Stupid Things
Environmentalists Say
Since there is no end to the stupid things that
environmentalists say, this list is a work in progress

Paul Ehrlich
Author of the The Population Bomb (1968)
Stanford University Biologist and Advisor to Al Gore

"The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer"

"I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."

"In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish." (1970)

"We already have too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure."

He's my personal favorite. That's why he's first. (Roger Fields)

David R. Brower

"All I know about thermal pollution is that if we continue our present rate of growth in electrical energy consumption it will simply take, by the year 2000, all our freshwater streams to cool the generators and reactors."

I'm glad he didn't "know" more about thermal pollution. (Roger Fields)

John Muir

"I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do."

Huh? (Roger Fields)

Roger Tory Peterson
Famous Birdwatcher

"I can recognize the calls of practically every bird in North America. There are some in Africa I don't know, though."

Well, get with it then. (Roger Fields)

John Davis
editor of Earth First! Journal

"Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs."

"I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems."

This guy takes the prize. (Roger Fields)

Dave Forman
Founder of Earth First!

"We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight."

Is it any wonder these same people support abortion-on-demand and pulling feeding tubes? (Roger Fields)

"Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental."

Close. It's environmentalists that need to be phased out. (Roger Fields)

Aldo Leopold

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

I belong to my backyard? (Roger Fields)

David Graber
biologist, National Park Service

"I know scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn't true. Somewhere along the line ... we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth.... Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along."

How does one "rejoin nature?" And what if nature won't take us back? (Roger Fields)

Pentti Linkola

"Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed."

Can that include wacky environmentalism? (Roger Fields)

Dr. Reed F. Noss
The Wildlands Project

"The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans."

Does the non-human species include environmentalists? (Roger Fields)

Prince Phillip
World Wildlife Fund

"If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels."

I guess there's no IQ test requirements for becoming a prince. (Roger Fields)

Lyall Watson
The Financial Times, 15 July 1995

Cannibalism is a "radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation."

Beyond comprehension. (Roger Fields)

Lamont Cole

"To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem."

I don't think Lamont is a contributor to Compassion International. (Roger Fields)

Carl Amery

"We, in the green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which killing a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels."

And that is why we loath your way of thinking. (Roger Fields)

Peter Gwynne
Newsweek 1976

"This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century."

Cooling? I thought warming was the problem. (Roger Fields)

Kenneth E.F. Watt
Earth Day (1970)

"If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."

Great! And I missed it. (Roger Fields)

Lowell Ponte
"The Cooling" (1976)

"This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000."

Now do you see why we need People for Global Warming? (Roger Fields)

Judi Barri
Earth First

"I think if we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecological society under socialism. I don't think it's possible under capitalism."

Is it just me or do these people seem fundamentally unhappy. (Roger Fields)

Richard Benedict
an employee for the State Department working on assignment for the Conservation Foundation

"A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect."

Come on, Dick, think about what you are saying. (Roger Fields)

David Brower
Friends of the Earth

"Childbearing [should be] a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license.... All potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing."

Shouldn't we straighten out the DMV before we start issuing licenses for childbearing? (Roger Fields)

Keith Boulding
originator of the "Spaceship Earth" concept

"The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state."

And you think Walmart is crowded now. (Roger Fields)