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[Note: This piece is posted unedited. Insofar as it was researched,
the piece seems to rely on stuff found in this site as it then was.
I should perhaps say that the "allegation" that I took
money from ICI towards the writing of the scrupulously serious (and
largely unread) "Life On a Modern Planet" loses force
when one notes that I proudly acknowledged ICI's help - and the
firm's hands off approach - in the acknowledgements section in the
book. Similarly, in the case of my writing in The Independent on
Shell - I joined a press tour of Shell's sites in Nigeria on which
there were various other UK broadsheet journalists. No money changed
hands. The Ecologist didn't bother to check any of that. (RDN, 22
January, 2004)]
Richard D North, whatever his many failings, is always good for
a laugh. If you're a weary environmentalist, bored after a day's
trawling through policy documents or waving placards at corporate
bullyboys, then pouring yourself a drink and settling down to enjoy
one of North's bizarre, entertaining and absurd antigreen polemics
could be just what you need. Richard D North (best not to ask what
the 'D' stands for) has, over the last five years or so, set himself
up as one of Britain's foremost green naysayers. In his books, journalism
and pamphlets he likes to present himself as a serious counterweight
to what he sees as the woolliness and scaremongering of environmentalists.
Sadly for North, though, his writings and rantings are taken less
seriously than he seems to think. For in his own way, poor old Richard
is as predictable, prejudiced, compromised and just plain daft as
the putative ecoloonies he so enjoys taking a potshot at. Yet the
53 year old North came originally from the other side of the fence.
In his own words 'a pretty ordinary Englishman', he left his public
school in the 60s and 'dropped out', becoming a camper van driving
vegan hippy who was, so his website proudly informs us, 'the first
person to wear a poncho in Surbiton'. Inspired by the 'limits to
growth' ideas that were fashionable in the 1970s, he began writing
on environmental and animal rights issues. By the mid80s, he had
fetched up as the first environment correspondent of The Independent
- in his own way, a green pioneer. But then, something changed.
For whatever reason, and over whatever timescale, North swung round
and began training his guns on his own platoon. As he tells it,
this was a gradual process of reasoning, research and realisation.
He 'overcame my ignorant dislike of industry' and began to see that
'most "Western" values - including technological progress
in consumer satisfaction - had an enormous amount in their favour'.
Look at North's work, though, and it becomes clear that rarely
does such a reasoned critique inform it. He may crave the role of
honest voice in the wilderness, but what really pushes North's buttons
is giving his old allies in the green movement a right royal kicking.
Sit back with that drink, then, and play a quick game of 'pin the
tail on the straw dog'. All you do is pick an issue close to the
hearts of environmentalists and try to guess North's position on
it. It's an easy game once you realise the basic principle on which
he operates: If the greens are for it, I'm against it. So Richard
can't see the big deal about rainforests ('What's so great about
the wilderness? The good bits of rainforest to visit are the bits
where somebody has obligingly logged and put in a road. Otherwise
you can't get to it.'). He's a great fan of roads ('We don't build
enough of them') and he just loves digging big holes in the ground
('Quarries are pretty. Landfill is great.'). That might be because
he loves plastic ('We should have lots and lots of plastic. We should
use more of it') which doesn't cause any problems when thrown into
the aforementioned large holes ('Don't worry about the pollution.
It's all been sorted.') Can you guess, then, what Richard thinks
about nuclear power? That's right - we need more of it ('The great
thing about nuclear waste is you should dump it - preferably in
the deep Atlantic.') The fur trade? Fox hunting? Veal farming? Oil
drilling? Yes please. Much of this can probably be explained by
North's opinion that greens are 'rather dreary people' who need
regular pokes in the ribs from people like him. And yet his antienvironmentalism
is so overthetop, so virulent ('campaignersÉ are parasites
getting an easy living off the back of people who are out there
trying to make the world better') that it sometimes sounds as if
he is venting his spleen on the elements of his former self that
he sees in today's Swampies.
Whatever his motives, North's crusade has made him the idiot savant
of big business. He isn't merely happy to extol the wonders of multinational
companies; he's happy to take their money too. Much of the research
for his 1995 greenbashing book Life On A Modern Planet was funded
by ICI. Shell paid him to pop over to Ogoniland in Nigeria in the
wake of the murder of Ken SaroWiwa and write puffpieces in British
papers about how responsible the oil company was being. North can
be infuriating, but ultimately he is probably too bitter and too
compromised to pose as much danger as he would like to the green
movement. In a way this is a shame - for there is sloppiness, hubris
and exaggeration within the green movement, just as there is elsewhere,
and it could do with some intelligent and thoughtful criticism.
It is unlikely to get it from North, though, who occasionally even
provides insights into what his reputation is built on. 'Providing
you are either amusing or terrifying,' he told an audience of journalists
in 1998, 'in any case providing you are shocking in some way, you
are going to get paid.'
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