Meet Two of the Green Movement's Most Hard-Core and Important Activists/Writers

On rare and welcome occasion we meet uncompromised green activists and writers completely focused on winning, and utterly void of bullshit.

Two such specimen are Mike Roselle and Jeffrey St. Clair. Not surprisingly, their recent books are pleasures to behold.

My long-time Greenpeace co-conspirator, Roselle is a "legend in his own crime" who exceeds his advance billing and then some. His Tree Spiker (St. Martin's Press) tells of a hard-scrabble Louisville childhood well-suited to the gritty green activism required to save forests and stop nukes. From a race along the edge of juvenile delinquency to some of the funniest jail tales you'll ever read, Roselle constantly amuses and inspires.

From the wrong side of the logging camps to the tops of tripods meant to save those very trees, Roselle sings a song of guts and glory without pomp or guile. Like all good organizers, Mike knows Rule One is "never be boring." Then there's the one about knowing you can win -- and doing it.

Tree Spiker is a quick, riveting read with all the self-effacing warmth and humor one would expect from a guy who co-founded Earth First! and felt honored by being thrown out of it.

With co-writer Josh Mahan he welcomes you into the world of a pretty big dude known to share (many) beers with various nefarious roughnecks and ideologues while totally outsmarting them all when it comes time to cut the crap and win the victory.

Push really comes to shove at one point when Roselle confronts the vanguard of the Earth First! organization he helped form to establish a Cove/Mallard Coalition aimed at saving some of the most pristine and least known forest stands in the lower 48. "No matter how much we advocated stopping the road" that would kill the region, he complained, "no one would arrest us."

Camped with little cover or support in the violent wilds of rightwing Idaho, Roselle and his hardy cohorts hang on for dear life -- the forest's, and their own. Against all odds, as months of brutal campaigning turn to years, "the chain saws and bulldozers have been silenced in Cove/Mallard, and you can once again hear the howl of a wolf float through the stillness of the night."

Typically, for Roselle, the lessons of the Cove/Mallard campaign were "opposite of what one might think." In this remote Idaho backwater, "we weren't even allowed into local stores or restaurants. Media coverage, with the exception of the alternative press, was universally negative. No foundation would give us funding. No self-respecting environmental group would join our coalition. Yet through tenacity, audacity, and a strong belief that, win or lose, we were all doing the right thing, we outlasted them."

Mike is now based in the West Virginia boonies, focused on stopping mountaintop removal. He's the quintessential grassroots activist. When you read Tree Spiker you'll realize that amidst the horrible devastation being wrecked on these mountains by King Coal, sooner or later, the momentum must turn toward Mother Earth.

And as soon as that happens, Mike will be inundated with requests to spearhead some other campaign, which he will undoubtedly get going, then get booted from, then rally to victory against ridiculous odds, many of them self-imposed by the circular green firing squad which loves to put the hard-core, uncompromised organizers like him in the middle.

My advice, if you still have legs and really want to help save the Earth, would be to read Tree Spiker, then track Mike down in the bar of the town where he's organizing [roselle@lowbagger.org, Climate Climate Ground Zero, PO Box 166, Rock Creek, West Virginia,25174; climategroundzero.org; (304) 854-7372]. Stand there till he tells you all the stories you can handle. You'll emerge with the ultimate green education. With consummate charm, Mike will then -- before you know what's happening -- put you to righteous use. Together, you will win ... as will we all.