Henry Lamb, RIP

By Joe Bast

I learned from Ron Arnold today that Henry Lamb has passed away. Another leader of the freedom movement has left us.

Henry was one of the first conservative opponents of radical environmentalism I met in the early 1990s, when Heartland started to address environmental issues. He was deeply concerned about the threat posed by the United Nations and its allies in the U.S. to traditional American freedoms and prosperity, and spoke out with great courage and conviction.

Henry was constantly organizing, writing, speaking, and networking with allies. He was a font of ideas for new projects, and not infrequently was ahead of his times. He was videotaping presentations back when it was considered quite a novelty in the movement, and was talking about sustainable development and smart growth as major issues when they were dismissed (and are still dismissed) an a minor or fringe issue by movement leaders. He was the embodiment of the idea that “there’s no limit to what we can achieve if we don’t care who gets the credit.”

Henry operated outside the world of “official” think tanks, partly by choice and partly because most beltway think thank leaders were afraid to associate with a man who spoke so openly and frankly about threats to American sovereignty. He lacked the pseudo-credentials of the pseudo-experts who populate the ranks of think tanks in Washington DC, and was too interested in working with the grassroots instead of “elite opinion leaders.

Henry was founder and variously president or chairman of at least three organizations, Sovereignty International, the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) and Freedom21, Inc. The Heartland Institute, at various times, partnered with each of these organizations to cosponsor events and publications, most notably publication of The Freedom 21 Agenda for Prosperity in 2007.

I hope you’ll take a minute to reflect on the legacy of a fine man, maybe visit some of the sites linked above, and rededicate yourself to your own efforts to protect freedom and prosperity.