Hard green
m (Robot: Replacing category Politics with Political philosophies) |
|||
| Line 56: | Line 56: | ||
<references /> | <references /> | ||
| − | [[Category: | + | [[Category:Political philosophies]] |
[[Category:Extreme moonbattery]] | [[Category:Extreme moonbattery]] | ||
[[Category:Environmentalism]] | [[Category:Environmentalism]] | ||
Revision as of 19:18, 24 October 2010
Hard green refers to a branch of the environmentalism movement that considers humans solely as a polluting influence on the environment, and feels that whatever action is needed to repair human-generated damage to the environment should be undertaken no matter what its effect on humanity. These people typically oppose any industrial, agricultural, or resource extraction activity at all, as well as a general opposition to consumerism and shopping. These views fall under vaguely developed philosophies such as "biocentrism", which views all life as a whole as central to the planet, claiming "equal rights for all species", and opposes viewing human society as central. While it is hard to say how many people actually feel this way (probably quite a bit fewer than conservatives claim exist)[1], the existence of groups such as the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and ecoterrorism activities testifies that there are at least a few who do.
Contents |
At the bookstore
Between hard greens and environmental denialists, however, finding useful information in the Ecology section of any bookstore may as well be a snipe hunt. Hard green beliefs acquired a certain radical chic mystique among hip intellectuals during the 1990s because of several writers[2], and numerous celebrities adopting hard green philosophies and activism. This has caused a steady output of hard green philosophy hitting the bookshelves, and conversely, led to a rash of environmental denialism books in response; the two extremes seem to feed off each other and leave the sane, scientific center without much of a voice at the present[3].
Peakniks and doomers
Books making drastic claims of impending doom and disaster unless humanity drastically reduces its activity or population are perennial favorites in the environmental section, and most of those predictions have turned out to be wrong, wrong, wrong.[4]
The disputed peak oil theory, although not necessarily woo in itself nor yet proven nor disproven, has become an apocalyptic fad at the present, spawning a cottage industry of scary books predicting the end of civilization as we know it. The terms "peaknik" and "doomer" refer to such believers who are in no way optimistic about the prospects for the future, and expect widespread starvation, ecological collapse, and economic collapse to sweep the earth very shortly. Peak oil is often combined with an excessively pessimistic view of both overpopulation and global warming, and "peak-everything-else" theories like "peak coal" and "peak uranium". Some peakniks have turned to survivalism, others to radical hard green views. Notable doomer and peaknik books are by Albert Bartlett, James Howard Kunstler, Paul Roberts, and Richard Heinberg, among others.
Deep ecology
"Deep ecology" is one such hard green philosophy. The term was coined by Arne Naess, a Norwegian environmental philosopher, in 1973. It was further developed by George Sessions and Bill Devall in their 1985 book of the same name. Deep ecology holds that environmental protection for the good of humanity is "shallow ecology" - this includes such things as clean water and cleaning up pollution, recycling, opposing billboards and litter, and providing food and energy to humanity. "Deep ecology" by contrast is environmental protection for the good of the planet for its own sake, irrespective of any benefit to humans. It holds that the good of ecosystems as a whole, not humanity, should receive the highest consideration when contemplating any activity.
One notable Deep Ecology proponent is rainforest activist John Seed of Australia, who in addition runs large group awareness training seminars incorporating rebirthing practices from the New Age (he calls it "re-earthing"), which are supposed to help attendees break through their human-centered attitudes and become one with the planet.
Deep ecology falls apart in self-contradiction because deep ecology is, itself, a human-created philosophy and relies on conscious human activity to put it into practice, making it a human-centered philosophy even as it claims otherwise.
We'll mine and log the other planets later
"Earth First!" (with the obligatory exclamation point) was an early and vigorous proponent of "Deep Ecology" philosophy. It was founded in the early 1980s by five former lobbyists from mainstream environmental groups who felt those groups and the U.S. government had sold out wilderness preservation during the RARE II (Roadless Area Review and Evaluation) process during the Carter administration as well as earlier during the Glen Canyon Dam debacle of the early 1960s. The group cultivated a reputation that was, at least at first, more hard-line than they actually were[5]; said reputation attracted a bevy of supporters who were even harder green than the founders, with the result that the founding members had mostly left for more mainstream pastures by 1990.
Earth First!'s influence probably peaked in 1990 with a large media/protest event called "Redwood Summer", protesting logging in northern California. After that the group largely fell apart in infighting, and attracted an even more radical fringe element, mostly anarchists, who caused the cycle to repeat itself again and drove out those who in 1990 had driven out the original founders. The group still exists today but are decidedly irrelevant.
A conspiracy theory popular on the right is that Earth First! was founded by and secretly funded by mainstream environmental groups (e.g. the Audubon Society and Wilderness Society) in order to make them look tame and reasonable by comparison.
The Earth Liberation Front is a group who feel Earth First! still isn't militant enough, and practice ecoterrorism.
Vigilantes on the high seas
Greenpeace may or may not qualify as "hard green" (depending on who you ask). However, Sea Shepherd, founded by a former Greenpeace co-founder who left or was expelled (depending on who you ask) in a dispute over Greenpeace's non-violence policy, definitely is hard green. Sea Shepherd fights illegal whaling and seal hunting, not in the courts nor by appealing to international agencies, but by direct action, in this case ramming and scuttling the ships in question. These actions take place on the high seas and Sea Shepherd claims they are acting under the color of international law; Japan, the country of origin for most of the ships scuttled and rammed, vehemently disagrees. Predictably, Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson proclaims a "biocentric" and "deep ecology" philosophy and that their actions are justified based on wild apocalyptic claims that the oceans are dying from biological meltdown due to overfishing. He also claims to have had telepathic communication from a whale he was saving back when he was still with Greenpeace, who telepathically imparted his life's mission of defending the oceans to him.
