Is James Lee The Face Of Environmentalism?

Inevitably, the broad brushes would come out.

The gunman who invaded the Discovery Channel building had first published a “manifesto” wherein he declared humans to be a scourge on the planet.  James Lee demanded that they work towards their own elimination as the only solution to save the planet, stop war, stop extinction, and stop the appalling proliferation of bad reality television.

Some have taken that as proof that James Lee exposes the illegitimacy of the entire environmental movement.

Bunk.

I’ve been very hard on the environmentalists.  I think they are a policy-making disaster zone.  I think many of them are driven by emotion to insist on policies that are flatly stupid (e.g. imposing a large carbon tax that would increase the cost of basic goods and decrease jobs during an economic recession) and self-contradictory (e.g. insisting on a transition away from fossil fuels but also insisting that nuclear power (the only currently existing practical alternative) be prohibited).

But few of them share James Lee’s desire for the extermination of all of humanity.  I can’t think of any significant environmentalist leaders who do share Lee’s bizarre wish for the end of human civilization.  Certainly Al Gore, comfy in his mansions and private jets, can be fairly accused of gross hypocrisy and dishonesty, but he cannot be interpreted as hoping for the end of human civilization.

James Lee is dead.  And even if I might wish it were so, environmentalist politics does not die with him.