George Monbiot's Epiphany

Walter Russell Mead reports in Top Green Admits: “We Are Lost!” “George Monbiot of the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian has a must-read column in which he admits that because of a whole series of intellectual mistakes, the global green movement’s policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed.”

Greens like to have it both ways. They warn darkly about “peak oil” and global resource shortages that will destroy our industrial economy in its tracks — but also warn that runaway economic growth will destroy the planet through the uncontrolled effects of mass industrial productions. Both doomsday scenarios cannot be true; one cannot simultaneously die of both starvation and gluttony.

As Monbiot says in his The Lost World.

You think you’re discussing technologies, you quickly discover that you’re discussing belief systems. The battle among environmentalists over how or whether our future energy is supplied is a cipher for something much bigger: who we are, who we want to be, how we want society to evolve. Beside these concerns, technical matters – parts per million, costs per megawatt hour, cancers per sievert – carry little weight. We choose our technology – or absence of technology – according to a set of deep beliefs; beliefs which in some cases remain unexamined.

Although Monbiot gets close to the truth, I believe Robert Bidinotto gets even closer in his Environmentalism or Individualism?

Capitalism and science are values only to people who want to achieve material progress; they rest implicitly on the idea that self-interest is good. Yet this clashes with age-old moral teachings, which hold that goodness consists of "service to others"--and that self-interest is evil.

This explains why economic and scientific arguments have failed to inoculate the public against environmentalism. By and large, people want to do the right thing. But if they've been taught to equate "the right thing" with self-sacrifice, and evil with selfishness--if they've been taught "Paradise" is Eden, that perfect Garden in which Man is a humble steward of the "natural balance"--then how can they possibly remain sympathetic to the enterprises of science and free market economics?

As I wrote in an earlier post on climate change:

I think the following quote from the former Canadian Environment Minister Christine Stewart sheds light on their motive.

“No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.” Source: Calgary Herald, 14 December 1998.

It all comes down to a new way to make us (the U.S. in particular and the West in general) feel guilty for our material success in order to soften us for their solutions of taxing emissions, changing our life style and bringing us down to the level of countries that don’t suffer from these “problems,” thanks to their policies of punitive taxation, heavy regulation and government control (or strangling) of their economies.

How to Cultivate a Food Crisis by Robert James Bidinotto

Read this and prepare to lose your appetite. How to Cultivate a Food Crisis

USGS Release: 3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995

For all the blather we hear about the need for energy independence we see precious little action happening within our borders to make this happen. I'm sure a variety of factors play a role, from the Not In My Back Yard attitude to the environmentalist objections to off shore and on shore drilling to the belief that America doesn't deserve to be independent because of its inherently evil capitalist system (or what's left of it). In that context it's interesting to see the USGS release this staggering estimate of how much oil lies under our own soil.

Will we ever touch it?

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

Toxic Environmental Regulations Poison the Job Market

Toxic Environmental Regulations Poison the Job Market

Harvard astrophysicist dismisses AGW theory, challenges peers to 'take back climate science'

In this interview of Dr. Willie Soon, a solar and climate scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Dr. Soon pulls no punches. This is important because now that the Obama administration has health care reform behind them (I think) their next target is going to be cap-and-trade using global warming as part of their argument.

Harvard astrophysicist dismisses AGW theory, challenges peers to 'take back climate science'

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Global Warming: Caused by the sun or CO2?

The March 5, 2009 version of ICECAP has an article, “It’s the Sun, stupid!” by Dr. Willie Soon, a solar and climate scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The subtitle indicates his position: “New direct evidence demonstrate that changes in solar activity influence climate” Below are some key quotes from his article.

Between 1645 and 1715, sunspots were very rare and temperatures were low. Then sunspot frequency grew until, between 1930 and 2000, the Sun was more active than at almost any time in the last 10,000 years. The oceans can cause up to several decades of delay before air temperatures respond fully to this solar “Grand Maximum.” Now that the Sun is becoming less active again, global temperatures have fallen for seven years.

…

The close relationships between the abrupt ups and downs of solar activity and of temperature that I have identified occur locally in coastal Greenland; regionally in the Arctic Pacific and north Atlantic; and hemispherically for the whole circum-Arctic, suggesting that changes in solar activity drive Arctic and perhaps even global climate.

There is no such match between the steady rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and the often dramatic ups and downs of surface temperatures in and around the Arctic.

