Chapter 11:  Human Sacrifice

 
 
 
 
 

The worst thing we could do in Ethiopa [to eliminate starvation] is to give aid-the best thing would be to just let nature seek its own balance, to let the people there just starve.          David Foreman, founder of Earth First, in a letter to  the editor of The Nation in reference to the recent famine  in Ethiopa.

        Before proceeding with this chapter I feel that a few words of explanation regarding the quote above are called for at this point. To anyone who feels that the nations of the industrialized west have consistently taken advantage of the less developed parts of the world for a century or two Mr. Foreman's suggestion may seem to be incredibly cruel and selfish. That would be my impression of his position even if the famine in question had resulted from natural causes. Since the famine was caused by internal politics rather than nature his suggestion is even worse than it would otherwise be. In the interest of fairness it must be pointed out that most of the prominent environmentalists did not publicly support Foreman in this matter and their public pronouncements do not explicitly indicate that they share his views in general with respect to his solution to the "over-population" of the world, which most of them view as a problem of crisis proportions. As I will point out in this chapter, however, approval of his views is implicit in their positions.
        Environmentalism has become a hot topic today, we are bombarded by reports of looming environmental crises, by calls for new legislation, and by reports of the activities of various environmentalist groups. From the traditional news media we hear almost solely what these environmentalists want us to hear. This barrage of environmentalist propoganda concentrates primarily on political responses to alleged threats to the environment. When the concensus of opinion among the scientific community does not support the claims of the environmentalists, and it usually does not, we are seldom told about this and the media continues to portray the concerns of a few politically correct "scientists" as scientific certainty.
 In the chapter on the media I dealt at some length with the matter of global warming as an example of how the media reports environmental news. In that chapter I pointed out that the liberal bias of the media is a matter of policy on the part of those who either own, or in most cases control, the nation's television and radio networks, newspapers, magazines, etc. In the case of environmental matters this bias takes the form of cooperation with many of the environmentalist organizations. In this case the propaganda that the media disseminates is largely produced by these organizations.
        In the chapter on the courts I dealt briefly with Bill Ellen's encounter with our environmental laws. I am going to expand on this story here because it is very enlightening with respect to the methods of these environmentalist groups. This story is from the book Saviours of the Earth by Michael S. Coffman. This is a book that should be read by all Americans and especially those who feel any obligation to future generations of mankind.
        Bill Ellen's career as an "environmental criminal" began in 1987 when he was hired by a Wall Street trader to create a 103 acre wildlife sanctuary within a 3,200-acre hunting and conservation preserve in Maryland. This wildlife sanctuary was designed to create a habitat for wildlife, especially ducks, geese, and other migratory waterfowl. Although Mr. Coffman does not tell us why this Wall Street trader was willing to spend a lot of money on this project I think it is a reasonable assumption that he was a duck hunter. Now some people might object to creating a habitat for ducks where the owner could hunt but this is essentially what the Fish and Wildlife Service has been doing for decades for people who do not own the land they hunt on. Bill Ellen and his wife Bonnie in 1986 had started a federal and state licensed nonprofit wildlife restoration organization. They had rehabilitated and returned to the wild nearly 2,000 birds and animals. One can only wonder if any of the members of the jury that convicted Bill Ellen of what one of the prosecutors called a "premeditated environmental crime" had ever done as much for one wild creature.
        Ellen had been a tidal wetlands regulator for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission in the 1970s and a marine and environmental consultant for twenty years in Virginia and Maryland. From the beginning of the project he worked closely with the governmental agencies concerned with such a project. He invited personnel from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and more than twenty scientists to visit the site and provide advice-which they did.
        In February of 1988 Corps personnel who visited the site advised him that some dirt from road construction and other activities was accidentally spilling onto what they perceived to be wetlands. They gave Ellen a form letter that discussed compliance requirements to avoid a "cease and desist order." On the advice of the Corps Ellen bought $120,000 worth of special equipment and followed the Corps instructions. Alex Dolgos, a Corps official, approved the changes in June of 1988 but later testified that Ellen violated the agreement.
        On February 15, 1989, the Corps issued a cease and desist order on the project. On March 3, Dolgos and Jim Brewer, a wetlands expert with the SCS made an on-site inspection. Dolgos told Ellen that there were areas where wetlands were being incidentally filled and ordered work stopped. Dolgos said that before construction could be resumed Ellen would have to hire a wetlands consultant to perform a complete wetlands delineation of the area and the maps would have to be approved by the Corps. Ellen responded that he would have the site mapped and would stop all construction except that on a three-acre administrative management complex site, which had been delineated by Brewer as an uplands a month before. Dolgos left without further comment. After his departure Ellen permitted two loads of dirt to be dumped on the administrative site and then decided to stop work on that site also.
        Nine months later Ellen was on trial in federal court, charged with six counts of knowing violations of the Clean Water Act. As noted in a previous chapter one of these charges was later dropped. Of the remaining five charges, three were for the mistakes that were corrected with the special equipment and two were for the two loads of dirt dumped on the administrative site. The government contended that these two loads were dumped on a tabletop-sized "micro" wetland that Brewer had missed in his delineation.
 At the time of the first three "violations" the official definition of wetlands was:

 Those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.

