ABSTRACT
In a number of writings I have myself welcomed the concern now felt by many people for saving birds, trees, natural beauty, the whale, and the Atlantic salmon. It is unfortunately the case however that there are always individuals waiting around to seize on any worthwhile popular movement, political animals who manipulate such movements for their own ends. Half a generation ago we described ourselves as bird-watchers, or just plain out-of-doors types – mountaineers and the like. But now we have all suddenly become ‘concerned persons’, just the kind of word-label which political manipulators use to make us forget precisely what explicit issues are troubling us. For only by persuading us to forget explicit issues can a popular movement be perverted to serve the ends which the political animals really have in mind. In this short first chapter I shall explain what I believe the real motive of such environmentalists to be.