I recently discovered direct evidence that changes in solar activity have influenced what has been called the “conveyor-belt” circulation of the great Atlantic Ocean currents over the past 240 years. For instance, solar-driven changes in temperature, and in the volume of freshwater output from the Arctic, cause variations in sea surface temperature in the tropical Atlantic 5-20 years later.

These previously undocumented results have been published in the journal Physical Geography. They make it difficult to maintain that changes in solar activity play an insignificant role in climate change, especially over the Arctic.

The hallmark of good science is the testing of a plausible hypothesis that is then either supported or rejected by the evidence. The evidence in my paper is consistent with the hypothesis that the Sun causes climatic change in the Arctic.

It invalidates the hypothesis that CO2 is a major cause of observed climate change – and raises serious questions about the wisdom of imposing cap-and-trade or other policies that would cripple energy production and economic activity, in the name of “preventing catastrophic climate change.

Bill Clinton used to sum up politics by saying, “It’s the economy, stupid!” Now we can fairly sum up climate change by saying, “It’s the Sun, stupid!”

To me the key statement is: “The hallmark of good science is the testing of a plausible hypothesis that is then either supported or rejected by the evidence.” Unfortunately, those who blame global warming on carbon dioxide released by human activities have politicized science to the point where discussion of plausible counter hypotheses like this is actively discouraged, even demonized.

God is Green: Environmentalism as the new secular religion

In 2003 Robert Bidinotto made the argument about environmentalism being the new secular religion at his ecoNot blog. It’s interesting to see that others are starting to have a similar epiphany about the new dogma, complete with its own doctrine and inquisitions.

First, Jonah Goldberg penned an article titled “The church of green: A kind of irrational nature worship separates environmentalism from the more fair-minded approach of conservationism” in the Los Angeles Times.

At its core, environmentalism is a kind of nature worship. It's a holistic ideology, shot through with religious sentiment.

Whether it's adopted the trappings of religion or not, my biggest beef with environmentalism is how comfortably irrational it is. It touts ritual over reality, symbolism over substance, while claiming to be so much more rational and scientific than those silly sky-God worshipers and deranged oil addicts.

Next up, Czech President Vaclav Klaus in Earth Times.

Klaus, an economist, said he opposed the "climate alarmism" perpetuated by environmentalism trying to impose their ideals, comparing it to the decades of communist rule he experienced growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia. "Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality," he said. "In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat - this time, in the name of the planet," he added.

Finally we have Freeman Dyson in a New York book review of two books on global warming has this to say.

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.

Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the belief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard.

Dyson obviously agrees with the main thrust of environmentalism so it’s interesting to see the dismay in his column about the religiosity of some environmentalists.

In all of the above quotes, however, this one by Klaus touches on a key premise: “they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality.” The key word is “sacrifice.” This is a code word for altruism, the belief that we do not have the right to exist for our own sake. Most people mouth altruism but ultimately live for their own values. However, over time we are constantly beseeched to live for our neighbors (in the form of welfare benefits) and for our international neighbors (in the form of aid to poorer countries).

As I said before, most people fortunately do not accept the hidden premises of environmentalism because “common sense” inoculates them from succumbing entirlely. However, common sense isn’t enough to prevent the infection from taking hold and causing pangs of guilt for not living green enough. The intellectual leaders of the environmental movement don’t compromise their principles. They are relentless in their quest for the ideal world where humans are reduced back to a more primitive existence (except for the anointed, enlightened few who will be allowed to have their private planes and mansions because they’re moral, you see).

Am I saying we have the right to wanton waste? No. I do believe we should be careful how we use the earth’s resources to preserve what we can for future generations and to ensure we have an environment that is healthy for us. But my premise is based on recognizing that we flourish best when we acknowledge how our actions can negatively affect our own survival.

There also is an ultimate irony here. Primitive and developing countries actually do more harm to the environment because it usually costs less to produce things if minimizing pollution is ignored. The worst polluters have been the socialist countries in Eastern Europe and now China. The more advanced capitalist economies can afford to design their production to better control emissions and have done so. This is why I maintain that the bile environmentalists spew at free market economies is not based on their poor environmental performance. Something else is at work here. Something more fundamental. Capitalism works by serving the needs and interests of the customers. The producers and consumers are both motivated by their own self-interest. And this, I maintain, is the real “pollutant” that the extreme environmentalists want to eradicate.