Driessen is a geologist and attorney who has had a long career in environmental issues. His exploits both within and without the Beltway have made him the bane of the Envirocult. In 2004 he published the book "Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death," a meticulously documented exposé on the worldwide green movement.

The central theme of "Eco-Imperialism" is that wealthy, comfortable activists from the Western countries have been fighting to strangle industrial development across the planet. In the West, it has been a terrible irritant, but in the Third World, and particularly Africa, it has been nothing less than a catastrophe. Driessen estimates that the annual death toll resulting from radical environmental advocacy is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million people.

One major cause of the carnage has been the crusade to prevent the use of DDT, the most effective and affordable agent known for combatting malaria. Deaths from this disease, which infects hundreds of millions of people, have been

"due in large part to near-global restrictions on the production, export and use of DDT. Originally imposed in the United States by EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus in 1972, the DDT prohibitions have been expanded and enforced by NGO pressure, coercive treaties, and threats of economic sanctions by foundations, nations and international aid agencies."

Another source of green mayhem has been the campaign to stop the use of genetically modified crops. The Envirocult has been tireless in its efforts to sabotage these promising new sources of food, thereby frustrating the hopes of the developing countries. Driessen reminds us of the famine in southern Africa in 2002, when the U.S. shipped 26,000 tons of corn to Zambia. Caving in to Envirocult pressure, especially from Europe, the country's government refused to accept the corn--because some of it was genetically modified.

Dreissen quotes an editorial in the Wall Street Journal of that time (9/17/2002):

"The eco-lobby has targeted the Third World with a five-year, $175 million campaign against GM [genetically modified] foods. The Sierra Club is calling 'for a moratorium on the planting of all genetically engineered crops.' Greenpeace says it 'opposes all releases of genetically engineered organisms into the environment,' an act it calls 'genetic pollution'."

Quips Driessen:

"$175 million would feed millions of starving people for months. So would the $500 million the protest industry spent between 1996 and 2001 to attack biotechnology. But of course, amply nourished Greenpeace zealots are not spending a dime on food aid. They merely want to scare Africans half to death, if they don't starve to death first."

"Eco-Imperialism" also thoroughly debunks the other shameful chimeras of the $8 billion/year green propaganda mill: sustainability, climate change, renewable energy, socially responsible investing, and other campaigns that stifle the improvement of the human condition. It is a shocking story; one needs a strong stomach to read this book. ( )