P,
Overlook these radical left-wing ideologues bent on destruction of the middle class way of life, as you put it, who have co-opted the environmental movement as their own, and instead, focus on the underlying principles of environmentalism, which I believe have great merit.

As I noted in my post below, it is possible, even likely, that agents provocateurs have infilitrated the movement to cripple its agenda.

So I completely agree that politicization of the environmental movement (at least in the United States) has been a mixed blessing, or perhaps I should say curse.

Doubletalk abounds. A small passage from Mr. Reynolds' article may be instructive:

"Environmentalists are right, in a way, when they refer to resources as finite. At current technology levels, resource endowments will eventually run out. But that's the problem. If we follow the advice of enviro-Luddites, we may cut our consumption of resources significantly, but since the supply is still finite, that only puts off the inevitable day when they will run out. And when they run out, people will do what people always do in a crisis: survive any way they can, even if it means strip-mining, wholesale tree-cutting and tree-burning, and stripping the ocean of anything that swims and can be eaten."

This is like saying that anyone on a budget should just go ahead and spend their money as fast as they can since they'll be broke soon anyway.

Sure, go ahead, live like there's no tomorrow. Everybody knows that's good advice.

To spell it out for those who may have trouble with this concept, conservation buys time, time for humans to develop new and sustainable forms of energy which are not a danger to our home planet.

Living frugally is an art. It's cheaper, you'll be in better shape and probably look 10 years younger, and Terra will thank you.

sp