Environmental Extremism in Bullet Form

[Ed Hudgins]

Environmental Extremism in Bullet Form

By Edward Hudgins

September 2, 2010 – Talk about dodging a bullet. When armed, explosives-laden eco-terrorist James J. Lee took hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, we watched on TV as police evacuated small children from the building’s daycare center and we feared the worst. Fortunately, a SWAT team killed Lee before he could create pools of blood and tears.

Most environmentalists have remained quiet about the incident and hope it will soon be forgotten. Most would no doubt argue that this gunman who claimed inspiration from Al Gore was a lone nut. They would say that the reasons he cited for his actions do not represent their philosophy. But they would be wrong.

Many of you who claim to be “moderate” or reasonable environmentalists in fact base your beliefs on the same premises that Lee was trying to follow consistently to their logical conclusion. It was you who enabled him.

Eco-terrorist Manifesto

Let’s start with the obvious. The eco-terrorist’s manifesto had one central theme: the extermination of the human race. He wanted the Discovery Channel to broadcast shows about “how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those additions continue pollution and are pollution.” He wanted the channel to “stop glorifying human birthing.”

He proclaimed, “It is the responsibility of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES!” He wrote of “parasitic human infants” and “disgusting human babies.” And in case you missed his point: “The planet does not need humans.”

It used to be that “baby-killer” was about the worst thing you could say about a person. Now this guy’s proclaimed it as the highest virtue.

Voluntary Human Extinction

Perhaps you’re uncomfortable with Lee’s crude language and straight-as-a-bullet approach to solving the perceived problem of too many people. But where are you so-called moderate environmentalists when the same sentiments are expressed in more moderate tones?

The eco-terrorist’s manifesto had one central theme: the extermination of the human race.

There has long been a movement to convince potential parents to forego the joys of having children because the environment should come first. It’s one thing for individuals to remain childless because it doesn’t fit with their life plans. It’s quite another for those who want to be parents to be guilt-tripped into seeing children as exactly how the eco-terrorist described them.

When Gordon Brown was British prime minister, his adviser Jonathon Porritt argued for cutting the country’s population in half, by 30 million, in order to build a “sustainable” society. I suggested at that time that if he could find that many Brits who backed him, they would be acting consistently by putting guns in their mouths, thus ridding the planet of their polluting selves—a final solution of which Lee would certainly approve.

And there’s been a Voluntary Human Extinction Movement for some time, advocating in respectable language what Lee spewed in his manifesto.

I haven’t seen you moderate environmentalists forcefully denouncing these types and distancing yourselves from them.

Human Values

“But these aren’t our beliefs!” you might protest. Many of you environmentalists argue that your beliefs are more “balanced.” You’ll say that yes, you recognize that humans by their nature harm the environment, but that if the harm can be minimized, then maybe we can live in harmony with the world around us.

Here is your fatal premise. You assume that there are things of value out of any human context. You assume that forests, lakes, ice caps, oceans, mud, insects, and animals have some sort of inherent or intrinsic value. But they do not. Things are of value as far as we are concerned to the extent that they contribute to our human survival and flourishing. A mountain is of value because we can enjoy its beauty, climb it for recreation or inspiration, or mine its minerals to make our machines.

Only humans can make value choices; indeed, all human action is choice, and the choices that are moral are those that benefit us. When you environmentalists imbue the non-human with value unrelated to humans, you set up a deadly equation. Since all human actions somehow affect the environment, by what standard will you judge the morality of an action?

In human society we say that individuals should deal with one other based on mutual consent. But nature can’t “consent.” Only humans can. You might pretend to speak for the environment, but your declarations will simply be arbitrary and baseless. If you imbue the non-human world with intrinsic value, the ultimate conclusion will be that the Earth, your goddess Gaea, would be better off without us.

You try to hold this contradiction in your head, to balance the definable standard of human life with the indefinable standard of some extra-human good. But many individuals in your movement follow the logic of your premises to their antihuman end.

Precious Children

Perhaps you have some sympathy with eco-terrorist Lee when he writes that “Nothing is more important than saving” animals: “The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.”

I will soon become a father of two baby girls, fraternal twins. I look forward in a few years to taking my daughters to a zoo, a forest, and maybe even on a safari. I want to see their excited faces as they see many of those animals. I hope they appreciate what wonders evolution has produced.

But I will never lose sight of the fact—nor let my girls forget—that they are more valuable than any nonhuman or nonliving thing on this planet, that this planet is theirs to use and to enjoy.