 A year later the new definition was adopted. This definition said that any site could be considered a wetland if it met two of the following three criteria:

 1. The soil is classified as being "hydric."

 2. The water table reached within 18 inches of the surface for as little as seven days during the growing season.

 3. Hydrophilic (water loving/tolerant) vegetation is present.

         Hydric soil is soil having characteristics of being saturated with water for long periods. There are some 7,000 plants that qualify as being hydrophilic including quite a few that might well be found in your back yard. This new definition more than doubled the amount of wetlands in the nation.
        Bear in mind that Bill Ellen was an experienced professional, he solicited advice from the various regulatory agencies before beginning work, when advised of a problem he invested $120,000 in specialized equipment to correct it, and two of the violations he was charged with were in an area designated an upland area by an expert from the SCS. In spite of all of these facts the prosecution asked for the maximum penalty of 27 to 33 months imprisonment! Then the appellate court decided that even though the wetlands he was accused of violating were not, by definition, wetlands at the time of the alleged violation he was guilty of violating wetlands as redefined a year later!
        Then there is the matter of a mini-wetland the size of a tabletop. This is so patently ridiculous an idea that I will not even belabor the point. This particular mini-wetland however was an important part of the case against Bill Ellen since the government said that their own expert had overlooked it when he delineated the three-acre site as an uplands. No hydric soil was found on this site but Charles Rhodes, one of the EPA's top wetlands scientists testified that it was a wetland. Rhodes "claimed the temporary presence of water as well as blackened tree leaves found on the site indicated wetlands." After Ellen testified that the expert he had hired could not find any blackened leaves, Rhodes argued "they weren't able to find blackened leaves because earthworms tend to eat these leaves." On the basis of evidence such as this a Baltimore jury found Ellen guilty and he was sentenced to prison. One of the prosecuting attorneys said:

        "These are not wholly victimless crimes. Everyone suffers from water and air pollution. People         should go to jail for these crimes."

        But no water pollution was proven and no reasonable person could believe that any had occurred unless one were to take seriously the testimony of Mr. Rhodes.
        Rhodes stated that creating wetlands was a degradation of the environment. When asked why, Rhodes replied, presumably with a straight face,

        "Because ducks and geese would defecate in the ponds."

        At this point Judge Smallkin asked,

        " Are you saying that there is pollution from ducks, from having waterfowl on a pond, that pollutes the water?"

        Rhodes answered that ducks and geese are great polluters and creating wetland ponds for their use is tantamount to wetlands destruction and a violation of the Clean Water act.
        In the 1960s and 1970s I lived in North Dakota and both before and after the passage of the Clean Water Act I flew employees of the Fish and Wildlife Service all over the north-western quarter of the state for several years in late autumn. They were doing a survey of potholes on which they had negotiated contracts with the landowners. By the terms of this contract the farmers were not allowed to drain or burn these potholes. The farmers were given a small cash payment in exchange for signing these contracts. If one accepts Rhodes's reasoning, the government was paying these farmers for contributing to water pollution and I expect this practice is still being followed.
        The basis for all of the charges against Ellen was a provision in the Clean Water Act that authorizes the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers to control dumping and dredging in the navigable waterways of the United States. This law was incredibly twisted and expanded by federal judges and bureaucratic regulations to the point where the Corps. now claims absolute jurisdiction over all  privately-owned wetlands in the U.S. This would be enough of an abomination if it applied only to true wetlands, as the term is commonly understood, but the federal agencies involved wrote their own definition of wetlands and under their definition almost any mud puddle in the nation is now a wetland even if it is bone-dry during most of the year. The ultimate irony in the whole matter is the Corps solution to this pollution problem. They blasted a 440-yard channel from Ellen's duck ponds to Chesapeake Bay to allow the pollutants to be tidally flushed into the bay which undeniably is a navigable waterway!
        I will let Alex Dolgos, who brought the charges against Bill Ellen,  have the last word on this matter. In an appearance on the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour he summed up the whole affair this way;

       "  Its a matter of a person flaunting the federal government. Forget the wetlands."

