Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization.

IT IS difficult to take seriously a book that is dedicated to, among others, "Owl, Ferret, Spruce, River, Stone." In a perfect world a book like Green Rage, which argues that we must recognize the civil rights of "tree people" and "rock people"meaning not humans, but the trees and rocks themselves-would be classified as science fiction or humor.

But in this imperfect world, a Republican Administration seems willing to sacrifice thousands of jobs so a few owls will have an easier time procreating. In this world, when two hippies from Christopher Manes's ecological terrorist group Earth First! accidentally blow up their own car, the local journalistic establishment (in this case San Francisco's Chronicle and Examiner) immediately assumes an FBI plot. In this world, an ecoterrorist group names its latest campaign "Mississippi Redwood Summer"-equating trees with blacks disfranchised in the Old South-and are praised for their "idealism." And, in this world, Mr. Manes, by arguing without humorous intent for man's return to a semi-nomadic hunter/gatherer existence, may well help do for ecological terrorism what Marx did for socialist terrorism: legitimize an irrational egalitarian program through false logic and intellectual dishonesty.

Mr. Manes's writing tools include everything from the big lie of "global warming" (the magical formula he substitutes for Marx's "contradictions of capitalism") to smaller dishonesties (like his portrayal of German antinuclear rioters as "peaceful demonstrators" and police as perpetrators of "institutionalized terrorism") to obfuscations like his claim that ecoterrorists are nonviolent-wontradicted later in his own book when he blames the Military-Industrial Complex for his confreres' acts of violence, even murder (specifically a fatal "antinuclear" bombing in Spain). Rhetorical tricks are a vital element of this book, since Manes's clear intention is to convince readers of his moral rectitude before they reach his bizarre and brutal argument for the "unmaking of civilization."

The often-noted similarities between environmental extremism and the ideological mass hysterias of the past are based on rather ugly common assumptions. For ecoterrorists share with Marxists, as with Nazis, the disdain for mankind which is the font of our century's ideologically inspired enormities. Nazis acted on the assumption that all non-Aryans were subhuman and so properly subject to Aryan whims. Marxists assume that all men in the pre-Communist state are less than human; only the mythical "new socialist man" is human, so actual men are used as expendable material in his production. For ecoterrorists such as Manes, man is no more "interesting," developed," or important than lichen or bacteria. Man's needs and his very life have no special status; at best he is equal to bacteria and at worst a "poisonous" infestation.

Earth-stones included-must come first. Thus Manes calls for "an end to all commercial logging; the restoration of large wilderness areas on what is now developed land by removing roads, dams, and other technological intrusions ... the elimination of the automobile, coal-fired power plants, and manufacturing processes using petrochemicals . . . and, most important, the reduction of the human population to an ecologically sustainable level." What Earth requires, in short, is an end to civilization and to the vast majority of "relatively expendable" human lives.

Using radical-chic jargon (and misreadings of everyone from John Locke to Immanuel Kant that are barely worthy of contempt), Manes attacks the "civilization complex" (the "pathological" assumption that man is superior to, and so may oppress," trees, animals, and rocks). More important to Manes's arguments are superficial discussions of the Nazi Martin Heidegger, the deranged deconstructionist Michel Foucault, the environmental pseudoscientist Paul Ehrlich, and the Marxist Herbert Marcuse. And, like those on whom he relies, Manes is quite willing to see the vast majority of mankind die in the name of his political project. Even those who survive his anti-human program will have little in the way of sanitation or medical care-such as Manes's own eyeglasses-to make their lives lengthy or healthy, let alone civilized.

Manes smugly lists ecoterrorist practices ranging from tree spikings to riots to bazooka attacks on nuclear-power plants. Such irrational terrorists (convinced that the "grizzly bear doesn't think wilderness is elitist") probably will not gain democratic power directly. One hopes men will refuse to vote for the elimination of civilized arts and manners. One can be certain that men will refuse to vote for the elimination of cars and television.

But by Manes's own account, ecoterrorism already has caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage-as well as numerous maimings, murders and the danger of a nuclear catastrophe. And, just as important, ecoterrorism has made environmental groups as radical and irrational as Friends of the Earth and even Greenpeace appear "moderate."

"Moderate" environmental groups do not seek to "unmake" civilization; they seek to bankrupt it. The sacrifice of human well-being for the spotted owl and the snail darter, months- and years-long environmental-impact studies and other anti-industrial reforms" all began , as "moderate" environmental proposals. And once enough dams and nuclear-power plants have been blown up and enough $22-billion per-year "Clean Air Acts" have been put into effect, civilization will be bankrupt. Then the mass starvation, forced homelessness, and general rebarbarization so longed for by ecoterrorists can begin.

With the demise of Communism as an ideological force, environmental extremists pose the single greatest threat to civilized life. In the name of the "obvious" good of unobtainably clean air and water these animistic barbarians will continue to be a serious (if ludicrous) threat-at least until intimidating lies like "global warming" are generally recognized for what they are.

Manes is working on a PhD in English at the University of Oregon and a law degree at Berkeley. His commitment to environmental issues spans an entire twentieth of a century. His book, for which so many of our tree friends gave their all, is uncommonly shallow, adolescent, and dishonest. He is thus assured of a bright future in the American academy.