Earth Equity News

The Wrong Kind of Green. By Johann Hari, The Nation, March 4, 2010. "Why did America's leading environmental groups jet to Copenhagen and lobby for policies that will lead to the faster death of the rainforests--and runaway global warming? Why are their lobbyists on Capitol Hill dismissing the only real solutions to climate change as 'unworkable' and 'unrealistic,' as though they were just another sooty tentacle of Big Coal? At first glance, these questions will seem bizarre. Groups like Conservation International are among the most trusted 'brands' in America, pledged to protect and defend nature. Yet as we confront the biggest ecological crisis in human history, many of the green organizations meant to be leading the fight are busy shoveling up hard cash from the world's worst polluters--and burying science-based environmentalism in return. Sometimes the corruption is subtle; sometimes it is blatant. In the middle of a swirl of bogus climate scandals trumped up by deniers, here is the real Climategate, waiting to be exposed.

"You would expect the American conservation organizations to be joining the great activist upsurge demanding we stick to a safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: 350 parts per million (ppm), according to professor and NASA climatologist James Hansen. And -- in public, to their members--they often are supportive... But behind closed doors... it seems its leaders have come to see the world through the funnel of the US Senate and what legislation it can be immediately coaxed to pass. They say there is no point advocating a strategy that senators will reject flat-out. They have to be 'politically realistic' and try to advocate something that will appeal to Blue Dog Democrats. This focus on inch-by-inch reform would normally be understandable: every movement for change needs a reformist wing. But the existence of tipping point -- which have been overwhelmingly proven by the climate science -- makes a mockery of this baby-steps approach to global warming. If we exceed the safe amount of warming gases in the atmosphere, then the earth will release its massive carbon stores and we will have runaway warming. After that, any cuts we introduce will be useless. You can't jump halfway across a chasm: you still fall to your death. It is all or disaster...

"Already, shining alternatives are starting to rise up across America. In just a year, the brilliant 350.org has formed a huge network of enthusiastic activists who are demanding our politicians heed the real scientific advice -- not the parody of it offered by the impostors. They have to displace the corrupt conservationists as the voice of American environmentalism, fast. This will be a difficult and ugly fight, when we need all our energy to take on the forces of ecocide. But these conservation groups increasingly resemble the forces of ecocide draped in a green cloak. If we don't build a real, unwavering environmental movement soon, we had better get used to a new sound -- of trees crashing down and an ocean rising, followed by the muffled, private applause of America's 'conservationists.'"