Leigh, ".., the corrupt IPCC ..."
WTF, I've been away from olo a while but still no change with the gullible cretins on this forum! and a merry christmas, mark john conley

An interesting article. Are the enviromentalists Caesar or Pompey? Whatever. While I have a few issues with a small barking mad minority in the environmental movement, I don't believe, as this writer asserts, that the plurality of environmental movements exist to sporn more environmental causes.

These movements exist because there are real problems threatening future generations.

I do take his point that there is some very fast and loose thinking amongst some elements of the movement who are hell bent on destroying economies rather than offering realistic alternatives. These are the eco-fascists, who I enjoy 'debating'.

Herbert Stencil I lived in London in the 1950's. The clean air act stopped the burning of coal and change to smokeless fuels and eventually to gas. This stopped the "Smogs" which killed hundreds of people and was appalling. The rivers were not "Cleaned up" the people who were polluting them were stopped and the rivers were soon clean again. Of course even when polluted they had Salmon and Lampreys traveling in them.
None of this needed the Left Wing Loony party at all. The ACA (Anglers Co-operative Association) did a lot of this work. None of the current crop of "Conservationists" have any agenda other than making a lot of money and getting the power to say NO! Now they want a slice of a tax which everyone knows will be taken over by "traders" anyway.
We need a real expose of this disgusting movement and the crooks who are running it.

This piece to complete garbage.
Ian Pilmer used to spend time debating creationist. Its clear they didn't learn a thing from him but he learnt allot from them. he's been teaching his new friends at the AEF....Hope the money, the short lived spot light is worth your self-respect Ian. you know there money to be made in the anti AIDS and the new creationist movement Intelligent Design, it's an old Earth movement mainly, so you wouldn't have to be to sink to low, just up to your chin.

This article's a joke.

It seems to me that "divide and conquer, and a willingness to distort the truth" are the hallmarks of the AEF. After all, that's why this faux environmental organisation was set up, isn't it?

Good start Max. I would like to have seen less about the status quo of environmentalism and more analysis of its causes and foundations.

Your article gets very close but keeps stopping short. One of the foundations of activism can be seen as fundamentalism which is based upon ideology. There are many examples of fundamentalism in today’s world that clearly demonstrate that when challenged by “non-believers”, fundamentalism has nowhere to go except to crank up the ideological rhetoric, more fundamentalism.

Facts just bounce off simply because the rhetoric is based upon “belief” rather than reality, hence pseudo-reality is created. Many of the great causes are driven by proselytizing rather than by debate, which is why we often see the quasi religious fervor that seeks to gain “converts” rather than rational support for reality.

Just review some of the responses to this post to see just how much reality bounces off ideology.

More please