THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 13, 1995 TAG: 9507120005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
Taking up a cause as a teenager can be a life-enhancing experience. Also a learning experience. The five Virginia Beach teens who have started Hampton Roads' first chapter of Earth First! have learned something about environmental issues.
But Earth First! is a radical group whose motto is ``No compromise in defense of Mother Earth!'' If the teens adhere to that motto, they will learn something about the limits of zealotry: It's often uninformed, it's seldom persuasive, and ineffectiveness often makes zealots ever more audacious and even more ineffectual.
It's a vicious circle exemplified by the ``monkey-wrenchers'' who sabotage nuclear sites and power lines and pound spikes into trees to forestall - and to injure - loggers. This ``gang'' doesn't care that there are times and places in which logging benefits Mother Earth's forests, even her ``national'' forests. ``My policy,'' the Earth First! contact in Staunton told The Associated Press, ``is that I never tell people to monkey-wrench; that's up to the individual. I will tell you, though, that I see nothing wrong with it.''
Now there's a way to win friends and influence policy - and to earn the designation ``terrorist'' from the U.S. Forest Service.
Fortunately, a 16-year-old in Virginia Beach's new chapter knows better than his adult counterpart in Staunton: ``I don't think,'' the teenager said, ``you can rule anything out - except if it hurts other people.''
The tools this chapter intends to use are peaceful protest, education, petitions and the courage of their convictions. Their most constructive tool is education. Their most constructive use of it is educating themselves from the numerous sources available, not just from Earth First!, so that their convictions reflect facts and their courage helps achieve the doable. by CNB