Environmentalism

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Well, the Ten Commandments thread spurred a brief discussion on the zealotry behind environmentalism, so I thought it was worth it's own discussion.

 

To spark some debate, I'll throw out this Kristof column, which, if you don't immediately judge it by virtue of being an NY Times column, is actually pretty critical. I'm inclined to agree with him. Thoughts?

 

http://tinyurl.com/49fjc

 

'I Have a Nightmare'

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

 

When environmentalists are writing tracts like "The Death of Environmentalism," you know the movement is in deep trouble.

 

That essay by two young environmentalists has been whirling around the Internet since last fall, provoking a civil war among tree-huggers for its assertion that "modern environmentalism, with all of its unexamined assumptions, outdated concepts and exhausted strategies, must die so that something new can live." Sadly, the authors, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, are right.

 

The U.S. environmental movement is unable to win on even its very top priorities, even though it has the advantage of mostly being right. Oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may be approved soon, and there's been no progress whatsoever in the U.S. on what may be the single most important issue to Earth in the long run: climate change.

 

The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that environmental groups are too often alarmists. They have an awful track record, so they've lost credibility with the public. Some do great work, but others can be the left's equivalents of the neocons: brimming with moral clarity and ideological zeal, but empty of nuance. (Industry has also hyped risks with wildly exaggerated warnings that environmental protections will entail a terrible economic cost.)

 

"The Death of Environmentalism" resonated with me. I was once an environmental groupie, and I still share the movement's broad aims, but I'm now skeptical of the movement's "I Have a Nightmare" speeches.

 

In the 1970's, the environmental movement was convinced that the Alaska oil pipeline would devastate the Central Arctic caribou herd. Since then, it has quintupled.

 

When I first began to worry about climate change, global cooling and nuclear winter seemed the main risks. As Newsweek said in 1975: "Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend ... but they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century."

 

This record should teach environmentalists some humility. The problems are real, but so is the uncertainty. Environmentalists were right about DDT's threat to bald eagles, for example, but blocking all spraying in the third world has led to hundreds of thousands of malaria deaths.

 

Likewise, environmentalists were right to warn about population pressures, but they overestimated wildly. Paul Ehrlich warned in "The Population Bomb" that "the battle to feed humanity is over. ... Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." On my bookshelf is an even earlier book, "Too Many Asians," with a photo of a mass of Indians on the cover. The book warns that the threat from relentlessly multiplying Asians is "even more grave than that of nuclear warfare."

 

Jared Diamond, author of the fascinating new book "Collapse," which shows how some civilizations in effect committed suicide by plundering their environments, says false alarms aren't a bad thing. Professor Diamond argues that if we accept false alarms for fires, then why not for the health of our planet? But environmental alarms have been screeching for so long that, like car alarms, they are now just an irritating background noise.

 

At one level, we're all environmentalists now. The Pew Research Center found that more than three-quarters of Americans agree that "this country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment." Yet support for the environment is coupled with a suspicion of environmental groups. "The Death of Environmentalism" notes that a poll in 2000 found that 41 percent of Americans considered environmental activists to be "extremists." There are many sensible environmentalists, of course, but overzealous ones have tarred the entire field.

 

The loss of credibility is tragic because reasonable environmentalists - without alarmism or exaggerations - are urgently needed.

 

Given the uncertainties and trade-offs, priority should go to avoiding environmental damage that is irreversible, like extinctions, climate change and loss of wilderness. And irreversible changes are precisely what are at stake with the Bush administration's plans to drill in the Arctic wildlife refuge, to allow roads in virgin wilderness and to do essentially nothing on global warming. That's an agenda that will disgrace us before our grandchildren.

 

So it's critical to have a credible, nuanced, highly respected environmental movement. And right now, I'm afraid we don't have one.

 

The wolf-howling of environmental groups has always been grating IMO because most people honestly don't want to live in a world without a healthy system of nature, but are distrusting of the current face of preserving the ecosystem.

 

Politically, I think there's only so long before Democrats can keep saying that the latest thing the enviro-hippies are against is just some tip of the hat to a corporate donor, and are going to have to admit that it's the right idea.

[SuperJerk 0]

The article makes a good point.

 

There are real dangers out there which we can control without jumping into the stereotypical "OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE~!!!!!" mindset that solves nothing.

