Mining Industry Caves in to Fanatical Greens

By: Gerard_Jackson

Nikki Williams, chief executive of the NSW Minerals Council, is a grim example of why public relations exercises always fail against green fanaticism. Her response to the greens' phony claim that mankind is warming the planet is to surrender to these fanatics. ( The Australian , We can bury carbon dioxide forever , 9 March 2008). In other words, run up the white flag and issue yellow-striped jackets to the mining industry's executive. In my not-so humble opinion it's PR personnel who should be buried, preferably after they have been defenestrated.

The mining industry — including coal — has endured a sustained assault on its activities by green revolutionaries. It goes without saying that it failed dismally to effectively defend itself. This failure is easily traced to the fact that industry representatives have been completely unable to grasp the fact that they are engaged in a fierce ideological struggle and that their enemy's sole aim is their utter destruction. I was not being rhetorical when I called Greens revolutionaries. They are revolutionaries and their literature and public statements make no secret of it. What else would you call someone who wrote:

Building an environmentally sustainable future requires restricting the global economy, dramatically changing human reproductive behaviour, and altering values and lifestyles. Doing this quickly requires nothing short of a revolution (Lester Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute, cited in Environmental Overkill: Whatever Happened to Commonsense , Dixie Lee Ray with Lou Guzzo, Regnery Gateway, 1993, p. 202).

Then we have Judy Bari of Earth First saying that

I think if we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecologically sound society under socialism. I don't its possible under capitalism. (Ibid., p. 203).

She went on to claim that socialism is the solution. (Isn't it always). According to British greens Porrit and Winner:

It is industrialisation itself — a 'supra-technology' embraced by socialist countries, as well as the capitalist West — which threatens us. (Ibid., p. 203).

David Brower, founder of the grossly misnamed Friends of the Earth, gave us this little gem of green compassion:

While the death of young men in war is unfortunate, it is no more serious than the touching of mountains and wilderness areas by humankind. . . . Loggers losing their jobs because of Spotted Owl legislation is, in my eyes, no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau shutdown. (Ibid., p. 204)

So much for the suffering of those who died fighting Nazism and Japanese aggression to make the world safer for Bower and his ilk. This is the same David Brower, incidentally, who stated:

Child-bearing [should be] a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. . . . All potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing. (Dixie Ray Lee and Lou Guzzo, Trashing the Planet , Harper Perennial, 1992, p. 169).

Speaking for the German greens, Carl Amery stated:

We, in the green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which the killing of a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year old children to Asian brothels. (Ibid., p. 169).

And then we had this disgusting item:

Environmental crusader Paul Watson says the deaths of at least three seal hunters last weekend north of Cape Breton are a tragedy, but the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups "is an even greater tragedy". ( The Canadian Press , Watson says loss of sealers less tragic than loss of seals 2 April 2008)

Watson is the fanatical co-founder of Greenpeace and a deep green who nurses contempt for the lives of others. Fortunately, the vast majority of people, unlike Watson and most 'journalists', have no problem in distinguishing between the contemptible and the admirable, the moral and the immoral.

Nevertheless. Australia is not immune from the greens' vicious lunacy. Trish Caswell, former left-wing head of the Australian Conservation Foundation, was asked by The Australian (our only national newspaper, unfortunately) to name one of the "great villains" of the twentieth century. She chose Henry Ford (sic). My god, mankind's political chamber of horrors is filled with monsters like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot et al., and she chooses the father of the Model T-Ford as her 'villain'. Naturally, our fawning interviewing 'journalist' found nothing to condemn in her choice of 'criminals'. (Incidentally, when Hugh Morgan was CEO of WMC who put Caswell on the payroll. No wonder WMC no longer exists).

And then there is Professor Singer. This prominent Australian green has the sickening audacity to claim that newborn babies have less value than pigs! (It says much for intellectual values that Singer was given a post at Princeton). Surprise, surprise, hardly one journalist condemned him. Frank Devine of The Australian was one of the notable exceptions. (By the way, Singer was run off German campuses by disabled students. Something our 'journalists' chose to suppress). Singer also publicly lamented the collapse of socialism (communism), once again revealing the greens' socialist ideology.

By now it should be clear that there is no appeasing the green movement. Its claims, like those of the Nazis, are inordinate, its ideology relentless. Yet the mining industry still treats this cult as a public relations problem. As one green confidently told me: "No PR company ever beat us." He's right, too. Are mining industry executives so ignorant that they really believe they can sway prejudiced 'journalists' with a dinner, a tour and fancy coloured PR kits? One only has to read the papers to realise just how naive that is. It is time for executives to wake up: The vast majority of the present crop of 'journalists' are not onside, never have been and never will be. And that's the truth, regardless of what any PR hack might say to the contrary.

Industry executives must face the facts. The vacuous make-me-look-good approach of PR companies has proved a ghastly disaster for the mining industry and the country. PR is intellectually barren and that is why it can not help. It has no feel for history, no respect for history, no understanding of ideology, no grasp of green intentions and values, no intellectual qualifications, standing or respect. It has no substance, no commitment and no convictions. These are things that can not be bought because they are qualities and values. There is no market in such things.

So What is the solution? The qualities and values that are vital in the battle against the greens can not, as I have said, be bought and sold. Nevertheless, though people with these necessary values, qualities and knowledge can be hired, they themselves are not for hire! This means that they will only give commitment and loyalty to a cause in which they have unwavering faith. These are the people the industry needs.

Now we finally put our finger on it. Industry executives have not grasped that what they are defending is a cause, not a business, not an industry — but a cause. And causes need moral, emotional and intellectual commitment. You don't get these things in intellectually vacuous PR courses or in vapid media studies. The PR mentality is essentially mercenary. It is the highest bid that counts and not how moral or how just your cause is. That is why PR is damaging to the mining industry. Fearful of losing their jobs PR personnel will use every means available to deny executives access to alternative views and tactics. To do otherwise would be to admit failure.

It is high time the industry rethought its 'tactics'. Only when its executives finally accept the moral imperative of their case will they have any hope of successfully defeating the greens and recapturing the moral high ground which rightfully belongs to the industry.

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By Gerard Jackson
BrookesNews.Com

Gerard Jackson is Brookes' economics editor.

Copyright © 2008 Gerard Jackson

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