I've worked as an "environmentalist" before, for an environmental advocacy org. My job was definitely a real job - much more so than the brainless 9-5 jobs of most other people I knew - and it was not at all what you'd think. No male ponytails, no sandals, no patchouli. What it was: good people working very hard to wrest this area or that species from imminent destruction, and receiving virtually no thanks for it.

And now, a rant I've wanted to make for years: people are fucking hypocrites when it comes to environmentalists. People love to mock environmentalists (see thread below), and yet these same assholes feel no shred of hypocrisy when they actually enjoy the many, many benefits of environmental protections. Clean water, clean air, abundant species to fish and hunt and photograph, protected areas: the market doesn't supply those things. Left unchecked, the market will destroy that shit. If you want to conserve nature, you've got to drag it out of the clutches of industry, who always get first dibs, and force the government to protect it. So, that's what environmental advocacy people do, and if they weren't out doing it, you wouldn't be able to enjoy those things.

(My favorite moment: walking through an entrance to a National Park and overhearing a Tea Party type in front of me alternating between oohing and ahhing over the mature forest that we were in (which had been protected from logging decades ago), and bitching about the libruls. Can't have it both ways, fuckwit).