Why I Am NOT An "Environmentalist"

In April many celebrate "Earth Day." It began in 1970.  To give readers fair warning, I celebrate "Earth Day" with all the enthusiasm that the British celebrate the 4th of July.

A broad range of people and groups are called "environmentalist." Some are really wacky, like Earth First!, while others, like the Sierra Club, go for a more main-stream image. But when you examine environmentalists of all sorts, you do find some common themes.

According to environmentalists, people and their productive activities are a problem at best, and a plague at worst, for the earth. For example, Thomas Lovejoy, tropical biologist and assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, has said, "The planet is about to break out with fever . . . and we are the disease. We should be at war with ourselves and our lifestyles." -- does this Lovejoy fellow have the wrong last name, or what?

According to environmentalists, the problems caused by people are leading to an imminent catastrophe for the earth. According to environmentalists, the only way to avert this catastrophe is by immediate and massive government control of the activities of people.

If this is anything like a fair assessment of environmentalism, you can see that it has some stressful internal tensions. Some of these internal tensions are amusing.

Environmentalists are always concerned about the things people do. People, according to many environmentalists, get in the way of "Nature." I find this at least a little amusing because, according to most moderns, human beings are a part of "nature." "But," the environmentalists often say, "human beings change nature." Well, so do many other things that are part of "nature." The vast herds of American bison that roamed North America at one time left some definite changes in their wake. (Think about that for a moment!) But they are not condemned by environmentalists -- only human beings are worthy of such condemnation! After reading some environmentalists on the problems that people cause, one wonders why many of the environmentalists don't just link up with Jack Kavorkian and begin to solve the problem by killing themselves.

Next we come to all those problems caused by people. One amusing little tension here is this: environmentalists often worry about people -- about there being too many people. Then they worry about the alleged disasters that human beings are going to cause. But they seem to forget that if these catastrophes are going to be as destructive as they claim, they would get rid of most of the human population, thus solving the problem of "too many people and their pollution."

Environmentalists are sometimes anti-technology. The "Unabomber" made clear that he was blowing people up, in part, because of their connection to technology. (I wonder why the press hasn't made as much of the connection of the Unabomber to anti-technology environmentalism as it tried to do with the Oklahoma City bombing and the "militia movement?") When you think of what the alternative to much modern technology is (harder work, more suffering, and earlier death, to name a few things!) it is hard to sympathize with this -- but don't forget, most environmentalists think there are too many people anyway!

But the environmentalist funnies don't stop there. To solve the problems allegedly caused by people, the environmentalists want the government to do something. This is amusing for a couple of reasons. First, environmentalists usually believe that "small is beautiful." They want to decentralize production, scale-down the economy, simplify life, and make everyone autonomous. But if anyone decides not to go along with these moves, the environmentalists want a big, powerful, centralized government to force you to do it!

It seems to escape the notice of the environmentalists of our world that governments are composed of people! Of course, as the environmentalists envision this, these government people are not just common, ordinary, stupid people. They are upstanding, intelligent environmentalists like Al Gore. Such human beings must transcend the frailties of mere mortals. They are the elite.

Why would I, or anyone else for that matter, dissent from the environmentalist vision? For all of the amusement I derive from environmentalism's internal tensions, there is plenty to cause alarm in the posture and program of environmentalism.

One problem with environmentalists is their lack of honesty. Most environmentalists want the state to take action to curb the current productive practices of human beings. They want government action, and they want it now. They do not want humans doing anything that might change the earth. But human beings do not change easily, or without some compelling reason.

Environmentalists need an impending disaster. A mere problem to be studied and solved is not sufficient. In fact, one thing that bothers a lot of environmentalists is that when careful, scientific studies are done on the problems that concern environmentalists, the seriousness of the problem often pales in the light of the evidence, and the solutions proposed are just not drastic enough to suit the environmentalist mentality.