        There are many other aspects of environmentalist activity to be considered but there is one particularly distressing example of persecution under the "navigable waters" provision of the Clean Water Act that I want to relate before leaving the subject of "wetlands." In 1956 John Pozsgai came to the United States from Hungary. He built a small business repairing trucks in a shop behind his home in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. In 1991 he bought a 14-acre parcel of land across the street to expand his business. This land had been used as a dump for twenty years so he first removed 7,000 old tires plus other assorted junk and began replacing this material with clean fill. The property was not a swampy area and state officials told him he needed no permit. Since a mostly dry streambed was adjacent to the cleanup area and skunk cabbage and sweet gum trees grew there his land was, by the 1989 definition, a wetland. The EPA obtained a restraining order to prevent him from dumping fill. He immediately erected barricades to keep the contractors he had hired from dumping any more fill. Several contractors who were not aware of the situation drove around the barricades and deposited fill. The EPA videotaped these contractors dumping fill on the property and Mr. Pozsgai was convicted of 41 violations of the Clean Waters Act. He was fined $202,000, sentenced to three years in prison, driven into bankruptcy, and ordered by the court to restore the land, not to its previous state, but to a pristine condition. We should be grateful to the EPA for its tireless efforts to protect us all from the activities of people like Mr.Pozsgai. Who knows how many dumps might be cleaned up and how many buildings might be erected were it not for the vigilance of these dedicated public servants?
        Mr. Pozsgai's case was somewhat unusual since he was essentially persecuted for cleaning up a dump site. Usually the EPA cleans up a dump site and then bills someone, almost anyone will do, for its efforts. Ron Stevens, of Memphis, Tennessee, received a bill from the EPA in 1987 for $250,000 to clean up a Superfund site in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Why was he responsible for this cleanup? He sold nine used electrical transformers ten years earlier to a parts distributor in St. Louis for $250. A few of them wound up at the Missouri Electric Works in Cape Girardeau which later became a Superfund site. Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 the EPA has the authority to collect the entire cost of any cleanup from anyone who contributed to the problem to the smallest degree. Mr. Stevens was told that he could either pay the $250,000 or face a lawsuit that might cost millions. Now if you think this case is incredible wait till you read the next one.
        Mort Zuber of Hastings, Nebraska, permitted the EPA to drill some test holes on his property to determine the extent of contamination originating from a factory across the street. Thirty years earlier the now-defunct factory had poured chemical solvents into the sewer, a practice that was legal at the time. Some of this solvent had apparently leaked onto Zuber's land and the EPA billed him for the cleanup. At the time Mr. Coffman wrote his book Zuber had spent $125,000 defending himself against this lawsuit.
 These are not isolated examples, they are typical of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of such cases. When the enabling legislation was passed it was estimated that the total cleanup cost would be $44 billion. In 1994 only 157 of 1,235 sites had been completed and another 11,000 sites were pending. At that time the program was costing $10 billion per year. To this direct cost must be added the effects of companies that have gone out of business, and businesses that have not been created, simply because the risk of incurring such liability is too great. It may well be that a program to clean up some of the polluted sites that led Congress to pass this legislation was a good idea, although there is some evidence that even these problems were grossly exaggerated. In 1986 however Congress yielded to pressure from the National Resources Defense Council and required these sites to be restored to nearly pristine conditions, thus greatly increasing the cost. According to Jay Lehr, a hydrogeologist at Ohio State University the program "has achieved its original purpose," but there is no indication that its activities will do anything but increase.
        These are but a few examples of the way our environmental laws are being enforced, there are thousands of others that are very similar. Actually, in many cases, what is being enforced is not actual laws but bureaucratic regulations derived from laws and often these regulations bear little resemblance to the laws on which they are based.
        Most of these laws and many of the agency regulations have resulted from the lobbying efforts of non-profit environmentalist groups. There are over 3,000 of these organizations in this country. Some of them like the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation, and several others, are large and well-known but most are unknown to the majority of Americans.  Most Americans simply have not the slightest conception of the goals, the methods, or the power of these organizations, or more correctly of the leadership of these organizations. They may be non-profit organizations but the largest of them have huge budgets and sometimes extensive assets. In 1992 Money Magazine reported that environmental groups took in $2.5 billion annually.  A fair amount of this income, particularly in the case of the better-known groups, is derived from membership dues and contributions from the public. They also receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year from tax-free foundations. In 1992 the Environmental Grantmakers Association, which operates as an activity of the Rockefeller Family Fund, had 138 members, including many of the largest foundations. In addition to contributions from the public and from tax-free foundations, these groups also receive a variety of grants from various federal agencies usually earmarked for some type of research. Rogelio Maduro and Ralf Schauerhammer of 21st Century Science Associates placed the total value of government grants to environmental groups and projects at more than $3 billion. Not all of this money goes to environmental groups but, as will be explained later, the environmentalist leadership has a great deal of influence in determining who will actually receive most of this money. The amount of funding that these organizations control has been estimated to be at least $5 billion per year.
        These organizations provide quite a few good-paying jobs, many that pay six figure salaries ranging up to $400,000. There is one prime qualification for virtually all of these jobs and that is enthusiastic approval of the agenda of the top leadership of the environmental movement. This is hardly surprising since this is more or less true of practically all jobs right down to the level of hamburger flipper or carry-out boy. In this case, however, the agenda of the leadership of these organizations is not what most Americans conceive it to be. There is no doubt in my mind that most Americans feel that the objective of the professional environmentalists is to provide a measure of protection for forests, animals, birds, lakes, and all of what we commonly refer to as nature, from the effects of human activity motivated by greed, arrogance or just plain ignorance and thoughtlessness. They realize that such efforts will infringe on certain activities but infringing on greedy or arrogant human behaviour for the benefit of defenseless birds or animals certainly does not seem objectionable. When a situation arises, such as the spotted owl controversy in the Pacific Northwest, where the demands of environmentalists threaten the livelihood of a substantial number of their fellow Americans they are perplexed. In these cases the news media is played like a giant piano. To a rythmic bass repeating implications of corporate greed we hear the lilting refrain of the environmentalists that we must occasionally make sacrifices for the good of nature but these sacrifices are not as great as the greedy capitalists portray them. The facts that do not fit with the claims of the environmentalists are largely ignored and fallacies offered in support of their claims are presented as facts.
        In the spotted owl controversy the press reported that the spotted owl could not survive without a habitat of "virgin" forest. But spotted owls are actually thriving in new growth forests and this fact should surprise no one even though the media never mentioned it. The use of the term "virgin" forest is also illustrative of another practice of environmentalists; the use of words that have little or no meaning in the context within which they are used but are intended to evoke an emotional response from one who hears or reads them. The environmentalists claimed to be opposing huge corporations but most of the large corporations were little affected by the spotted owl controversy because they had already shifted much of their operations to the southeastern part of the country. The environmentalists claimed to be interested only in controlling timber harvesting on public lands but the Forest Conservation Council, an environmental organization, sent letters to private landowners in the Northwest, threatening to sue them for violating the Endangered Species Act if they cut any timber on their own property.
