Green civil war?

The erudite New York Times, always on the cutting edge of news blips, reports that a “Green civil war” in underway – green projects versus preservation.

To be specific – “Environmentalists are more openly at odds over two goals: the preservation of wide open spaces vs. the use of public lands for renewable energy projects.”

Neo-Green babble notwithstanding, it’s the same old dialectic in new diapers. Folks who understand ecology don’t quibble over whether a proposed industrial input is renewable or not if the net impact threatens ecosystems. Or as Cactus Ed liked to say – “The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.”

We always come back to the bottom line, just below the belt buckle – ecological issues begin with carrying capacity and go from there. When any species, including Homo erectus asphaltus, overshoots an ecosystem’s ability to support said critter, the end result is a painful remedy that biologists call crash. The problem gets weird when critters like us sacrifice another life form in order to shore up our own unsustainable lifestyle. Welcome to the real world!

The so-called green civil war is another bowl of bullshit served up by pundits sitting in glass towers overlooking a sea of concrete and rebar. Real greens, whatever that means, don’t argue where defending wildlands are concerned. They stand up for what they stand on and let the iPods fall where they may.

A last Abbey quote – “But love of the wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need – if only we had eyes to see.”

posted by Mudd