TreeHugger: Religion is such an enormous part of American identity, is environmentalism finding its place in patriotism and American values on the whole?Read the complete Q & A.
David: Well, it calls for a higher kind of patriotism, doesn't it? A patriotism that recognizes the value of land, water, biological diversity, climate stability. And patriotism, I think, in this country wastoo easily confused by too many people as simply waving flags and being involved in wars and violence.
In fact, I would put people like Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson at the top of the list of patriot heroes of this country, that were in fact defending the land that we live on. But I think that’s in the offing—I think that the country has done something of a 10-year walkabout and is now hopefully coming to its senses. We have seen, I think, the ruination of the right wing creed, this neocon creed, that has been so destructive of virtually everything that we value.
I think a lot of people, conservatives and liberals alike, are seeing the need for something new. I noticed on a bookstand a new book on the environment by Newt Gingrich, of all people. I saw a column by David Brooks in The New York Times last week that is a really good column on genuine conservatism that goes back to Edmund Burke. So, I think there are lots of signs that things are changing, and changing very quickly.
But what you are describing is really an attempt to overcome what George Orwell described as "double speak" and the corruption of language that I think went on pretty rampantly over the past 20 years.
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--Marshal Zeringue