Eco-Imperialism: Green Power Black Death [Paperback]

Paul Driessen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2010

Reveals a dark secret of the ideological environmental movement. The movement imposes the views of mostly wealthy, comfortable Americans and Europeans on mostly poor, desperate Africans, Asians and Latin Americans. It violates these people's most basic human rights, denying them economic opportunities, the chance for better lives, the right to rid their countries of diseases that were vanquished long ago in Europe and the United States.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is the first one I've seen that tells the truth and lays it on the line." -- Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder

Developing countries need to be free to make their own decisions how to improve their people's lives. Great book!" -- CS Prakash, Professor of plant genetics, Tuskegee University

Eco-Imperalism provides terrific intellectual ammunition and is outstandingly written." -- Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Toward Tradition

About the Author

Paul Driessen is a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, which are nonprofit public policy institutes.During a 25-year career that included staff tenures with the United States Senate, Department of Interior and an energy trade association he has spoken and written frequently.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Merril Press (January 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0939571234
• ISBN-13: 978-0939571239
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,000,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

119 of 133 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable, March 9, 2004

By 

S. Rome "sterlingrome" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eco-Imperialism: Green Power Black Death (Paperback)

There is no greater way to underline the point of Paul Driessen's brilliant and meticulously foot-noted book than to read the review here that blindly criticizes it (from a brave anonymous reader). Just for a start the book and its message is endorsed by the man who FOUNDED Greenpeace - and that message is that the Radical Environmental movement has become so entrenched in dogma and a vision of a world without people that they summarily ignore the suffering, famine, disease, and death of millions.

These radical groups are incredibly well-funded, untaxed, and totally unaccountable. What's worse is that they flatly refuse to engage in any debate whatsoever. They expect their followers to toe the line or be immediately dismissed as corporate ghouls.

Driessen's review of their history and tactics is accurate, verifiable and horrifying. Anyone in politics, the media, or even the environmental movement itself ought to read this book and consider what it says. Driessen gives a voice, and a platform, to the people who are actually affected by decisions made by world bodies, NGO's, and pressure groups. What they speak is the truth as they live it - not conjecture from 2000 miles away.

Eco-Imperialism is a shocking, profound, and desperately needed account of what happens when the privileged Western world decides the fate of millions of people whom they never have to see or hear. Driessen sees, and hears, and shares it all.

65 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Follow the Money, July 29, 2004

By 

Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eco-Imperialism: Green Power Black Death (Paperback)

The premise of Paul Driessen's sobering 'Eco-Imperialism' is as straightforward as it is chilling: the increasingly radical agenda of the so-called green movement is stifling economic development in the third world and, worst, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of millions. Is argument is presented with clarity and fact - as well fed affluent bureaucrats of the EU, the UN, the US, and any number of environmental protection groups force their unfounded radical views on developing nations, the basic steps in economic evolution to these nations are being denied, virtually eliminating any hope for improvement. Issues ranging from alternative energy source, genetically modified food, sweatshop labor, global warming and others are reviewed in enough detail to make the points, sparing the reader of the often endless graphs, charts, and minutia that often accompany books of this type. In an interesting twist, Driessen does not limit this criticism to the political bureaucrats and radical activists, but also points a finger at global corporations. On one hand, rather than standing up to the junk science and extreme positions of the radical green movement, most large corporations are simply rolling over, acquiescing to these economically dangerous demands. On the other hand, a number of corporations - most notably BP, to which Driessen delivers some well-deserved body blows - are allowing the Greens to play into their hands, duping the public into believing their pro-environmental purity, while in fact simply spinning clever PR smoke. BP, for example, would profit greatly from acceptance of the Kyoto accord through their natural gas business, while continuing to grow oil revenues and profit.

Drinker of the Green Kool Aid will undoubtedly dismiss 'Eco-Imperialism' out-of-hand, falling back on their tired and tiresome accusations of Driessen as simply another 'corporate pawn.' However, as Driessen so forcefully articulates, it is in fact the fat cat bureaucrat environmentalists and politicians who are profiting at the expense of struggling third world nations. This is a proactive and chilling expose - should be required reading in all US Public Schools, if for no other reason as balance to the steady diet green pabulum our students are fed today.

42 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Should open a lot of eyes, May 26, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Eco-Imperialism: Green Power Black Death (Paperback)

Before reading this exceptional primer on the negative effects of modern environmentalism, I was clueless of the far-reaching costs that group's policies have had on the Third World. Driesen documents at length the effect radical environmentalism has had on Africa's struggling poor, who want nothing more than to benefit from the same energy sources and standard of living the First World takes for granted. He shows how DDT saved thousands of lives in Africa by protecting families from malaria, while radical Greens fought to eliminate the benign chemical because of a theoretical risk it posed to birds. When families were restricted from using the chemical on their huts in Africa, malaria deaths shot through the roof. Driesen lays the blame for those thousands of deaths at the doorstep of the Sierra Club and other like-minded groups who would rather maintain a politically correct notion of what good environmentalism is rather than save actual lives.

Driesen goes on to show how environmentalists keep the Third World populations in poverty by fighting against the use of traditional, affordable sources of energy like coal and fossil fuels. Instead, Greens think other sources like wind and solar should be the only option for these people, disregarding the fact that the technology is no where near advanced enough to provide the energy needs these populations need to pull themselves out of poverty. Ironically, it would take over 10,000 acres of windmills to generate the same amount of electricity a 2-3 acre fossil fuel plant produces. So much for "saving the land."

Driesen does not endorse using fossil fuels forever and ever amen. In fact, he wants nothing more than for the world to develop and invest in alternative energy because he knows as well as everyone else the day will come when we have no other choice. He simply believes (and rightly so) that, in the mean time, the problems of the Third World are real and not theoretical like so many Green "concerns", and that First World governments should not be intimidated by radical Greens and NGOs in their efforts to employ free-trade and responsible investment in these areas. One of the books biggest themes is how unfair it is that NGOs are not held to the same standards of accountability and transparency they constantly demand from for-profit coroporations.

The only problem with the book is that it is poorly edited, which takes away from its overall intellectual package and gives it a slightly amateur vibe. I came across way too many punctuation errors and word omissions for this to be a serious book for serious readers.

But the arguments are strong and the evidence is solid. Anyone interested in understanding why the Third World continues to fail at modernization should read this book.