In a Christian Science Monitor op-ed, EcoTrust’s Ed Hunt notes that for all the Earth Liberation Front’s (ELF’s) violence, it “has done little for the planet.”
ELF’s recent declaration that it would “no longer hesitate to pick up the gun” in pursuit of “justice” for the planet doesn’t surprise Hunt. “Escalation in violence,” he notes, “is the avenue of every failing terrorist campaign.”
But while Hunt insists that “mainstream” environmentalism shouldn’t be painted with the same broad brush as the eco-terror movement, The Hudson Institute’s Dennis Avery points out that ELF has quite a bit in common with “traditional green groups” and animal-rights extremists.
Avery reports, correctly, that Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have lobbied African governments to deny their own people life-saving food aid, just because it might contain genetically-improved ingredients. He also describes 2002 Earth Summit protesters “declaring their solidarity with Palestinian ‘suicide bombers’” and notes that “animal rights fanatics beat a medical research executive with a baseball bat and burned the apartment of a financial firm’s president” during the past two years.
