There are a few environmentalists who deserve the highest praises. For example Marc Van Roosmalen documented how the Brazilian government jails and fines dirt poor Indios hunters because they put a terrapin or a deer in the pot to feed the family but at the same time actively cooperates with large corporations to turn whole areas of the Amazonian rainforest into cattle ranches or soybean fields. Van Roosmalen has been particularly critical of large supernational bodies like the UN and organizations like the WWF which cheer the Brazilian government for its “efforts” in jailing Indios and Sem Terra activists while turning a blind eye on wholesale destruction of the environment actively promoted by Brasilia. Van Roosmalen himself has been jailed on ridiculous charges (we are talking Assange-level ridiculous) and has been twice targeted by police death squads, forcing him to go into hiding. He’s presently applying for political asylum in an unknown country.
I’ll give you another practical example. You know how environmentalists always seem concerned about “big” themes: AGW, overfishing, etc. Lofty causes all but most of them don’t seem to be able to look at the small things. This week I went up the mountain which looms exactly over my house. At the end of the road before the beginning fo the ascent somebody dumped an old bed, complete with mattress and all the rest: in spite of very serious penalties things like this happen all the time. While local newspapers are full of so called activities urging us to stop buying canned tuna or “doing something” to stop ManBearPig AGW, no environmentalist gives a damn about small things like these. They are all city folks and they consider us living nearest “Mother Nature” only a step or two removed from the hillbillies from Deliverance. You know who will clean up that mess? Local volunteers, most of whom are hunters. Surely not eco-mummy who will drive her children to school without thinking how much “poisonous” CO2 her Audi or BMW SUV spouts.
the world isn’t perfect… so we cant expect perfect things… but think about it like this.. socialism/government has done more harm to the environment than private businesses, just take a look at the environment of Russia when the communists were in power, or even take a look at North Korea’s environment now. Their environment is far worse than ours. frankly, i don’t see why most environmentalists are socialist because of the fact that socialists countries have a dirtier record when it comes to the environment…
Look up a person named Maurice Strong, he claims to be an environmentalist, in fact he is arguably the leader of the environmentalist movement, and has served in environmentalist related positions in Canada, the US, and the UN… but you want to know how he made all his money? OIL!!! and it is funny how he targeted specific oil companies in favor of others when he made his environmental policies. This is some debate, but he was one of the heads that contributed to the 'Food For Oil" fraud agreement with Iraq, he even quit the UN after the ‘‘food for oil’’ agreement, suspicious.
I love the environment but the environmentalist movement is looking at the wrong thing that will solve our environmental problems. They are in fact relying on the worst source to help them out, the government. Private business can do it better… in fact let me give you other examples besides that website… The Nature Conservancy is a purely private company that is one of the biggest eco companies. According to their website, they have saved 17 million acres in the US and 117million internationally without government funding… also their assets are worth more than $5 billion… Ted Turner is another example, he owns a large part of America’s wilderness
Maybe we should compile a list of private-property environmentalists and cooperate with them to spread libertarian thought? I think we can win a few eco-hearts for freedom.
Most of the amazonian rainforest is public land. Property rights in the forest have to be granted by government, and often for a very short period of time. There is no long run conservation in the forest because the government creates disincentives for companies to care about that, due to the short lengths of time land is lent.
@ Isaac “Izzy” Marmolejo: First of all, I think it’s wrong to just lump all the environmentalists to one enormous group or movement, “the movement”, when in fact environmentalism is very fragmented in different small groups. Second; if we count post-Cold War only, then I’m not totally agreeing in what you’re saying, that government has destroyed the environment more than private business. In modern time, private corporations have been given larger opportunitys to apply its “power” in new parts of the whole world. But in generally, including pre-1990, yes.
@ Kakugo: I think you have a good point, that environmentalists focus too much on the “big” things. But it’s important to mention that there have been so in almost all historical events, so I’m not surprised.
And again, I think it’s wrong to lump all environmentalists to one group and call it “the movement”, and say that they’re socialists. It’s not just “red” people that are environmentalists, but also “blue”/right people etc.
Again, thanks for all the answers, it’s always interesting to read what you have to say on this site!
I will try to convince you further that governments are far worse than private business when it comes to the environment…
Atomic bombs… government
wars… government
anti hemp campaign… government… hemp has far more uses than smoking it…
a really good introduction to free market environmentalism is a book called Eco-nomics by Richard Stroup. Terry Anderson is a great source of free market environmentalism, if the name sound familiar it is because many Austrian Economists refer to his book " The Not So Wild,Wild West", but he also has an awesome book on the environment, “You Have To Admit It’s Getting Better:From Economic Prosperity to Environmental Quality”… i think if you read “Eco-nomics” and “You Have To Admit It’s Getting Better”, you’ll better understand my position in this…
I dont have anything against enviormentilism, at least in the sense of ‘I dont want to see the enviorment needlessly trashed.’ In fact some libertarian thinkers have argued that capitisism and property rights(including rights over bodies of water and, if possible the atmosphere) are the best way to ensure that doesnt happen.
However the modern enviormentilist movement is led by, and largely(thought not exclusively composed of) two groups:
Extremists who think ANY change people make to the enviorment is inherently ‘bad’
Socalists/communists using ‘the enviorment’ as an excuse to support their policies/programs.
Kakugo, the way you reply to posts breaks the forum display. I am exhausted from manually editing your posts to keep them from breaking the forum display.
If you need help learning how to quote this thread has a lot of information on how to do it,
LS, ever since I downloaded the latest version of Firefox I am having troubles with the forum. Sometimes preview just shows a blank screen, other times the posts go entirely missing upon pressing the “Post” button, now this. Can you tell me what adjustments do I need to make to avoid you the work and me the embarassment?