Earth Day doesn’t impress Birch Society
Group believes problems caused by politics rather than pollution
83^ Earth Day jH
Amidst the belated cries of “save our B
.7 environment” now spewing forth from the Bp>
mouths of politicians and government offi* 9
■ cials, the question must arise as to why the
■ sudden interest in ecology. Did these individ* ®
K uals suddenly realize the perilous position of B
H the world’s natural resources? Were they con
B vinced by the active protest of students and Bp
■ scientists? For that matter, why did the mas- B
B ses of America’s amateur activists suddenly B*
B turn to ecology as their issue? B
A part of the answer is obvious. The prob
B lem is great; it must be resolved now if life 0
® is to be liveable by the end of this century. ||
fn But the birth of the ecology movement came
V out of the death of the civil rights movement
and the dying anti-war movement. Oddly, it Jt
■ is an issue on which people of all ages agree
B and most are willing to work for. Probably be- M
K cause it is a “safe” movement. 9
# Ecology, like civil rights, will not always ||
B be a “safe” movement. Soon it will run up B
against industry and institutions who will no I
B longer deplore the awful conditions along
■ with everyone else, but instead will talk of
' the cost of pollution. Just as the American fig
B power structure allowed the civil rights move- B
ft ment to go.only so far, American industry may H
B allow the anti-pollution movement to go only a
W to the point where its pocketbooks are jeopar- fl
dized. Jlgp
When you go to the Earth Day events g
today, learn about pollution and conservation, B
but think about cost also. Because that is B....
where it’s at. The American people seem con- BgH
vinced of the seriousness the pollution prob- 99
i lem, but arc they willing to pay to solve it?
B Jim Pedersen
■•Daily Nebraskan
April 22, 1970
CThe John Birch
Society wanted to
bury Earth Day.
Theories of global
warming, the society
said, ‘‘may be nothing
more than hot air,”
and that Earth Day is
“the greatest sham on
,Earth.”
The “tens of thousands of members” --
“we’re not five, and we’re not 5 million” — of
the Birch Society say environmental protest
ers actually represent the establishment.
John McManus, public relations director,
said the “Eastern Establishment” has misled
American society into believing in environ
mental problems that don’t exist. The estab
lishment, he said, is led by groups such as
the New York-based Council on Foreign
Relations, which publishes Foreign Affairs
magazine.
“The politics of the movement are more
important than the science," he said.
The establishment wants the government
to spend money on the environment,
McManus said, as part of a “left-wing
agenda” to increase government control.
That conspiracy, he said, extends from
grass-roots protesters to the highest levels of
government.
“Some are well-meaning and misguided;
some of them know exactly what they are
doing,” he said. “A lot of them are just
enjoy mg me limengm.
As a result, he said, the environmental
movement has become an agent of the
conspirators, who want to create bigger
government.
McManus said the radical agenda is noth
ing new.
“It’s the same conspiracy that brought in
communism in the Soviet Union,” he said.
Whenever the Eastern Bloc attempts to
change, communism there is financed by
the American Eastern Establishment, he
said.
And now, he said, those conspirators are
using Earth Day and environmentalism to
impose similar governmental controls in the
United Slates and worldwide. Cleaning up
the environment will cost taxpayers money
-- eventually 2 59 percent of the U S. gross
national product, according to the Birch
Society.
McManus said U S. politicians and the
media have been convinced that that cost,
and the “totalitarian control" it would usher
in, is necessary.
Phony information, he said, is distributed
about depletion of the ozone layer, over
population, the greenhouse effect, acid rain
and smog by “pseudo-scientists” and politi
cians.
“Most people don’t even know there is
another side,” he said.
McManus said the Birch Society, based in
Appleton, Wis , relies on “the testimony of
competent scientists” to “wake the town
and tell the people" about the other side.
Those scientists say fears of global warm
ing are unfounded, based on statistics of the
last century. And a Birch Society press re
lease quotes Soviet climatologist Mikhail
Budyko, saying global warming might cre
ate an "Eden” by producing “much higher
rates of moisture everywhere."
The press release said depletion of the
ozone layer could be caused by chlorine gas
from volcanoes and from salt in ocean spray
— not by chlorofluorocarbons, as environ
mentalists claim. The amount of ozone in
the atmosphere changes by only two-tenths
of 1 percent every year, the press release
said, and the current reduction is only
making up for increases in ozone during the
1960s.
Deforestation is the result of agricultural
expansion caused by the struggle to survive
of “individuals impoverished by the collec
tivist economic policies of their govern
ments,” the Birch Society said.
“Less government and more free enter
prise, resulting in job diversification and
rising standards of living, would greatly
reduce the need to ravish the rain forests.”
Fears of overpopulation, the society said,
are overblown. Socialist economies, not
overcrowding, cause shortages of food, the
press release said.
But McManus does admit that environ
mental problems do exist.
“I’ve been in Los Angeles, and I’ve cer
tainly had my eyes smarting from the smog,”
he said.
But McManus said he’s convinced the air
was bad in Los Angeles before there were
any people there. That’s because moist air
from the Pacific Ocean gets trapped along
the California coast, he said, causing fog.
It would be easy to reduce pollution in
areas like Los Angeles, he said, by reducing
the amount of people who live there.
That’s easier said than done, he said.
City-dwellers can get so many “goodies”
and "welfare handouts” from the govern
ment that most people think it’s worth it to
stay.
Acidity in lakes is another problem
McManus said he’s convinced is for real. But
no one has proposed a realistic explanation
for the increase in acidity, he said.
“The biggest bugaboo,” he said, is that
the acidity is caused by cars burning fossil
fuels.
In fact, the society said, the automobile is
an improvement over what it replaces — the
horse.
The press release includes statements
attributed to author Rousas Rushdoony,
who said horse manure was worse to the
environment than car emissions:
“In the winter or spring, the manure
turned to slush, and it meant walking (and
slipping and falling) into liquefied manure
in bad weather.”
In summer, the problem was just as bad
The “sun dried the manure, and the
carriage and wagon wheels soon turned it
into a floating dust to be breathed by all, and
to coat clothing and furniture with a foul
covering,” according to Rushdoony.
McManus proposes his own way of
controlling pollution.
“This country should go nuclear," he
said. “It’s the best invention since the begin-.
ning of lime.”
Americans have been scared into believ
ing that nuclear power is dangerous,
McManus said, by the same conspirators
who support communism and Eanh Day.
All the waste from enough nuclear en
ergy to power the United States for a dec
ade, McManus said, could be buried in an
area the size of a football field
And disposal, at least of low-level radio
active waste, is no problem either, he said
“Where did it come from in the first place?
The Earth."
—Fric Pfanner
