Earth First! co-founder reflects on technology, protests, environmental battles ahead in new book

Missoulian ^ | October 27, 2009 | ROB CHANEY

[george76]

Earth First! made headlines with its tree-spiking in the 1980s, but the guy who helped make the anti-logging tactic famous didn't invent it.

Mike Roselle even titled one chapter of his new book "Why I Quit Spiking Trees." In it, the co-founder of Earth First!, the Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society described how the practice brought old-growth timber cutting to national awareness, but became a public relations disaster for the protesters.

"I think the Wobblies can take credit for it if they want, but it's been around as long as logging," Roselle said, referring to the Industrial Workers of the World union organizers who spiked the trees of nonunion mills in the 1930s. "The anti-spiking laws in California date back to the 1880s."

when an unmarked tree wrecked a bandsaw and injured a millworker in California, the environmental organization's image became one of eco-terrorists.

Roselle and fellow Earth Firsters denied involvement with the mill injury, but the logging confrontations were growing more violent.

Although Roselle is now deep in a new project, Climate Ground Zero, that uses the Internet and instant messaging to network, he was somewhat wistful for the old days ...

[TurtleUp]

Mike Roselle even titled one chapter of his new book "Why I Quit Spiking Trees." In it, the co-founder of Earth First!, the Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society described how the practice brought old-growth timber cutting to national awareness...

Sounds like another "community organizer" (the liberal term for terrorists they like). I'll bet this thug is a friend of the thug in our White House.

[george76]

When members of the Earth Liberation Front burnt down $12 million-worth of mountaintop property belonging to the Vail ski resort in Colorado, “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski applauded from prison — as did Theresa Kintz, the editor of the widely read Earth First! Journal. “It’s war,” she wrote.

Kintz knows Kaczynski well. As of March she was still the editor of Earth First! but when I tried to contact her the magazine claimed to be unable to reach her. This is unsurprising: like al-Qaeda, America’s hardcore environmentalists mistrust the mainstream press and operate in cells to evade detection.

http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/271

[jazusamo]

Hopefully one of these days Roselle will run up against a coal miner who is no more afraid to break the law than he is and he’ll get his just desserts.

[girlangler]

There’s probably a place in Obama’s cabinet for these folks.

Heading to Cave Run Lake in the morning to do some musky fishing — wish me luck that I hook one of those big toothy monsters.

[jazusamo]

Hi Girl!

You got that right, those people fit right in with Zer0 and his Chicago thug cronies, I’d bet they all look at these criminals with approval.

Glad to see you’re getting out to do some fishing, good luck to you and catch at least one (preferably more) of those monsters. :)

[frankenMonkey]

How many trees are going to die providing the paper for this book to be printed on?

[SierraWasp]

"...like al-Qaeda, America’s hardcore environmentalists mistrust the mainstream press and operate in cells to evade detection."

An nats a fact, Jack! I mean George!!!

[tubebender]

The new Dirt Firsters wear three piece suits and can be found in the halls of a court house near you...

[SuziQ]

"So now, when we work with the coal miners, we're always thinking about the economic future for all miners. There's no reason to victimize more people in this process. We owe them a debt for all they've done and all they've been through. When things get polarized, it's hard to keep that in perspective."

He wants to be generous with TAXPAYER money, not his own, or that of his fellow anti-coal protesters.