Price and Compare Vehicles: Against Capitalism "We already have too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure." -Paul Elrich, Stanford University biologist and Advisor to Vice President Albert Gore "I think if we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecological society under socialism. I don't think it's possible under capitalism." [Judi Barri of Earth First? quoted by Walter Williams, cloumnists with Heritage Features][Syndicate, State Journal Register, June 25, 1992]
"The immediate source of ecological crisis is capitalism." "Capitalism is a cancer in the biosphere." "I believe the color of radicalism today is not red, but green." [Steve Chase,ed., Defending the Earth: A Dialogue Between Murray Bookchin and Dave Foreman] (Boston South End Press, 1991, p 57-59)
Abuse of the Endangered Species Act "The northern spotted owl is the wildlife species of choice to act as a surrogate for old-growth forest protection," explained Andy Stahl, staff forester for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, at a 1988 law clinic for other environmentalists. "Thank goodness the spotted owl evolved in the Pacific Northwest," he joked, "for if it hadn't, we'd have to genetically engineer it." -Andy Stahl at a 1988 law clinic for environmentalists, staff forester, Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund
Psuedo Science "Now, in a widening sphere of decisions, the costs of error are so exorbitant that we need to act on theory alone, which is to say on prediction alone. It follows that the reputation of scientific prediction needs to be enhanced. But that can happen, paradoxically, only if scientists disavow the certainty and precision that they normally insist on. Above all, we need to learn to act decisively to forestall predicted perils, even while knowing that they may never materialize. We must take action, in a manner of speaking, to preserve our ignorance. There are perils that we can be certain of avoiding only at the cost of never knowing with certainty that they were real." -Jonathan Shell, author of Our Fragile Earth "A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect." -Richard Benedict, an employee for the State Department working on assignment for the Conservation Foundation
Sensationalism & Scare Tactics "[W]e have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." -Stephen Schneider, proponent of the theory that CFCs are depleting the ozone
Mainstream Links to the Fringe "I honor Earth First for having the guts to do the things they do. It's not for me, but I understand why they do what they do. And, ultimately, we all help each other." -Brock Adams, VP, Audubon Society, quoted in the Los Angeles Times. "The Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club regional reps were at the Northeast Earth First Rendevouz last year. We all work very well together. Dale Turner, who is the assistant editor of the Earth First Journal, was conservation chair of the Sierra Club in Arizona at the same time. I'm a member of the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society and the Nature Conservancy." -Dave Foreman, Earth First? Founder, in an interview in E Magazine Sept/Oct 93 Update: Dave Foreman was recently elected to the Sierra Club Board of Directors
Deep Ecology as a Religion "If we seek only personal redemption we could become solitary ecological saints among the masses of those we might classify as 'sinners' who continue to pollute." Bill Devall & George Sessions, Deep Ecology: Living As If Nature Mattered Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 1987), p 14 "More science and more technology are not goint to get us out of the present ecological crises untill we find a new religion, or rethink our old one." Lynn White, Jr. "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis," Science, (Mar. 10 1967), p 1206
Govenrment Enforced Birth Control "Childbearing [should be] a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license.... All potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing." -David Brower, Friends of the Earth "The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state." -Keith Boulding, originator of the "Spaceship Earth" concept
Anti Human "If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS. It [AIDS] has the potential to end industrialism, which is the main force behind the environmental crises." -Earth First! newsletter "We in the Green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which the killing of a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels." -Carl Amery, Green Party of West Germany "I got the impression that instead of going out to shoot birds, I should go out and shoot the kids who shoot birds." -Paul Watson, founder of Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd "The planet is about to break out with fever, indeed it may already have, and we [human beings] are the disease. We should be at war with ourselves and our lifestyles." -Thomas Lovejoy, tropical biologist and assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution "Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental." Dave Forman, founder of Earth First, and presently a member of the Board of Directors for the Sierra Club Ideological Ties to other Movements In the 1930s the ecologists "Green Revolution" reached full flower in Germany...In the political sphere, ecologists lobbied successfully, for antivivisection laws,..implementation of organic farming,..and the redistribution of large land holdings to the German peasants (Back-to- the-Land movement)...These laws became the policies of a political party that incorporated a major portion of the ecologists political agenda. This party also believed in the "Blood and Soil" ethic, and was known as the National Socialist Party. Its leader was Adolf Hitler. -M.Gemmell & J.Lehr Quotes from The Environmental Peanut Gallery "No one is predicting the extinction of life, nor man, but certainly civilization as we know it is at risk. This is not based on feelings but many sciences. The carrying capacity of the earth has been exceeded and we are currently living off non-sustainable consumption of cheap pools of finite natural resources we found lying about less than 100 years ago." -Doug Bashford, from the Fido Environ conference 18 Jan 94 "Was the other lawyer Glenn C.? He has been our letterhead in the past, and got a gun back for me. . I'm with SAFE, and we have been loosely asc. w EF! since the good ol days... We stopped a $billion dam. We get Sierra NF all to ourselves, everyone else has sold it down the river. JP Bernhardt is a good friend who periodically publishes in EF! journal. He does poems and condor & compound 1080 stuff." -Doug Bashford, from the Fido Environ conference 17 Jan 94
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