Ohio Watch, kinda
Skimming through the Sierra Club Bulletin today, I came across one of the most diabolical schemes to defeat the environmental movement ever hatched. The March, 1975, issue of the Bulletin quoted extensively from a report "prepared for an as-yet undisclosed federal department by the consulting firm of Pandora Research, Ltd., of Chillicothe, Ohio."
The Bulletin characterized the report, titled "Life in a Fishless World," as "a scheme to eliminate fish from the globe in order to remove the major justification for expending money on water-pollution control, and to block opposition to such aquatic human activities as offshore oil drilling and the transport of petroleum in supertankers."
Some highlights of the report, as quoted in the Bulletin:
"Most environmental hysteria, at least as it pertains to bodies of water, is ultimately directed at preserving fish life. It is our conclusion that special-interest groups have placed the fish on a pedestal, and have created a cultural status for these creatures that is not biologically warranted. Solely on behalf of fish, our society is planning on needlessly spending billions of dollars on energy-intensive water-pollution control programs, and may even take action that would hem in the productive capacity of our industrial economy.
"Happinesswise, we believe that Mr. John Q. Public and Mate do not benefit from this situation. Resources that could be saved by not pandering to the fish lobby could be applied to matters with higher public gratification factor...
"We concede that fish have had their day. It is doubtless true that the passage of the Crossopterygian from sea to land, which laid the foundation for the development of more important species, was an historical event of the first magnitude, comparable in its efforts to Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin. However, just as events and public opinion negated that invention's justification of human slavery, so the lack of initiative of fish in subsequent eons has rendered irrelevant for today whatever contribution to our present standard of living the order may have made in the Paleozoic era.
"A fishless world will be a better world, free from the stench of rotting carcasses, liberated from the political importunities of the Izaak Walton League, detached from the burden of squandering billions on needless water-pollution control projects, and, all in all, with the biblically mandated dominance of man more securely established, and with the energies of mankind available to be harnessed to achieving progress and the attainment of the Good Life."
I, uh, kinda doubt it's a real report, but you gotta give 'em credit for creativity...
The Bulletin characterized the report, titled "Life in a Fishless World," as "a scheme to eliminate fish from the globe in order to remove the major justification for expending money on water-pollution control, and to block opposition to such aquatic human activities as offshore oil drilling and the transport of petroleum in supertankers."
Some highlights of the report, as quoted in the Bulletin:
"Most environmental hysteria, at least as it pertains to bodies of water, is ultimately directed at preserving fish life. It is our conclusion that special-interest groups have placed the fish on a pedestal, and have created a cultural status for these creatures that is not biologically warranted. Solely on behalf of fish, our society is planning on needlessly spending billions of dollars on energy-intensive water-pollution control programs, and may even take action that would hem in the productive capacity of our industrial economy.
"Happinesswise, we believe that Mr. John Q. Public and Mate do not benefit from this situation. Resources that could be saved by not pandering to the fish lobby could be applied to matters with higher public gratification factor...
"We concede that fish have had their day. It is doubtless true that the passage of the Crossopterygian from sea to land, which laid the foundation for the development of more important species, was an historical event of the first magnitude, comparable in its efforts to Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin. However, just as events and public opinion negated that invention's justification of human slavery, so the lack of initiative of fish in subsequent eons has rendered irrelevant for today whatever contribution to our present standard of living the order may have made in the Paleozoic era.
"A fishless world will be a better world, free from the stench of rotting carcasses, liberated from the political importunities of the Izaak Walton League, detached from the burden of squandering billions on needless water-pollution control projects, and, all in all, with the biblically mandated dominance of man more securely established, and with the energies of mankind available to be harnessed to achieving progress and the attainment of the Good Life."
I, uh, kinda doubt it's a real report, but you gotta give 'em credit for creativity...