If there is one word that I think is overused, and done so with the intent mislead the uninformed and progress the environmental agenda its the word "protect". You will NEVER hear any of the environmental organizations (from the Sierra Club, to the Great Old Broads for Wilderness, to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and all of them in between) admit it, but their constant use of the word is almost entirely propaganda (YIKES!), but, it is.
You see, environmental groups spend a lot of time at the "grass roots" level making presentations (full of beautiful high definition pictures and videos, and happy smiling people and families enjoying nature) to small groups around the country. Most of the people in these groups have very very little knowledge about public land in the West and the intricate and involved nature of the public land debate here and know even less about the threats that face the land; but they do appreciate pretty pictures and have fond memories of that vacation they took with their parents to Yellow Stone when they were 8 years old. This is the ideal environment (no pun intended) to get uninformed people to cough up some of their hard earned cash and to support the cause.
So after REALLY tugging on the heart strings-showing all the HD pretty pictures and beautiful videos and conjuring up high sentimental value memories of public land-they start trotting out the need to "protect" these places from the big bad oil and gas companies and the OHV's (and then they start showing pictures of strip mines, and sand dunes void of vegetation and with OHV tracks all over them, and a Jeep spinning its tires trying to get up a slick rock ledge leaving black marks on the rock with horror music playing in the back ground) to really drive the point home. Followed by a "your donation of $50/year will protect these special places...thank you so much, thank you for caring enough to protect these special places"...and here put this "Protect Wild Utah" sticker on your bumper, and sign this petition to ask President Obama to "Protect Greater Canyonlands", and on and on and on. Protect...Protect...Protect...Protect. Who doesn't want to protect stuff??? Nobody wants to destroy stuff...
The word "protect" in and of itself-without the need to come right out and say it-denotes that there is a threat. So the environmental groups don't have to come right out and lie (and say that every single acre is threatened)...they can just use the word "protect" and then let the hearer draw their own conclusion that every single acre of public land in the West is threatened. The disingenuous part is that the Environmental groups don't spend anytime talking about how MUCH of the land is honestly and truly threatened, and thus needs protection. If they let the hearer assume ALL of it is threatened, they are more likely to donate to their organization and sign their petition(s)...the end justifies the means...a little half truth is okay, because it helps the cause.
Truth be told, and I'll use Utah as an example but only because I'm the most familiar with it, in the entire 9.4 million acres of proposed Wilderness in the Red Rock Wilderness Act (which is proposed by the SUWA) there is only 27 days of natural gas (with the recoverable reserves being even less) and 4 days of oil (with the recoverable reserves being even less). From their own publications they say:
"An analysis recently completed by researchers at The Wilderness Society concluded that the technically recoverable undiscovered resources below the lands in ARRWA amount to less than 4 weeks of natural gas and 1 week of oil. Because “technically recoverable” figures do not take into account the cost of recovering the resource, these figures significantly overestimate the volume of resources that may be economically recoverable."
I'm well aware that they are using this as an argument in favor of their agenda (touting that a strict Wilderness designation wouldn't have a negative economic impact because there are hardly any reserves), but the part that is dishonest-and which they sweep under the rug in their presentations-is that if such a small amount of oil and gas is included in their ARRWA proposal, then ALL 9.4 million acres don't need "protection" from oil and gas companies...oh, that's right, they didn't say oil and gas were a threat to ALL 9.4 million acres...they just said we need to "protect" all 9.4 million acres from oil and gas development...GOTCHA! (See how that works? And see how entirely disingenuous it is?)
You don't have to protect something when their is no threat to it. Unless of course you wear mosquito repellent...in January...in Alaska...to "protect" you from the mosquito's that aren't there, of course. But who does that? That is exactly the same thing as saying we need to protect land with no oil and gas reserves from oil and gas companies...it just makes no sense. But they don't explain that to their uninformed audience at their presentations...they just let them believe all 9.4 million acres are threatened so those people will put a bumper sticker on their car, write them a check, and sign their petition.
The other issue is that the use of the word "protect" automatically "dumbs down" the debate to simplistic extremes. It paints the debate as an "either/or" proposition. Either the land is "protected" or its "destroyed"...your either for "protecting" the land or you want to "destroy" the land. The public land debate is far to complicated and intrinsic to pigeon hole it into that kind of a discussion. Just because its not designated with a restrictive and formal public land designation doesn't mean it will be destroyed.
It is the environmental lobby's constant use of dishonest tactics like this that aggravates the access advocates so much that they really dig their heals in and oppose every single conservation measure. This forces the environmental lobby to do it more, and to literally force their agenda down there throats, which further enrages the "access advocates", and the gap between the two sides continues to widen.
If environmental groups were more honest in their arguments and less extreme in their position, the absolutely vital and important message about preserving our earth would be far more widely received and accepted.
