The Random Good One Can Do in the World

My dislike for the environmentalist writer Edward Abbey is well-documented. Not only do I think he is bad for the environmental movement, he was a racist bastard.

Turns out my collection of racist Abbey quotes linked to above are on Abbey's wikipedia page. I'm surprised I haven't been hounded by his followers for attacking their hero. But if I turn one good environmentally-minded person from this anti-humanist than I've made the world a slightly better place. Abbey played a major role in turning the environmental movement away from connecting with large numbers of Americans over issues of pollution and the body and toward focusing on keeping humans out of "wilderness," whatever that actually is.

Edward Abbey Racist Quotes

My long battle against Edward Abbey's influence over the environmental movement continues. See here and here for a couple of examples. Here are a few of Abbey's most choice quotes, taken from Jake Kosek's very interesting book Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico, published by Duke in 2006. See page 161 for the quotes.

"I certainly do not wish to live in a society dominated by blacks, Mexicans, and Orientals. Look at Africa, Mexico, and Asia."

"Garrett Hardin (writer of Tragedy of the Commons) compares our situation to an over-crowded lifeboat in a sea of drowning bodies. If we take more aboard, the boat will be swamped and we'll go under. [We must] militarize our borders [against illegal immigration]. The lifeboat is listing."

"It might be wise for us, as American citizens, to consider calling a halt to the mass influx of even more millions of hungry, ignorant, unskilled, and culturally-morally-genetically, impoverished people...Why not [support immigration]? Because we prefer democratic government, for one thing; because we still hope for an open, spacious, uncrowded, and beautiful--yes beautiful!--society, for another. The alternative, in the squalor, cruelty and corruption of Latin America, is plain for all to see."

The sooner we purge the influence of Ed Abbey from American environmentalism, the better off the movement will be.

Edward Abbey, Racist

Just in case any one needs a reminder of what an awful person Edward Abbey was, allow me to quote a 1988 anti-immigration screed where he called immigrants a bunch of, "hungry, ignorant, unskilled, and culturally-morally-genetically impoverished people."

Not the kind of person environmentalists should be looking at heroically.