The recent controversy surrounding the development of the Bernard Field Station demonstrates a need on the part of the activist community to do a better job choosing their battles, or at least the way that they fight them. There are a number of very serious environmental issues currently facing our society. The reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, the struggle for tougher regulations to keep our oceans and rivers (and the food that comes from them) pollutant free, the need to develop a more sustainable lifestyle, and the willingness of the United States to enter and sponsor global environmental treaties should all be vastly more important to citizens with environmental concerns than a hundred acre track of land in Claremont. Yet protestors chose to stage the most extreme environmental protest in college history to protest–building on BFS? Does the comparative importance of BFS warrant such an extreme response? Shouldn’t the most extreme protests be reserved for the most important issues, lest the community be desensitized to extreme protest?

One could argue that local battles such as the one for BFS are small in scale, but are trherefore precisely the types of battles that can be won. However, the way in which the 5-college activist community fought the battle for the Bernard Field Station undermines what should be the larger goals of the environmental movement. When the moderate community member reads about students chaining themselves to trashcans and being hauled off by riot police because they disagreed with how their college chooses to develop 100 acres of land, they begin to think that all environmentalists harbor views that are so extreme as to defy common sense. Mainstream America will never be comfortable with, say, a Green Party congressman so long as fringe environmentalists dedicate years to sitting in redwood trees and write opinions articles talking about their deep spiritual connection with the land. Even if the views held by such environmentalists are objectively right, they need to recognize that there are better ways to meaningfully change the way that we think about the environment for the better.

It seems that BFS activists who hoisted a banner reading "No Compromise" are acting in such a way as to maximize their own self-righteousness rather than the effectiveness of their activism. One might concincingly argue that if BFS activists spent as much resources on more important environmental issues they would achieve greater results. But even if you agree that the battle for BFS is one worth fighting, it is inarguable that such a fight should under no circumstances undermine the more important overall concerns of the environmental movement, a movement that can only succeed with mainstream support.

–Conor Friedersdorf