More on Environmentalism...

Not many sources for this week's 'toon... it was mainly based on some of my own older observations and arguments on environmentalism. Often, it seems like the debate gets stuck in the old rut where the pro-environment side will argue that the science is in their favor (which it is), while the pro-business or pro-libertarian or pro-Armageddon crowd (whatever they call themselves to keep from being called anti-environment) reflexively find a way to convince themselves that reductive science is not believable. The end result, of course, is a stalemate... the anti-environmentalists steadfastly cling to their "mind-bottling" ideas about the movement towards conservation, and the environmentalists fail to make the argument in a way that makes a personal connection with the people they are trying to convince. It has occurred to me that there's another aspect of the environmental movement that doesn't get enough attention: the people who act to save it because they simply like to be outside (including a good number of my friends and family). They do so because being in nature provides them with a means for spiritual fulfillment. I believe that our opponents in this fight would be less likely to dismiss the environmentalist position if they were able to substitute the faces and motivations of real people for the "Al Gore political-types" or the "dirty protester hippies" they imagine when they think of "environmentalism."

The quotes of famous naturalist and Sierra Club founder John Muir capture these ideas well.

Anyway, here are some articles:

• Speaking of Gore, check out Robert Parry and Media Matters on the mainstream media's never-ending vendetta against the former veep.


• While James Inhofe and others compare environmentalists to the Nazis, the new/old trend seems to be comparing them (and everyone else who disagrees with you) to communists. Amazing how they can span the entire political spectrum like that with a snap of the fingers.