hell are they plowing into ships…?
She dismisses alternative excuses for the whales’ problems, hammering away with still more questions: “Could it be that…? But has…? Or could it be that…?.” Her final query drips with sarcasm: “Or could it be that our brave Navy has been blasting noise into the ocean for three weeks…?”
Judith ends the post with her signature flourish, this time with the catchy brevity of a bumper-sticker:
Stop Navy sonar testing now, and in all whale migration seasons in the future. It’s insane.
The intelligence and passion behind Judith's blog posts make for an incisive and exciting voice in the often dim and dreary eco-blogosphere.
Judith Lewis is a respected journalist who writes in-depth articles about environmental issues for the L.A. Weekly. Her blog, AnotherGreenWorld, is a forum for her more personal, shorthand take on current green affairs.
Judith’s posts are fact-based arguments, and as such they don’t take many poetic turns—but they do feature powerful, hard-hitting language and a blistering logic. There are a number of recurring literary devices: a snazzy title, a conversational opening remark, the use of serial questions to construct her case, alliteration and word repetition for dramatic effect, and a punchy concluding sentence. All of this makes for an incisive and exciting voice in the often dim and dreary eco-blogosphere.
A case in point is Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back In The Tap Water, from August 2007. In this essay Judith recounts her eco-minded switch from bottled water to tap water, and her subsequent appall over the government’s impending fluoridation plan.
True to form, the blog’s title is a wry allusion to an exasperating dilemma. And its opening lines set a withering tone: That nutjob senator from Oklahoma had it wrong, It’s not climate change that’s the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American People. It’s bottled water.
Judith uses sarcasm to evoke the impossibly long journey of such so-called natural water, “transported from Australia/Fiji/England/France/Venus in plastic.” Then she repeats the word “plastic,” evoking a sense of its ubiquitous danger: …after reading about plastic in the oceans, plastic in the landfills, the environmental cost…of plastic bottles…I’ve become a tap-water fascist.
Judith playfully admits “I gently lecture everybody…,” and she proceeds to cloak a bunch of dry facts about bottled water in a first-person recitation. “I recite statistics about…,” “I remind them that,” etc. By casting boring information in friendly confidences, Judith makes her complex case against bottled water a cinch to follow…and easy to agree with.
The second phase of her argument begins with a metaphor: But just as this movement (of drinking tap water) was gaining steam, along comes the Metropolitan Water District, hell-bent on going through with its four-year plan to fluoridate Southern California’s tap water.
The image of a steam engine stopped cold by the Metropolitan Water District effectively conjures the overpowering negative impact the fluoridation plan will have on tap water.
Judith then frames her position against fluoridation in a series of rhetorical questions: Why?. . Does it matter if children…get little white spots on their enamel…called ‘enamel fluorosis’? Or if several studies have strongly suggested that fluoridated drinking water may disrupt thyroid function…?
The alliteration of the phrase “several studies have strongly suggested” adds to the dramatic impact of the prose; this subtly underscores Judith’s argument, as does the use of repetition in her conclusion: This is crazy. The more I read about it, the crazier it gets.
Judith posits that the American Dental Association is behind the fluoridation plan—because it will prevent low-income people from getting cavities, and thus free up dentists to perform higher-yielding cosmetic procedures on their better-off patients. She cleverly tugs on her audience’s heartstrings by linking her charges against the ADA to two hot-button minorities—Indians and children: Better that adults should come in to have their teeth capped…than that a dentist should have to fill another child’s cavity on an Indian reservation in Alaska.
It’s an effective, if clichéd, manipulation.
Another post, entitled Enviros to Container Ships: Slow the Fuck Down, employs similar literary devices in its argument that sonar exercises by the Navy are the likely cause of whale disorientation and death along California’s coast. With its eye-catching obscenity, the post’s title is attention-grabbing, to say the least. The column’s opening lines then set Judith's familiar conversational tone: Okay, those aren’t exactly the words the Center for Biological Diversity used in its…press release today. But it’s the basic sentiment.
As in the previous post, Judith builds drama with devices like alliteration: If you live in Southern California and pay any attention at all, you know that three blue whales…have turned up dead…
And with word repetition: This exact sonar has killed other whales before…Three of those dead whales had bloodied eardrums, another had bleeding on the brain.
Just as she argued against the government's fluoridation plan with probing questions, so does Judith protest the Navy's sonar exercises: What causes a deftly echolocating beast to collide with a speeding tanker that can be heard three days away?... How the hell are they plowing into ships…?
She dismisses alternative excuses for the whales’ problems, hammering away with still more questions: “Could it be that…? But has…? Or could it be that…”, etc. Her final query drips with sarcasm: “Or could it be that our brave Navy has been blasting noise into the ocean for three weeks…?”
Judith ends the post with her customary flourish, this time with the force and brevity of a bumper-sticker; Stop Navy sonar testing now, and in all whale migration seasons in the future. It’s insane.
In these and her other blog posts, Judith Lewis proves that on the environmental front lines, the pen can be mightier than the sword.
