by Judi Mcleod
March 8, 2004
What is the correlation between suicide and radical environmental activists?
We know that scores of environmentalists, radical and otherwise believe that mankind is killing the planet; legions of school children have been subjected to environmentally inspired "education" films, such as If You Love This Planet.
But do they really take to heart the well-touted Church of Euthanasia slogan "Save the Planet, Kill Yourself"?
Fellow protesters hailed Lee Kyung-Hae, a South Korean who committed suicide in Cancun, Mexico September 9, 2003 during a recent anti-globalization rally targeting the World Trade Organization’s free trade policies. The farmer and lawmaker was participating in a "mock funeral" for the WTO’s alleged victims when he climbed a security fence, pulled a knife and stabbed himself in the chest.
Kristin Marie Snyder, a self-employed environmental consultant took her own life on Feb. 6, 2003.
Then there are the mass suicides since 1994 of more than 74 members of the Order of the Solar Temple. Luc Jouret, who had convinced followers of a coming apocalypse, founded the order in 1977. The apocalypse would come, Jouret said, through "environmental disasters".
We see signs of it everyday in the media: Environmentalists believe the human race is ruining the planet.
But much less publicized is the solution radical environmentalist suggest, reducing the human population using various means, including suicide.
How seriously do environmental activists take this mantra?
Well, The Gaia Liberation Front, based in Toronto and launched on Earth Day 1990 is on the public record on the subject: "Our mission is the total liberation of the Earth, which can be accomplished only through the extinction of Humans as a species."
The latest victim of suicide in the environmental world is longtime activist, Greenpeacer, former Edmonton city councillor and runner-up for 2000 Toronto mayoral elections, Tooker Gomberg.
Police believe that Gomberg, whose friends say had been suffering from depression, jumped off the City of Halifax’s angus L. Macdonald Bridge, leaving behind his signature bicycle and helmet.
as an outspoken environmental activist, Gomberg was known well beyond Canadian borders. He once captured front-page headlines for having burned his passport to protest against Canada’s position at a climate change conference in The Hague.
Gomberg was a well-recognized figure on downtown Toronto streets, riding a bicycle decorated with Greenpeace signs.
In September of 2003, Gomberg and his companion ange Bischoff moved to Halifax, where Bischoff took a job with the Ecology action Centre, promoting sustainable transportation.
Gomberg was going to do some writing and was "looking for something to get his teeth into."
In one of his first emails to Toronto friends, he somewhat eerily wrote about the same bridge, he was to jump off less than a year later.
"I was riding my bicycle across the Macdonald Bridge, high above Halifax Harbour," Gomberg wrote in an email to Toronto friends on Sept. 30, 2003.
In his ride across the bridge, the environmentalist was surveying damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Juan.
Referring to the "will-my-insurance-cover-this anxieties of a store owner whose car had been squashed by a tree, Gomberg wrote "maybe the squashed car and the electricity blackouts were acts of revenge, nature hitting back at humanity’s willfully negligent burning of fossil fuels in cars and power plants."
"Climate scientists have predicted that global temperatures will rise from our endless burning of coal, oil and natural gas and that will bring more hurricanes, droughts, forest fires and West Nile-like viruses."
Environmental hype notwithstanding, and no matter how many the sky-is-falling communiqués are hitting the media each day, Mother Earth has been around a long time, and will continue to be.
Given the drawing power of environmentalism as a cause to today’s youth, suicides among radical environmentalists should be disquieting. Radical environmentalism paves the way for a loss of perspective; It can be a vortex, sucking its victims into the darkest of worlds, sending our young people down a black, hopeless path.
For far too many, radical environmentalism provides a deadbeat road with a cemetery waiting at the end.
Do you know where your children are?
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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