It reflects how I feel some days. However, it does not reflect the realities of the world. The really important part of the post was the part below what you quoted. Let me refresh your memory. You think the article makes perfect sense because you already feel like enviromentalists are wrong, or some such anti-philoshophy. In fact, what is really happening is he is pretending that fanatics make up the bulk of enviromentalists, as Ghanima has already pointed out.
Wow. After jshore’s and Colibri’s posts, I’ve got nothing to add to this thread, except to say: please don’t ignore their posts. This sort of thing happens all too often in Great Debates, and threatens to make it more like Lesser Debates.
Excellent job, folks! 
Thanks, wevets!
By the way, Tim Lambert, who writes one of the more intelligent blogs around, has made finding the various re-incarnations of the DDT ban myth one of his pet projects. It’s like a cat except that it has even more than 9 lives!
Holy shit, that guy was my Computer Graphics lecturer last year and I see him around the campus all the time. I had no idea he was a blog celebrity. Small world I guess.
I think I addressed this already. Being fanatical about something does not make it a religion. And you still have not told me what tenets the religion of environmentalism has.
STRAW. MAN. Sorry, but Crichton has to know the “infant mortality” thing is bullshit. Perhaps I just don’t hang out with crazy environmentalists, but I’ve never heard one claim that things would be better if we lived in the 18th century. They may argue that we pollute less, but I’ve never heard of the kind of insane Ludditism Crichton is arguing against, nevermind that he’s suggesting it is mainstream. Sorry. Sure, we have myths about the way native people lived. I already said so, but most of those predate environmentalism by centuries.
Doomsaying is pretty popular. That doesn’t make environmentalism a religion either. I don’t think you’re making an argument so much as extending an analogy.
Well duh.
Is anyone who expresses an opinion forcing it on others? There needs to be some demarcation there.
Concerns about pollution and sustainability are not moral judgments. They are opinions about real-world events and their affect. Global warming may not be real, climate change may not be manmade, but this whole thing only works if you start from the position that these things don’t exist. Saying “we need cleaner enery” is not the same as a moral judgment, nor is an observation of climate change (even if it’s misinterpreted) the same thing as the Bible Code.
Does the fallacy “No True Scotsman” mean anything to you?
Crichton rails against environmentalists and calls it (more or less) a cult movement, but then when we find people who are environmentalists who could not in any way be considered a member of that cult because they arrived at their views for different reasons, they are dismissed as not being the environmentalists that you/he want to talk about.
So is the question/debate here really only, is Ted Danson a member of an environmentalist religious cult? That seems to be the only environmentalist boogeyman you can name.
Sorry if I was unclear, I didn’t intend to say that no one was using DDT, just that there are a large number of nations that aren’t using it that frankly should be using it due to pressure from environmentalists or developed countries that are afraid of pissing off environmentalists or just don’t know any better. Now that I look back on the wording, I can see that it sounds more like how you interpreted than I meant it. I apologize.
The point stands that environmentalists twiddle their thumbs and talk about birds that aren’t even likely to be harmed while humans suffr and die. That’s the crux of what I dislike about, “rabid” environmentalism. From Wikipedia:"Such limited use of DDT has not become ineffective due to resistance in areas where it is used inside homes. Swaziland, Mozambique and Ecuador are other examples of countries that have very successfully reduced malaria incidence with DDT. However, its use has been greatly limited in many other countries due to reluctance by aid agencies in the developed world to fund DDT spraying and opposition from Western environmental groups. (Africa fighting malaria FAQ, 2005).
There are insecticide alternatives to DDT, and Vietnam is often mentioned as a country that has seen a continued decline in malaria cases after involuntarily switching from DDT in 1991. However, Vietnam’s neighbour Thailand has continued to use DDT and has a much smaller malaria rate despite similar conditions. The insecticide alternatives are generally more expensive, which limits their use in poor nations and in situations where anti-malarial efforts are already underfunded. It is doubtful that they are more environmentally friendly or as efficient, easy to use and safe for humans as DDT."
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Does he actually claim this, or does he accurately state that DDT could be applie without damaging bird populations?
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It’s up to you to demonstrate that second hand smoke is harmful through actual scientific studies of such rather than vague correlational studies, extrapolating from higher risk/higher concentration populations, etc. Surely you could do this with lab rats, no?
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What, specifically is wrong with his article or is it just too, “full of shit?”
Crichton says: “I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause birds to die and should never have been banned.”
Well, like I said, I am no expert in secondhand smoke. But Crichton’s claim is quite clear; he does not say that secondhand smoke’s dangers are exaggerated or that some of the evidence is contradictory or anything like that. He says: “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.” Here is a wikipedia page on second hand smoke and here is part of a WHO study that say otherwise. Since Crichton made an unambiguous claim in contradiction to what an expert panel on the subject has concluded, I think it is up to him to explain how he knows better than them.
I assume what you meant to ask here is what was wrong with his summary of the article Science. First here is what Crichton says: “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.”