One of the most engaging and articulate bloggers on radical environmental activism is the journalist Will Potter. Based in Washington, D.C., where he is pursuing a master’s degree in writing at Johns Hopkins University, Will blogs weekly, often bi-weekly, about animal rights and topical green issues on his website, GreenIsTheNewRed.com. As a respected journalist whose work has appeared in mainstream textbooks and newspapers, and is referenced in non-partisan web news articles, Will manages the near-impossible: to wear his radical sympathies on his sleeve, and remain a legitimate, respected voice in today’s heated environmental debates. His blog has an authority ranking of 73 on Technorati.
The dozens of masterful essays featured on Will's website demonstrate his gift for synthesizing facts into insight, and tooling insight into powerful argument. A post from April, 2006 entitled, “The New War on Terror,” is probably one of his best known essays. It is included in the popular Thomas Gale series Opposing Viewpoints, which was distributed to 7,000 libraries and classrooms; it also appeared in Z and Counterpunch. This essay analyzes the FBI’s pursuit of seven activists who shut down an animal testing lab through lobbying and grass roots demonstrations. Although the activists committed no violence or vandalism, the government indicted them as “terrorists.” Will brilliantly skewers the ludicrous logic behind this “terrorist” charge:
That’s like saying the Montgomery bus boycott, a catalyst of the civil rights movement, was terrorism because it aimed to "intentionally damage and cause the loss of property" of the bus company.
He makes an incontestable conclusion—that the “War on Terror” is actually a front for corporate interests:
This is what the War on Terror has become: the Bush Administration can’t find real terrorists abroad, yet it spends law enforcement time and resources protecting corporations from political activists.
A recent post from March 2008, entitled “Before the Smoke Even Clears, Bringing Out the T-Word,” showcases Will’s rousing but cool-headed tack in the environmental debate. When four mansions in a model home development outside Seattle burned to the ground on March 3, investigators and the press rushed to judgment, claiming the fire was the work of “eco-terrorists.” Not at all surprised that the FBI would stoop to such speculation, Will aims his sword instead at the press:
Nobody injured, nobody home. But before the smoke had even settled, before the ashes had even cooled, before the Feds had even sorted through the debris, a chant of “Terrorists! Terrorists! Terrorists!” had started rising from politicians, corporations and, most disturbingly, the press.
Will charges that the L.A. Times, N.Y. Times and the London Telegraph prematurely indicted “eco-terrorists” in their headlines—despite the fact that no incendiary devices were found at the scene. He points out that none of the newspapers raised the alternative possibility—that the home builders set the arson themseves—because the houses had been sitting empty on the market for months. By the end of his post, Mr. Potter has laid the enemy bare.
Obviously GreenIsTheNewRed.com is a touchstone for this writer, and will be a major source of information and inspiration for this blog. As far as I can tell, the only issue on which I part ways with its author is animal testing. Will seems to unequivocally oppose it—and I support medical research on mice. Nevertheless, I expect I’ll be checking in with Will regularly, for his authoritative and trenchant take on breaking green news.
"The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem."
-Milton Friedman
Anyone who made it to the sixth grade probably remembers thrilling to the account of the Boston Tea Party in their history books. That night in 1773 when American colonists invaded a ship in the Boston Harbor, and dumped 45 tons of tea in protest of unfair taxes and tea restrictions by the British, remains a shining example of our forefathers’ bravery and patriotism. This stirring chapter in our past taught us that certain principles, in this case liberty and independence, are so fundamental and incontrovertible that they naturally trump others lower down the scale---like the sanctity of public and personal property. This lesson in social values and protest seems newly relevant in the current debate on environmental protest in America, as our government implements an increasingly hard line on acts of sabotage and vandalism committed by eco-activists.
Like those angry colonists who destroyed a boatload of British-sponsored tea at the dawn of our nation’s history, today’s radical environmentalists target property and interests that have symbolic meaning for their larger struggle. SUVs, suburban sprawl, the logging industry and bioengineering labs are some of the more iconic objects of their disaffection. This writer does not condone their actions---but like others cites this historical precedent in the face of the federal government’s stepped up attacks on the eco-radical movement since 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot Act.
The concerted persecution of green activists is playing out in the media and courtrooms with a shocking intensity and bias. Environmentalists refer to it as Green Scare, citing frightening parallels with the Communist-baiting, McCarthy-era Red Scare. They object to the government’s definition of crimes against property, with no loss of life, as “terrorism.” As Jeffrey St. Clair wryly notes, Even the feds can’t cite a single death resulting from an alleged act of eco-terrorism. But that doesn’t matter. After the horrors of New Orleans, it should be clear to all that it’s the protection of property, not people, that really gets the feds going.
The court’s application of a “terrorism enhancement” statute to crimes of vandalism committed as social protest, but defined as terrorism, can multiply a prison sentence six-fold. As St. Clair laments, Destruction of property in the name of a political cause is now deemed an act of terrorism that can carry with it prison terms equivalent to first degree murder…
Green advocates point out the irony of the government specifically targeting environmental protest: The same arson or sabotage that would get anyone else a mischief charge and a suspended sentence is considered domestic terrorism if committed by people who care about the environment. (Emerald City Scion)
Vandalism and arson are wrong and deserve to be punished by law, but a double-standard of justice is blatantly undemocratic. Having failed spectacularly at combating genuine political and religious terrorism, the government’s witch hunt of environmental activists comes off as a misplaced and desperate attempt to appear tough on “domestic terrorism.” But it’s a trumped up war it’s fighting. This blog examines some of the battles being waged in this war…
Image by Judith Lewis
