WHAT IS AN ENVIRONMENTALIST?

It seems that Canadian Green Party activists can’t shake that continental prejudice that afflicts the whole yuppie green-left McCarthyist movement. Namely, that anti-immigrationists anywhere cannot possibly have legitimate ecological reasons for opposing the population tidal wave that has swept over North America. Even those who come to our defense can only claim that we are misguided extremists. As one such magnanimous Green candidate, in a Christian moment, remarked of my group, “Remember, they believe they are environmentalists.”

Really? Its all a delusional preoccupation, all this caring about the impact of unrelenting torrents of migrants on farmland, wildlife and its habitat? A cloak just to keep them out? Whether I am fighting population growth in North America or Australia I can’t really be an environmentalist.

Tell me why I am not.

Tell me why people who are now considered “environmentalists” have removed the “P” out of the time-honoured IPAT equation, thus making nonsense of any comprehensive understanding of environmental degradation?

Is an environmentalist now someone who for reasons of political correctness denies the crucial role of immigrant-driven population growth in the environmental degradation of Anglophone countries?

Is an environmentalist someone who joins and works for a party that advocates a 38% increase in Canada’s immigration levels when we are already suffering from the highest population growth rate of G8 countries and will double our population in 70 years at this pace? When four years of immigration generates as much GHG as the entire tar sands development presently does? When population growth, not poor planning , accounts for the loss of 60,000 acres of prime Ontario farmland a year?

Is an environmentalist someone who joins a environmental NGO that ignores these realities and parrots the nostrums of smart growth , land use planning and nature reserves despite overwhelming historical evidence that they offer no sanctuary against the tsunami of growth?

Is an environmentalist someone who joins an international environmental organization without investigating its sordid past? Who doesn’t ask basic questions? Yes the Sierra Club of Canada is organizationally distinct from its American sister. But not ideologically. And its director, Elizabeth May, now the Green Party leader, cheer-leaded the successful suppression by the ruling Sierra US clique of dissidents who would restore the longstanding club policy of population stabilization and immigration control. Do Canadian Sierrans know that Sierra USA accepted a $100 million bribe from billionaire David Gelbaum conditional on keeping that policy off the books? Do Canadian Sierrans know who David Brower was and why he resigned from the Sierra Club? Is an environmentalist someone totally ignorant?

Is an environmentalist acquainted with displacement behaviour? It is the anxiety that manifests itself when an animal is torn between two uncomfortable options, who in attempt to deny the horrible reality of the choice, attempts to distract himself with meaningless activity that does not address the problem at hand. David Attenborough, in a documentary, illustrated this phenomena well, by showing a bird on the jungle floor in the Amazon who became aware of an approaching snake. Suddenly he was presented with a choice. Fight or flight. Neither option promised much hope. So what did the bird do? He preened himself, and pecked about the ground to take his mind off the coming appointment with probable death.

I imagine that there were White Star employees like that too on the night of April 12, 1912. There might have been a cleaning lady in a cabin who had a desperate feeling the Titanic was going down. But she couldn’t choose between her options. One was to do the unthinkably un-British thing and abandon her station and run upstairs to find a lifeboat. The other was to do the British thing of carrying out one’s duty by staying put. So instead she went up to the mirror and fixed her hair. That is essentially what the environmentalists do. Their trail work, beach-cleaning, their bird counts , their green living habits, are displacement behaviours. Denial of the overwhelming population avalanche that will sweep over and undo all of their largely inconsequential busy work. Denial, denial , denial.

If the Sierra Club doesn’t find 304 million Americans alarming, what number will they find alarming? 400? 450? That is the number projected for 2050. Already Yellowstone is looking like a highway, are going to see traffic signals? And what of Canada? 33 million is OK , eh? So what is Sierra Club Canada director Steve Hazell’s number then? 43 million? 53 million? 63? Will we all have to live like Fred Flintstone to accommodate the extra millions that corporate Canada wants as cheap labour and Elizabeth May wants for the cultural diversity she loves? Each increment of population must require an equivalent decrease in consumption to nullify environmental impact.

I=P x A x T .

PS Losing the argument? Quick ! Somebody call me a racist!