Environmental activism can lead to madness

Andrew W. Griffin
Red Dirt Report
September 2, 2010

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

OKLAHOMA CITY – Reading the manifesto of James J. Lee, the mentally-disturbed eco-terrorist who attempted to bomb the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, Md. today, I think back to my many years as a misguided environmentalist who, at the height of my activism in the mid-1990’s, might have viewed this guy, gunned down by a SWAT team this afternoon, as simply a “misunderstood” madman who simply loved Mother Earth.

As a teenager, I was sucked into the politically-correct world of environmentalism via popular culture and TV news scaremongering (think Alar or Superfund sites, etc.). Of course the ozone layer and the Amazon rain forests were dying and all the hip actors and rock stars like Sting were telling us that we couldn’t just sit by and let it happen. We needed to get involved!

By 1990, on the 20th anniversary of Earth Day, I was inspired to recycle and do little things like cut up my six-pack plastic rings so turtles and birds didn’t die. In one high school class my hippie teacher encouraged us to bring liberal-oriented “message” songs to class so we could listen to them and discuss the message. I brought “Poison In the Well” by 10,000 Maniacs (music and lyrics by Dennis Drew and Natalie Merchant):

“O, they tell us there’s poison in the well,

that someone’s been a bit untidy and there’s been a small spill.

Not a lot, no, just a drop.

But there you are mistaken, you know you are.

I wonder just how long they knew our well was poisoned but they let us just drink on”

I felt pretty righteous bringing in that song and others like it over the course of the class. Yes sir, I was on my way to becoming an activist.

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Still mad at the Exxon corporation for the Valdez oil spill disaster a year earlier, I boycotted the oil giant, but failed to see the hypocrisy at continuing to drive in my gas-guzzling, Carter-era station wagon.

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