There have also been many incidents involving construction sites as well as the homes of families. The attack in San Diego led to an increase in security at many construction sites in the area. One company is now spending $100,000 a month on security (Laing 2) related to environmental issues and environmental protection. This of course leads to higher costs, which are then passed on to homebuyers. The ELF considers burning luxury houses and suburban communities to be righteous; they are doing something that must be done. When arson in the name of greed and environmentalism strikes home, it hits the hardest. The ELF sees a person who owns a nice home as an enemy, concerned only with greed and consumption and anti-environmental protection issues. Consequently they are trying to make businesses such as land development and logging unprofitable. But will anyone reconsider buying a larger house because they fear “ecoterror”?
What all of this boils down to is protecting our environment, or environmental protection.But are these extreme methods necessary? Other organizations such as Greenpeace, a more widely known and nonviolent environmentalist group, openly disapprove of the ELFs techniques (“Green” 1). Many would say that they are giving environmentalists a bad name. Most of these people are not extremists in any way, and would never dream of taking part in a system that destroys property or other extreme environmental protection actions.
The ELF has also set its sights on research laboratories, especially those genetically altering plants (Miller 1). At a point of attack at The University of Washington research offices, a slogan was found: “You cannot control what is wild,” and “ELF” (qtd in Service 1). But the strike may have hurt their goals more than helped them on environmental issues. Robert Service, in his article on environmental terrorism and environmental protection, says that the man whose research was targeted was focused on helping the environment, not to profit from it. He also says the fire destroyed research on preserving wetlands, plants and animals, as well as destroying almost 1/3 of the population of an endangered plant (2). This does not seem to be helpful to the ELF’s cause no matter how you look at it, from an environmental science standpoint.
So after all of the destruction and carnage, all the millions of dollars in damage, has the ELF been effective in bringing their cause to the forefront of the public eye? Well, not a single person I spoke with had ever heard of ELF, or even environmental terrorism or other environmental issues for that matter. But where it has struck locally, surely people are aware of the cause and the drastic means by which they hope to accomplish their goals. Environmental News:In a piece on CBS Evening News, an unidentified male said, “They are not proving a point, all they’re doing is making people angry” (2). Also, Jonathan Adler of the Competitive Enterprise Institute said, "It's a nuisance on the way to being a big problem" (Miller 1). Conversely, a restaurant owner interviewed after the San Diego fire said, “I think it's a positive statement that at least someone somewhere is trying to point out that over-development is clogging our already congested urban areas. This is a war to protect the environment, to raise the consciousness of people” (qtd in Coronado 2). The first quote seems to make more sense in the larger scale. The ELF is getting attention, but it seems most of it is coming from people already sympathetic to their cause. The rest of the population just sees a violent crew of radicals acting outrageously for an unrealistic cause.
Continue with ELF and Environmental Issues...
|
