Eco-Fascists: How Radical Conservationists Are Destroying Our Natural Heritage

In this bitter polemic, journalist Nickson analyzes the environmental movement from the perspective of property owners—herself included—who have had their livelihoods affected by onerous government regulation, while activists have hijacked the political process. Nickson argues that the “green lobby” is using bad science based on false assumptions about ecology and conservation biology to remake our country into a vast untended wilderness, with terrible economic and (yes) environmental consequences. Venom drips from her pen: “Evil may be too strong a word [for the green movement] but what else do you call an idea that ruins everything it touches?” Environmental conservation impoverishes “working country” by taking away the land and water rights that were the founding principles of the republic and economic basis of Western expansion. The forests, plains, and waterways of North America are no longer to be cultivated for productive use; they are instead reserved only for the spiritual and aesthetic satisfaction of the “green overlords.” Nickson’s overreliance on partisan “experts” and unscientific dismissals of climate and conservation science, along with her tendency to ascribe hyperbolically dastardly motives to bureaucrats, scientists, city dwellers, politicians, philanthropists, and activists alike, undermines the effectiveness of her most stirring point: that whatever we are doing to save the environment, it’s not working—not for the land or for its people. Agent: Don Fehr, Trident Media Group. (Oct.)