The World Wide Fund for Nature is willing to advise Christmas shoppers to “avoid coral jewelry, crocodile skin and Beluga caviar if they want to enjoy a guilt-free holiday season,” as reported here.
But, based on my experience with wildlife and environmental organizations, if you are considering becoming a member, or otherwise making a donation, they’ll tempt you with stuff like miniature stuffed polar bears and pandas — all made in China.
So why is it OK to uphold environmental rights while ignoring human and labor rights?
It isn’t, of course, not to mention ignoring the general problem with outsourcing of jobs.
But this, in my opinion, is why the largely white, upper-middle-class and above environmental movement hasn’t reached out better to organized labor, minorities and other progressive interest groups. Their own single interest can have pretty heavy blinders on at times.
Oh, sure, the Sierra Club has outreach programs for inner-city students. And they are laudable. But even it has been guilty of lack of proper concern for the origin of its gewgaws and trinkets in the past.
So, if you want to be an environmentalist, please, only do it as part of a broader, informed progressivism.
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