Here is the abstract of the article that he is presumably referring to. (To read the whole thing, you probably have to subscribe to Science but I’m not sure.) Crichton is correct in claiming that the panel concluded that the technological challenges of stabilizing CO2 concentrations at some reasonable level are not easy and that the IPCC was wrong in claiming that already-available technology could accomplish this task (although I am quite sure that there have been other studies that have not been so pessimistic). However, his claim that the concluded that “otherwise nothing could be done and in the meantime all efforts would be a waste of time” is just a complete fabrication. Here is what the last two paragraphs of the full article say:
By the way, I’ll try to respond to your discussion about the DDT ban myth later. Suffice it to say that your weaker claim to the effect that DDT wasn’t banned in worldwide but that many countries that could benefit from it aren’t using it due to pressures by environmentalists or others (like international aid organizations) is at least not demonstrably false and may even contain a certain amount of truth in a few situations. It is kind of hard to determine the details without more research. However, claims of this sort generally ignore the fact that there are legitimate issues regarding the use of DDT against malaria in certain situations (e.g., when there are better alternatives or when there is resistance in the mosquito population), that there are many other reasons why some nations haven’t aggressively fought malaria or why international aid organizations haven’t provided more aid to fight malaria, and that the misuse of DDT and the consequent development of resistance to it is what has caused a lot of the problems that we now face.
In regards to less pessimistic assessments, here are some letters in response to that Science article. (Again, I am not sure who can read it and who can’t.) And, here is a more recent article with a more upbeat assessment at least for the next 50 years. Of course, none of this speaks directly to the correctness of Crichton’s quote about what the particular article that he noted had concluded. However, just to re-emphasize how pathetic Crichton’s characterization of that article itself was, here re-iterating their points is the last paragraph of the authors’ response to the above-linked letters commenting on their article:
This seems to me to be a very far cry from saying “…otherwise nothing could be done and in the meantime all efforts would be a waste of time.”
Have there been any instances where environmental scientists and/or activists have widely admitted that they were wrong about something? Have there been any instances where overwhelming scientific evidence has shown them to be right?
I don’t believe in ice caps.
Personally I’m a bit skeptical of glaciers all over the world.
Is environmentalism a religion? No, not really. I do not want to awaken the ghosts of threads about the definition of religion, so I’ll say my piece and depart. I am an environmentalist. Why? Because many, indeed most, of the best times in my life have occurred in areas of pristine natural beauty. Those areas exist in their current form only because in the past environmentalists fought to protect them, and to have them preserved permanently. I fight for preservation of these same areas so that future generations can enjoy them just as I did. I also fight for changes that will stop global warming, becasue global warming threatens to destroy both natural beauty and human societies.
As to why I believe that global warming is happening and why humans are causing it, it’s a combination of following the research and observing the evidence for myself. This last summer I climbed two mountains that were clear of snow, which I distinctly remember as not being clear of snow when I was younger. As for research I can’t list it all here, but I’ve read a ton of books, columns and articles on the subject. I’ve plunged into the background and sources of both sides. While there are some cases of environmentalists twisting the facts, there are a lot more cases of their enemies twisting the facts. (Just as an aside, would you care to guess what company funded Crichton’s recent speaking tour? Hint: the name rhymes with Bexxon-mobil. And they fund a lot of other stuff too.)
Does that make environmentalism a religion? I don’t think so. The primary reasons for people to follow a religion are hope of reward and fear of punishment after death, desire to be like everyone else, and desire to gather benefits of some sort here on Earth. Perhaps somewhere down the list of reasons is the desire to preserve the world for future generations, but I believe that very few would give that as their reason for following religion.
Regardless, I have never described the pre-industrial world as edenic, promised anyone salvation from anything, set of doomsday date, or anything of the like. no religion, sorry.
After looking over things again, I’ve decided I don’t have much to add to the brief paragraph that I posted above. The problem is that the history of DDT becomes very much a he-said she-said thing. I’ll just repost the link to Tim Lambert’s pieces on the subject in his blog. One main point is that while organizations like WHO will say that some individual donors have been squeamish about funding DDT, they don’t seem to conclude this has amounted to a major impediment. As Allan Schapiro of WHO said in a letter to Nature last year (shown on that website):
And, here is the text of a letter by a professor in a parasitology unit who himself supports some use of DDT against malaria.
The only ones who seem to be making loud claims about environmentalists causing DDT not to be used in places where it is desperately needed and would be effective seem to be ones who have a stong bias to do so. And, with that note, I will point out that your previous post of information from “Africa Fighting Malaria” certainly falls into this category. Here is the scoop on that organization which, despite its name, is not the sort of reputable organization fighting malaria that Malaria Foundation International appears to be. Rather they are an organization formed in 2000 and specifically dedicated to the whole DDT issue. Furthermore, as you can see from reading SourceWatch and clicking on the links, those associated and partnering with this organization do not seem to be united by interest in malaria or expertise in the science of the field. Rather they are united by a strong desire to fight regulation of the free market. Thus, you see direct connections to organizations like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the European Science and Environment Forum, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Free Market Foundation, etc. The two founders of the organization have been involved in issues of second-hand smoke, regulation of food, privatization of water resources, and fighting against attempts to supply generic versions of AIDS drugs to Africa. This doesn’t mean that they are a priori wrong but doesn’t it seem suspicious that those making these claims all seem to have these sorts of biases and that even many who support some use of DDT to fight malaria don’t seem to agree that these claims are valid?
