The worst part about the environmentalists is that they are totally naive about what they claim to hold dear, that is, ecology and its related biological sciences. They don't understand a thing about life cycles, population dynamics, ecosystem interactions, or species survival. They only think that plants and animals of their own choosing are beautiful and precious, and should be preserved at all costs. I've never seen one beating the drum over the death of a mosquito that just bit them, or the thousands of species of bacteria that spoil their food every day, or poison ivy that chokes their beloved hiking trail, or leeches that inhabit the swamp, etc. It's only about the so-called "majestic" organisms. I call this Bambi-cology. And almost without exception, the environmentalist has a symbolic picture in their mind of organisms that is either totally false or skewed beyond reality, akin to the image of young Bambi in spots waltzing around the meadow alongside a mature buck with antlers during hunting season.
Environmentalists have a total disregard for two facts that almost always undermine the legitimacy of their issues:
1. Humans are an integral part of the ecosystem. They have the power to alter the ecosystem in tremendous ways, and a responsibility that goes with that, but they also have an unequivocal right and necessity to participate in the ecological process (that is, use ecological resources to their advantage, just like all other organisms).
2. Ecosystems are dynamic and operate on fundamental supply and demand principles. Saving one or a few species at all costs has a negative effect on many other species, just as much if not moreso than reducing one species does. Resources restricted from human use are seldom "preserved" at all, but rather re-allocated in a less productive fashion (such as when a deer or duck dies of starvation or illness rather than being killed by a hunter).
The really irritating thing is, none of this is ever considered politically relevant to the issues at hand. Policy makers rarely defer to competent scientists when making decisions about "environmentally sensitive" issues. Confounding all of this is the emergence of the environmentalist-minded "ecologists" who are educated to believe that a tunnel-vision brand of pseudo-science is a legitimate and productive enterprise. Their research methods are flawed and sometimes outright manipulative, and they pursue science from a basis of pre-concieved conclusions and biased data production rather than thorough and scientifically sound investigation. They are almost invariably at the forefront of most environmental debates, precisely because they place themselves there by having strong, scientifically flawed opinions that they somehow pass of to the non-scientific world as legitimate hypotheses and conclusions. The equally naive media catch this ball and run with it. After all, such provocative stances, whether based on legitimate science or not, sell magazines and newspapers.
Ultimately, environmentalists remind me of my house dog, a cocker spaniel mix. She sees wolves or deer on television and vaults off the couch in pursuit, growling and barking, only to be dumbfounded when the animals are nowhere to be seen behind the TV set. Granted, she is a rather simple-minded dog, but she so aptly represents the environmentalist mindset. They never quite seem to figure out that they are chasing an image rather than the real thing. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially when mixed with a heavy dose of passion and self-indignation.
