I just noticed Andrew Sullivan pointing to a rightwing enviro blog called Terra Rossa (“red earth.” cute.), calling it “encouraging.” Indeed it is. A major project in my enviro-focused bachelor’s degree focused on interest overlap between enviros like myself and similar groups on the right. Indeed, a startling number of groups like Ducks, Unlimited, the Blue Ribbon Coalition and the NRA want almost exactly the same thing that most environmentalists want. Only at that point did I start to appreciate that narrowminded, selfrighteous buffoonery within environmentalism crippled the movement almost as effectively as Exxon’s lavishly funded PR.
The enviro movement never recovered from the Rachel Carson-Ed Abbey schism that pitched coalition builders like Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy against purists at Greenpeace and Earth First!, but sometimes Muhammad gets off easy and the mountain comes to him. Accelerating global change has people worried more or less across the spectrum. As a result everyone up to and including evangelicals are losing patience with failure and stalling tactics within their own caucus. The Republican party badly needs to shed its well-deserved image as the major obstacle to environmental progress or it risks ghettoizing itself further than corruption, mismanagement and crypto-fascism have already done.
Obviously the party needs new ideas, but don’t waste your time looking on Terra Rossa. Tucker Eskew works in the White House communications office. Whit Ayres is a partner in a DC Republican public opinion firm. Amanda Phraner works for Adfero, a Republican online communications firm. Jim Coleman is a common enough name to stump Google and the blog doesn’t provide a bio, but you see where this is going. Not one of these guys has a history of environmental activism. They don’t have any identifiable ties to rightwing conservation groups like I mentioned above. They’re trained communications professionals. Their brief says write about the environment so they do it.
The blog is indeed good news as Sully says, but not in the way he means. The GOP remains as obstructionist as ever and, as always, most rightwing enviro sites will resemble Exxon-funded denial mills like TechCentralStation. However, dumping cash into astroturf like Terra Rossa indicates a vulnerable flank. They’re right to be worried.
…
Oh, and Andrew? Keep calibrating that BS detector.
incontrolados
Stalking, are we Tim F.?
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
But back to your post, there are two problems. One, anyone can get together and slap up a website advocating this or that — in this case something potentially marketable to conservatives/republicans, just as others have whipped up shrillness on the other side.
None of the spiffy righty websites will last long in the community of the informed — you’ve just shown that.
TenguPhule
Amen, every dollar they blow there is one less we have to worry about in the general.
sglover
I always have to ask this when it comes up: Who gives a fuck about anything Sullivan says? He’s always shown exactly the judgement and integrity one would expect from a narcissist. Ignore the twit.
Wrye
Dude, he just hasn’t had his John Cole moment yet.
liberal
Wrye wrote,
Actually, I thought he had, and the problem as sglover implies is that he’ll always be limited by his narcissism.
liberal
Why is it clear this schism is a bad thing? Maybe it’s a good thing, a la the Overton Window.
Pb
No stalking required, they even have an “About Us” page…
Billy K
Andrew Sullivan is the most gullible human being I know of. I think it’s because he’s British.
Andrew
Most Brits aren’t gullible so much as drunk and angry at being so pale.
Billy K
I am pale and angry and frequently drunk. Do you think there’s a chance I may be British?
Andrew
It’s by no means exclusive to those wankers. I, too, fit the description, being a damn dirty Irishman.
Billy K
So, are all men from the United Kingdom named “Andrew?”
Andrew
Now Ireland is in the UK? Those are drunken brawling words. And sober brawling words. Brawling is a weird word if you repeat it like 12 times.
Paternover
the Blue Ribbon Coalition wants almost the same thing enviros want…if by “same thing” you mean access to public lands to rip up with ATVs, dirt bikes, and 4x4s….at least here in the West.
You are right that big game hunters are begining to realize the importance of roadless areas and the effects of the massive domestic expansion of oil and gas drilling on wildlife habitat. Trout Unlimited has long advocated for protection of coldwater fisheries, even if it pisses off some of its conservative membership.
By looking at the website, I’d say “Terra Rosa” has no problem with habitat destruction or air and water polution so long as we “reduce our dependance on foreign oil.” Which I guess is exatly what I’d expect from a right wing “enviro blog.”
Billy K
Well, the good part is.
Paul L.
I find it amusing that Tim F is now a Astroturf detector.
Anyone remember his promotion of the gun control Astroturf American Hunters and Shooters Association.
Maybe his tuner only works on rightwing astroturfs.
Crust
I wouldn’t classify this blog as “astroturf”.
To my mind, a key component of the term “astroturf” is false pretenses. True, the people running this show come out of politics and communications; they’re not scientists and they don’t have a history on environmental issues. But they don’t pretend to. Personally, I’m going to keep reading RealClimate and Deltoid.
It’s an energy security, environmental and political blog from a right wing perspective. It may well suck (though I’d rather see people make that case based on the posts not the bios). But I don’t think it’s astroturf.
capelza
Leave Christopher Hitchens out of this!
Greenpeace pissed me off years ago when they continued to mail me incredible amounts of paper. And their moonie like recruiters who would harrass people in bars. And I am an environmentalist.
texas dem
Rachel Carson – Ed Abbey Schism:
Did these two ever personally interact, or is this meant in symbolic terms? As an enormous fan of both, if they had a direct personal interaction, with or without a schism, it’d be fascinating. However I expect otherwise.
Tim F.
The schism is meant entirely in a metaphorical sense. Rachel Carson inspired an environmental ethic so broadly appealing that by the first Earth Day it had an unchallenged claim to the national moral high ground. Ed Abbey inspired a generation of self-righteous navelgazing purists who mistook acting out for doing good. Speaking as somebody who has led several different environmental groups, I detest Abbey and his influence almost as much as I do Exxon.
MNPundit
“If we want a planet left to fight over, let’s work together now.”
That really needs to be the mantra.