I have, in effect (in case you missed it in this mess of verbiage) just called many environmentalists a bunch of liars. I would not want to do that without some good evidence, so let us wade into some examples here. I have chosen just a few examples from "impending catastrophes" that have kept the environmentalist fires burning brightly for the last 20 years: "global warming," "ozone depletion," and "acid rain."

Let's start with an admission from Stephen Schneider. He is a scientist who went from "we are all going to die from global cooling" in the '70s to a "we are all going to die from global warming" in the '80s. In one of his more honest moments of self-examination, he said this:

"On the one hand, as scientists, we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but -- which means we must include all the doubts, caveats and ifs, ands, and buts . . .On the other hand, we are not just scientists, but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad-base support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

We could try to help Mr. Schneider decide what the right "balance" is by reminding him that it is the truth that sets us free. But at key junctures and at important points, environmentalists have taken pains not to reveal the truth. There are many examples of this, but here we look at a few of them.

In June of 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen testified to Congress. In his attempt to show that the earth was warming dramatically due to the "greenhouse" effect, Hansen compared a five-month sample of data to annual averages. He certainly knew that by choosing the right sample and a small enough sample, you could make it appear that great change was taking place. That is nothing more than a lie clothed in the manipulation of statistics -- but it is representative of the way environmentalists work. It did "work" for Hansen, as the environmentalist "Union of Concerned Scientists" sent out Hansen's testimony with an appeal for funds -- which came rolling in. Hansen's testimony was covered by the media, and the uncritical populace believed it, as many still do.

The press is often the willing accomplice of environmentalists lies. In February 1991, USA Today ran a front-page headline (in big RED letters, to signify heat) about the warm temperatures in 1990. The story said that 1990 had been the second warmest year since 1895 -- which was false, since it was actually the sixth warmest. If that were all, we could attribute it to an honest, stupid mistake. In doing background for the story, the paper contacted a scientist who suggested that they put a chart of the temperature history since 1895 in the usual little "data snapshot" USA Today often puts on the front page. The paper declined to do so, saying it was "too complicated" for readers. The real reason was rather obvious -- that chart does not show the trend that the headline suggests. It probably would have confused readers to have a lying headline beside a chart showing the truth!

Or consider the broadcast record of the Public Broadcasting Service, which broadcast "Race to Save the Planet", "After the Warming," and NOVA's "Hot Enough for You?" But they refused to broadcast "The Greenhouse Conspiracy" claiming that it was "too biased!"

In February 1992, NASA scientists held a press conference warning of "danger shining through the sky." Senator (at the time) Albert Gore, with what appeared to be the backing of NASA scientists, declared, "We have to tell our children that they must redefine their relationship to the sky, and they must begin to think of the sky as a threatening part of their environment." (Actually, children should think of Al Gore as a threatening part of their environment!)

Based in large part on the testimony of these NASA scientists, the Senate urged President Bush to rush a ban on cloroflorocarbons. The implication was made that CFCs were responsible for an alleged reduction in upper-atmosphere ozone levels that year. There were, in fact, increased levels of potentially ozone-destroying chlorine monoxide in the atmosphere that year.

But here is the clincher -- NASA scientists had predicted, back in 1991, that this would occur due to the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines!

NASA waited until April 30, 1992, to reveal that the predicted "ozone hole" over North America had not happened. Why did they wait so long? Why were they part of the plot to ban what has to be one of the "miracle" inventions of the 20th century -- CFC's, commonly known as "Freon"???

It turns out that then Senator Gore was the chairman of the subcommittee on Science, Space, and Technology, which oversees NASA's budget. As Melvyn Shapiro, chief of meteorological research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration laboratory, told Insight (April 6, 1992) magazine, "If there were no dollars attached to this game, you'd see it played on intellect and integrity. When you say the ozone threat is a scam, you're not only attacking people's scientific integrity, you're going after their pocketbook as well. It's money, purely money."

