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Environmental Corruption: A Cascade of Lies

By Alan Caruba

Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute and a former senior policy analyst for the US Department of State, recently took note of sanctions applied to Steven R. Arnold, a former researcher at the Tulane University Center for Bioenvironmental Research. The Federal Office of Research Integrity found that Arnold had "committed scientific misconduct by intentionally falsifying the research results published in the Journal Science and by providing falsified and fabricated materials to investigating officials."

His punishment? He will be unable to receive federal research funding for five years. Avery called it "one of the most dramatic scientific frauds of modern times," noting that the Tulane Center said it found that various pesticides, safe when tested individually, were 1,000 times more dangerous when tested together. It raised the specter of modern agriculture’s chemicals undermining the health of the human population and the natural ecology through a blind spot in our regulatory testing." And it was a lie.

This is part of the campaign of endless lies designed to secure the ban of every single pesticide and herbicide that protects human health against insect and rodent predators, and the vast food crops produced by American farmers. In 1996 a book was published, "Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival? – A Scientific Detective Story." Written by Theo Colbert, even the author her book admitted it was based on mere suspicions. It has been cited, however, as proof of yet another bogus threat conjured up by environmentalists. "

The book speculated that man-made chemicals were causing ailments ranging from cancer to attention deficit disorder by disrupting our endocrine systems," noted Avery. The book’s forward was written by then Vice President Al Gore. When Arnold’s falsified research was published in 1996, Carol Browner, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said, "The new study is the strongest evidence to date that combinations of estrogenic materials may be potent enough to significantly increase the risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer, birth defects and other major health concerns."

As we now know, there is no such evidence, except that purposely created to further the goal of the environmental movement to end the use of pesticides and herbicides. Beginning with Rachel Carson’s bogus and discredited "science" in "Silent Spring", this attack on beneficial chemicals has never ceased.

In a similar fashion, Michael Bellesile’s book, "Arming America" was seized upon by gun-control advocates as having demolished "the myth" that individuals have the right to gun ownership. The book asserted that private gun ownership was uncommon in early America. It turns out that the author deliberately misinterpreted Colonial documents, misquoted early federal laws, distorted historical accounts, and cited San Francisco records that experts agree were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.

The willingness to lie regarding environmental issues was revealed in December when it was found that federal and state wildlife biologists had planted false evidence of a rare cat species in two national forests, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Wenatchee National Forest in Washington State. This is the same forest area that the Earth Liberation Front has recently boasted of "spiking" trees in order to do injury to lumberjacks culling trees for purposes of forest management.

Now comes another report of "bio-fraud" where a Washington State fish and wildlife biologist is alleged to have asked a taxidermist for grizzly bear hair samples in March of last year. The use of such hair samples could have been used to taint a study of grizzly bear habitat, ultimately affecting recreation, timber, mining, road construction and other uses of throughout the State. Officials are beginning to wonder just how much of this kind of deliberate deception has been at work at the state and federal level to achieve the environmental goals of shutting down essential industries and the recreational use of public lands. One is reminded of the "Spotted Owl" hoax that devastated the timber industry throughout the Pacific Northwest.

The cascade of lies about everything environmental should, by now, have convinced the public that US government officials responsible for setting national policies and environmental groups seeking to determine what those policies should be cannot be trusted. The public, however, has rarely paid any attention to anything than the lies published by a compliant and complacent mainstream media that has fully adopted the goals of the environmental and animal rights movements.

The costs of these policies are astronomical. Billions of dollars are wasted on wasteful programs said to "protect" the environment. Billions of dollars are going to be allocated to States and environmental groups to put more and more land aside from any use. Late on the evening of December 20^th, the Senate, without any public debate or a recall vote, passed S-990, The American Wildlife Enhancement Act of 2001. We will never know who voted for this act. This was the same tactic used to pass the UN Convention on Desertification. Now $600 million in taxpayer dollars will be given out for "the acquisition of an area of land or water that is suitable or capable of being made suitable for feeding, resting or breeding by wildlife." Translation: Any property can be designated for virtual seizure. One can only pray the President will veto this full-scale attack on property rights in America.

This is how environmental groups achieve their goals. They are goals based in a consuming hatred of humankind and its need for food and shelter. They are goals that are intended to undermine and destroy America’s economic power, based on access to its vast natural resources. They are goals intended to strip Americans of the most fundamental right of self-defense. They are the goals of those who believe they are morally superior to you and I, and therefore have the right to subvert the truth to achieve total control over our lives and our nation.

While Americans look to the Middle East and elsewhere, fearful of terrorist organizations intent on harming our lives and our society, they continue to ignore the internal enemies who, by stealth and deception, work to destroy the progress of real science that protects and extends our lives, and to undermine our most fundamental Constitutional protections.

If we lose this struggle, it will be because of our inertia and indifference. The environmentalists, animal rights, and gun control advocates are counting on that.