Our language is constantly evolving.
New words are added. Old ones change in meaning. Others lose their ability to stand alone.
Environmentalist is one such example.
I can’t remember the last time I heard it used in casual conversation without an accompanying multi-syllable obscene adjective as in “----ing environmentalist.”
According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary an environmentalist is either 1) a person who accepts the theory that environment is of overriding importance in determining individual characteristics or 2) a person working to solve environmental problems, as air and water pollution, the exhaustion of natural resources, and uncontrolled population growth.
Neither definition appears to warrant an expletive. The dictionary, however, fails to mention the more commonly accepted Western definition – an obstructionist yahoo who works to prevent regular folk from making an honest living, seeks to limit public access to public land by opposing off-road motorized travel, and cares more for the welfare of wild animals than of man.
Wow! What an #!$&@&%!.
And while that definition may not be correct, it’s widely accepted across the West. Folks in the rest of the country give environmentalists little thought, most of their corner of the world already logged, mined, tilled and covered with pavement.
There’s still a lot of wild, undeveloped land out here, land those ----ing environmentalists would like to see stay that way. The water remains pretty clean and a few rivers, such as the Yellowstone, flow relatively unfettered from beginning to end. Those blankety blank environmentalists saw to that when they fought plans years ago to dam the Yellowstone at Livingston.
But smoke from wildfires across the West clouds the skies every summer, compliments of those !$%@!$&-$!%&#!$ environmentalists who fight the logging we’re told would prevent forest fires. Log it thoroughly enough and there wouldn’t be anything left to burn. When was the last time there was a forest fire in Indiana?
Environmentalists catch more flak than Exxon-Mobil, Walmart or the Chinese government. They’re apparently to blame for the high price of oil, the slumping dollar and the declining real estate market.
I have no doubt that Webster’s first definition is right on the money – we are a product of the environment in which we live. Unfortunately, as that environment becomes dirtier and more crowded, we become angrier and more divisive and choose to blame our problems on the folks, who by definition, are working to solve those very problems.
I choose to believe that the yahoos lining their pockets at our expense, big oil and big business for example, are the ones who more aptly deserve
the obscene adjectives.
But what do I know? I’m a bit of a ----ing environmentalist myself.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net