 

Health risks from man-made pollutants are very real, but warnings of "10 years from now the average temperature will be 108 degrees and you'll need a gas mask just to walk outside" is counter-productive due to how far-fetched it is.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

.The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that environmental groups are too often alarmists. They have an awful track record, so they've lost credibility with the public. Some do great work, but others can be the left's equivalents of the neocons: brimming with moral clarity and ideological zeal, but empty of nuance.

 

Personally, I can deal(as an intelligent person) with overblown alerts and all this because I can generally pick out reality from fiction with the help of a little research and logic. Trying to alert most people about these issues is generally a lost cause, so a more focused system of giving out the info would be nice. Better to be blasted with a lot of it, and pick through it properly, then have it all blow up under our noses.

 

This record should teach environmentalists some humility. The problems are real, but so is the uncertainty. Environmentalists were right about DDT's threat to bald eagles, for example, but blocking all spraying in the third world has led to hundreds of thousands of malaria deaths.

 

Better safe than sorry? For those of us that care anyway.

 

Jared Diamond, author of the fascinating new book "Collapse," which shows how some civilizations in effect committed suicide by plundering their environments, says false alarms aren't a bad thing. Professor Diamond argues that if we accept false alarms for fires, then why not for the health of our planet? But environmental alarms have been screeching for so long that, like car alarms, they are now just an irritating background noise.

 

This was likely always the case with most people who may be too preoccupied with "important" things like their slave labour, brat kids, pressing their pants, or saving for that big screen...or that it's never been taught to them that this is an issue that needs to be looked at. PETA and their ilk, don't help this either with their virulent campaign of stupidity.

 

three-quarters of Americans agree that "this country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment." Yet support for the environment is coupled with a suspicion of environmental groups. "The Death of Environmentalism" notes that a poll in 2000 found that 41 percent of Americans considered environmental activists to be "extremists."

 

Another theory: Perhaps this is one of those things where people mean well, but then it's forgotten a minute later amongst the mishmash of whatever else they have to concentrate on during their day. Again, it's probably a failure of education that these things aren't drilled into people more vigorously.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

For me it boils down to being able to recognize the difference between "local" environmentalism and "global" environmentalism.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

For me it boils down to being able to recognize the difference between "local" environmentalism and "global" environmentalism.

Er? Care to expand on that?

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

For me it boils down to being able to recognize the difference between "local" environmentalism and "global" environmentalism.

Er? Care to expand on that?

The evidence of "global" environemental problems (global warming, sustainable development, etc.) is debatable at best. On the other hand, only the willfully blind would claim that things such as water pollution, poor air quality (in cities) and so on don't exist. Environmental problems at the local level are very real. At the global level it's much harder to say.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I for one am against clean air and water because it causes my stock portfolio to drop...

[Guest MikeSC]

"Global environmentalism" has fewer intellectual underpinnings than voodoo and snake handling.

-=Mike

[2GOLD 0]

"Global environmentalism" has fewer intellectual underpinnings than voodoo and snake handling.

-=Mike

 

Hey now.

Don't drag voodoo into this!

[Guest MikeSC]

"Global environmentalism" has fewer intellectual underpinnings than voodoo and snake handling.

            -=Mike

 

Hey now.

Don't drag voodoo into this!

I'll say what I want about...OW!

 

Why the fuck does my neck hurt now?

 

OUCH!

 

FUCK!

-=Mike

[2GOLD 0]

In all seriousness now, cause god knows if I don't someone will get all angry, I am all for protecting the environment within reason.

 

Global, I can't really get behind cause I still keep getting various reports on what will happen, what might happen and what we don't know anything about and it usually just puts me back at square one.

 

Local is obviously a problem and things like smog and water pollution need to be addressed. These are very real issues and not some guess work for a distant future. Stuff like this I can get behind cause these are the things were real solutions are needed. Not to mention if every local pollution is taken care of then much of the "global" pollution problems will begin to fade and falter.

 

Fix the local problems first, the global benefits. Wanting to win the global fight when you haven't started the local is just stupid.

[Guest MikeSC]

Thing is, environmental groups are wrong SO often I don't take them seriously.

