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All three of you have touched on it.

The suthor is describing only one sub-set of environmentalists. Let me attempt to classify/catagorize/organize:

1. Mythists
1A Religionist- well described in the article
1B Polyannas - different from the religionists; the cute and cuddly crowd; bambi-ists; warm and fuzzy; highly motivated by the image of a harp seal being clubbed.

2. Watermelons- not actual environmentalists but use it to promote their socio-politico-economic goals. I'm sure this group could be sub-divided.

3. Capitalists- those that invoke environmentalism to promote their resource extraction over another competing resource extraction. A petro-chemical company will promote the use of natural gas in electrical generation by funding a foundation/enviro group to attack the use of coal as a fuel for electrical generation.

Feel free to futher classify or re-organize the above. After all, just as the the author points out that the human mind is likely hardwired for religion, the human mind is also hardwired to classify, catagorize and organize.

I always categorize environmentalists by whether they have an agenda or not.

The ones who are closely aligned with the left, (Sierra Club Etc.) seem not to care so much about the environment as to whether it helps socialist causes. (Let the forests take care of themselves, don't log; this saves money for other social programs and makes housing expensive so the poor need to rely on government subsidies.) These you call watermelons, but I have not heard that slogan.

Then there are the other kind like the recyclers who separate their waste glass not realizing that the recycling centers just dump the glass in a land fill because it really is cheaper to make glass from sand, and there is a lot of sand available for glassmaking.

Thus one group is out to destroy capitalism, believing like Nader that it will lead to a ruinous world. Of course this group is used by the marx loving crowd and is aligned with the democratic coalition. The other group simply lacks understanding, and likes to go with the flow. This "feel good" group would well be served by Crichton's call for better environmental science, because they really believe MTBE is good for the world (as opposed to a harmful subsidy for big oil), and they worry that the oceans are rising not mindful of the fact that Holland is below sea level and has been for years. This group believes that fuel cell will save us without considering the environmental cost of making fuel cells and generating and distributing hydrogen.

I have not thought of capitalists as a sub group, but you are right when they use environmental images in their advertising, attempting to create good will for their industries.