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Environmentalism

By Jim Shepard

Courtesy of The Outdoor Wire

Yesterday, I received an email from a reader, wanting to know my "exact" position on environmentalism. When I started to answer the request, I realized that I really didn't have a clear answer. I'm not sure whether I'm an "environmentalist" or a "conservationist". In a litmus test, I think I'm probably neither. Or maybe both.

Like many of my generation, I draw very little differentiation between "environmentalism" and "conservation." I grew up on a farm in Kentucky, belonged to Conservation and 4-H Clubs, the Boy Scouts and Junior Achievement. I was taught in the school of real life that we have an obligation to replenish the soil, avoid sullying the water supply, and cannot discount the value of "the outdoors."

By my definition, that's a "conservationist" - an average guy who tries to leave wild areas on his property, keeps watersheds unpolluted, doesn't litter, and always leaves a clean campsite behind. Joe Average.

An "environmentalist" however, isn't necessarily a positive description to me anymore. Now, don't get me wrong. I believe protecting the environment. However, I will not chain myself to trees, break into research facilities and "free" animals, nor firebomb chicken processors. I'm not ever for terrorism -even "eco-terrorism."

At the same time, I don't believe in clear-cutting timber, strip mining (I am from Kentucky), burning rainforests, wiping out species, nor animal testing if there are suitable alternatives. I don't particularly care for zoos, aquariums or pets dressed in stupid clothes and confined to apartments.

I do not hold animals in equality with man. I believe that a man's poor conduct points more to his individual depravity than the nobility and equality of the animals.

When you shuck it right down to the cob (Kentucky again), I consider myself a moderate. Today, it's unfortunate, but we seem to have removed that option from our discourse. People getting "face time" these days are absolutists. Moderation is drowned out by the shrill voices clamoring to be proven, well, absolutely right.

During my many years in network television and mainstream media, my colleagues generally viewed me as somewhere to the right of Ronald Reagan. The general public saw all of "the media" as liberals. Again, I'm a little bit of both.

I believe in God, the sanctity of human life, and the importance of the rights granted by the United States Constitution. I for both color - and gender - blindness; even if it means qualified people get jobs at the expense of artificially imposed quota systems.

While I have called environmental extremists "well-meaning dunderheads" on numerous occasions. I also believe the opposite extreme equally in error. However, I will defend the rights of all "well-meaning dunderheads" to speak their minds, but never impose their wills. Better men than I have died to protect that right - for all of us.

Conservationist? Environmentalist? I'm neither - at least not in an absolute sense.