        The Endangered Species Act declares any taking of habitat of an endangered species a criminal act punishable by fine or imprisonment. If an endangered species is found on your property, there will be, in most cases, very little use you can make of your property that will not expose you to charges of violating this act. However, the mere fact that no endangered species has ever been found on your land does not mean that you will not be directly affected by this law. If an endangered species is known to exist within several miles of your property and your property contains habitat suitable for that species the government can legally tell you just what use you can make of your property and punish you severely if you violate their instructions.
 In view of the absolutely tyrannical power that is granted to government agencies charged with protecting endangered species one might expect that new species would be added to the list of endangered species only after exhaustive studies. This, unfortunately is not the case. In California one insect was added to the list at the request of one man who, with four or five friends, spent a few hours looking for them in one very small area.
        Whether or not you have, in fact, violated the act will be of secondary importance; you can be charged with a violation  and face a choice of pleading guilty or spending a lot of money fighting your own government in court. If you are innocent the cards are stacked against you even if the trial judge is one who believes in the Constitutional rights of American citizens and the chances that he will be such a judge are not that good.
        Not to put to fine a point on it, the Endangered Species Act essentially permits the U.S. government (or a non-governmental environmental organization) to take your property without compensation. Yes, you will still have the title to the property and you will pay the taxes on it but if the use you may make of it is decided by the government or a non-governmental organization then they, not you, derive the benefits of ownership. Obviously the same thing applies to the regulations that apply to wetlands. Both amount to the taking of private property without compensation. The superfund cleanup program is essentially the same thing. Ron Stevens sold nine transformers for $250 in 1977 and the buyer sold them to a third party. Both transactions were perfectly legal but ten years later Stevens is presented with a bill for $250,000 based on the disposition of some of these transformers by the third party. In this case what is taken is not land but money, but it is clearly an unconstitutional taking of private property by the government.
        These are only two of many areas where our environmental laws, or regulations derived from them, constitute the type of arbitrary behavior of government that the classical liberals found so abhorrent two centuries ago, there are many, many more. How did we come to be saddled with such laws that clearly violate our rights as enumerated in the first ten amendments to the Constitution? On the surface it would seem that Congress passed these laws because they were pressured by non-governmental groups with a great deal of help from the media. It must be admitted, too, that the laws passed by Congress, in many cases, did not specifically authorize the abuse of our constitutional rights; these abuses arose as a result of judicial decisions and by the creation of regulations that disregard our constitutional rights and are not challenged by our courts or by Congress. The same non-governmental environmental groups that pressured Congress have also influenced the creation of these regulations.
        These environmental activist groups are well funded, primarily by tax dollars and donations from tax-free foundations, their leadership consists mostly of intelligent, highly paid, energetic people who are apparently passionately dedicated to their objectives. With the possible exception of the top echelon of this leadership they appear to believe that they alone possess a vision of reality unclouded by human tradition and uninfluenced by greed. In common with other positive liberals they believe that dictating the behavior of their fellow man by deception and by tyrannical force is not only their right but their duty. The professed ultimate objective of the environmentalists, however, bears little resemblance to the professed objective of other positive liberals. The professed objective that all other positive liberals view as justification for almost any type of behavior on their part is the ultimate advancement of mankind. The ultimate objective that the environmentalists view as justification for any behavior on their part is essentially the return of mankind to the status of an unreasoning animal, on a par with all other species of life.
        In the environmentalist movement one will find the same three components that comprise the general movement of positive liberalism, namely the largest group that I have termed the manipulated, a smaller group which I termed the manipulators, and a still smaller group which I dubbed the planners. Unlike their counterparts in the political system of positive liberalism, the manipulated in this case are almost never motivated by personal financial interest. They are the people who like trees, wildlife, and nature in general, they are concerned with the pollution of air and water by human activity and they probably feel that mankind has adopted a superficial view of the world that separates us from the natural universe. I not only agree with all of these premises but I could probably write a whole book without exhausting what I would like to say about them. The environmental manipulators, at least those of them who are sincere in their beliefs, also agree with these premises. It is worth noting here that sincerity in their professed beliefs is probably much more common among environmentalist manipulators than it is among manipulators in the overall positive liberal movement. The planners are, of course, essentially the same people in both cases.
         The environmental leaders, as I mentioned, share the concerns of the manipulated, but their proposed solution would probably be unacceptable to most of the manipulated. It may be somewhat simplistic to speak of a single proposed solution since not all of the environmental leadership has publicly embraced the extreme objective of returning mankind to the status of an unreasoning animal, by any means. On the other hand, if we take at face value the positions adopted by most of them, this would seem to be the ultimate result of their proposals.
        The most influential environmentalists in the U.S. today subscribe to a belief in biocentrism. This is essentially a belief that every living thing is of equal value and that nature alone is capable of determining the proper interactions between all living things, which of course includes man. Some of the leading environmentalists extend this concept to a belief that God is actually the sum of everything that exists and thus the mosquito and the man are a part of God and are necessarily of equal value. This concept is derived from certain Eastern religious beliefs but it appears to me to have been removed from the context in which they found it with the intention of using it in a way that is diametrically opposed to its original function within those religions. In its religious context this is a concept that is understood by an individual who has reached a certain stage of enlightnment and those who understand it in this way would never attempt to dictate the behavior of others based on their own understanding of it.
 In Coffman's view this basic concept is viewed in two different ways by two opposing camps within the ranks of environmentalists who accept the premises of biocentrism. He says the New Age, or Shallow Ecology, group believe that even though mankind is of no greater value than other aspects of nature, humans have attained a higher level of conscious evolution. Thus they believe that once an individual understands the nature of this reality through self-realization he is able to become part of nature and work harmoniously with her. The other group known as Deep Ecologists consider the New Age beliefs to be simply a disguise for the man-centered abuse of nature. These people apparently believe that in using his ability to reason, for any purpose whatever, man is interfering with the ability of nature (God) to control the relationships between everything that exists in physical form. Many in both camps refer to this god as Gaia and some of them are promoting the belief in Gaia as a new religion intended to replace the other religions of the world.
 I will consider the ideas of the Deep Ecologists first since theirs is probably the simpler of the two schools of thought. The Deep Ecologists are probably a fairly small minority of the most influential environmentalists. The following quote from David Graber, a Research Biologist with the National Park Service, probably sums up their view of the situation quite accurately;

