Customer Reviews

EcoTerror: The Violent Agenda to Save Nature: The World of the Unabomber

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I read this book and found it to be a completely enjoyable COMEDY. It is hilarious. This is the unbelievably unreasonable anti-earth, anti-nature point of view of the logging, mining, fishing, land development and other destructive "resource" industries. It is written by a staunch Christian zealot. Just check out his website. Ron Arnold does not hide the fact he believes humans have every right to "extract" the heck out of the planet because it is "our god-given right" according to Genesis. Read and weep, gentle earth treaders, but you get to know the mindset of the other side pretty well.
Please note: a laudatory review here is by Eureka, CA resource industry lawyer Andy Stunich. For the record, and you can easily Google this or check out the archives of the local newspapers (Times-Standard, the right-wing Eureka Reporter, also the lefty North Coast Journal), Mr. Stunich represents tree climber Eric Schatz who is hired by logging companies to "extract" earth defenders from ancient growth redwoods. Need I say more?
Birds of a feather ....

This is a mash-up of right-wing, anti-environmental propaganda and quotes and research taken way out of context. How do I know? My own work was used inappropriately in this book. Save your money.

Ron Arnold's agenda is clear to any reader, even if his motives are not. He wants to discredit and undermine the movement to conserve nature. In the course of pursuing this agenda he makes leaps of record and logic that, when detected, leave him and his book flailing at air. I'm happy to give credit for some new and exhaustive research included in Ecoterror, including interesting history about forerunners to Earth First! and other environmental groups. But Arnold conspicuously overreaches in trying to link mainstream conservationists to a violent agenda and to the Unabomber. Perhaps this is what one would expect from a book of this sort, but Arnold goes overboard. For instance, in trying to link me (your reviewer) and my respected organization to a dark undercurrent of thought and action, he resorted to false and libelous statements which he has since been forced to withdraw in an errata sheet which can be found on his web site. If you read Ecoterror, do so with healthy skepticism.

The book is a litany of jaded corporate arguments for the continued destruction of nature so that a few people can get richer. To be read only in the same way you watch a bad B-movie -- for the unintentional laughs. The book's inability to understand social activism (not to mention concepts like justice) would have made it a best-seller in Czarist Russia.

This book is a great exposition on violence perpetrated in the name of the environment. It exposes Ted Kaczynski's connections to the environmental movement and goes in-depth into the detrimental effect his acts have had upon innocent individuals targeted simply to further a pseudo-intellectual agenda.

Ron Arnold's book is well-researched, well-documented, balanced and surprisingly interesting. Once you get past the sensationalist title, the book is professionally balanced and objectively written. The author avoids categorizing all Earth Firsters as terrorists; rather, he merely points out the obvious: The movement has an upper echelon cadre of radicals that may espouse non-violence as useful propaganda, but in reality advocates and uses violence to achieve the movement's goals.

Using Earth First!'s own rhetoric, reliable outside evidence and sound analysis from social scientists and terrorism experts, Ron Arnold exposes the frightening reality that is Earth First! These are not merely a group of harmless tree huggers, although many certainly are. Rather, Earth First! has a hard core, anarchist element that comprises a dangerous, decentralized organization with an apocalyptic, self-hatred view of humanity and a cult like worship of deep ecology that should alarm rational people.

This book should be required reading.

I was interested in hearing the anti-environment view to challenge my own beliefs. Unfortunately Arnold is so obviously deceptive, that I could not take seriously his critiques. Don't waste your time or money on this dud.

Ron Arnold's premise here, it seems, is that the Unabomber is or was linked to the environmental movement. This book is less about the Unabomber than an attempt to demonize environmentalists. Tries to make connection after connection that simply does not exist.

In dealing with radical environmentalist, I felt this book was right on. I have had the pleasure of dealing with their actions myself and this book explained my experiences to a T. The theory behind the radical enviros actions is compassionately explained in Mr. Arnolds analysis of them. I recommend this book to anyone who has ever been terrorized by or curious about the true objectives of the movement.

Arnold provides a valuable detailed account of how eco-terrorism got its foothold in the United States and to what end some environmental vigilantes are willing to go to affect social change. It is only by fully understanding what drives eco-terrorism that we as a community can expect to prevent the considerable social and economic harm caused when eco-terrorists take the law into their own hands.