Shaking the “Extremist” Label

Shaking the “Extremist” Label

I want to know when “environmentalist” became a bad word. It seems to me that to be an environmentalist would be considered a good thing…to be concerned about the environment.

Unfortunately, it’s my perception that environmentalists themselves…at least some of the more “hard-core” ones…have ruined it for the rest of us. “Environmentalist” has become synonymous with “extremist.”

Now, some in the “environmentalist” community would claim that the “extremist” label has been placed on them by the so-called “far-right.” They would tell you that it’s the greedy capitalists who want to extract natural resources with no concern for what they’re doing to our planet who have mesmerized the general public into thinking anyone who supports environmental causes is out to destroy the American way of life. But even if that is the case, who let it happen? Who continues to fight against everyone who wants to cut down a tree, mine for coal, drill oil wells or—and this is a good one—build a wind farm? How do you get people to quit viewing you as an extremist if you continue to act in what even the most moderate of folks would consider to be an extreme manner?

I’m all for making sure extractive industries do their jobs in an environmentally sensible manner. The fact is, many coal, timber, oil & gas and other extractive operators do operate outside the rules, and many others work awfully hard in political circles to bend or even change the rules to make their lives easier. The fact that many (in fact, it seems these days to be most) politicians cater to industry demands for more lax regulation and enforcement does not bode well for our environment and those of us who care for it. Maybe that’s why some environmentalists think they have to go to extremes.

Now before I get too far down this road let me say that I have a lot of pretty close friends that consider themselves fairly staunch environmentalists. And most of them I wouldn’t consider to be “extremists.” But it seems sometimes like they can’t help being their own worst enemies. As I told one of those friends once, they often can’t get out of their own damn way.

Wind energy is a case in point. “Environmentalists” want alternative energy sources that don’t scar the ground and cause air pollution. Cool! But they also don’t want to see giant windmills on ridgetops. And God forbid a few birds and bats run into the windmills and die. Now I’m certainly not crazy about the way those windmills on Backbone Mountain look and I think it’s a dirty shame that birds and bats are dying, but somewhere along the line there has to be some compromise. “You want your cake and eat it too,” I told my environmentalist friend. “It’s no wonder the environmental movement can’t gain any positive momentum…you have no capacity for compromising on anything.”

Maybe part of the problem is folks who care about the environment tend to be, well, caring. They’re wide-eyed optimists. They see things as they should be, and can’t understand why other people don’t see the world that way, too. And in some ways, maybe they’re right. To do things in an environmentally responsible manner seems to be such a no-brainer, it’s hard to figure out why some folks just don’t get it.

But, as a realist, and perhaps a bit of a cynical one at that (if the optimist sees the glass as half full and the pessimist sees it as half empty, the realist sees the glass as a vessel containing a balanced volume and the cynic wonders who stole half his damn glass), it seems even more of a no-brainer to see that the world doesn’t work as it should, it works as it does. So instead of expecting people to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing (then taking them to court the minute they don’t do the right thing) it seems to me we’d be better served to show people the benefits of doing the right thing, helping them to do it the right way, and realizing that sometimes you have to give something up in order to gain something else.

There are a lot of us out there who would like to be environmentalists, but we don’t want to be extremists. So we get into the whole sub-labeling game of conservationists versus preservationists. As a conservationist, I want to see our resources conserved and used wisely. If someone wants to mine coal, dig a hole in the ground and take it out, then fill in the hole. But don’t blow the whole top off a damn mountain and fill in the streams around it with the dirt that was between you and the coal. If you want to harvest timber, cut the trees you need and only the trees you need, leave enough to keep the forest alive, and re-seed behind yourself to keep all the mud from choking every stream in the drainage…but don’t mow every stick off a hillside, leave the tops laying around, and let the streams fill with silt every time it rains.

At the same time, if you want to preserve one area, be willing to let responsible extraction happen on another. Be willing to work with landowners who have a right to earn a profit from their property instead of hauling them to court at every turn when they do something you don't agree with.

The fact is, the world is never going to be the way it was on the Seventh Day again. It started changing on Day 8 and it’s been changing ever since. Sure, we need to conserve and protect what we’ve got left, but we need to realize that extremism is never going to be the path to preservation.

NOTE: Perhaps against my better judgement (who stole half my damn glass??!) I've changed the settings to allow comments on this blog without having to sign up for a membership. We'll see how it goes. I don't have any problem with disagreement or constructive criticism, but I don't want this whole thing to be an open forum that I have to manage. But I am intersted in what folks think, so please feel free to post your comments. If I don't like 'em, I'll just delete 'em! Now where's that damn glass??!!