        "Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but that isn't true. Somewhere along the line - at about a million years ago, maybe half that - we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth.... Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along."

         I have taken this quote from Mr. Coffman's book and he got it from a magazine article that quoted Mr. Graber as offering this view. If he has been misquoted or quoted out of context I sincerely apologize to Mr. Graber. Regardless of whether or not it reflects accurately Mr. Graber's view it appears to me to sum up very accurately the basic premises of Deep Ecology. The reference to Homo Sapiens quitting the contract a million or a half million years ago obviously refers to man's first use of his ability to reason to change the circumstances of his own life. If this is the true meaning of this statement, and it certainly seems to be, then what would be the nature of a decision by Homo Sapiens to rejoin nature? It seems to me that the only way that mankind, in Mr. Graber's opinion, could rejoin nature would be for the whole of the world's population to abstain from any and all use of the ability to reason. If this were done then succeeding generations would grow up without being exposed to the concept of reason and man would have rejoined nature. Of course this is an utter impossibility but even if it did occur this "reunion with nature" would have a very short life. The progeny of man would still have highly developed brains, in contrast to their predecessors of a million years ago and they would very quickly begin to make use of the abilities they would possess. This would be even more inevitable since their parents could not condition them to ignore their ability to reason without bringing it to their attention. Thus when Mr. Graber speaks of mankind deciding to rejoin nature he is obviously speaking of an absolute impossibility. If this is impossible then the only hope, in Mr. Graber's view is the absolute destruction of mankind.
         It is possible that most deep ecologists do not really view the elimination of the human race as a prerequisite to Gaia regaining her original omnipotence. Their public statements often indicate that the elimination of 90 to 95 percent of the existing human population of the world and the return of the remainder to the status of a hunter-gatherer society would be sufficient for this purpose. It is extremely difficult to accept such statements at face value. This remainder of the human race would have to be willing to watch their families and their neighbors suffer the ravages of famine or be killed by wild animals, etc. and yet steadfastly refuse to use their ability to reason to prevent such suffering solely out of reverence for Gaia. I cannot believe that these intelligent people could actually expect such behavior from human beings. Many species go to extreme lengths to protect their young. If any of these species possessed the ability to reason can even deep ecologists doubt that they would make use of it? It seems quite obvious that to the Deep Ecologist the sin of the human race against Gaia is the possession of the ability to reason. Deep Ecologists would have no objection to the human race if it did not possess this ability but as long as the human race continues to both exist and possess this ability Gaia cannot reign supreme. If it is impossible to completely deprive the human race of its ability to reason, and this certainly seems impossible, then the only way that Gaia can be restored to omnipotence is to eliminate the human race.
        The New Age version of the ecological gospel may appear to be a much more benign alternative to the unrelenting pessimism of the deep ecologists but when you examine it closely it seems to condone the existence of the human race only if it is subject to the absolute control of those who have achieved "self-realiza-tion" and are thus able to work with nature. Since these people are aware of all of the objectives of Gaia and have made her objectives their own they may be permitted to exercise their own ability to reason since it will never conflict with that of Gaia. Provided only that the rest of mankind will submit to their control Gaia will be restored to her former omnipotent status without the elimination of the human race.
 I expect that the first impression of most readers on reading this explanation of the philosophy of the top environmentalists in the country will be that I am some kind of a lunatic. Bill Ellen, John Pozsgai, and a lot of former loggers in the Pacific Northwest might be less inclined to jump to such a conclusion. I will explain the agenda of these people more fully in the following pages but only in the hope of motivating the reader to examine the facts for himself. There are basically three forms that such an examination should take. First I would suggest that you read for yourself the writings of some of these ecologists. If you do not know how to find them you can avail yourself of the bibliography in Mr. Coffman's book Saviors of the Earth. The book, The Dream of the Earth, by Thomas Berry also contains an extensive bibliography that you will find useful for this purpose. Second you should attempt to examine the factual scientific data available dealing with the specifics of the problems on which the environmentalists expounded. The book, The True State of the Planet, edited by Ronald Bailey, contains a wealth of scientific facts regarding environmental problems and the chapter notes will direct you to other published information. My third suggestion is to simply pay attention to the nature and extent of the publicity given to the ideas of the environmentalists and compare what you find there with what you have learned of the more commonly accepted scientific facts and theories.
