Yet another template-follower from the Society
of Environmentalist Journalists -- this time the
Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin -- today delivered her
latest advocacy piece for Red/Green
causes. You need not read past her lede to understand where
she's coming from:
More than a decade ago in the northeast corner of Bolivia,
a group of polluters and environmentalists joined forces in the
first large-scale experiment to curb climate change with a
strategy that promised to suit their competing interests:
compensating for greenhouse gas emissions by preserving
forests.
Who are the so-called "polluters" in this story? You needn't be
surprised that it's a "coalition of U.S. utility companies." So
how do you like that -- a so-called objective journalist placing
a negative value judgment on one of the subjects for her story?
Making matters worse is that the alleged pollutant she is talking
about is CO2, an invisible gas that is essential for life.
I've got some other ideas if this is how we're going to identify
subjects in articles. Here are some possible alternatives for
utility companies: "Massive job providers," "inexpensive energy
producers," and "life-saving" or "life-extending energy
producers."
Meanwhile, here are a few of my suggestions to identify what
Eilperin innocuously calls "environmentalists:" "shakedown
artists," "Gaia freaks," "rent-seekers," "people-haters," "Earth
worshippers," and "economy busters."
Of course Eilperin doesn't stop there. She calls the Bolivian
project an effort to keep a "biologically rich preserve of more
than 6,000 square miles free from logging...," as though that was
a good thing. What does "biologically rich" mean, anyway? Is this
supposed to have some kind of wealth or abundance value that is
meaningful to someone or something? If so, to whom, or to what?
And why? As far as I'm concerned, keeping valuable timber off
limits to use for human purposes, to improve their health and
standard of living, is a bad thing. But in the warped,
upside-down world of Eilperin and her fellow SEJ elites, it's all
great!
Marc Morano at Climate
Depot has
kept up with Eilperin's work, and it is truly abysmal,
especially if you believe in reasonably balanced reporting
(she
doesn't) and the value of human life over phony, manufactured
environmental issues. A self-respecting news organization that
calls itself objective would either put her on the opinion page
or drop her, but that's
not what the Post is.
topics:
Mainstream Media, Environmentalism
