THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 265, November 10, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ELECTRICITY, PARKS, & PROGRESS FOR CHILE:
Apply CSR Standards to Doug Thomkins for
Honesty, Transparency, & Concern for People
By Paul K. Driessen
ENVIRONMENTALISTS THWARTING ENERGY & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN CHILE: THE DESTRUCTIVE WORK OF
DOUG TOMKINS & THE DEEP ECOLOGY MOVEMENT IN CHILE'S PATAGONIA REGION -- SAVING THE PLANET, OR ENERGY &
ECONOMIC ECO-IMPERIALISM?
FULL STORY:
Progress improves lives. It brings better, cleaner, more energy efficient technology. It reduces poverty and improves working
conditions, health, nutrition, living standards, and social equity. It generates revenues to pay employees, churches and taxes,
support government programs, and protect the environment.
There can be no progress without investors, inventors, innovators, and businessmen – or without developing energy,
minerals, forest products, agriculture, and the economy.
People engaged in these enterprises should provide quality products and services, at fair prices, to create jobs and meet
people’s needs. They should be honest and ethical in their dealings with customers, employees, neighbors, and regulators;
transparent in their dealings with others; and accountable for their mistakes. That is the meaning of corporate social
responsibility.
CSR also means providing consumer products and reliable, affordable energy, with minimal pollution, so that people can cook,
heat their homes, travel, and work.
American billionaire, Chilean landowner and development opponent Doug Tompkins does not agree. He became wealthy
through manufacturing and global trade – by making expensive clothing in big factories, from organic cotton, petrochemicals,
and metals that required more land, water, mining, oil drilling, and electricity to produce. He is a capitalist and industrialist,
who took advantage of modern technology and the global economy to get rich.
But now that he is rich, Tompkins has become a leader of the Deep Ecology movement, which claims the world faces an
environmental apocalypse. Now he opposes modern technology, energy, economic development, and global trade for Chile.
Now he says trade, development, consumerism, fossil fuel use, and cheap energy are not sustainable. Now he says they will
cause catastrophic climate change and a collapse of ecosystems.
He has targeted Chile, because it has rich mineral resources, ecological treasures, and a successful free market economy.
He thinks it is OK for him to travel the world, have multiple homes and enjoy a very comfortable life. But it is not OK for Chile
to develop further, generate more electricity, and ensure greater progress and opportunity for its people.
His Deep Ecology Foundation and other American pro-environmentalist, anti-development foundations give millions of
dollars every year to environmentalist groups, to oppose HidroAysen, other electricity projects, and economic development
in Chile. They also bought land in Chile. They say it was to “preserve ecosystems and genetic banks.” It was really to create
kayaking and hiking areas for themselves, and block north-south travel, transmission lines, economic development, and true
social equity in Chile.
The environmentalist foundations and activist groups are all corporations. They should operate according to the CSR
standards they demand for profit-making corporations. But Tompkins and his corporations believe they should be held to
different standards.
They think they should be allowed to exaggerate or misrepresent science, use scare stories that have no basis in fact, and be
less than honest about what they are doing. They see no need to be transparent about who is getting paid how much by
whom, to oppose electricity and economic progress.
They think they have a right to dictate Chile’s future, keep families from achieving their economic dreams, and reduce
government revenues and people’s living standards, by preventing new development.
In Uganda, Ghana, South Africa, and other impoverished countries – where 95% of the people never have electricity or have
it only a few hours a week – the same environmentalist groups and their allies block electricity development, prevent the use
of insecticides that could save millions of lives from malaria, and oppose modern seeds and agriculture that could reduce
malnutrition and save more lives.
These foundations and environmentalist groups think they should not be held accountable for their dishonest and unethical
actions, or the harm they cause to jobs, health and lives of people in these countries.
The fact is, their campaign against energy and economic development is based largely on deceptive, misleading, and blatantly
false claims that would land businessmen, bankers, and stockbrokers in jail.
Deep Ecologist claims about imminent man-made catastrophic climate change, oil and gas depletion, ecological cataclysms,
and virtues of wind and solar power over traditional electricity generation are based on assumptions, assertions, a smattering
of anecdotal evidence, and, in some cases, computer models and scenarios that bear little or no resemblance to observed
reality. They insist that conservation alone will free up enough spare electricity that more power plants won't be needed.
And yet, despite an absence of any factual, replicable evidence to support these claims, they have been made the
foundation for intense, well-funded pressure campaigns intended to drive public policies that raise energy and consumer
prices, destroy jobs, and hurt poor and middle class families.
That is immoral. It is eco-imperialism and environmental colonialism.
Every country should have the right to decide its own future, based on factual science and economics – and, after open,
honest discussions and debates that consider all feasible options, the economic and environmental risks and benefits of
each alternative, and the informed wishes of their people.
Too often, well-funded environmentalist groups obstruct this process, misrepresent the facts, prevent progress, reduce
people’s choices and opportunities, and harm the health and living standards of families and communities.
Chile is blessed with magnificent ecosystems, natural resources, and smart, hard-working people. It can have a prosperous
future, and preserve its magnificent environment. It does not have to sacrifice that future on the altar of Deep Ecology.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Latin America -- Economics, Politics, Political Regimes,
& Relations with the United States of America:
Problems & Opportunities for the U.S.A.
Africa South of the Sahara -- Black Africa
Conservative columnist and political commentator and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death,
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), the Congress Of
Racial Equality (CORE), the Center For The Defense Of Free Enterprise (CDFE), and the Atlas Economic Research
Foundation. Driessen has served on the Staffs of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Department of Interior, as well as on that of
an energy trade association. He has often spoken and written on such topics as environmentalism, global climate change,
global warming alarmism, corporate social responsibility, and public policies relating to energy, the environment, and
economic development.
Driessen earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology and Field Ecology at Lawrence University, Appleton,
Wisconsin, and his Juris Doctor (JD) at the University of Denver College of Law. He received accreditation in Public
Relations from the Public Relations Society of America, New York, N.Y.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity