The tree-hugging, Gaia-worshipping druids at the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and all the other environmental wacko groups (too numerous to mention here) are busily trying to convince us to dismantle Western civilization and it's technological advancements, claiming that our standard of living is destroying the earth. According to them, only by living in wretched poverty, barely scratching out a living on a government-owned plot of land (or in a government-owned factory, building the SUVs, air conditioners, computers and other "luxury" items the druids have no intention of giving up themselves), can we "save the planet."
This story proves yet again that exactly the reverse is true - the higher the standard of living and level of technological advancement in a society, the more that society can indulge in the luxury of conservation of it's natural resources. The highest rates of deforestation in the world are not taking place in the US or in Europe, as the enviros would have you believe, but instead are occuring in places such as Kashmir, Central and South America and Africa. The most wretchedly polluted lakes and rivers are found in the Third World, while water bodies in advanced societies such as the US are, in many places, actually becoming cleaner and healthier.
The leaders in the environmental movement know all of this, and also know that to accept this would not only be the end of themselves as a political force, it also would severely damage their chances of implemeting their true ends, those being the establishment of a Stalinist global government that minutely regulates every activity of it's subjects. Their use of the environment is merely the means to promote their agenda and to suck in large numbers of people who mean well, but simply do not take the time to properly educate themselves on environmental matters.