What do anarchists think of enivronmental regulations?

Question

It might be wrong, but my idea of anarchists are people who are against the government and its laws. How do anarchists reconcile the idea of protecting the environment (which could only be done through making more laws) and maintaining a society without laws?

And if laws are still in place, how could they be enforced?

Comments

aside from the assumption (which you were at least clear about) that riceboy already commented on, i think this beginner question is both appropriate for this site in particular (with our green tendencies) and in general (there are all kinds of reformists calling themselves anarchists, people, there are even ones running for office). especially with groups like DGR running around being confusing.
so i'm not sure why the downvotes?

Answer 1

By rejecting the assumption that "protecting the environment could only be done through making more laws".

Answer 2

i am among the first on this site to acknowledge the wide variety of anarchist types, so believe me when i say
NO anarchist believes that the only way to do *anything* is through making more laws.

a) some people who call themselves anarchists believe in the lesser of two evils, and vote for things they believe in because (they argue) it's better to do try everything to rectify the situation.
b) many anarchists don't believe in working on the premise of the lesser of two evils, including most people here, and would point to groups like earth first! and some of the actions of groups like Greenpeace (back in the day; now they're entirely reformist).

and to be entirely clear, an anarchist society would not have laws.

Answer 3

I don't think Anarchist means being opposed to EVERYTHING the government does, but being opposed to the government itself as an institution. If the government allocates tax money and/or its policing power to something that does more good than harm (not saying this is really possible to calculate), then I have no problems with it. In the case of some environmental regulations, the government is certainly using  it's own power to clamp down on an organization it usually protects. For example, it would be stupid in my opinion for an anarchist to oppose the government stopping some company from poisoning children.

However, that being said, is the government in the long run actually capable of protecting "it's people", or will it just make things more difficult for people in the long run, and encourage more consumption by claiming that markets and a clean environment are actually compatible?  The only difference I see between today's modern "corporatist" capitalism and the capitalism of the past is that companies have gotten so goddamn good at whitewashing and covering things up.

To me, trying to petition for environmental regulations is just a huge waste of time, and we would be better off resorting to other methods...