SAVING `NATURE'; UNABOMBER'S BELIEFS' NOT SO DIFFERENT FROM TREE HUGGERS'.

Byline: Robert W. Tracinski

AS Ted Kaczynski goes on trial for the terrorist attacks attributed to the Unabomber, many are lamenting the bad press he has brought to the environmentalist movement. How unfortunate, the general sentiment goes, that the actions of one lone madman should tarnish such an admirable cause. He is not one of us, environmentalists adamantly declare.

Isn't he?

In the cause of preserving wild nature, the Unabomber, in his ``manifesto,'' calls for a revolution against the industrial system. He acknowledges that, as a result, ``many people will die'' because the world's population ``cannot even feed itself . . . without advanced technology.'' But such deaths must be accepted ``stoically,'' he claims, because they are ``part of the nature of things.'' It is urgent to preserve an untouched nature, the Unabomber asserts, even if the effects on human life are disastrous.

Is this philosophy different in principle from the views of mainstream environmentalists? Is this different from the elevation of the welfare of the snail darter and the spotted owl above the welfare of man? Isn't the Unabomber adopting the environmentalists' objective of defending nature by restricting industry and technology? Leaving aside the question of the Unabomber's methods for the moment, isn't his basic goal - his fundamental value - identical to that of environmentalists?

When a drug called taxol, found in the bark of the yew tree, was discovered to be an effective treatment for breast and ovarian cancer, environmentalists, to save the forests, blocked large-scale harvesting. What about the people dying of cancer? Nature, they said, has priority.

Malaria, which is carried by mosquitoes, was almost eradicated worldwide when the man-made pesticide DDT was still being used. Today, with the environmentalists having lobbied to ban DDT, a resurgence of malaria is killing about 5 million people every year. Yet, while the alleged effects of DDT on birds generated horrified outrage on the part of environmentalists, the incontestable destruction of human life caused by the absence of DDT generates only indifference.

These are not isolated instances. The environmentalists consistently oppose industrial and technological development in case after case - whether it is the irradiation of food to kill deadly bacteria, the construction of dams to provide clean water and electricity, or the clearing of bug-infested swampland to make room for houses and shopping malls. They oppose it - and are willing to pay the price in human misery and deaths.

Mainstream environmentalists proclaim the preservation of nature ought to be valued above human interests. Well, the Unabomber is merely taking that idea seriously. As the noted environmentalist Kirkpatrick Sale has said: ``The problem is technology is overwhelming us psychologically, economically, socially. I think that has to be on the agenda and talked about. And I think that's exactly what the Unabomber succeeded in doing.''

According to one of the defense lawyers in the World Trade Center bombing case, the mass media portrayed Kaczynski ``as a pop hero, a rebel who was protesting the encroaching oppression of technology.'' Given the premise that technology is oppressive, he is a pop hero. The Unabomber embraces the essential tenet of environmentalism - that the man-made is abhorrent, that the ``natural'' is noble, and that man must be sacrificed to nature.

Now, most environmentalists ostensibly condemn the Unabomber. They say the Unabomber's methods are antithetical to theirs. They insist they do not support the killing of people in pursuit of environmental goals.

But don't they?

Does it matter to the woman dying of cancer that the man standing in the way of a cure is not a mad bomber but a lawyer for the Audubon Society? Does it matter to the African father whose child has died from malaria that the death was caused by procedures that a bureaucrat followed, not by a terrorist?

Will we be better off because it was done by legislation rather than terrorism when the effects of environmentalism become more evident - when food rots in the homes of those who lack refrigeration because CFCs have been banned and the alternatives are too costly, when houses are unheated because the use of fossil fuels has been curtailed, when farmers cannot grow enough food because chemical fertilizers and pesticides have been prohibited, when we are denied life-saving new medicines because genetic engineering has been outlawed?

Kaczynski's prosecutors have argued they should be allowed to ask for the death penalty because the Unabomber's writings show a hatred of people. It is time to ask whether the same accusation can be leveled against the environmentalist movement as a whole.

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Photo: It's now illegal for Gregg Johnson to light up in Weber's Place in Reseda.

Tina Gerson/Daily News