This post fits equally well in the Politics Forum as it does in Environment.
The environmentalist is Wallace Kaufman, and the book quoted is "No Turning Back."
"Science writer Kaufman, who has served as president of two state-level environmental groups, .... identifies with other "recovering" environmentalists who report that internal politics has given those in the movement an irrational view of the world. ... .... fires broadsides at the environmental movement, which, he argues, has become a religion that ignores the basic principles of science, economics and human nature. ....Among his targets are programs sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Endangered Species Act, the premises of Al Gore's Earth in the Balance and various recycling programs. In this stimulating volume, Kaufman discusses new technologies and suggests that private enterprises are not necessarily anti-environment and can be beneficial as a resource."
Amazon.com No Turning Back Dismantling the Fantasies of Environmental Thinking 9780465051182 Wallace Kaufman Books
What better testimony could reveal the confused and misguided environmental polices under which the world labors today?
Let's see what this veteran environmentalist has to say....
1. "...as the environmental movement has gathered strength, its vision has become ever more fixed on vengeance and utopia....they speak and act as if business, industry, technology, and even science are villains to be arrested and punished. Their ideals include pristine wilderness, organic farming, redistributing land and income, living as coequals with nature, herbal medicines, and generally doing with fewer life pleasures."
"No Turning Back: Dismantling the Fantasies of Environmental Thinking," Wallace Kaufman, p. 2-3
2. Spot on, Kaufman! Today's environmental movement is populated by the irrational and the easily led. I include in the former both the card-carrying and the left-overs from various communist movements.
When the Soviet Union fell, many fellow travelers migrated to the environmental movement. So much so, that the movement is often referred to as the ‘Watermelon Movement”: green on the outside, red on the inside.
a. “Delingpole does an excellent job of cutting through the jargon and presenting the essentials. But where the book really shines is exposing the politics behind this manufactured crisis.”
From a review of “Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colors”
b. On the excellent webcast Uncommon Knowledge, Czech president Václav Klaus recently compared “two ideologies” that were “structurally very similar. They are against individual freedom. They are in favor of centralistic masterminding of our fates. They are both very similar in telling us what to do, how to live, how to behave, what to eat, how to travel, what we can do and what we cannot do.” The first of Klaus’s “two ideologies” was Communism—a system with which he was deeply familiar, having participated in the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The second was environmentalism.
The Varieties of Liberal Enthusiasm by Benjamin A. Plotinsky City Journal Spring 2010
The dopes how have been duped into believing that the sky is falling don't recognize the real core of the movement.
Although the author Daniel Silva used this description in a different connection, nothing could be more appropriate as a description of 'environmentalists':
They come in two varieties- those willing to be used, and those too stupid to realize that they are being used.
The environmentalist is Wallace Kaufman, and the book quoted is "No Turning Back."
"Science writer Kaufman, who has served as president of two state-level environmental groups, .... identifies with other "recovering" environmentalists who report that internal politics has given those in the movement an irrational view of the world. ... .... fires broadsides at the environmental movement, which, he argues, has become a religion that ignores the basic principles of science, economics and human nature. ....Among his targets are programs sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Endangered Species Act, the premises of Al Gore's Earth in the Balance and various recycling programs. In this stimulating volume, Kaufman discusses new technologies and suggests that private enterprises are not necessarily anti-environment and can be beneficial as a resource."
Amazon.com No Turning Back Dismantling the Fantasies of Environmental Thinking 9780465051182 Wallace Kaufman Books
What better testimony could reveal the confused and misguided environmental polices under which the world labors today?
Let's see what this veteran environmentalist has to say....
1. "...as the environmental movement has gathered strength, its vision has become ever more fixed on vengeance and utopia....they speak and act as if business, industry, technology, and even science are villains to be arrested and punished. Their ideals include pristine wilderness, organic farming, redistributing land and income, living as coequals with nature, herbal medicines, and generally doing with fewer life pleasures."
"No Turning Back: Dismantling the Fantasies of Environmental Thinking," Wallace Kaufman, p. 2-3
2. Spot on, Kaufman! Today's environmental movement is populated by the irrational and the easily led. I include in the former both the card-carrying and the left-overs from various communist movements.
When the Soviet Union fell, many fellow travelers migrated to the environmental movement. So much so, that the movement is often referred to as the ‘Watermelon Movement”: green on the outside, red on the inside.
a. “Delingpole does an excellent job of cutting through the jargon and presenting the essentials. But where the book really shines is exposing the politics behind this manufactured crisis.”
From a review of “Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colors”
b. On the excellent webcast Uncommon Knowledge, Czech president Václav Klaus recently compared “two ideologies” that were “structurally very similar. They are against individual freedom. They are in favor of centralistic masterminding of our fates. They are both very similar in telling us what to do, how to live, how to behave, what to eat, how to travel, what we can do and what we cannot do.” The first of Klaus’s “two ideologies” was Communism—a system with which he was deeply familiar, having participated in the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The second was environmentalism.
The Varieties of Liberal Enthusiasm by Benjamin A. Plotinsky City Journal Spring 2010
The dopes how have been duped into believing that the sky is falling don't recognize the real core of the movement.
Although the author Daniel Silva used this description in a different connection, nothing could be more appropriate as a description of 'environmentalists':
They come in two varieties- those willing to be used, and those too stupid to realize that they are being used.
