If you don't study your opponents," cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling says,
"you're a hobbyist, not an activist." Fortunately, the Web makes it easy (and
even fun) to track anti-environmental groups.
Environmentalists have been working hard to keep new roads out of our public forests.
With equal fervor, the Blue Ribbon Coalition (www.sharetrails.org/) promotes driving internal-combustion engines
anywhere they please. The Coalition insists that environmentalists "don't want
anyone, anywhere, doing anything." (C'mon fellas-haven't you seen the Sierra Club
Outings Web site?)
To read how some "wise users" want to celebrate the Wilderness Act by gutting
it, check out the Wilderness Act Reform Coalition's site at www.wildernessreform.com/. Did
you know that this landmark conservation law is responsible for "jeopardizing our
national defense"?
Global warming takes a lot of heat online, with some of the more virulent sites saying
it simply doesn't exist. The Global Climate Coalition (www.globalclimate.org/) is a bit
more sophisticated, cloaking its message in a veneer of concern for corporate well-being.
Climate policies, we're told, must "focus on responsible voluntary actions."
Two of the most elaborate sites with anti-environmental messages are the Cato Institute
(www.cato.org/) and The Heritage
Foundation (www.heritage.org/). The
former features a library of libertarian commentary, a Spanish-language version, and even
an online T-shirt shop. Cato sees the planet as one big free market. From The Heritage
Foundation's site you can download many megabytes on government oppression in the name of
the environment. (In a nutshell: Environmentalists see "a world of problems"
while conservatives see "a world of opportunity.")
Read a few of these sites, and you'll learn where your hardiest foes find their wildest
ideas. But keep in mind a maxim from retiring New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan:
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
