University of Oklahoma Graduate College

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE EXTINGUISHING THE GREEN FIRE: THE RISE OF OPPOSITION TO ENVIRONMENTALISM, 1948-2010 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By KATRINA LACHER Norman, Oklahoma 2011 EXTINGUISHING THE GREEN FIRE: THE RISE OF OPPOSITION TO ENVIRONMENTALISM, 1948-2010 A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY ______________________________ Dr. Sterling Evans, Chair ______________________________ Dr. Donald J. Pisani, Co-Chair ______________________________ Dr. Robert Griswold ______________________________ Dr. Warren Metcalf ______________________________ Dr. Katherine Pandora © Copyright by KATRINA LACHER 2011 All Rights Reserved. For Danny Acknowledgements Long-distance runners and graduate students often appear as lone and solitary figures – running along the shoulder of a deserted road or hunched over a stack of books in an equally desolate library. However, just as a skilled and dedicated cadre of coaches is often behind every successful marathoner, this dissertation would not be possible without a support team of “coaches,” “trainers,” “nutritionists,” and the like. I remain in awe of the selfless effort and numerous acts of kindness of many friends, relatives, colleagues, and mentors. The University of Oklahoma was an ideal environment to learn how to be a scholar. In particular, I wish to thank Cliff Hudson for the generous opportunities afforded by the Hudson Family Fellowship. Research grants from the University of Oklahoma Graduate College, the University Foundation, and the Department of History allowed me to travel to archives from coast to coast, literally, Maine to California. I offer my sincere thanks to the tireless efforts of the departmental support staff of Kelly Guinn, Rhonda George, and Barbara Million who helped to decode university procedures and expedited reimbursement. I extend my deep appreciation and admiration to the archivists at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections, the Linda Lear Center for Special Collections at Connecticut College, the Marist Environmental History Collections, the Western History Collection at the Denver Public Library, the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. The librarians at the above archives gave generously of their time and expertise. I look forward to visiting them again in the future. In addition, I iv am grateful for the hospitality of Alex and Tom Fogarty, Christopher and Kelli Hammond, and Jeremy Larance and Paula Makris who opened their homes and made research travel quite enjoyable and enlivening. Throughout my academic journey, a stellar team of intellectual “coaches” offered the perfect mix of encouragement, reassurance, and rigor. I wish to thank Professor Woody Register at Sewanee who reignited my passion for twentieth-century United States history. While a master’s student at Boston College, Professors Crystal Feimster, Kevin Kenny, James O’Toole, and David Quigley sagely shepherded me as I explored topics and learned how to be a historian. I thank them all for encouraging me to pursue a doctoral degree. In Norman, I was lucky to work with and learn from leading scholars and rising stars in the fields of environmental history and history of the American West. My fellow graduate students offered well-timed debate on baseball, beer, and local politics. I would like to thank my seminar professors who helped make me a better writer particularly, Professors Ben Alpers, Jim Cane- Carrasco, Ben Keppel, and Joshua Piker. Through my research assistantship with Professor David Chappell, I had the opportunity to observe a passionate and scrupulous scholar at work. I remain appreciative of his continued interest in my projects. My doctoral committee shared my enthusiasm in my topic from the start and I am grateful to Professors Rob Griswold, Warren Metcalf, and Katherine Pandora for their time and meticulous attention to my work. I am deeply indebted to my advisors, Professors Donald J. Pisani and Sterling Evans, who motivated, emboldened, and sharpened my thinking and writing. Their commitment to and investment in their graduate students is exemplary. v Instrumental in helping my father earn his PhD in biochemistry several moons ago, my mother, Anne Marie Nelson, was invaluable throughout my graduate career. Though she did not have to format protein-chain formulas on a Smith-Corona this time around, her enthusiasm and encouragement are nevertheless evident on every single page. I reserve my final thanks to my husband, Danny, and our children, Finn and Luna. To my kiddos, whose curiosity, affection, and downright silliness are a blessing and an inspiration, I am forever grateful. I dedicate this work to my husband, whose patience and support are