Green Outside, Red Inside

The other day I found an article that is, to put it mildly, strongly critic of those who think that there can be deeper reasons beyond the global warming alarm than honest and unbiased analysis of available data.

In fact the article labels any speculation in that sense as "conspiracy theory". I don't want to counter all the points made by the author, but discuss a little one in particular: the ridicule heaped on the "idea that environmentalists were Communist sympathizers".

I have been keeping an eye on communist and environmentalist material and publications for the last 15 years, I can say. I have read materials in Italian for the most part, but also in English.

What I have consistently noticed is a deep commonality of assumptions, language and goals between communists and (many) environmentalists. Organizations such as the Social Forum (dead link on purpose: http://www.ussf2007.org/), in fact, intertwine enivornmental and socio-economic issues so deeply that the two threads cannot be separated anymore.

The fundamental assumption that communism injected in the environmentalist movement is that the capitalist economic model is destroying the environment.

The fact that the Soviet Union ravaged the ecosystem worse than any other country can be conveniently swept under the rug, or explained as improper implementation of communism.

But wait, did I say "communism injected in the environmentalist movement"? Yes, I did.
Environmentalism is older than communism, and it began as a largely apolitical concern for the environment, seeing how completely unregulated human activities were damaging nature.

Communists then latched over environmentalist ideas because they were an effective vehicle for their anti-capitalist, anti-bourgeois agenda.

So, it's not quite true that environmentalists are communist sympathizers; rather, communists took over the environmetalist movement for their own ends.

These are, of course, generalizations: the environmentalist movement comprises many million people, and not all of them obviously think alike.

In fact, the "right-wing" or conservative environmentalist, especially in the USA, prefer to define themselves as conservationists and are more oriented towards a kind of management of nature.