It is more than just funding for NASA that is the money question here. Refrigeration is a key element in modern civilization. It is going to cost much, much more without freon, and it going to work much, much worse without freon. Unless we reverse this unnecessary ban on one of the miracle inventions of the 20th century, we are going to pay very dearly, for a very long time, for Al Gore's obsessions.

After intense environmentalist agitation in the late '70s concerning the dire effects of "acid rain," Congress authorized a $500 million study of the alleged problem which came to be known as the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Project (NAPAP).

After ten years of study, NAPAP released its report in 1990. The study found that of more than 7,000 northeastern lakes, only 240 were acidic -- the average lake having about the same degree of acidity as before the industrial era. Dr. James Mahoney, director of NAPAP from 1987 to 1990, when asked what would happen to lake and stream acidity over the next 50 years if no action were taken, replied, "Nothing."

These results were already released in an interim report in 1987. But the EPA did not like this report -- can anyone guess why? The EPA "revised" the director's report to Congress. NAPAP scientist Dr. Edward Krug said, "Acid rain had to be an environmental catastrophe, no matter what the facts revealed." Congress did not even consider the findings of NAPAP when it passed the 1990 Clean Air Act, with its $40 billion to solve the non-problem of acid rain.

Never let it be said that the truth got in the way of the program of environmentalism.

Another problem with environmentalists is their insistence that only the government can solve environmental problems.

It is time to survey some of the problems (do global warming and ozone from notes) what we find is that the "big problems" that have received a lot of government attention turn out not to be such big problems after all.

Concerning the emission of "greenhouse" gases like carbon dioxide, climatologist Patrick J. Michaels in his very readable book Sound and Fury, summarizes the situation like this:

"We are creating a world in which the winters warm and the summers do not, a world in which the nights warm and the days do not. We are creating world in which the growing season lengthens and the great ice fields of Greenland and Antarctica change little (they may even be enlarging). The CO₂ we are emitting to the atmosphere has an additional effect: When plants are supplied adequate nutrients, they grow better." (p. 7)

In fact, the temperature record from satellite data shows that in the fifteen years preceding 1995, the earth's average temperature cooled by one-tenth of a degree Centigrade.

From what we can tell, the amount of ozone in the upper atmosphere, like most other things on and around the earth, is always changing. The chemistry of the earth's atmosphere is not yet all that well understood. Ozone comes and goes with the seasons over antarctica, but this has no known connection to CFC's. It does have something to do with the extreme cold of the winter nights over antarctica, which solidify the oxides of nitrogen. These would normally cancel out the activity of chlorine oxides. Note: remember when the environmentalists had a fit about the development of the Supersonic Transport about 20 years ago? The US did not develop the SST (the Europeans did) because it would emit nitrogen oxide from its exhaust. It turns out that nitrogen oxide, as just mentioned, aids in the formation of ozone by removing chlorine oxide from the atmosphere.

We know that ozone levels react to volcanic eruptions. Volcanic eruptions can spew out massive amounts of sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide inhibits the effects of nitrogen oxide in protecting atmospheric ozone. There is a lot that is not known about the chemistry of our atmosphere.

There is something we do know, however, that should be very relevant to this debate, but is seldom mentioned. The reason environmentalists told us we should fear alleged ozone depletion is that ozone absorbs the ultraviolet light coming from the sun. There is a network of what are called "Robinson-Berger" meters that measure the UV light reaching the surface in the northern hemisphere. From 1974 to 1985 the data from this network showed an average 8% decline in UV light at the surface in the northern hemisphere. So, "where's the UV?"

Rain is naturally acidic, but the charge was made that sulfur dioxide emissions were making it more acidic -- acidic enough to have disastrous effects on plant and animal life.

