Michael E. O'Reilly

Camo Revolution: how climate change is revealing common ground between  sportsmen  and environmentalists I remember when the first George Bush was in the White House. There was talk about a hole in the ozone layer, and the findings of a scientific study left the term global warming stamped into our lexicon. Never had buzzwords been so ominous. The solution was to be positive and proactive; working together we could reverse the trend. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle was the mantra. We could carpool. We could pee ten times before we flushed. There was a warm feeling stewardship for the earth when you separated your glass, metal, and paper. A hopefulness came over you as you snipped the plastic six-pack rings, knowing you may be saving some bottle-nosed porpoise from endless ridicule and jokes from his buddies, not to mention possible drowning.  I did my part by co-founding an environmental awareness club at school. It looked great on my resume for getting into college, bu...

This interview was conducted around 2009, at Ken Sanders Rare Books , in Salt Lake City. MO: Take me through the early days of EarthFirst! The first event was on March 24, 1981 was the cracking of the Glen Canyon dam, which is now infamous. I know about this because about 2 weeks earlier Ed Abbey called me out of the blue. I had learned over the years of our relationship I never called Ed on the phone because Ed hated the damn things. He loved to correspond with people, particularly with his ubiquitous post cards. He loathed telephones. Unless he had something to say, it was like having this “zen” phone conversation. So unless you had something to say, you never called him, ‘cause he didn’t want to talk. So I never, ever called him, almost never. So he calls me up, ‘Ken, this is Ed. Going to be some kind of Spring rites down at Glen canyon dam, at the Lone Rock campground. If you want to talk about that silly calendar of yours come on down.’ And that’s all he said, ‘some kind of Spring...

A brief history of American conservation     One of the ugliest spectacles of the last two centuries was the unrestrained plunder of our nation’s wild animals, leading to the decimation and in some cases, extinction, of various species. Yet one of the most encouraging signs of responsible citizenship was the reaction of recreational hunters and fishermen. As wildlife management methods were refined by federal and state game officials, they, along with groups like Ducks Unlimited, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation would set an example for the rest of the world as to how humans can live with healthy populations of wild species, whether that means hunting them, photographing them, or leaving them alone.     The reason for overhunting was the existence of a market in which dead wildlife could be sold. The solution would be to take the value away from the product, and attach it to the experience of the hunt. Make it a ritual. Make rules. And charge a fee to ...

Recalling the golden age of eco-skeptic think tank journalism  The following double book review of The Really Inconvenient Truths, by Iain Murray , and  Eco-Freaks, by John Berlau , was written in 2009. Murray’s book was good enough to earn status as “A Main Selection of the Conservative Book Club,” which no doubt has an endless trove of quality entrants to plow through. It makes one wonder though how Murray got the club’s main selection, when much of the information, chapters about DDT, CAFE fuel standards, the Endangered Species Act, property ownership, pollution, and climate change, are virtually the same as those found in, Berlau’s book, which came out two years earlier. No bad blood, though. They work for the same outfit, the Competitive Enterprise Institute which, like other think tanks, has streamlined the whole “journalism” racket by moving all operations in-house. My only question is: Why do so many think tanks have the word “enterprise” somewhere in their titles? The...

Greenwashed and Hardwired: Climate change denial meets cognitive science Climate change gains acceptance, and skeptics The following essay compares the work of George Lakoff, Bjorn Lomborg and Paul Driessen. It was written in 2009, for Skeptic , but was not published.      As more people are beginning to accept the idea that climate change is real and attributable to human behavior, there remains a lack of understanding as to how we should proceed in addressing the problem. Reasonable people who were once skeptical of global warming’s existence have joined with reasonable people who never doubted it for a minute. This expanding population of Americans has become overwhelmed by the “greenwash” marketing campaigns of companies ready to cash in on public panic.      Two of the three authors I’ve chosen to compare, Bjorn Lomborg and Paul Driessen are of the ilk we might call “eco-skeptic,” but each comes from a different angle. Lomborg, a Danish adjunct prof...