Posted by Jim on March 12, 2005 at 23:59:57:
In Reply to: This stuff really annoys me posted by seahunt on March 12, 2005 at 05:58:36:
I consider myself a conservationist. I don't believe that resources should be wasted, but I do believe that resources should be managed and used. This puts me at odds with the enviros. It is more than a semantic difference. Conservationists use the environmental review process to make suggestions to make a project more environmentally beneficial. Enviros use the process to try to stop or delay a project. If you write a comment on an environmental impact statement and that contains specific recommendations to lessen the effects of the project, you are a conservationist. If you go to a website and sign your name to an email that has vague generalities and contains no recommendation of substance, you are an enviro. A conservationist recognizes that individual actions have consequences and seeks to minimize our footprints. Enviros believe in collective action, individual blame avoidance, and seek to have everyone else minimize his or her footprint.
The Keeper is part of an alliance of organizations tied into the Waterkeeper Alliance run by Robert Kennedy Jr., who recently showed up in your fine state to sing the environmental praises of Arnold, who has turned green ever since he had a dual fuel system put on the Hummer. Kennedy, in turn, is a staff attorney with National Resources Defense Council, the a major star in the enviro constellation, along with such luminaries as Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and the Environmental Defense Fund.
RFK, Jr. wrote a book recently that indicted the Bush administration's enviro record. He complained that he could not get the press to cover enviro event unless a celebrity showed up. I guess he doesn't realize that in America, "Kennedy" is synonymous with "celebrity." Face it, if a guy named John Public has written the same book, it would not have been published. Check out the November 2004 issue of Outside magazine that has a debate by Christie Whitman former head of the EPA and Kennedy. It will tell you the difference.