Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 5, 1995 TAG: 9510050054
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
More likely, they're seeing red.
All kinds of groups are forming in the United States with names that sound green, but whose purposes are at odds with the goals of well-established environmental organizations.
Take the Sustainable Development Coalition.
Sustainable development has become a byword for assuring future prosperity by balancing the interests of current development against the need to preserve natural resources.
Individuals, organizations and communities that recognize the inherent value of the natural world, and those that abhor squandering resources at the expense of future generations, have embraced a managed-growth philosophy.
But the Sustainable Development Coalition is a property-rights group in Maine whose purpose is to make a compost heap out of an international treaty to protect biological diversity. Hardly soul-mates.
There are a slew of organizations whose names might mislead, The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Abundant Wildlife Society of North America (which says that wildlife is abundant, so kill some);
The Environmental Conservation Organization (of land developers fighting environmental regulations);
The National Wetlands Coalition (of folks who want to redefine wetlands so more of them can be drained and built on).
Of course, their opposition probably would accuse environmentalists of deceptive advertising in some of their own benign-sounding names. We've heard of no group calling itself, for example, The Society for Killing Jobs to Save a Few Birds.
Still, if an organization claims its views are widely embraced, why not reflect them boldly and unequivocally? Rather than the Abundant Wildlife Society, why not the Society to Exterminate Wolves? It's a point of view, too.
by CNB