Pledge to Humans

Do you moderate environmentalists judge the value of children and humans to be closer to my way of thinking or to the eco-terrorist’s? If the former, then will you take this pledge?

Will you state that human life and flourishing are the standard of all value? And, to be even clearer, will you state that all individuals have the right to their own lives and the liberty that this entails?

If you take this pledge, then we can have intelligent, rational discussion. We can ask whether and by how much certain human activities materially and measurably harm humans; whether the harm should be mitigated through the enforcement of property rights or trespass laws; what government policies are available; and whether those policies would limit individual liberty and create more harm than good. All of these questions would be answered in accordance with standard of human life and individual wellbeing.

If you can’t take this pledge, then know that you are on the side of the eco-terrorists and the human-haters. And don’t be surprised when the next act of eco-terrorism occurs, when humans—whether children or adults—are slaughtered, because you self-styled environmentalist moderates planted the seeds.

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Hudgins is director of advocacy for The Atlas Society.

For further reading:

*Edward Hudgins, “Reducing Humans to Carbon Ash.” November 9, 2009.

*Edward Hudgins, “Pelosi’s Eco-Totalitarianism.” May 29, 2009

*Edward Hudgins, “Light Up the World for Humans.” March 27, 2009

*Robert Bidinotto, “Green Cathedrals: Environmentalism’s Mythological Appeal.” The New Individualist, September 2007.

[9thdoctor]

I read his manifesto, as a prose stylist he made me look back on Ted Kaczynski almost wistfully. Lee said his inspiration was Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, I read the Amazon preview of it last night, my capsule review: oh brother! This may sound like a shallow question/observation, but what I don’t get is why he targeted the Discovery channel. As opposed to, say, a Ted Turner entity (the sponsor of the Quinn novel).

Congrats Ed, on the upcoming offspring!

[Christopher]

Here is your fatal premise. You assume that there are things of value out of any human context. You assume that forests, lakes, ice caps, oceans, mud, insects, and animals have some sort of inherent or intrinsic value. But they do not. Things are of value as far as we are concerned to the extent that they contribute to our human survival and flourishing. A mountain is of value because we can enjoy its beauty, climb it for recreation or inspiration, or mine its minerals to make our machines.

Unfortunately I recognize I am talking to a very biased perspective, but healthy environmentalism is protection of the ecosystem in pursuit of a richer and healthier human life. Humans evolved to live very well in collaboration with the ecosystem. We weren't born to die in nature, we were born to live and thrive in it. Millions of years of evolution ensures this. So the belief that somehow man must "protect" or "separate" himself from nature in a web of self-constructions to better survive is a bogus belief. In fact man's life depends on the natural ecosystem, it does not depend on a man-made "ecosystem". Man is about adaption to and not control over the environment... does Objectivism want to contradict our scientific observations supporting this point?

We might argue that protection of nature per se can become divorced from human life. But I wonder about that too. A perspective on protecting the natural ecosystem might be implicitly demonstrating the proper way to live in relationship to nature so-as to survive. Protect that which protects life. For example, in India it's immoral to hurt or kill cows. Seems absurd. Then you look at the history of this code, and you find that cows were necessary to ensure survival of human life. So a set of ethics arose that on the surface seem divorced from human life but in which the very existence of those ethics in fact arose precisely because they support human life. The same seems plausible, perhaps even inescapably obvious, with nature.

Anyway, I think we need some deeper consideration of these issues than simple Rand-like biased statements.

[kiaer.ts]

Unless I missed it, "moderate environmentalism" goes undefined in this piece. I have to wonder, what do you call people who call themselves environmentalists but don't view humans as dirty or the issue as a zero sum game? Is "environmentalist" like "libertarian," a word so evil no that no sense of it is valid and no rapporochment with it is possible?

I do not consider myself an environmentalist, and never have. But I do consider myself a nature lover, scientifically sophisticated, and an uncompromising advocate of humans, human rights, limited government, and free markets.

The beliefs that, all other things being equal, the preservation of species from extinction by direct human action is to be preferred, or that biological diversity is a good thing, or that strictly provable harm to the environment can be civilly and criminally actionable, seem to me reasonable.

The rhetorical attack on an undefined class of "moderate environmentalists" is a shock tactic which Objectivists who take the environment seriously as a pro-human issue able to be addressed objectively in a free market society would be within their rights to question and, on a prima facie basis, resent. Non-Objectivists will simply view the hyperbole directed against "moderates" as proof that all Objectivists are beyond the lunatic fringe, and I do not think they would be totally unjustified in this case.