Although the comprehensive study by NAPAP showed no significant problem, anecdotal evidence dies hard. Teddy Roosevelt fished in Lake Colden, but that lake is now nearly fishless, due in part to its acidity. Forest floors are naturally acidic. Lakes fed from the run-off of heavily forested areas are often very acidic. But cut-and-burn logging of the 19th century left wood ash on the forest floor. This wood ash is an alkaline source, which temporarily neutralized lakes that were naturally acidic. Such lakes "came to life" during the era of this kind of logging, but once it stopped, they eventually returned to their natural acidity. Would the environmentalists like to do a little slashing and burning in order to unnaturally neutralize the acid in naturally acidic lakes?

Besides just getting the facts wrong, environmentalists want to shift the "burden of proof" to their opponents. We have a very reasonable principle in the US legal tradition -- the party making a charge is required to prove the charge. This is only good logic, because it is often impossible to prove negatives. Mr. Spock should not like environmentalists. They are often very illogical.

Without proof that our activities are harming someone, the state should leave us alone. But not so with the environmentalists. If you are in conflict with their vision, you are guilty until proven innocent. Remember, environmentalists usually want BIG BROTHER (or is that BIG SISTER now?) to force you to live out their environmental fantasies.

So what drives environmentalists to lie about the problems, and to insist that we assume that human productive activities are guilty until proven innocent?

A brief look at the June, 1993 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, part of which was called the "Earth Summit," gives us at least a clue. Norway's Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Bruntland, was vice-chairman of UNCED. Mrs. Bruntland was also vice president of the International Socialist Party. She freely acknowledged that the Earth Summit agenda was based upon the International Socialist Party's platform.

The "Rio Declaration" makes this agenda quite clear. Principle 13 justifies laws setting liability and compensation for "the victims of pollution and environmental damage . . . with international law to extend liability and compensation . . . to areas beyond their jurisdiction." Put that with principle 15, which states that "lack of scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation."

World socialism has not been doing very well lately. It has, in fact, been falling apart. It appears that socialists have taken a new angle, or perhaps formed a new alliance. You can have the forced redistribution of wealth, without the need for any proof that it is necessary or helpful, via the wonder of environmentalism.

President Bush signed the Global Climate Change Treaty that came out of Rio, and it was ratified by the Senate. (With Republicans like that, who needs Democrats??)

Environmentalism has become a way to convince Americans, who are not prone to accept overt socialism, to turn more and more control of their economic life over to central authorities -- first the national authorities, and ultimately international bodies like the United Nations. If a foreign army attempted to destroy our power plants, we would fight back. But when a gathering orchestrated by socialists demands that we tailor our economy to suit the redistributionist schemes based on alleged "environmental" concerns, a Republican President goes along with the plot.

All of that is still another reason why I am not an environmentalist. That basic moral principle "You shall not steal" is not removed simply because environmentalists invent "evidence" or ignore facts to create bogus "disasters."

Environmentalists play fast and loose with the facts in order to manipulate people. But we should assume people are innocent until proven guilty. I believe I should not interfere with my neighbors as they pursue economic production. Thus, I cannot be an environmentalist.

This does not mean that I am not concerned about the condition of the world. Like the late Dr. Dixie Lee Ray, one can be a "conservationist" without being an "environmentalist."

Of course, under a private property order, I can only "conserve" what I own. Since I have been giving the environmentalist a rather hard time here, let me say something nice about some of them. A few environmental groups (like the Audubon Society) have taken to purchasing property, and using it as a reserve for the things they want to conserve. That is an admirable goal and a moral means. Unfortunately, it is atypical. The usual approach of environmentalists is to use the heavy hand of government to force others to do what the environmentalist want.

People can do direct damage to the environment. But the "burden of proof" is, and should be, on the one claiming that damage is being done. There is nothing wrong with human use of the earth. Use requires change. We need to respect our neighbors property. If our neighbors are productively using the part of the earth they own, we are morally obliged to respect that. If we think they are using it in a way that destroys someone else's property, it is our job to prove it. Proof is not rightly constituted of "might be."

I wasn't at anybody's "Earth Day" rally. I spent the time investigating the side of the story never mentioned by the environmentalists and their uncritical friends in newsrooms and legislative bodies.