The 12 biggest environmental pressure groups in the United States enjoy combined annual revenues of $1.9 billion, according to the latest Internal Revenue Service figures. Only 725 of the United States' 20 million companies can boast such magnificent cash flow.
Among the green dozen are some - Nature Conservancy ($731 million) and the Wildlife Conservation Council ($311 million) - that are merely left-of-center. But there are also genuinely extreme organizations - the World Wildlife Fund ($118-million) and the Sierra Club ($73 million) - that militate aggressively against the free market and attack property rights to the detriment of the economy and the majority of ordinary people.
The greens' financial resources ought to be mentioned frequently, perhaps at the end of news reports in which such groups launch campaigns, comment on legislation, or denounce some hapless company that is doing nothing worse than going about its lawful business selling goods or services.
Given this and the greens' immense resources and influence, they deserve much greater scrutiny. For too long they have been allowed to sell green extremism as though it were self-evidently good, like motherhood or apple pie. (Come to think of it, they don't much like motherhood - it produces humans who are, of course, a plague upon the Earth).
The greens have done a brilliant public relations job, setting the political agenda, monopolizing egalitarian rhetoric and generally giving the false impression that they're sticking up for the little guy.
But radical environmentalism is not David in a David-and-Goliath fight against evil, polluting Big Business. Green prescriptions and campaigns are often merely a sublimated form of socialism that, like more traditional forms of socialism, cares nothing for the livelihoods it wrecks in pursuit of its cause.
Let's pick a few examples.
Starting with genetically modified foods. Despite scare stories, GM crops are environmentally friendly. In 2000, for instance, the use of pest resistant GM cotton in the United States saved 3.4 million pounds of raw materials and 1.4 million pounds of fuel oil in the manufacture and distribution of synthetic pesticides. Cotton farmers used 2.4 million gallons less fuel and 93 million gallons less water.
A quarter of the corn in the U.S. commodity stream is genetically modified, and Americans have been eating it (and other GM foods) for years without any ill effect. The risk of introducing human allergens to food via genetic engineering is lower than with conventional plant breeding because the new science is more selective about which genes it transfers from one species to another.
Yet, the grim green giant has persuaded many people, particularly in Europe, that genetic engineering is creating poisonous Frankenfoods. Perhaps Europeans don't deserve sympathy; they're rich enough to pay excessively for their groceries, and have done so with massive farm subsidies for two generations. But their green protectionism - GM food imports are banned - has dire, even fatal, consequences elsewhere. African countries afflicted by drought are turning away GM corn seed for fear of losing exports to Europe.
And Zambia's president, Levey Mwanawasa, rejects even milled corn as food aid for his 2.4 million stricken fellow-citizens, saying: "Simply because my people are hungry, that is no justification to give them poison...food that is intrinsically dangerous to their health." Whatever his motives for this enormity, Mr. Mwanawasa has seized on the junk science of green alarmism to give himself cover.
Let's stay in Africa for another example of greens seeking to trample ordinary people. Conservation groups were furious this month when the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species voted to allow South Africa, Botswana and Namibia to sell a total of 60 tons of elephant ivory.
The sale will take place only with safeguards to make sure the legal ivory is not used to launder poached ivory into the world market. And, crucially, it will give local Africans a bigger financial stake in the survival of the species.
Greens, wanting to extend the total world ban on ivory sales, argued that because poaching increased after a similar sale in 1997, it should not be allowed now. But CITES is hardly the poachers' friend. If it believes it can police occasional sales that will help pay locals to conserve the species - benefiting both humans and wildlife - going ahead is a moral obligation. Opposing all commerce in elephant ivory reflects an ugly insouciance toward the interests of poor Africans upon whom the greens would impose an unrewarded duty of conservation.
All over the world, not just in Africa, environmentalism - a largely romantic preoccupation of the wealthy, Western, middle class - militates against best interests of ordinary people. The Kyoto climate treaty will depress growth, and make it more difficult for millions to escape poverty; green agitation against synthetic pesticides condemns millions to suffering and death from disease; green opposition to oil and gas exploration raises energy prices and hinders wealth creation.
The grim green giant is not helping up the little guy. He is sitting comfortably high up on a perch of wealth and privilege and, seeing others trying to climb, is pulling up the ladder.
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