        What are these believers in biocentrism doing to advance their agenda? As might be expected with a minimum of $5 billion per year to spend they are doing a lot, although not all of their efforts are being publicized. They are doing a lot of writing and a lot of public relations work aimed at creating the impression of crisis situations in several areas. This effort has been going on for more than 30 years. An early example was the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. This book led to a ban on the use of the insecticide DDT even though the facts indicated it was a safe insecticide. Traces of DDT were found in animals, birds and even people but not one human death has ever been attributed to DDT and, as far as I know, not even deaths of birds or animals have been traced to the effects of DDT. Coffman stated that, in order to pose even a minimum threat of causing cancer, DDT would have to be ingested at 100,000 times the maximum concentration found in nature. No one will deny, however, that banning the use of DDT caused many human deaths, quite possibly millions of them. People around the world are dying from insect-borne diseases that the use of DDT had nearly eliminated. This is biocentrism in action, supported largely by your tax dollars. This pattern of combining pseudo-science and propoganda has been repeated often since this early demonstration of its effectiveness. In 1989 the National Resources Defense Council launched a carefully planned media blitz regarding Alar, a preservative used to extend the shelf life of apples. The television program "60 Minutes" proclaimed that "the most potent cancer causing agent in our food supply" was being sprayed on apples. Although dozens of reputable scientists proclaimed the story untrue, hundreds of apple growers were financially devastated. At the height of this concocted crisis, fourteen scientific societies representing food scientists, toxicologists, and nutritionists issued a joint report which said the primary hazard in our food supply was bacteria and naturally occuring toxins rather than pesticides. If the public needed to be made aware of the fabricated peril of Alar the story of the true danger present in our food supply should have merited at least equal coverage but this report was not even mentioned. Since the publication of Silent Spring this tactic of a propaganda blitz with little or no basis in fact has been used often to deceive Americans into supporting restrictive legislation. Sometimes the laws themselves have been fairly innocuous but have been converted into legal monstrosities by bureaucratic regulations which have usually been sanctioned by the courts.
        These radical environmental leaders have also been working very hard to get their extremist philosophy adopted into the curricula of as many colleges and universities as possible. This effort takes many forms. The organizations they control have a lot of money available for this purpose and much of this money came from tax-free foundations. Some of this money is used to fund research but most of this money, of course, goes to individuals who subscribe to the principles of biocentrism. This research lends spurious credence to these principles by the sheer volume of it even if the conclusions are often questionable, to say the least. It also advances the careers of those who do the research which indirectly facilitates the inclusion of these ideas in curricula. The money available for use in this way is not limited to the funds actually in the possession of these environmentalists because they effectively control the disposi-tion of most of the federal government money spent on research. How can they do this? It is actually very simple. Many of these environmentalist leaders move back and forth between the non-governmental environmental groups and government positions in the federal agencies that deal with environmental matters. Their philosophy is thus essentially the philosophy of the upper echelon of management in these agencies and the significance of this fact is not lost on the personnel of these agencies who want to advance their careers.
        Vice President Al Gore's voice has been among the loudest of those warning us about ozone depletion in the atmosphere and the consequent danger of increased human exposure to the ulra-violet rays of the sun. William Happer Jr., as director of research at the Department of Energy pointed out that UV radiation had actually been decreasing when, according to the ozone depletion theory it should have been increasing. Mr. Happer concluded, quite logically, that since UV radiation reaching the earth's surface was decreasing there was no need to ban the use of CFCs. The worldwide cost of the ban on CFCs will almost certainly run well over $1 trillion and a very significant number of human lives. When Gore became vice president he fired Mr. Happer, an action that is perfectly consistent with the tactics of the biocentrists. But he also ordered the network of UV sensors that provided the data deactivat-ed. In short Gore maintained that CFCs must be eliminated to protect the human population from, among other things, increased exposure to UV radiation and then deactivated the sensors that enabled scientists to determine the amount of UV radiation to which we are being exposed. This is only one example of the way the biocentrist movement affects the functioning of government agencies and in one sense it is not typical since the influence is usually exerted at a slightly lower level of management, but the same type of manipulation is all too common.
        The influence of biocentrism in government agencies has been so pervasive that the smallest of benefits to a non-human form of life is usually considered justification for drastic disruptions to the lives of individuals and wanton abuse of their rights as American citizens. This philosophy, when it controls the activities of federal agencies which, in effect make their own laws, is a greater danger to the human race than any of the environmental disasters these environmentalists are warning us about. To the financial losses inflicted on individuals and the abuse of their constitutional rights must be added the loss of human life that results from many of the biocentric "solutions" to invented problems.
 But the biocentrists are not content to propose solutions to problems based on pseudo-science, they are now saying that we must act, in some cases, without even a pseudo-scientific justification when there is a chance that a problem may later be determined to exist. In 1985 some environmentalists formed the Society of Conservation Biology. Conservation biology is a term that basically refers to the study of the earth as a single bioligical system as opposed to the study of small isolated "ecosystems." In the first textbook devoted to conservation biology Michael Soule writes;

