Perhaps not all environmentalists put nature and other animals ahead of human life in importance, but far too many do. I’ve even encountered one on myspace who thought bacteria are more important than humans. And now apparently some of the watermelons want to tear down some dams, that produce electricity without producing methane or CO2, just to save the fishes. Nevermind the economic consequences for the human beings who depend on this energy. No, the watermelons insist we should focus on alternative fuels instead. Nevermind that none of these fuels are economically viable yet. Nevermind that ethanol will not be able to displace gasoline in the foreseeable future, if ever. Nevermind that destroying the dams will probably necessitate adopting sources of energy that are far more polluting, at least for the near future, at great expense no less.
Check out this WSJ.com article: “Dam the Salmon: In the Northwest, environmentalists want to have it both ways” by Shikha Dalmia (May 30, 2007).
And it’s not just dams environmentalists are against:
Indeed, environmental groups have a history of opposing just about every energy source.
Their opposition to nuclear energy is well known. Wind power? Two years ago the Center for Biological Diversity sued California’s Altamont Pass Wind Farm for obstructing and shredding migrating birds. (“Cuisinarts of the sky” is what many greens call wind farms.) Solar? Worldwatch Institute’s Christopher Flavin has been decidedly lukewarm about solar farms because they involve placing acres of mirrors in pristine desert habitat. The Sierra Club and Wilderness Society once testified before Congress to keep California’s Mojave Desert–one of the prime solar sites in the country–off limits to all development. Geothermal energy? They are unlikely to get enviro blessings, because some of the best sites are located on protected federal lands.
Greens, it seems, always manage to find a problem for every environmental solution–and there is deep reason for this.
I wonder when they’ll turn against CFLs because they contain dangerous mercury, or against ethanol because it requires too much environmentally harmful farmland for growing corn? Oh, wait, isn’t over half of the corn acreage planted in the US genetically modified?
[Update #1 (2pm): The anti-corn-based ethanol rumblings have apparently already begun. See the fourth and second-to-last paragraph of this article.] [Update #2 (6/04 12:45pm): Add fireplaces to the list of things environmentalists are against.]Dalmia’s subsequent discussion on the difference between conservationists and preservationists is enlightening. The former seek to preserve the environment, or at least parts of it, to serve human needs and wants. This is compatible with individualism and the protection of individual rights. The latter view nature as having intrinsic value to which human needs and wants must be subordinated. Preservationism, of which Deep Ecology is an example, is fundamentally anti-human life. Dalmia also discusses how such radical environmentalism is harmful to developing countries and then elaborates on its obstructionist nature.
Besides hurting the Third World, such radicalism had made the environmental movement incapable of responding to its own self-proclaimed challenges. Since nature can’t speak for itself, the admonition to protect nature for nature’s sake offers not a guide to action, but an invitation to inaction. That’s because a non-anthropocentric view that treats nature as non-hierarchical collapses into incoherence when it becomes necessary to calculate trade-offs or set priorities between competing environmental goals.
Thus, even in the face of a supposedly calamitous threat like global warming, environmentalists can’t bring themselves to embrace any sacrifice–of salmons or birds or desert or protected wilderness. Its strategy comes down to pure obstructionism–on full display in the Klamath dam controversy.
Yet, if environmentalists themselves are unwilling to give up anything for global warming, how can they expect sacrifices from others? If Al Gore wants to do something, he should first move out of his 6,000 square-foot Nashville mansion and then make a movie titled: “Damn the salmon.”
On the salmon issue and more, see also this Cafe Hayek blogpost: “Fishy Reasons; Or Dam Collective Action” by Don Boudreaux.
Meanwhile, environmentally conscious politicians decry high gas prices as “gouging” and “unfair profits” while simultaneously imploring us to curb our fossil fuel use. (See this Washington Post op-ed by Robert Samuelson, “A Full Tank of Hypocrisy.”) Nevermind that these two positions are contradictory. If they want us to curb our fossil fuel use, they should be praising high gas prices and encouraging the fossil fuel industry to raise those prices. Not that I think politicians should use statist means to force such higher prices, but the hypocrisy is amusing.
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