Re: Harvard Crimson: Requiem for Environmentalism and Earth Day

At 03:08 PM 4/20/2006, George Murphy wrote:

>& even to the extent that the article's main
>thesis is correct, the author fails to give any
>credit to the environmental movement for helping
>to bring about improvements in environmental quality. .."

@ Careful readers know that's not so. They know he wrote this:

"Of course, environmentalists claim credit for
this trend. Alarmists can’t lose: either doomsday
comes true, or their warnings averted disaster.
Certainly, part of the positive trend is due to
activism and government regulations, but much of
the change is a result of increased technological
efficiency as well as longstanding trends that
predate the rise of environmentalism."

~ Janice

>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
>[mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Janice Matchett
>Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 12:06 PM
>To: asa@calvin.edu
>Subject: Harvard Crimson: Requiem for Environmentalism and Earth Day
>
>Item of interest to some, I'm sure. (Sorry Rich) ~ Janice :)
>
>Requiem for Environmentalism and Earth Day: Long Live the Environment!
>The Harvard University Crimson ^ | Thursday,
>April 20, 2006 2:21 AM | PIOTR C. BRZEZINSKI
>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512890
>Posted on 04/20/2006 10:18:19 AM EDT by rface
>http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1618257/posts
>[snip]

Environmentalism is dead; long live the environment!

This pronouncement might seem a touch premature,
especially to the 500 million people who will
celebrate the 37th Earth Day this weekend­a
collective “not dead yet” wheeze. However, these
numbers mask the growing irrelevance of the
environmentalist movement. Having lost its
credibility with alarmist rhetoric and obsolete
ideological ballast, the movement must develop a
moderate discourse while challenging its previous
assumptions and outdated theories.

The contemporary environmentalist movement faces
a stark choice: change tactics or fade into
irrelevance. Over the past decade,
environmentalists have achieved few political
victories and utterly failed to influence the
general public. As indicated by a recent MIT
study, the public knows little about
environmental problems, and cares less. Out of 21
national and international issues, Americans
ranked environmental problems 13th, well below
terrorism, taxes, crime, and drugs.

Alarmism­the environmental movement’s basic
strategy­has led to this dead end. Since Rachel
Carson’s “Silent Spring,” the movement has been
dominated by doomsday scenarios. Even on the
first Earth Day in 1970, biologist George Wald
predicted that “civilization will end within 15
or 30 years unless immediate action is taken”
while the New York Times warned that “man must
stop pollution and conserve his resources…to save
the race from intolerable deterioration and
possible extinction.” Fortunately, such forecasts
have repeatedly proven to be wrong.

Take biologist Paul Ehrlich’s popular Malthusian
broadside, “The Population Bomb.” Farsighted
Ehrlich predicted that a “population will
inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small
increases in food supplies we make,” causing
world-wide famine and the death of “hundreds of
millions of people” annually from starvation.
Oops­in the subsequent 35 years, increased
agricultural productivity exceeded population
growth and the total amount of cultivated land barely increased.

Ehrlich is hardly alone; the environmental
movement has spawned a remarkable number of
would-be Cassandras. Between 1970 and 2006,
global cooling predictions mysteriously morphed
into global warming fears. Concerns about rampant
Dodo-ism proved baseless: the rate of animal
extinction in the U.S. has been declining since
the 1930s, and only seven species have gone
extinct since 1973. And rather than running out
of resources, the world has experienced a
commodity glut, with the prices of most metals
and minerals dropping by 30 to 50 percent. The
litany of failed apocalypses goes on.

Not that this history of crying wolf has
chastened contemporary environmentalists.
Activists and researchers still issue dire
warnings with mind-numbing regularity. Just three
weeks ago, a panic-stricken Time magazine story
on global warming shouted, “Be Worried, Be Very
Worried.” Harping on worst-case scenarios like a
220-foot rise in the ocean’s water level, the
article more closely resembled “The Day After Tomorrow” than a serious report.

Although such scare mongering persists, it has
reached the point of diminishing returns. Knowing
the movement’s track record of false alarms, the
American public dismiss dire environmental
warnings out of hand. Plus, these alarming
reports attract a disproportionate amount of
media attention, discrediting the
environmentalist movement twice over: First when
the sensational predictions drown out more
plausible reports, then again when the
highly-publicized disaster fails to occur.

...There are exceptions to this positive trend,
but the overall direction is unmistakable: The
U.S. natural environment is improving.

Of course, environmentalists claim credit for
this trend. Alarmists can’t lose: either doomsday
comes true, or their warnings averted disaster.
Certainly, part of the positive trend is due to
activism and government regulations, but much of
the change is a result of increased technological
efficiency as well as longstanding trends that
predate the rise of environmentalism.

Although the impact of these past achievements is
uncertain, the movement’s future success clearly
depends on a fundamental reevaluation of
long-unquestioned theories and policies. Doomsday
warnings no longer shock the public into action;
instead, environmentalists need to develop
moderate arguments that don’t depend on some
calamity. This means abandoning Soviet-style
“command-and-control” regulation, epitomized by
the Kyoto Treaty, and exploring ideas, like the
use of DDT, that are currently considered heretical.

Thus, on the 37th anniversary of Earth Day, the
environmental movement is looking increasingly
long in the tooth. Alarmist environmentalists
have overshadowed moderate, careful researchers,
and undermined the credibility of the entire
movement. Until environmentalists cease depending
on nightmare scenarios, they will fail to
influence the public at large. Let the next
generation of environmentalists begin to
reestablish the movement’s credibility by
exploring currently heretical ideas and producing
moderate, nuanced reports, even if they do not make for good press.

Piotr C. Brzezinski ’07, an editorial associate
chair, is a social studies concentrator in
Winthrop House. He is a member of the Resource
Efficiency Program. On April 22, there will be an
Earth Day celebration in Winthrop House from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Received on Fri Apr 21 17:03:13 2006