        " In many situations conservation biology is a crisis discipline. In crisis disciplines, in contrast to 'normal' science, it is sometimes imperative to make an important tactical decision before one is confident in the sufficiency of the data."

         This idea, if one is willing to accept it, opens the door to a flood of repressive regulations that are not justified at present and may never be proven to be justified in the future.
        I have discussed, at least briefly, the efforts of the bniocentrists to impose their values on all of us by means of laws, bureaucratic regulations, and judge-made law but they have recently adopted a new tactic that promises to be an even greater threat to mankind than any of these. They are now drawing up international agreements which are intended to be adopted by the signatory nations as treaties. These treaties provide for the adoption of various regulations that the biocentrists find desirable. When one of these treaties is ratified by the U.S. Senate it becomes the law of the land and supercedes all state and federal laws and state constitutions. The Rockefeller foundation in 1990 announced a grant of $50 million for a three year global environmental program intended "to create an elite group of individuals in each country whose role is to implement and enforce the international environmental treaties now being negotiated." If it is nearly impossible for a citizen of the United States to obtain justice from our federal government what will be his chances when he has to deal with an international bureaucracy?
        David Rockefeller has taken a considerable personal interest in environmental matters. The Trilateral Commission, which he founded in 1973 recently published a book Beyond Interdependence: the Meshing of the World's Economy and the Earth's Ecology. David Rockefeller himself was one of the authors included in the book.   In this book environmentalist Jim MacNeill advocates;

         "a new global partnership expressed in a revitalized interna-tional system in which an Earth Council, perhaps the Securi-ty Council with a broader mandate, maintains the interlocked environmental and economic security of the planet."

        As has been previously mentioned the Environmental Grantmakers Association is essentially a Rockefeller creation. Its purpose is to coordinate the funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars from the 138 members of the EGA to various environmental groups. Mr. Coffman relates, in Saviors of the Earth, that someone at the 1992 annual meeting of the EGA recorded various sessions of the meeting on tape. In his keynote address to the group the Canadian environ-mentalist David Suzuki made the following statement;

         Economics is a very .... species chauvinistic ..... idea....  No other species on earth - and there may be 30 million of them - has had the nerve to put forth a concept called economics, in which one species, us, declares the right to put value on everything else on earth, in the living and nonliving world.

