Nature and Place: Eco-Defense - Research Proposal Example

& Number: Eco-Defense Essay (A Critical Analysis) 27 June (word count 352) Introduction The Earth is indeed the last frontier, so to speak, and it is the only home we have. It is our home that deserves protection from pillage and destruction. Measures to defend it has to be within legal bounds and there are ways of doing so in a suitable manner. An environmental activism that takes things to the extreme and lets people take matters into their own hands is not the right way of defense. The human population keeps expanding and Malthus may have been right in his predictions, after all. A question everyone must face is what can be done to prevent this serious onslaught before everything is lost forever. Surely, something needs to be done. This short essay tries to answer that question by discussing the environmental activism of author Edward Abbey and maybe find a compromise solution. There is a need to balance competing demands and interests without the need to resort to “terrorist tactics” which mostly is counter-productive to the aim of nature preservation. Discussion Mr. Abbey argues for a stringent response to the environmental threats which forests are facing today. In particular, he wants to rally the people to its defense by comparing threats to a direct invasion of someones home. In this regard, he advances the idea that indeed the American forests are our ancestral homes (Abbey 345). In this respect, he is right because we all came from the forests originally and even today, our lives depended on those forests. It is stated in economics that most of the wealth ultimately comes from the agricultural and forest products (farming, mining, livestock raising, etc.) and anything that threatens it threatens us. As he said, “the Americans home is his favorite forest, river, fishing stream . . .” Mr. Abbey makes the comparison of the American wilderness as an equivalent of our homes which is under attack by vested interests; that being so, people have the right and also the inherent “obligation to defend their private quarters by whatever means are necessary.” It is in this statement where the principle of environmental activism is contained and also a seed for justification of all those militant actions such as “spiking the trees with nails.” He advocates this line of defense because our politicians are not doing anything or to making any effort towards preservation of the wilderness; politicians are just making a show of pretending to support the idea of wilderness preservation. He justifies militant actions by stating that “defending our homes (both our private and public homes) are both defensible by common law and common morality as well as common belief.” An example of his approach is to “carry a hammer and a few pounds of 60-penny nails in your game bag or backpack” and spike the trees scheduled for a chainsaw massacre. He claims this an effective way of saving the trees by destroying chainsaws and “its good for the human soul.” Mr. Abbey proposes a form of civil disobedience. What he is proposing, however, is a militant and active form of civil disobedience. In this form of disobedience, he wants people to sabotage the business operations of the logging companies. He admits his proposed course of action may be illegal but justifies this as being ethically imperative (ibid.); “it is risky but sporting and also unauthorized but maybe fun.” I do not agree with this proposal because it is physically dangerous to environmental activists and also puts them into deep legal troubles. He may have advocated this course of action because he felt people are not doing enough to preserve the wilderness and something more drastic is needed. However, considering the legal implications, what he is urging people to do is not only risky but counter-productive in the long run. There is a better way of doing it. People can utilize political advocacy which is perfectly legal as a part of the system itself. He accuses the business people as three-piece suited gangsters (ibid. 344) acting in connivance with politicians who are susceptible to the lobbying efforts of the Big Business interests. These “gangsters” are destroying the American wilderness without any thought for succeeding generations; they cut down the trees in an unsustainable manner. To counteract all the insatiable greed of Big Business, Mr. Abbey needed to set up a symbolic enemy on which the environmentalists can rally against. This is the reason he likened business people to three-piece suited gangsters who are out to take away the peoples wealth – their wilderness. This is almost the same enemy that Jane Martin had mentioned in her monologue the “Rodeo” in which MBA people, business people and bankers manipulate events behind the scenes. They make all the demands which people have to comply with, similarly in Abbeys article because MBAs are the ones dictating what should and should not be done these days. Business-suited people are the ones making important decisions and not the ordinary people anymore. MBAs presume to know everything and all they care about are the profits. Mr. Abbey advocates using all means necessary and that can include the dangerous and the illegal; further, such a declaration speaks of desperation and a lack of viable ideas. It is best to analyze first the overall situation. Growing populations feed the increased demand for forest products and also the clearing of big tracts of land to be converted to grazing lands for cattle breeding. Additionally, there is also pressure to convert forest areas for development into housing projects. In other words, environmentalists could be in for a losing battle if they fight it out with Big Business in such a primitive manner. It is far better to accept that demand for forest and wood products as well as the encroachment of human settlements will always be there and accept these as givens in the equation. A person who criticizes something must offer a solution instead, a good alternative. Abbey himself acknowledged the politicians are sensitive to popular opinion, influenced by it and this is where a solution can be found. Mr. Abbey tried to rally people behind the environmental cause by comparing forest destruction as the equivalent of a home invasion and that all means of defending are justified. He had been variously praised and criticized for his militant ways of raising an environmental awareness among normally apathetic people; his tactics are called as eco-terrorism or ecotage (combination of economic sabotage) and the more neutral but albeit sympathetic eco-defense. His article is very strident but it appeals to the emotions of his readers rather than to their own intellectual capacities to think the issues through. It is almost akin to demagoguery; I am not very convinced with his recommended methods although he is good at creating the symbolic enemy such as the three-piece suited gangsters (MBAs, businessmen and bankers). There were many ways by which Mr. Abbey intended eco-defense such as sabotage which is collectively termed as monkey-wrenching (used as a verb also in this context). Mr. Abbey was not very enthusiastic about compromise because this will just dilute his aims of preservation. But there are certainly other means available which are less confrontational and maybe more effective. The monkey-wrenching he espoused borders on anarchy and a crude method; more sophisticated methods can be equally effective means if one knows how. Conclusion As for Mr. Abbeys opinion that politicians often collude with business interests, that view is correct but these politicians are not immune to public opinion. Representative form of government in America is not totally lost to commercial and industrial interests; all politicians are very sensitive and susceptible to public opinion ratings and this is where advocacy can be put to good use by environmentalists. If they will not vote for a certain official because of his perceived record with regards to the environment, then that official has no choice but to bow to their demands; otherwise, he cannot realistically expect to win a re-election. Environmental groups will become potent lobbyists who can influence legislation; this is a better approach. Work Cited Abbey, Edward. “Nature and Place: Eco-Defense.” Reading Literature and Writing Argument. Eds. Missy James and Alan P. Merickel. Ontario, Canada: Pearson Education, 2010. 344-345. Print. Read More