The Environmental Soapbox
How a good ol' boy stirs up Trouble with a capital T.
Larry Lightner, you ol' cur:
You riled them up again, my friend. Environmentalists and others interested in free speech. Your February Ramblin' Outdoors column—"Red in Tooth and Claw"—instigated a rousing debate on John Fridinger's listserv when one Joanne Cockerill became the latest, shocked environmentalist questioning David Fryxell's gall in printing your column.
You were drawn and quartered in this discussion because of your anti-wolf sentiments. So was David, for the fact that he can afford to publish a newspaper that is obviously not "fair and balanced" because you're in it!
The wordy Fridinger steered the wolf vs. ranchers debate into a full-fledged harangue about free speech and authoritarianism. Did you realize, Larry, that your suggestion of shooting wolves harassing humans and their pets is the same kind of travesty as the ACLU defending Nazis?
I stopped reading when Fridinger set up Anne Kass (a retired judge in Albuquerque) as the authority we should listen to. But she had heartily argued that authoritarians were the reason the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and that hunters represent the epitome of authoritarians. So why the heck should I make her my authority?
So, Larry, I'm backing you on this "debate" because, personally, I like practical people (which you seem to be), and a man, or woman, handy with a gun and other weaponry has a perverse appeal to the woo-woo side of me. (Or a fundamental appeal to the warrior side of me, whichever you like.)
My respect for the ability to kill might spring from the fact that my father was a decorated WW II vet who loved his hunting and fishing trips in northern Canada. Even in peaceful, 1950s Toronto we had several well-maintained guns in the house. Or maybe it's because my daughter got several Expert Marksmanship badges at New Mexico Military Institute.
My respect for the "ability to kill" means that my personal environmentalism contains respect for "the enemy."
Unfortunately, the "discussion" on Fridinger's listserv only managed to make me feel ashamed and embarrassed to call myself an "environmentalist." I'm fed up with the self-righteous and arrogant wing of the environment movement—as I am with other fundamentalist thinkers—who assume that they are the rightest and those who don't toe their line are somehow flawed.
To keep us on the same simple page, let's use a definition of "environmentalism" from the Web: "Active participation in attempts to solve environmental pollution and resource problems.."
(highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0070294267/student_view0/glossary_e-l.html)."Environmentalism" has been a dirty word in the mining, ranching and hunting world since its popular uprising in the 1980s. But in the last 10 years there's been a shift, a change. . . a deeper understanding by many of said communities about what protection of the environment means for their ways of life. This growth, this ability to change, has to be nurtured, not ignored.
Even a cursory look at environmental problems of the Southwest reveals the incredible waste, imbalance and inequity in subsidized ranching. Tax breaks on hundreds of thousands of acres of no-longer-arable land to keep cattle ranching a viable contribution to the economy cannot continue, it's clear.
Like the mining community, ranchers are slowly becoming aware of the harsh reality that their way of life is not sustainable and is, in fact, in the midst of its death throes.
No wonder those communities rail against environmentalists who sweep through town on their arrogant steeds. No wonder they hold on even more stubbornly to their beliefs. Don't we all do that when attacked?
I have the deepest respect for what Deirdre Wolf is doing with her wolf sanctuary and educational outreach (see the January 2005 Desert Exposure). She has endured a steady onslaught of ugliness from the reactionary parts of the ranching community and hunting enthusiasts, and she handles it with grace and a steely determination.
But her work to raise everyone's consciousness about wolves and their ways has been used by people, many of them new to this community, as a weapon to denigrate ways of life that have been the backbone of this area for hundreds of years.
The environmental-soapbox approach—often rabid and shrill—against the lifestyles of people who have lived and died here for generations is making a bad situation worse.
Larry, that's why I support your column. You, who relentlessly poke and provoke the greenhorn environmentalist with your litany of hunting rights and freedoms, have brought into sharp relief the fact that we're stuck in a deadly "us" vs. "them" scenario.
Debate and free speech are obvious hallmarks of a democratic system, but "I'm right and you're wrong" will never bring us to a sustainable future. A sustainable future will only be created by "us" and "them" working together. Solutions to environmental problems will happen only when the lion and the lamb sit down and draw up the blueprints TOGETHER. It's an incredible waste of time and energy to keep attacking each other.
First step is a matter of consciousness, wouldn't you say, Larry? I can see by your writing that you have a mature, conscious consideration for the world around you. Seems to me that those who consider themselves "environmentally conscious" should be so busy aligning their individual actions with laws of sustainability that they have no time to vilify others who do not have the same consciousness.
Or, they should take their zealousness and apply it in the practical, life-affirming way Deirdre has.
For example, I'm curious how many people who criticize ranchers eat hamburgers, or steaks or bacon? Can an environmentalist eat beef at all in good conscience?
I see a huge contradiction when there is compassion for all the animals that have suffered under human unconsciousness but no compassion—in fact bitter hatred—for our fellow humans, when it's ALL of us who have contributed to the planet's current environmental degradation.
So that's my rant against environmentalists, Larry. My conclusion from this adventure: I'd rather have a practical, gun-toting rancher for a neighbor (and I do) than almost anyone else I can think of.
Peace to you and yours,
Siri Dharma
Into the Future columnist Siri Dharma works for a US foreign-policy "think tank" based in Silver City.