Earth Day Messages

With all of the coverage of Earth Day, in a time when even local governments may quote from Tom Friedman and proclaim that "Green in the new Red White and Blue", I find it useful to contrast two Earth Day OpEds, one that ran in my local paper (Morgan Hill Times) and one that did not.

The one that ran is by Michael Berliner of the Ayn Rand Institute. You can, if you have a strong BS filter, read it from the ARI web site.

Berliner pulls not punches in his attack on environmentalism, deeming deeming the goal of environmentalism as a 'subhuman world where "nature" is worshiped like the totem of some primitive religion.'

While I don't think that many pay a lot of attention to the Ayn Rand Institute any more, there are aspects of this that are picked up, distorted and used, maybe subconsciously, in order to justify the continued robber baron attitude about world resources that was the foundation of American prosperity in the 20th Century and could well be the down fall of it all in the 21st.

At the other extreme, is the challenge today from Wallace J. Nichols* to become an EcoDareDevil.

Today, we face more serious crises—loss of biodiversity, a warming planet, collapsing fisheries, looming food and water shortages, and pollution in every corner of the globe. Scientists forecast a “2050 Scenario” in which Earth is hotter, dirtier, and overcrowded with nine billion people who are left to wage wars for what little remains.

Using the metaphor of Evil Knievel, Nichols is challenging young people, really all of us who still remember what it was to be young and full of energy, to "jump the chasm" and to act.

Needless to say, this one did not appear in my local newspaper.

For myself, I admire the spirit of Pete McCloskey, who was along with Sen. Gaylord Nelson, a CoChair of the first Earth Day. He has not quit. He never will. In fact, McCloskey is helping with the legal challenges to the remaining shell game that Charles Hurwitz is trying to play with Pacific Lumber Company, the remaining old growth redwoods in California and the livelihood of the citizens of Mendocino and Humboldt Counties.

We have a lot of work to do. We need to make sure that those like Berliner who would put some idealize man, supreme over nature and free to loose his avariciousness on the world unchecked. Nichols has given us the picture of the world where Berliner and his rank and file of takers prevail. We must not allow that to happen.

* Dr. Wallace J. Nichols is a Senior Scientist at Ocean Conservancy and a Research Associate at California Academy of Sciences.