 

They think timber companies are a scourge to the woodlands, ignoring that, at the minimum, it'd be horrible business for them to not replace the easily replaceable resource they're using. Their record on animals is abysmal (remember the spotted owl controversy and how they "needed old growth forests" to live in? Not true). They seem to hold up primitive societies as an example of how we should live, but ignore that our significantly higher life expectancy might be a sign that we're doing something right. Some of our worst domestic terrorist groups ARE the environmentalist whackjobs (Earth First for one. And whatever group it is that burns down houses).

 

And one thing I learned from "Bullshit" that I thought was hilarious that a high-ranking executive in PETA --- who VIGOROUSLY opposes animal testing for medicine --- was saved due to medical treatments DERIVED from animal testing. And this executive finds NOTHING hypocritical about CONTINUING to oppose animal testing.

-=Mike

[Special K 0]

^

How do you figure that, Mike? We can clearly affect the planet in a manner adverse to ourselves. Or at least cause global changes. I don't think the earth's inhabibility is going to change for a long time, but saying we can't affect the planet at all is pretty silly, IMHO.

[Guest MikeSC]

^

How do you figure that, Mike? We can clearly affect the planet in a manner adverse to ourselves. Or at least cause global changes. I don't think the earth's inhabibility is going to change for a long time, but saying we can't affect the planet at all is pretty silly, IMHO.

Again, the damage WE cause pales to the damage the Earth causes itself on a regular basis. The worst we can do is make ourselves sick.

 

We cannot hope to "destroy" the planet.

 

And the track record of accuracy for the enivornmental movement is even worse than CBS'.

-=Mike

[Special K 0]

We could destroy the planet as an inhabitable planet, but we'd have to make a concentrated effort.

The point is not that we can destroy the planet, it's that we can make it basically uninhabitable for our own purposes.

[Guest MikeSC]

We could destroy the planet as an inhabitable planet, but we'd have to make a concentrated effort.

The point is not that we can destroy the planet, it's that we can make it basically uninhabitable for our own purposes.

And it'd require A LOT of work on our part to make it so. And we don't want to do that.

-=Mike

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

The problem with these large scale global causes is that it overshadows the legitimate problems with the environment. It will result in a large group of people that looks primarly at global warming at the expense of real problems, and another large group of people that won't buy the arguments and thus end up ignoring everything to do with environmental protection ('If they are wrong about A, they must be wrong about B.'). Neither group is of any help, and there seems to be far too few people that actually use common sense.

 

The big problem is that temperature records only go back 100-150 years or so depending on where you live. As far as climate is concerned, that is a very very short time. And since meteorologists use that data to reach their conclusions, and the 19th Century was a particularly cold one which started warming up towards the end, it looks as if the earth has gotten warmer substantially in the past 100 years. However, climatologists, geologists, and even historians would be able to tell you how much warmer it was even in the historical past. The big problem with many environmentalists is that they simply don't look at a big enough scale.

 

They also have a tendency to put the blame on the wrong places, ie. North America. Except for maybe Australia, North Americans have done more to protect their landscapes than any other continent on Earth. Pollution is a problem and I do worry about Bush's environmental policies, but for now we do quite a good job at protecting life. There are problem areas, of course, but we are limiting the damage by things like population growth that we really can't do a whole lot about. Compare that to South America or Southeast Asia, where they don't care about protecting anything. Those are the real places environmentalists should be going after.

 

And it'd require A LOT of work on our part to make it so. And we don't want to do that.

 

Yeah. We would basically have to bulldoze over everything and put in concrete. Stuff like that. I don't think that's what anybody wants, and we'd have to make a concious effort to try and destroy ourselves. At least in NA, because we know better.

[Guest MikeSC]

Let's keep one thing in mind:

 

Environmentalists are ALL about the Kyoto Accords. They think it's deplorable that we won't participate.

 

But CHINA was completely exempt from them --- and, sorry to inform some people, their country is filthy and their consumption of resources is going through the roof.

 

Much of environmentalism is simply anti-capitalism with prettier language and some semblance of scientific dogma behind it.

 

They don't want to fix anything: they DO want to punish America.

-=Mike

[NoCalMike 0]

Ever hear of the phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally" ?

 

Kahran, made a good point when he said the "Global Warming" debate overshadows and basically takes away from issues effecting everyone's local communities. The concept of "dumping toxins, waste, pollutants into water, makes the water poisonous", cannot be much easier to understand. Mercury levels rising so high to where now we are recommened not to eat fish more then 1-2 times a week, is not hard to comprehend.

