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Last week's topic: Earth Day.

We asked what it meant to be "an environmnetalist.".

Here's what some of you had to say...

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To me, being an environmentalist means I realize my place in the ecosystem. It is not a matter of some perceived moral responsibilities, but making choices on what sort of environment I wish to live in and want to surround me. I prefer my environment to be as ascetically pleasing and self-renewing as possible. Protecting what has evolved naturally over billions of years over non-renewing, man-made environments makes sense to me. It is simply good economics.

Steve Hopstaken

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My definition of an environmentalist is someone who is concerned about the health, balance, diversity, and preservation of non-human living systems, the natural systems that sustain them (and by definition, humans), and limiting adverse human impact on them

As an aside, I believe your guest Mark Hertsgaard has fallen into the trap of believing nature is present chiefly to support humans and this has ledhim to the unrealistic conclusion that population growth is not a problem. Raising the living standard of the poor will only shift/accelerate resource consumption, as the American model has shown. Perhaps limited population combined with high education levels would help, but the natural environment is at the mercy of modern culture and the only practical(?) way to limit it is to limit the number of people.

Al Unger

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To be "an environmentalist" means a person who cares and takes care of the world "earth". someone who helps our plant keep in good health.

LLopez

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To really respect life on earth, one must be willing to see the total number of human beings NOT increase above the present level, and to see that number DECREASE as old age and other causes reduce the present number of people alive. Each person either lives in misery, or consumes a certain portion of all available resources. There are NOT ENOUGH RESOURCES! That is true RIGHT NOW, not at some hypothetical future time. Every child that is born above the number needed to replace people who die, is an unintentional threat to life on earth. Every couple which produces a chile that they can not care for or love are ECOLOGICAL CRIMINALS. PSEUDO-ECOLOGY, in which electric cars use the equivalent energy of 3.7 miles per gallon of gasoline and fossil fueled power plants pour out more incidental radioactive material than equivalent nuclear power plants, will HARM the earth.

Alec Hamilton

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I am listening to your program right now. I thought you might like to discus how environmentalism is being backed on-line. I work with a company E-Cards that is hosting an Earth Day / Earth Week event on the net. Much of the activity on our site supports World Wildlife Fund. We set aside a large portion of our revenues for environmental causes. People using our site DO seem to like using our site because of this environmental association. Maybe a big change since the first Earth Day 29 years ago is Corporate Environmentalism. Not all, but many corporations are pursuing very interesting environmental agendas.

Robb Waterman

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We humans cause the gratest negative impact on the planet. As long as the human population continues to increase, the problems we cause can only get worse. What can be done to address this issue?

Reed Lacy

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One enviromental topic that is taboo in the media is the ecological cost of the Standard American Diet (SAD). Whether it is factory-farm pollution, deforestation, cow flatulence contributing to the greenhouse effect, or the amount of food and water wasted to produce livestock (protein that could have fed starving millions), the costs of eating so high on the food chain are enormous. Sadly, corporate "greenwashing" has kept these issues from the public-at-large. McDonalds receives good environmental ratings from opinion polls, thanks to a partnership with EDF. (Toxic Sludge is Good For You, Chap. 9, Stauber & Rampton, 1995, Common Courage Press.) By simply changing to brown paper bags and printing recycling messages, they can be seen as an environmentally responsible organization, while the real issues go unacknowledged. It scares me to hear that such a large percentage of Americans consider themselves to be environmentalists. It is my opinion that one cannot claim to be an environmentalist and still continue to eat as if there were only 1000000 people on the planet. To do this is merely lip service, not true environmentalism.

mpno.

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Hard work! Dedication!1. Educating all our children to reduce, reuse, recycle.

2. Political activism (an 8 hour a day job).

3. Hands-on activism-volunteerism.

Not necessarily in this order.

Bruce Bernard

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I just heard your show and have some comments. I am a social and political conservative, but a deeply concerned environmentalist. It was apparent that both your guests were "liberal" by their comments regarding corporations, The Wall Street Journal, and government activism. The host, perhaps inadvertently, followed the guests resounding approval of government activism by a question about population. This brought an uncomfortable mumbling reaction from the guests revealing their smug hypocricy by their open refusal to deal seriously with the population issue. As long as liberal environmentalists are unwilling to sacrifice some of their sacred cows on the same altar as the conservatives, environmentalism will be perceived as a partisan political wedge issue, not the critical transendental problem that it truly is.

Bob Fromuth

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