Why Am I Not An Environmentalist
It seems really hard these days to open a newspaper turn on the TV or browse the internet without stumbling into some sort of tirade about what a tremendously dangerous world we are living in. And if for a second you thought I was referring to Jihadist terrorists, Iranian saber-rattling and unbridled nuclear ambitions, or the raising autocracy in Russia or non-ebbing one in China, then you have really been living under a rock. The gravest and most imminent danger that is facing the world right now is (gasp!) the environmental crisis. If the ever more shrill alarums are to be believed, we have to face the "inconvenient truth" because we are already in the "eleventh hour" and we need to save the earth – or else! And yet.
And yet. I am just not buying it. I am not buying it on so many levels it's not even funny. For the longest time I did consider myself to be at least environmentalism-friendly, since for me conservation is an important part of what it means to be conservative. But even more important part of what it means to me to be conservative is to squarely face the facts. Because, as Margaret Thatcher was so fond of saying, "facts of life are conservative". Hard thinking about facts led me to many conclusions that are squarely at odds with the current environmentalist dogma. And dogma is not too strong of a word for this over-arching mindset has all aspects of religion. But we'll get to that later on.
It would probably take me too far afield to elaborate on all aspects of environmentalism that I find objectionable. A book-length treatise would probably hardly do it justice. In this post I will just try to enumerate and briefly justify many of my major objections.
- I am skeptical of the existence of global warming. The Earth has gone through many different climate cycles in the past, with temperatures rising and falling over the periods of centuries and millennia. In the '70s there was a lot of talk about "global cooling". In order to preempt being proven so radically wrong yet again, some environmentalists are opting for the safe "climate change" moniker. That is, no matter which way the wind blows, they will always be right. Because, the only thing that we know with 100% accuracy about the weather is that it changes.
- Even if there is global warming, humans could only be playing a minor part in it. The main cause of global warming according to all these know-it-alls are the emissions of carbon dioxide. However, the concentration of other "greenhouse gases" like water vapor is thousand times larger than that of carbon dioxide. All the new emissions of carbon dioxide are only a fraction of the total concentration of the gas in the atmosphere, and only a couple of the percents of those emissions are due to human activity.
- Even if there is global warming and it is caused by humans, it is completely impractical to try to do something about it. To reduce emissions of the carbon dioxide as envisioned by some of the enlightened environmentalists it would take refashioning of global economy that could very easily throw us back, if not prehistoric times, than at least in some socialist pre-industrial dystopia. Which brings me to the next point.
- Environmentalists are pinkos. They are the latest incarnation of commies and their ilk. They loath the global capitalism so much that they are willing to do anything, including lying and exaggerating its impact on the environment to such an extent that it would bring it to a screechy halt. And then we can all live in socialist "paradise" like the ones in Cuba.
- Even if we could slow down and recast the whole global economy, people who would be impacted the most will be the same people in the undeveloped countries who are barely surviving as it is. The best way to help these poor bastards is to get them into the global economy pronto, which in turn requires a lot of development. The kind of development that a few windmills and several roof-fools of solar cells can't provide. Do you really want to tell these desperately poor people "sorry, you can't have industry because industry is bad for the environment?"
- The recent "unequivocal" report on global warming was produced by "U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change". The name already combines three words that I have no respect for: U.N. (yes, I know, technically it's two words), intergovernmental, and panel. If you want to make something to be done as inefficiently as possible, appoint a panel to deal with it. If you want a very big panel, get government involved, and for a wannabe government on steroids, with all the drawbacks that a corrupt government has and none of the benefits, give it to U.N.
- Since the strongest and most powerful country and the economy in the world is the US, a large part of support for stronger restriction on economic activity that supposedly leads to global warming is due to animosity that America elicits around the world.
- Recycling. I used to do it religiously. There is something very appealing in the notion that you are reusing the resources and not wasting them, even apart from the whole global warming craze. I used to be, like so many young impressionable college kids, pretty militant about it. I remember once I was having a lunch with a priest. I don't remember exactly what the conversation was about, but I do remember at one point he said that he would throw something away. I immediately interjected "You mean, you'll recycle it?" "Yes, I'll recycle it" he responded. Now putting a Catholic priest to shame takes some pretty strong sense of moral superiority. It turns out, most of the recycling is waste of time, resources and energy. It is much more inefficient to get products out of used materials then out of primary raw resources. Paper and trees are a great example. We've been told for so long to "save the trees" by not being wasteful with paper and recycling the old newspapers. It turns out, paper is the ultimate renewable resource. Most of the trees in the US and other industrialized countries are specifically grown for the purpose of making paper out of it. It's no different that growing potatoes for food. I guess you have to be a pretty die-hard environmentalist to argue for recycling of potatoes after they've gone through the human body. Without getting too graphic, I think you get the point. I come from a family that has been involved in forestry for generations and I know that growing trees is just another branch of agriculture if you will. The only materials that it makes any sense to recycle are metals. They are relatively easy to use as row products, because they have not been processed much (if at all) and they have certain intrinsic value to begin with.
- Even if the global warming exists, is caused by humans and it could be prevented, I am not so sure that it would be a good idea to do something about it. Sure, some parts of the world may become extremely hot and inhospitable, but we already have many such areas and people have been able to adjust and lead more or less normal lives there. Furthermore, most of the Earth's land mass is in Northern hemisphere, and is right now not very hospitable to begin with (think of vast areas of Canada, Alaska and Siberia). Making some warmer regions less hospitable may be more than adequately compensated by opening up the areas of the world that that have so far not been well populated. I personally hate winter, and if I don't ever have to see another snowflake for the rest of my life I would just say "Good riddance."
- So what about all the flooding? So many coastal areas would get flooded if the global warming continues and the ice caps melt? Sure, maybe. I guess folks in the coastal areas would get affected the most. But those people already live in some of the highest priced real estate in the world, so it is hard to see why should I feel too sorry for them, or why should I be the one footing the bill so they can keep on living where they are. As it turns out, it is very easy to reclaim dry land from the sea. The Dutch have been doing it for centuries, Japanese are getting particularly adept at it, and every day I hear about another man-made island popping up somewhere. A few billion dollars max would completely flood-proof Manhattan from all the sea-level rises for generations to come. And that sort of money Donald Trump spends on his haircut every day.
- Environmentalism is a religion. It is a new-age form of pantheism, all with pagan rights and superstitions. People who espouse environmentalism most vehemently happen to be the same people who have the most issues with traditional religion and morality. Sure, they may be sleeping around, using drugs and what not, but man, what it really matters is that they care about the environment, man. Environmentalism is their not-too-subtle way of reclaiming high moral. They are the "enlightened ones" and those of us who deign to disagree are the latter-day heretics. Were it not for the high amount of carbon that it would emit, they would certainly call for us to be burned on a stake. As it is, they are content to roast us in public.
I could keep going with all the reasons that I find environmentalism ever less palpable. Or I could expend on the points raised above. But, for now at least, I wanted to at least write what I had in mind. It is more than even I suspected.