Kindergarten Environmentalism

I hate hippies.  I’m using the word hate here, about hippies.  A very strong word, hate.  The main reason I hate them is their association with, and perversion of, the environmental movement—which is what this installment is really about, not hippies.  I also hate their generally disheveled appearance, lack of personal hygiene, and condescending hipster attitudes, but their screwing up of the environmental movement is what I hate most.

They never seem to look like this...

This is a more accurate representation.

Living this close to D.C. means that I regularly bump into these kinds of people, these hippies.  Growing up in Tifton, Georgia, I never ran into one.  Here, they are as common in the coffee shops and yoga classes and Whole Foods stores as flies at a dumpster.  Thankfully, both my profession and testicles keep me out of such establishments most of the time, but I still run into them occasionally, and when I do, they usually piss me off.

A little history on Yours Truly:  I dropped out of college in 1989, got married, and enlisted in the Marines—all in the space of a couple of months.  When I resumed college in 2003, as a grown-ass man (and a Marine Corps captain to boot), I decided to major in environmental science.  That struck a lot of people who knew me as strange, because of my libertarian views and general disdain for bullshit.  I will admit that the main reason I chose this field was that I could accomplish it quickly (the Marine Corps would only allow 18 months, and I was still two full years short of my degree), but I also had at least some interest in the good of the planet.  I had been around the world a few times by then, had seen some really messed up things, and had to comply with a few environmental regulations on construction sites.  Just enough to pique my interest.  So anyway, that’s how I came to begin my education into environmental issues, and when I first really began to dislike the pot-smoking little shits in my environmental classes with me.  

Exhibit A

Now back to the point-- The Earth is not a stable place.  It changes all the time.  The weather changes, of course.  Climate changes (we can argue all day about whose fault it is, but it changes nonetheless, and has done so for eons), species die out and are replaced by others, and mountains erode and wash into the sea.  Modern-day environmentalism doesn’t seem to take this into account, and freaks out about any evidence of change it uncovers.   Let me tell you a little tale to illustrate what I mean:

Andy, the Desert Tortoise
(they seem cuter if you give them a name)

In the Mohave Desert, there is a turtle.  More accurately, it is a tortoise—called the desert tortoise, interestingly enough.  Anyway, this particular animal is endangered.  The Marine Corps has an enormous training base in this particular desert, near Twenty-nine Palms, CA, and as such the Marines have to pay particular attention to the desert tortoise and his terrible little life.  I have received countless briefs by environmental “experts” about this specific animal, and have been threatened with all sorts of draconian punishments if I or my Marines so much as frighten one of these things.  The reason for this is that the turtle stores extra water in its bladder, and if frightened, it pees.  If that happens, it may die from dehydration.  You heard that right.  The turtle pees itself when startled, and then expires from dehydration as a result.  This animal, which lives in the desert, dumps its water supply as a startle response.  That is not smart, evolutionarily speaking.  Why do we care if this weak and stupid animal goes extinct?  I’m sorry, but I think this critter was on his way out anyway.    You can make all the rules you want, but Darwin’s had his eye on this little guy for a while now.

Here's your villain 

Not this guy

I think some thanks are in order, Andy.

Now, the environmental expert's argument was that the animal is endangered because of human encroachment on his habitat (meaning me and my fellow Marines, I suppose).  He seemed unable to understand that the reason the little guy has a habitat at all is because the government fenced off a plot of land the size of Rhode Island for us to train in.  If it weren't for that, then some mining operation or other such activity would have long since ground these pesky little turtles under the treads of their bulldozers.  If one of them finds his way under the tracks of a Marine Corps tank now, c'est la vie.  Vaya con Dios, little dude.  But he would likely have never had the chance in the first place otherwise.

I’m not arguing for the eradication of the desert tortoise.  I’m just saying that the coyotes and snakes and whatnot are under the same pressures in that training area, but they seem to be doing okay.  Failure of the weaker species is a key factor in evolution, and was happening for ages before mankind ever made his first spear.  I’m saying that unless this animal can be shown to hold some sort of value (other than the biodiversity bullshit argument), then why should we go out of our way to keep it around?  The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is chock full of the fossilized bones of failures.  It’s the way it goes.

Beatrice, the prehistoric frog-type thing.
Doesn't the name help you to relate more?
(photo credit to Tina Carr)

The reason this makes me say I hate hippies is that hippies try to make me feel guilty for the fate of the desert tortoise.  Everything that changes is seen as bad, everything that is bad is seen as the fault of the intervention of man, and every action of man is seen as “unnatural,” as if mankind was from some other world.  Human beings are as much a part of the natural order of things as any other organism.  That attitude bothers me because mankind can and should consider the environment as we go about our business, and the perversion of environmentalism to the role of a Jewish mother will only politicize the idea.  And when things become political, you can throw science right out the window.

Screw you, hippie.  It’s not my fault.