Look, like I said in another post, there are plenty of real environmental issues out there. You can use satellites and ground observations to come up with good numbers for the increase or decrease of forests, or reefs. If the cod catch in an area that has been producing cod at a steady rate for a hundred years is seriously down for more than a few years, that's a real number, too. You can count the current number of buffalo and compare it to the numbers a century ago. Damn right there are no passenger pigeons now, and they used to cover the skies last century.

There are a LOT of examples where you can show there are real issues that need to be addressed. Step one is to get the radical, anti-human politics out of it.

When an environmentalist halts the development of a new housing development because a three-spotted fizzwig was found there, is it really about the three-spotted fizzwig for that person, or is it about sticking it to The Man and capitalism? I've talked to a number of these people, and believe me, after a bit of conversation the real motivations come out. A lot of environmentalists are honestly concerned with making sure humans and the environment get along. Can anyone doubt the good that people like Costeau, Goodall, and others less famous have done?

But a lot of other environmentalists would be marching in A.N.S.W.E.R. parades if they weren't in the environmental movement. Unfortunately, more of these are ending up in the leadership. Look at how the Sierra Club has changed over the years. Good grief, does anyone honestly think the Green Party is really about being Green?