By
Jessica Lee
The environmental movement is crumbling beneath corporate feet.
While we think our environmental movement is balancing the acts of the corporations and developers, we may very well be deceived.
The anti-environmental movement is frightening because it is overwhelming the honest efforts towards land preservation and conservation. In recent years, national surveys have indicated that the American people are demanding more sensitivity to the natural world. It is the fastest-growing cause in our country.
And that scares industry.
Big business feels so threatened by the environmental movement and its gaining popularity that it has decided to counteract.
Their plan? Attempt to destroy the honest environmental movement by severing all the grass-roots causes.
How?
Hand-in-hand with the financed-by-corporate-money American government.
So now, big business is attempting to beat environmentalists at their own game: The American industry is falsely becoming "greener," in the effort to disband the true environmental movement.
Currently, an anti-environmental undercurrent is falsely giving Americans the sense that our nation is progressing in the protection of our national resources and natural landscapes. When in fact, the manipulative industry is now benefiting from the drive to protect the outdoors. They are making bucks without giving back to the land.
The only true green movement in this country is that of the dollar.
As a result, there are many fake grass-roots groups popping up within our nation to manipulate the public.
These organizations are dubbed "Astroturf" because they are designed to look like a true grass-roots cause. In truth, they are industry-fueled groups whose only purpose is to manipulate public opinion by distorting facts and shining unfavorable light on true environmentalists. Examples of these groups include Alliance for America, Keeping America Beautiful, Environmental Conservation Organization and the American Recreation Coalition.
I came across all these organizations in my research for this column, and they all fooled me the first time.
In all honesty, I originally intended to write a column advocating ecoterrorism - the intentional destruction of property in the name of protecting nature. Although desolation of private property is a crime, at times it seems that it is the only way to get the message across that the developing and demolition of the land is not okay. The phrase, synonymous to "monkeywrenching," was coined by the eco-philosopher Edward Abbey in his landmark novel, "The Monkey Wrench Gang."
Yet, in my research I came across a plea from the Ancient Forest Rescue (AFR), a Colorado grass-roots branch affiliated with the radial environmental group Earth First!. On October 19, 1998, an arsonist set a ski lodge on fire on Vail Mountain to protest the proposed great expansion of the resort that would impinge on wild lynx habitat. Before the incident, AFR had been fighting the development battle with nonviolent actions. The blaze destroyed the AFR's action campaign.
It was not proven who was responsible for the ecoterrorism demonstration, yet it harmed the entire environmental movement across the country.
Monkeywrenching activity only places true environmentalists under a negative light.
Evidence of this anti-environmental movement is here in Tucson. I searched long and hard on the Internet to find one grass-roots group that is fighting a local cause here - the expanding development near Pima Canyon. Not being able to find an active group only exemplifies the way that the grass-roots cause has been fragmented. We should not go set fire to the homes that are currently being built.
Rather, what if all Tucson-based groups band together?
The only way to conquer this anti-environmental corporate movement is for all the true grass-roots groups to re-associate, work together and communicate. As one, we can beat the buck.
We cannot let this heavily financed movement continue to dismember the greater cause - to protect the land.