 

If these groups of people concentrated more on what is going on in their local community and try to help clean things up, it would probably be much more of a constructive and collective effort in the name of the enviornment.

[SuperJerk 0]

^

How do you figure that, Mike? We can clearly affect the planet in a manner adverse to ourselves. Or at least cause global changes. I don't think the earth's inhabibility is going to change for a long time, but saying we can't affect the planet at all is pretty silly, IMHO.

Again, the damage WE cause pales to the damage the Earth causes itself on a regular basis. The worst we can do is make ourselves sick.

Isn't that itself worth fighting against?

[Guest MikeSC]

Ever hear of the phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally" ?

 

Kahran, made a good point when he said the "Global Warming" debate overshadows and basically takes away from issues effecting everyone's local communities. The concept of "dumping toxins, waste, pollutants into water, makes the water poisonous", cannot be much easier to understand. Mercury levels rising so high to where now we are recommened not to eat fish more then 1-2 times a week, is not hard to comprehend.

This is absolute bullshit, considering that the allowed mercury levels are IDENTICAL to what they were for all but the last day of Clinton's administration.

-=Mike

[SuperJerk 0]

Arguing that something is okay because Clinton did it is NOT a rational argument.

[Guest MikeSC]

Arguing that something is okay because Clinton did it is NOT a rational argument.

If this wasn't a problem back in 1999 --- which it wasn't, considering that these stories didn't EXIST back then --- it's illogical that the IDENTICAL levels of mercury would be causing problems now.

 

Well, provided that environmentalism is a science and not a religious cult. But, since it IS a cult and little more, it's par for the course for a "science" the government should not give one red dime to, according to the 1st Amendment.

 

You seem to ignore that this SUDDENLY has become a problem when it wasn't during the good ol' days of the 1990's.

-=Mike

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

Well, its a nice idea that we are saving ourselves from ourselves by recycling and whatever. But It all doesn't really matter anyway cuz by the time the shit hits the fan for humanity it'll be waaaaay past our lifetimes. So who cares right?

 

 

BTW, we always COULD use pot plants for a multitude tasks we have use for trees. Plus they grow back faster. Just saying.

[SuperJerk 0]

Arguing that something is okay because Clinton did it is NOT a rational argument.

If this wasn't a problem back in 1999 --- which it wasn't, considering that these stories didn't EXIST back then --- it's illogical that the IDENTICAL levels of mercury would be causing problems now.

Just because we don't know about a problem doesn't mean that the problem does not exist.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

They're also more environmentally sound when it comes to producing paper. Unless techniques for producing paper have changed (which is quite possible), hemp paper production produces less pollution.

[Guest MikeSC]

Arguing that something is okay because Clinton did it is NOT a rational argument.

If this wasn't a problem back in 1999 --- which it wasn't, considering that these stories didn't EXIST back then --- it's illogical that the IDENTICAL levels of mercury would be causing problems now.

Just because we don't know about a problem doesn't mean that the problem does not exist.

No, it shows that environmentalism is not a science, but a religious cult. They praised Clinton's environmental policies, but when Bush KEPT them, he was trying to poison the water.

-=Mike

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

So this has NOTHING to do with people trying to clean things up and ALL about politics and removing a republican from office? Geez and you say *I* wear a tinfoil hat? Nope, nobody had good intentions here. Not a one. They are liberals afterall.

[NoCalMike 0]

 

You seem to ignore that this SUDDENLY has become a problem when it wasn't during the good ol' days of the 1990's.

-=Mike

Who says it wasn't a problem during the 1990's? I mean it's not like the media regularly runs stories about the enviornment anyways, now or back then, it is an issue that is somewhat boring to people, thus it goes uncovered or buried on page 19 of the current events section of the paper. What is the point of invoking Clinton's name into this anyway?

[SuperJerk 0]

No, it shows that environmentalism is not a science, but a religious cult. They praised Clinton's environmental policies, but when Bush KEPT them, he was trying to poison the water.

        -=Mike

I think you need to look up the word "religious" in the dictionary.

 

Besides, I remember various groups being very critical of Clinton's environmental policies, which is why they supported Ralph Nader in 2000.