Environmentalism is a Religion

Bountiful thanks to Chaos Central for sharing a link to this Michael Crichton speech to the Common Wealth Club. It's like he stole the thoughts from my very own head.

I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

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I studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people---the best people, the most enlightened people---do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

I agree that humans are hard wired to look for God. Just because some now believe we are beyond that does not make it true. We have only replaced God with other things.

And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.

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Well, it's interesting. You may have noticed that something has been left off the doomsday list, lately. Although the preachers of environmentalism have been yelling about population for fifty years, over the last decade world population seems to be taking an unexpected turn.

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Okay, so, the preachers made a mistake. They got one prediction wrong; they're human. So what. Unfortunately, it's not just one prediction. It's a whole slew of them. We are running out of oil. We are running out of all natural resources. Paul Ehrlich: 60 million Americans will die of starvation in the 1980s. Forty thousand species become extinct every year. Half of all species on the planet will be extinct by 2000. And on and on and on.

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So I can tell you some facts. I know you haven't read any of what I am about to tell you in the newspaper, because newspapers literally don't report them. I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause birds to die and should never have been banned. I can tell you that the people who banned it knew that it wasn't carcinogenic and banned it anyway. I can tell you that the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people, mostly children, whose deaths are directly attributable to a callous, technologically advanced western society that promoted the new cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy about a pesticide, and thus irrevocably harmed the third world. Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die and didn't give a damn.

I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always known it. I can tell you that the evidence for global warming is far weaker than its proponents would ever admit. I can tell you the percentage the US land area that is taken by urbanization, including cities and roads, is 5%. I can tell you that the Sahara desert is shrinking, and the total ice of Antarctica is increasing. I can tell you that a blue-ribbon panel in Science magazine concluded that there is no known technology that will enable us to halt the rise of carbon dioxide in the 21st century. Not wind, not solar, not even nuclear. The panel concluded a totally new technology-like nuclear fusion-was necessary, otherwise nothing could be done and in the meantime all efforts would be a waste of time. They said that when the UN IPCC reports stated alternative technologies existed that could control greenhouse gases, the UN was wrong.

I can, with a lot of time, give you the factual basis for these views, and I can cite the appropriate journal articles not in whacko magazines, but in the most prestigeous science journals, such as Science and Nature. But such references probably won't impact more than a handful of you, because the beliefs of a religion are not dependant on facts, but rather are matters of faith. Unshakeable belief.

You simply MUST read the whole thing.

DC

Comments

[Hubby]

We've discussed the absurdity of thinking that entertainers (Sean Penn, Barbara Streisand...) are foreign policy experts and environmental scientists. Michael Crichton is the author of The Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, Congo, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun and The Lost World. Can we agree with him even though he's no expert on religion or environmentalism? I guess anyone who risks being added to the Hollywood blacklist with James Woods, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson and Tom Selic can't be THAT bad! Let's just hope there's no criticism from the left. That would create an atmosphere of "intimidation" and "censorship" that would "send a chill" through free speech rights (thanks to Tim Robbins for the scary quotes).

Nothing Crichton said was original or insightful. RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #406 debunked the environmentalism is relegion garbage back in 1994, wich should give you some idea of how old it is.

MYTH No. 9: Environmentalists essentially practice pagan tree worship. Environmentalists are disconnected from what's important to people. They're anti-God and anti-American.

FACT: This argument is based in as little truth as the absurd McCarthy-era witch hunts of the 1950s with suspected "communists" lurking behind every door. Today, more than 80 percent of Americans consider themselves "environmentalists," and
conservation is as patriotic as motherhood and apple pie. The conservation ethic has its foundation in Judeo-Christian
faiths. The Book of Genesis tells of God giving humankind dominion over his creation. Those who suggest destroying natural resources destroy not only God's gift, but the resources
essential to the survival of humankind.