unmatched. This dissertation would not be possible without his love, friendship, and good humor. vi Table of Contents Introduction: Anti-Environmentalism and the Postwar United States / 1 Chapter 1: Postwar Ecology Writers, 1948-1968 / 13 Chapter 2: Critics of Earth Day, 1970 / 55 Chapter 3: Environmentalism in a Time of Recession, 1973-1983 / 92 Chapter 4: The Rise of Conservatism and the Institutionalization of Environmental Opposition, 1980-1988 / 131 Chapter 5: Turn of the Century Violence, Real and Imagined, 1989-2010 / 177 Conclusion: The “Paranoid Style” of Environmental Opposition / 224 Bibliography / 246 vii Abstract This dissertation identifies the origins and characteristics of late-twentieth century opposition to environmentalism in the United States. I argue that a diverse set of critics cultivated a loose network of ideas, tactics, and arguments in order to challenge specific environmental measures as well as environmentalism more broadly. Though debates over environmental initiatives were about clean air, habitat protection, and wilderness designations, they were also fundamentally about competing visions of America’s political and economic future. Politicians, industry representatives, business boosters, public intellectuals, and average citizens used critiques of environmentalism to promote an image of the United States as affluent, dominant, and orderly. Often capitalizing on the prevailing cultural and economic climate, anti- environmentalists reflected contemporary fears and desires. In short, throughout the second half of the twentieth and into the twenty-first century, environmental politics became a vehicle for debating the course of U.S. politics, culture, and economy. viii INTRODUCTION – Anti-Environmentalism and the Postwar United States In a spring 2011 direct-mail letter, Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, founder of the Cornwall Alliance, a non-profit, educational organization “for the stewardship of creation,” wrote to warn fellow Christians that environmentalism was “so deceptive and all-encompassing, that it is one of the most cunning tools ever created by those seeking to subvert our Christian values, indoctrinate our youth, trash our economy, and destroy your liberty.” Worried that “America’s sovereignty is at grave risk,” Beisner recommended tactics for identifying and resisting the dangers of environmentalism. How did Beisner come to hold these views? Was he alone in fearing the rise of a tyrannical “global Green government?”1 As concerned citizens encouraged environmental legislation, activism, and awareness throughout the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, a coterie of critics expressed apprehension and fear of environmentalism. Challenging both the leaders and the grassroots participants of the environmental movement, opponents such as Beisner, argued that the popular new ecological consciousness not only threatened U.S. economic prosperity, but also the broader “American way of life.” Variously portraying environmentalists as elitists, pagans, anti-humanists, technophobes, and socialists, critics questioned the motives and “American-ness” of environmental activists and writers. By the end of the twentieth century, commentators also increasingly depicted direct-action environmentalists and their supporters as “ecoterrorists.” 1 Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, June 15, 2011, Cornwall Alliance For the Stewardship of Creation, Burke, VA, in author’s possession. 1 This dissertation endeavors to identify the origins and characteristics of late- twentieth century opposition to environmentalism in the United States. I argue that a diverse set of critics cultivated a loose network of ideas, tactics, and arguments that they deployed to challenge specific environmental measures as well as environmentalism more broadly. Drawing on an enduring and flexible ideological arsenal, opponents questioned writers from Rachel Carson to Bill McKibben, challenged the legitimacy of groups as varied as the Sierra Club and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and protested proposed legislation from the Wilderness Act to the Kyoto Protocol. As varied and multi-issued as the nebulous environmental movement itself, the corresponding anti-environmental movement offered competing visions and goals for the United States in the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. As I examine how and why critics opposed environmentalists, environmental legislation, and the environmental movement in general, I analyze how individuals and organizations expressed their fears of environmental thought, activism, and legislation. Ultimately, I conclude that as critics developed, popularized, and institutionalized

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