Edited September 5, 2010 by Ted Keer

[anonrobt]

Man is about adaption to and not control over the environment... does Objectivism want to contradict our scientific observations supporting this point?

......................

Oh? and just where is this objectively supported? this consideration of humans as just another set of animals.....

[Christopher]

Man is about adaption to and not control over the environment... does Objectivism want to contradict our scientific observations supporting this point?

......................

Oh? and just where is this objectively supported? this consideration of humans as just another set of animals.....

Read Darwin

[kiaer.ts]

Man is about adaption to and not control over the environment... does Objectivism want to contradict our scientific observations supporting this point?

......................

Oh? and just where is this objectively supported? this consideration of humans as just another set of animals.....

Read Darwin

Express yourself more clearly. "Man 'is about' adaptation to the environment" is so vague and poorly written a statement as not even to merit being called false. Darwin certainly no where argues that species have duties or teleological purposes. Only survival can be treated as a purpose, and only then as a result of the historical accident that organisms which do not happen to reproduce become rare and, for some reason, are less likely to pass on their genetic nature to their offspring, not because there is any forward looking drive in nature.

Mankind is so successful a species (read your Darwin) precisely because, given the knowledge an opportunity, he does modify his environment, and, when enlightened, often for the better of himself and other species.

[Ed Hudgins]

Ted – I'm not sure we really disagree. To start, in this short piece I didn't document cases of environmentalists who believe they are acting for the good of human beings—they want breathable air, drinkable water, etc.—and those accept either explicitly or implicitly the premise that nature has an intrinsic value separate from humans. I've dealt with enough of the latter myself and I didn't think I was making a controversial point to identify these two groups.

Personally, I consider myself a nature lover. I want to see whales, gorillas, and other such species continue in existence. (I note also that more species have died out in the process of evolution, before humans were around, than exist today.) I'd love to be able to clone woolly mammoths and dinosaurs.

But I don't make intrinsicist arguments nor want to impose my preferences on others. I do argue that the logic of seeing intrinsic value in things apart from their value to humans leads in very dangerous directions. That was also the point of my "Reducing Humans to Carbon Ash" piece.

Chris – One quick point: You say "Protect that which protects life. For example, in India it's immoral to hurt or kill cows. Seems absurd. Then you look at the history of this code, and you find that cows were necessary to ensure survival of human life." I'd argue that starving Indians over the centuries would have done well to breed and eat those cows rather than to starve in this world for the sake of…what?

[Ed Hudgins]

Ted – I'm not sure we really disagree. To start, in this short piece I didn't document cases of environmentalists who believe they are acting for the good of human beings—they want breathable air, drinkable water, etc.—and those accept either explicitly or implicitly the premise that nature has an intrinsic value separate from humans. I've dealt with enough of the latter myself and I didn't think I was making a controversial point to identify these two groups.

Personally, I consider myself a nature lover. I want to see whales, gorillas, and other such species continue in existence. (I note also that more species have died out in the process of evolution, before humans were around, than exist today.) I'd love to be able to clone woolly mammoths and dinosaurs.

But I don't make intrinsicist arguments nor want to impose my preferences on others. I do argue that the logic of seeing intrinsic value in things apart from their value to humans leads in very dangerous directions. That was also the point of my "Reducing Humans to Carbon Ash" piece.

Chris – One quick point: You say "Protect that which protects life. For example, in India it's immoral to hurt or kill cows. Seems absurd. Then you look at the history of this code, and you find that cows were necessary to ensure survival of human life." I'd argue that starving Indians over the centuries would have done well to breed and eat those cows rather than to starve in this world for the sake of…what?

[kiaer.ts]

To condense my criticism, I would have spent one or two sentences to define what I meant by environmentalist, perhaps defining a "green" as someone who supports the initiation of force (government or otherwise) to promote "nature" over human rights. And I if you are going to implicitly define moderate environmentalists as condoning evil (which is something I can see doing with "moderate muslims", since they don't abjure jihad, an essential part of their faith) then what do you call self identified "environmentalists" who in no way advocate the use of force? "Wishy washy environmentalists"? That is, what is "softer" than a moderate environmentalist?

Using the term "green" to refer to environmentalists who place environmental concerns above human rights, you would be reflecting the self-identification of those who created the various inherently political green parties. Had you used the term green for those who advocate the initiation of force you could divide them into radical greens, who participate in violence, and moderate greens, who condone it.