JRR was an environmentalist before it was fashionable.
Consider the following:
1) Saruman’s “evil acts” consisted of industrializing the Shire, building ugly buildings, cutting down trees, and polluting the streams.
2) Elves, who were the high people in the trilogy, lived closest to nature–in trees themselves in the case of Lorien. They were also very close to animals, and could talk to horses and make themselves understood.
3) Gardeners were held in “high regard” in the Shire.
4) Mordor, the center of evil, was a barren land where nothing grew.
5) Aragorn healed people by boiling a plant, Athelas–a natural remedy.
6) The story was loaded with descriptions of the environment around them. After they made their hair-splitting escape into Moria, Gandalf’s first comment were about the trees that were uprooted in their escape.
7) The symbol of the kingship was a tree, and it was very important to them to keep the tree going.
8) Gandalf, the main hero, was referred to as “the only wizard who really cared about trees”.
There are many other examples. The only question in my mind is whether this is a story of good versus evil with some paens to the environment thrown in, or whether the primary focus of the story was really that of environmentalists against polluters, with Gandalf acting like a roving EPA director, righting environmental wrongs.
In today’s context, we can see that Pentagon hawks and al Qaeda both share core beliefs about the use of violence as a means of solving problens. They are both servants of Sauron. from here
“Of course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power (exerted for domination)”
In Tolkien’s vision, the power is always evil – a good power cannot even exist. Since the very beginning, the good guys own the Ring. Since it is the most powerful weapon in the world, many of them ask why it can’t be used against Sauron, the Dark Lord. Even though the Ring was forged by him and undoubtedly it is evil, yet it could help to pursue a good end, they suspect. This is an extraordinary way to ask the question: could the means be subordinated to the ends? Can a good end be pursued by evil means? Tolkin answers that no, evil means can only bring to an evil end – no matter if the original intentions are good.
[[Thus, WAR will never cause good.]]
One might object that the contemporary era implies a sort of “end of history,” because democracy is perceived as the “best form of government,” and provides the illusion that no government governs without the consent of the governed. Tolkien would have not agreed. Indeed, as he wrote, “I am not a `democrat’ only because `humility’ and equality are spiritual principles corrupted by the attempt to mechanize and formalize them, with the result that we get not universal smallness and humility, but universal greatness and pride, till some Orc gets hold of a ring of power–and then we get and are getting slavery” (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1995, p. 246)
“The savage sound of the electric saw is never silent wherever trees are still found growing. Every tree has its enemy, few have an advocate. In all my works I take the part of trees as against all their enemies.”
Tolkien believed that the type of stories that he wrote-called myths-could tell ultimate truths. When he used the word “myth,” he did not mean the same thing as magazine articles do, a story that is untrue. For him, a myth is a story that is so true that it can shed light on people’s lives and situations more effectively than a simple recital of the facts can do.