        It certainly seems disingenuous, to say the least, to give credit to 30 million species for not doing something that Gaia herself made it impossible for them to do. If we overlook this aspect of Mr. Suzuki's observation it appears that the arrogance of mankind as a species is exceeded only by the deep ecologists who, in effect, declare the right to put value on everything else on earth, including their fellow humans. Con Nugent, a moderator in one of the sessions, summed up the strategy of the biocentric movement very concisely in the following statement;

         "We start with the premise that the current use of the earth by humans is unsustainable and that the damage is done through billions of micro-economic behaviors. What we do in this business... is stop, modify, or transform... behaviors at any place along the economic spectrum from raw materials to the landfill, through law or through culture."

        This is, in effect, the people who provide the money for the movement directing those who will put it to use. The deep ecologists would like to see the human population of the earth reduced by about 90 percent or more and a major part of their strategy is to destroy the industrial economy of the world. They have not yet made significant progress toward this goal of destroying the world's economy but they are on the threshold of progress in this respect. They have, at least for the time being, put a halt to the building of nuclear power plants in the United States, largely by a propaganda blitz featuring pseudo-scientific scare tactics. In response to the irrational fears generated by this blitz the government has imposed illogical regulations that have ballooned the cost of building nuclear power plants. These power plants can be, and for decades have been, operated safely. Coal-burning power plants, on the other hand are blamed for hundreds of deaths in the U.S. annually. Nuclear power is a very important issue with a great many ramifications for the welfare of the entire world and anyone who is concerned about the environment should make an effort to learn the facts about it. To this end I would suggest reading Trashing the Planet by Dixie Lee Ray. If one goal of the environmentalist leadership is to reduce the population of the world, the handful of deaths that have resulted from halting the expansion of the use of nuclear power is a minor example of their success to date. No one can say exactly how much the population of the world was reduced by the banning of DDT but this was, at the very least, a great start and the banning of the use of freon will certainly make a significant contribution to this effort.
        Since the Rockefeller interests are promoting the flow of money to these groups, directing its use, and David Rockefeller is interesting himself personally in the movement does this mean that he would like to see the world's population reduced by 90%? This hardly seems likely; it is extremely difficult to believe that David Rockefeller shares the objectives of the Deep Ecologists. It is far more likely that he is interested in the political control of the world that these environmentalists are promoting in the name of environmental protection. If this political control is established, and one can only hope there is a chance that it will not be, it will be a simple matter to cut off the flow of funds to the Deep Ecologists and relegate them to the status of soap-box orators.
        I have barely scratched the surface with this explanation of the true nature of the environmentalist movement but I hope that what I have said of it will motivate the reader to look closely at it. I am not opposed to sound environmental policies aimed at eliminating unnecessary damage to the environment. At this point the only way that we could return to sound environmental policies would be to eliminate most of our existing laws, thereby eliminating the federal regulations and court decisions based on them, and then pass new legislation incorporating severe restrictions on the authority of federal agencies to create regulations having the force of law. We do need laws to protect our environment. These laws should be based on the best science available. Their purpose should be primarily to protect human life in our nation and in the whole world; their secondary purpose should be to protect all other life from unnecessary human depradation. They should in all cases be consistent with the true function of government, which is the equal protection of the lives, liberty, and property of all of its citizens.
        I cannot end this chapter without challenging the philosophies of both the Shallow and Deep Ecologists. The Deep Ecologists maintain that Gaia alone should be permitted to control the interactions of all living and nonliving physical entities. Mankind is the only species capable of reasoned thought. If all things come from Gaia then man's ability to reason must have come from Gaia. Mankind has certainly abused this ability but man has also used it well in many ways. It is absolutely unrealistic to expect that mankind will, or even can, revert to the status of an unreasoning animal and if I believed in Gaia I would hesitate to believe that she would expect or desire man to do this. If Gaia gave this ability to man it seems far more probable that she would expect each individual to use it wisely and that those who are willing to do this should promote the evolution of human reason to an ever higher level of understanding. The logical way to do this is to promote the understanding and the acceptance of the premises of classical liberalism. If each individual has a natural right to do as he pleases provided he does not interfere with the rights of others then no individual has the right to pollute the air or water but no individual has the right to dictate the use of property owned by another individual. This is not to say that man has the right to wantonly destroy other life forms or wantonly damage the environment but this does not preclude efforts to protect and enhance his own life. If Gaia allows beavers to build dams that change the face of the land why should man not have the same right? The objectives of the Deep Ecologists are nothing less than the collective equivalent of the suicide of an individual and suicide is the ultimate capitulation.
        With regard to the beliefs of the shallow ecologists I will not question their right to believe that they have a better understanding of reality than do many of their fellow men. If they do have a better understanding of reality I believe they should realize that mankind cannot be forced to accept enlightenment, any more than man can be forced to accept freedom. In short the world is as it is and real improvement can only be achieved by promoting the overall level of wisdom of the human race. Neither subservience or domination are associated with wisdom and neither can lead to wisdom.
        In actuality, of course, the whole environmental movement is simply being used by the planners, thus the philosophy of the environmentalists is of no real consequence in itself, although it is of extreme importance as a strategic ploy in the plan of the masters to gain political domination of the world.