"smart growth"
environmental regulation
maintain economic growth
deep ecology
steady state economics
permaculture
locally controlled organic agriculture production
no jobs on a dead planet
Earth Liberation Front (how much of this is sincere, and how much are agents provocateurs smearing the environmental movement?)
Green Anarchy magazine (how many "cops are pigs" articles do we really need, anyway? and how does that bring about widespread support for social change?)
hyper-factionalization (parodied by Monty Python's The Life of Brian)
Environmental Protection Agency and state government affiliates
corporate polluters who pretend they are promoting "sustainability" (British Petroleum, Weyerhauser, Nike, among many others)
corporate environmental groups that endorsed the 1993 NAFTA treaty
- Environmental Defense Fund
- World Wildlife Fund
- Natural Resources Defense Council
- National Audubon Society
- National Wildlife Foundation
- Conservation Foundation)
environmental groups that critique Republican destruction of the environment but stay silent on most Democratic destruction of the environment
- Sierra Club (perhaps the most famous example, but there are many others)
An excellent review of the decline of the big green groups is Mark Dowie's book "Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century."
Greenpeace (best of the large environmental groups)
Rachel's environmental newsletter
grassroots forest protection, zero discharge, environmental justice, freeway fighters, renewable energy installers, safe food and many others - most of the best groups are poorly funded, ignored by the media yet do the real cutting edge work
"wise use" movement
Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Groups is a good guide to "astroturf" pseudo-environmental groups set up by polluters to confuse the public.
Greening Earth Society (created by fossil fuel interests) claims global warming is a good thing.
permits for pollution ("who permits them to permit?")
Rachel's Environment & Health News #442 - The Right To Pollute, May 18, 1995
precautionary principle - prevent pollution
environmentalism is elemental: avoiding toxics requires avoiding certain elements (chlorine, bromine, heavy metals, radioactive elements above 83)
carbohydrate economy - biomass instead of petrochemicals avoids most toxics
bioremediation and mycoremediation (using nature to detoxify poisons)
incineration of garbage creates new poisons not present in the original waste
Local, Organic and Vegan (LOV)
Chevron-Texaco's campaign "Will You Join Us" (a pseudo-effort to admit to Peak Oil, which distracts from the fact they've known about it for decades and have blocked efforts for renewable energy and conservation
more drilling, coal, tar sands, deep water drilling
nuclear power as "solutions" to energy crisis
Apollo Alliance claims renewable energy can keep our growth based economic system intact
Most environmental groups strongly oppose oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, but were quiet about President Clinton's opening of the nearby Naval Petroleum Reserve -- an expanse of tundra as large as ANWR, complete with caribou, polar bears and mosquitos. National environmental groups are more likely to object to oil drilling proposals from Republicans than those from Democrats.
Home Power magazine and most renewable energy businesses
The time factor for converting from fossil and nuclear energy to renewables -- it should have been started three decades ago, long before Peak.
hydrogen cars will seemlessly replace the current energy paradigm
Post Carbon Institute and Peak Oil awareness movements - use remaining oil to relocalize production
nuclear energy is toxic, dangerous, and requires huge fossil fuel inputs)
Clinton era "Option 9" claims that we can restore forest habitat while clearcutting old growth forests.
Logging
helps keep salmon runs healthy
Carlton Yee ... former chairman of the California State Board of Forestry
Clinton's "Roadless Rule" passed at the end of his presidency (some positive steps, but it avoids protection of most remaining old growth).
Clinton's enactment of the Sequoia National Monument on Earth Day 2000 -- a great pronouncement, but it merely renamed part of the Sequoia National Forest. Clearcutting of old growth forest still continues in this new "monument." The only Presidential candidate in 2000 who supported protecting ancient forests was Ralph Nader.
Forest Certification - the Forest Stewardship Council standards still allow clearcuts.
zero cut on public lands, switch to restoration forestry (to turn tree farms back to forests)