Yes got the piece on Mountain Lions. But you might want to post it in this thread anyway – and then I will be able to find it again – for next April 1!

Jen

My interests is how much denialists have to continue to manufacture their own world view and that means disregarding evidence that doesn’t fit. Hence my challenge to discuss how much the green movement has moved on from your ideological touchpoints. Your reaction just demonstrates the denialists ease in disregarding inconvenient data.

“if one was living the sustainable life based on natural dictates one would be too busy doing what had to be done to survive to bother about that tree or that koala.”

Otherwise known as living at the subsistence level, during which every every waking hour is used to find sustenance, with no time for genuflection.

It was only with the division of labour that humanity discovered an alternative to the wretched existence of subsistence, commonly misinterpreted as a sustainable life-style.

Those who have never starved, been indigent or reached the nadir of existence could ever understand the driving force behing capitalism.

An ecological sustainable lifestyle is oh so middle class mentality.

Still, the defining characteristic of the green is misanthropy; it is ridiculous for any green supporter to claim that it is only fringe fanatics who espouse drastic reductions in human population, or even eradication; such people as John Holdren, Lovelock and Gus Speth are mainstream greens and have clearly enunciated programs for reducing population. the irony is of course that material prosperity is the best check on population as most Western nations show.

Prosperity is also the best for nature as Lomborg shows but there comes a point when it has to be said that the interests of humanity diverge from the idea of pristine nature. The idea of pristine nature is terribly elitist and decadent; only a person nurtured by an advanced, unnatural culture could develope a non-utilitarian aesthetic about nature which dominates survival exigencies; how could it be otherwise; if one was living the sustainable life based on natural dictates one would be too busy doing what had to be done to survive to bother about that tree or that koala. This aspect of green ideology is both hypocritical and unrealistic; it is also as good an example of cognitive dissonance as a human could produce.

So maybe he believes it is good to turn your lights off and that captialism is bad … but he is special and therefore can leave his lights on etcetera?”

I think that you’re being too charitable. Conflicted emotions and outright hypocrisy among eco activists are not limited to Gore. Or to eco activists, for that matter. And hidden agendas are almost ubiquitous. Observation: In the U.S. there’s a large overlap between vegans and eco activists, although that connection is often downplayed.

I participate in a camping & outdoor cooking board. One person described the experience of cooking his breakfast bacon. Some militant vegans in the next campsite got irate, because they could clearly smell it, and said that they were disgusted by it. Of course, we both know the real issue. Having experienced the wonderful aroma of cooking bacon, the vegans desperately wanted to eat some, but their ‘beliefs’ wouldn’t allow them to. That posting resonated with quite a few people on the board. My darker side thought that the whole thing was funny. Anyway, my conclusion is that vegans are to animal-based foods as Catholic priests are to sex!

While I think of it, did you receive my whimsical email about mountain lions? (There are some big gaps in my computer skills.) I hope that you consider it for next April 1, if you don’t consider it to be in ‘bad taste’.

We know that as with any group there are always exceptions – JeremyC is stuck on the fact that not all Greens are anti-nuclear but the reality is that most are.

You have written: its true for some eco activists, but not necessarily true for all–or even most–eco activists. … that they are anti-capitalist.

A problem with using Al Gore as your example is that what he preaches is different to what he does … he says everyone should reduce their energy consumption but he leaves his lights on and flies around the world.

So maybe he believes it is good to turn your lights off and that captialism is bad … but he is special and therefore can leave his lights on etcetera?

I tend to think that a lot of Greens are probably very anti-free market.

I was also interested that the article wrote how much the greens don’t want to show their hand, so to speak. Since I started this series I have been fascinated by the level of avoidance of the actual issue displayed by those who obviously identify with the greens.

And I always remember this report and comment:

A report by James Whelan and Kristen Lyons titled ‘Rethinking deliberative governance: dissecting the Queensland landclearing campaign’ gives some insight into what drove the campaigning in Queensland that drove the legislation in Queensland. (It would be great if the Queensland Conservation Council made the entire report accessible from their website as it is a fascinating read.) And I quote from their report:

Firstly, it (the legislation) represents a significant shift in Queensland, and indeed Australian history, by establishing a framework for the regulation of land use on both leasehold and freehold land. This represents a significant departure from dominant ideologies that accept private landowners retain sovereignty over land management.

More here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2005/06/talking-veg-tomorrow-in-both-blackall-canberra/

Is this a valid generalization? It’s true for some eco activists, but not necessarily true for all–or even most–eco activists. A couple of days ago, we had a thread speculating that The Goracle could become the world’s first carbon billionaire. Greedy Al looks very capitalistic to me. Here’s another angle.

One proposed version of Cap’n Trade would ‘grandfather in’ CO2 rights for existing polluters, for free. New, energy-efficient businesses would initially be at a comparative DISadvantage, because they’d have have to purchase the necessary CO2 rights from their competitors. Rather than being garden-variety Socialism, that initially counterproductive version of Cap’n Trade would be blatant corporate welfare, which is a component of NATIONAL Socialism, aka Fascism.

It’d be more accurate to say that eco-activists have a variety of motivations: partially informed altruism that reflects a genuine concern for environment issues; a backdoor approach for promoting Socialism (as the article points out); as well as greed, lust for power, and fondness of notoriety (in the case of Al Gore).

And let’s not forget True-Believer-ism. As Eric Hoffer points out, TB-ers are interchangeable to a large extent. TB-ers feel a great emptiness in their lives, which can only be filled by becoming a part of a glorious cause that’s greater than themselves. Environmentalism can fill the void as well as any other ideology.

IBD is a business, like any other business. IBD caters to business people, obviously; and not-so-obviously, it panders to doctrinaire Libertarians. The bumper-sticker mentality reflected in the article is par for the course.