Interview: Author Elizabeth Nickson Discusses her new book, Eco-Fascists

Jonah Goldberg brought H.G. Wells’ meme of “Liberal Fascism” out of the memory hole of the 1930s and into the 21st century, and as he noted, environmentalism has long been a key component of that ideology. Veteran journalist Elizabeth Nickson, who was the European Bureau chief of Life magazine, in addition to contributing to Time, the Guardian, Vogue, Harper’s and numerous other MSM magazines, which typically have at least one boilerplate “green”-themed issue a year, found that out the hard way, hence the title of her new book, Eco-Fascists: How Radical Conservationists Are Destroying Our Natural Heritage:

An investigative reporter documents the destructive impact of the environmental movement in North America and beyond.

When journalist Elizabeth Nickson sought to subdivide her twenty-eight acres on Salt Spring Island in the Pacific Northwest, she was confronted by the full force and power of the radical conservationists who had taken over the local zoning council. She soon discovered that she was not free to do what she wanted with her land, and that in the view of these arrogant stewards it wasn’t really hers at all. Nickson’s long, frustrating, and eyeopening encounter with these zealots started her on a journey to investigate and expose the hugely destructive impact of the environmental movement on ordinary people and communities across North America—and the world.

What she discovered is shocking. Forty million Americans have been driven from their land, and rural culture is being systematically crushed, even as wildlife, forests, and rangelands are dying. In Eco-Fascists, Nickson explores how environmental radicals have taken over government agencies at the local, state, and federal levels. The result? A wholesale sequestration of forest, range, and water—more than 40 percent of North America—impoverishing us all, especially the most vulnerable. This confiscation of America’s natural heritage is a major factor contributing to our current economic decline; until it is acknowledged and addressed, our economy will not recover.

Nickson traces the tens of billions of dollars environmental nonprofits marshal every year to promote the notion that our essential natural systems are collapsing, and finds, in a brutal example of self-fulfilling prophesy, that their corrupted science is desertifying the heartland. She visits once-thriving communities that are turning to ghost towns because environmental legislation has forced mines, ranches, and mills to close and has forbidden critical forest, range, park, and wilderness maintenance.

Eco-Fascists exposes the major fallacies of the environmental movement—from wildlife protection to zoning to forest-fire management—and introduces us to the individuals who are fighting back. Fast-paced, highly accessible, and sure to be controversial, this is a work that will change the national conversation about environmental protection and its impact.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

How does eco-fascism prey on the citizens in the hinterlands of western states such as California, Washington, and Oregon?
What is eco-fascism’s impact on the logging industry?
What is the relationship between eco-fascism and Obama’s crony corporatism?
Will California’s cap and trade program finish off state’s already moribund economy?
For those of us who haven’t drunk the green Kool-Aid, is there any hope for the future?

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