Going to Extremes
Just this past summer an extremist environmental group calling themselves the Earth Liberation Front torched a building development in San Diego, a car lot in a suburb of Los Angeles, and, most recently, another housing development in San Diego. They spray painted messages like “I (heart) pollution” and left a banner that read, “Development is destruction. Stop raping nature.” Over the past five years, ELF has been responsible for over 100 acts of ecoterrorism, including burning down a ski resort in Vail. According to former ELF spokesman Craig Rosebraugh in an April 9, 2003 Seattle Weekly article by Philip Dawdy entitled “Violence and Protest,” “The threat to the life of the planet is so severe that political violence must be understood as a viable option.”

Okay, it’s unfortunate – deplorable even – that urban sprawl too-often takes precedence over preserving nature. And SUVs are admittedly bad for the environment. But arson is just plain WRONG.

However, it must be pointed out that while it may seem like ELF’s tactics cause more damage to the environment than the developers and businesses they’re fighting against, in actuality the damage done by developers is much worse. ELF’s main destruction is monetary, totaling several millions of dollars this summer alone. But in terms of releasing harmful toxins, the smoke produced by ELF fires creates minimal pollution. Not that this makes their methods any less wrong. Ecoterrorism is still terrorism.

And along with destroying property or causing injury or death, extremist protesting diminishes the seriousness of a cause, can halt reform and gives groups who use non-violent, more legitimate protest methods a bad wrap.

AM talk radio is full of blab jocks blathering about “environmentalist wackos.” Instead of referring only to extremist groups, Rush Limbaugh and his ilk kvetch about anyone who cares about pollution, clean drinking water or saving wildlife refuges – pegging us all environmentalist wackos. According to Rushies, you can’t be an environmentalist without being a wacko – and they point to environmental extremists to prove it.