Re: Harvard Crimson: Requiem for Environmentalism and Earth Day

On 4/24/06, Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> At 04:50 PM 4/20/2006, Rich Blinne wrote:
>
> This also contradicts Rush's "humility" argument. *Rush contends* it's
> humble to conclude that we can neither fix nor destroy the environment
> because it is so much bigger than us and thus God not us is in control.
>
>
> @ It contradicts nothing. You just misunderstand his position. You can
> hear it as soon as his 2PM break is over at this *direct link*:
> http://abcrad.wm.llnwd.net/abcrad_wabc
>

Since Janice and I both hit our four post limit Janet encouraged me off list
to see if I have misinterpreted Rush. I accepted that challenge. My position
is roughly the same as President Bush's which he reiterated last Saturday
That is, technology and good stewardship of our planet are not necessarily
mutually exclusive, and also the problem is not so intractable that we
simply throw up our hands and conclude that there is nothing we can do. So,
were Rush and I --- as I am fond of saying -- in violent agreement? Let's
find out.

The "list" being discuss here has an extremely narrow definition of
destruction. Destruction means no longer a planet. Merely all life being
extinguished doesn't qualify. So, taking a position more extreme than anyone
is proposing such as we get Venus' atmosphere overnight and killing everyone
by definition could not make the list. Nevertheless, the exercise could have
been a good antidote against overly pessimistic projections in showing how
resilient the Earth really is. So, if Rush merely quoted the article then we
would have accomplished that.

As always Rush needs to add his conclusions at the end. Unfortunately,
Rush's conclusions were not in keeping with the rest of the article. Rush's
conclusion was since there is no Death Star out there that's going to blow
us up, then we can drive our SUVs and run our air conditioners as much as we
care. No discussion of responsible stewardship of our technology and stating
we have used our technological prowess in the past to solve similar problems
and we can do it again. Sure, there is tongue-in-cheek with what Rush is
saying but part of Rush's humor is to lump together all who are concerned
about the environment not merely the small group of extremists who would
shut down our economy to "solve" the problem. Thus, I stand by my original
assessment.
Received on Tue Apr 25 08:47:23 2006