Anarcho-primitivism
Another such hard green philosophy is a combination of anarchism with a belief that the industrial revolution must be undone and society should return to a hunter-gatherer state of nature. This is most prevalent on the west coast of the United States, especially in places like Eugene, Oregon and Arcata, California. It's a really stupid combination that some nutty kids latch onto because they have nothing better to do with their lives. Some of them take silly butterfly pseudonyms and spend months sitting in trees protesting logging; others show their opposition to modern technology by adopting freeganism or some variation of the caveman diet and hopping freight trains for their transportation and squatting in abandoned or foreclosed houses, all of which are modern technology. One of their publications was Live Wild Or Die, an infrequently published newspaper started circa 1988-89 by some former Earth First! activists who felt Earth First! was too conservative and stifling anarchist participation in the movement.
Unabomber
The Unabomber (Theodore Kaczynski) was not really affiliated with anarcho-primitivism per se, but advocated a similar return to a primitive society without technology. His "manifesto", Industrial Society and Its Future was based more on psychology than ecology. Claims from conspiracy theorists that he was working hand in hand with Earth First! or ecoterrorist groups are not well established and there is little beyond circumstantial evidence to support this claim. The first section of his manifesto is devoted to a discussion of what he considered the psychopathology of the modern left, among which he included animal rights and environmental activists. For some odd reason, he is often lumped in with hard greens due to tenuous similarities.
Ecofascism
At the ludicrous extreme are those who advocate (as opposed to merely predicting, which is bad enough) a mass die-off of humans in the name of defending the planet. The most notorious and noxious of these is probably Finnish philosopher Pentti Linkola, who is sort of the Fred Phelps of the environmental movement, issuing statements celebrating people dying in mass disasters as progress toward lessening humanity's destructive influence on the planet.
U.S. environmentalist Garrett Hardin advocated a just-barely-toned-down version of the same thing, which he termed "lifeboat ethics". Believing the planet's resources were limited with not enough to go around, he advocated the rich countries (which he likened to "lifeboats") cut off all aid to poor countries and let "nature" (in this case, mass starvation) run its course.
Ecofascism can also refer to those who mix radical environmentalism with otherwise hard right politics. This seems to be more prevalent in Europe, where several political parties exist such as the Nouvelle Droite (or European New Right) of Alain de Benoist, Third Way in the U.K. (a "green" splinter from the neofascist National Front), the Ökologisch-Demokratische Partei (Ecological Democratic Party, a right-wing splinter from the German Green Party), and groups espousing what they call third positionism. The closest example of this from the U.S. is probably Virginia Abernethy, who is both a widely cited expert on population and ecology and a self-avowed "white separatist" (as well as a Vanderbilt University professor).
Other uses
The term "hard green" is used in a different sense by Peter Huber of the conservative think-tank, the Manhattan Institute, who advocates in his 1999 book Hard Green that a distinction be made between what he terms "soft green" issues (such as global warming, organic food, and opposition to pesticides), and what he terms "hard green" issues (mainly, setting aside open space and wildlife habitat, and active management of public lands.) His distinction between the two seems to play on a bit of appeal to masculinity. "Soft green", to Huber, is the wonky, wimpy environmentalism of those who obsess over such things as their carbon footprint, traces of PCBs in the environment, or whether their coffee is organic and shade grown. Huber's "hard green" is land conservation, period, and it is done because we can and because we want to for aesthetic reasons, not because of any ethical mandate to. Huber invokes Theodore Roosevelt throughout this "conservative manifesto" for the environment, as an ideal of "hard green"; Al Gore, as the archetypal "soft green". His book was an apparent attempt to get political conservatives on board with at least some environmental protection (wilderness and wildlife habitat), while simultaneously slamming Gore and most of the mainstream environmental community for prioritizing what he thinks are non-issues. His book got some attention when published, but in terms of actual influence proved to be a dud, as U.S. conservatives during the Bush era did not seem to be interested in any environmental protection whatsoever. Most environmentalists categorize Huber's book as a denialist book, due to his poo-pooing of just about every other environmental issue other than land conservation.
See also
- Car-free movement
- Environmentalism
- Animal rights
- Hardline
- Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
- Red Green
- Gaia hypothesis
Footnotes
- ↑ Alston Chase, author of the 1986 environmental classic Playing God in Yellowstone, disagrees and claims biocentrism and related hard green philosophies, which he denounces as "California cosmology", became the dominant viewpoint among mainstream environmental groups since the 1990s to the detriment (according to Chase) of sane, science-based policy.
- ↑ Among them, Edward Abbey, whose writings during his lifetime should be distinguished from the bizarre myth of Abbey-as-hard-green-prophet and resulting personality cult that arose after his 1989 death and peaked in the mid 1990s - as any perusal of Abbey's writings will show, Abbey was a product of the National Park Service ranger culture of the 1950s-1970s more than anything else, hardly a hard green at all, The Monkey Wrench Gang notwithstanding.
- ↑ Or to those attempting to steer a middle ground on these issues being denounced by hard greens as stooges for industry, as for example Gregg Easterbrook and Alston Chase have.
- ↑ A partial list of failed predictions would certainly begin with The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich, and The Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome. Dozens of recent books of the same sort can be found in the Ecology section today.
- ↑ The early Earth First! literature, circa 1980-1986, was in fact rather science oriented and full of the same sort of lulz and snarky attitude one might also find on, say, Rationalwiki, but this becamse increasingly rare after 1987 as leftist "direct action" activities and increasingly ludicrous crank ideas came to dominate.