On the other side of the issue, there seems to be no serious debate over the fact that the indiscriminate use of DDT, especially in agriculture, both rendered it ineffective in many areas by causing the widespread development of resistance and also caused major harm to ecosystems (particularly birds of prey). [By contrast, the responsible use of DDT to fight malaria in areas where it is still effective is to use it in an indoor spraying program where the DDT is most effective where you need it to be and it doesn’t get into the ecosystem enough to cause widespread resistance by mosqitoes and too much damage to the environment. (See this short FAQ from Malaria Foundation International.)]
Maybe you should start a DDT thread…
It’s not that “rabid” environmentalists like birds better than people. They want to make the world better and safer for all life, including people. Toxins that kill birds also hurt people. It’s not like you have to choose between helping birds and helping people; you can do both at the same time, and that’s what a lot of environmentalists do. Maybe I’m the only “rabid environmentalist” who thinks this way, but I don’t think I am.
That’s all I really wanted to say, since so many other people were being more eloquent than I. I just hate that false dichotomy.
I also wonder how many people who rail against Rachel Carson have actually ever read Silent Spring.
I call Bullshit on this one. You’re referring to a “study” published in Junkscience.com by Gough and Milroy (who, incidentally is the editor of the “journal” which “published” his “study,” and claims to be an adjunct scholar at the Cato institute).
The study consisted of sending a single sample of ice cream to a third-party testing lab. As no other ice creams were studied, your claim that Ben and Jerry’s have way more dioxins than anyone else makes me think that you are a fairly non-discriminating consumer of “knowledge.”
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I’ll point out two other problems with Crichton’s thesis:
(1) He says, “Religions think they know it all, but the unhappy truth of the environment is that we are dealing with incredibly complex, evolving systems, and we usually are not certain how best to proceed. Those who are certain are demonstrating their personality type, or their belief system, not the state of their knowledge. Our record in the past, for example managing national parks, is humiliating. Our fifty-year effort at forest-fire suppression is a well-intentioned disaster from which our forests will never recover.” Now, if he is saying what I think he is saying, i.e., that fire suppression was counterproductive then he is agreeing with the position of most environmentalists, who have in fact argued that fire serves an important role and that fire suppression is unnatural and leads to bad effects like the buildup of flammable materials that then leads to mega-fires…and that indeed we should be humbler and not think we know better and can manage better than nature can. So, I don’t see how this is an argument against environmentalists; it is more an argument in their favor. (Although, admittedly, in this instance environmentalists are doing one thing he clearly dislikes in general by having an overly romantic view of nature; however, in this particular case, he seems to agree with them…Or at least to believe our attempts to overrule the natural order of things was a “well-intentioned disaster”.) Does Chricton even think these things through or is he just so religiously-wedded to his point-of-view that he actually thinks evidence against his thesis is evidence for his thesis?
(2) On climate change, it is really the naysayers who have more of a religious attitude. We know for a fact how carbon dioxide levels are increasing as a result of the burning of fossil fuels and we know what sort of “radiative forcing” this produces. We also know naively what the response to this radiative forcing would be if the earth behaved as a simple classical radiator, ignoring complicated effects in the atmosphere. It seems to be a religious view to believe that some sort of “magic” occurs whereby the atmospheric effects conspire to produce the negative feedbacks necessary to prevent warming from occurring! (It is also a magical view that is hard to reconcile with the known instability of the earth’s climate as evidenced by past ice age - interglacial cycles and so forth.) Admittedly, there is still some room to argue about the details such as the amount of warming (since the climate model predictions and our best estimate of what happened during ice age - interglacial cycles leads to the conclusion that the net feedbacks are positive so that the warming gets enhanced from the naive estimate by a factor of 2 or 3). But, it is pretty much the realm of religion to hope, absent any compelling scientific explanation, that the rise in CO2 levels will not produce a non-trivial warming effect.
Well, this is exactly what you’re doing. Here in your letter from Nature, you have a WHO official saying that this “squemishness” (actually flat out refusal to use) about DDT by some donors is causing DDT to be overlooked in favor of a less effective, less safe, and likely more environmentally damaging alternative. This here proves the 'effing point. “Religion” has overcome rationality because people hear DDT and freak out.
If you look at Crichton’s actual quote as opposed to what you’d like to hear and whatever strawmen you would like to construct from it, he’s pointing out an example of how humans who thought that they could understand the interaction of natural forces actually had no idea how to do so and that our interaction to “save the forrests” was actually counterproductive. By now, everyone short of the federal government and the “Forest Fighting-Industrial Complex” (believe me, it is an industry) has figured out what a spectacularly bad idea deep-forest fire suppression is, so I’m not expecting environmentalists to defend it now, but it seems to me that they supported it when it became a federal policy during the 1950’s.
All that the OP has to do to argue that environmentalism is in many ways a religion is to demonstrate that a large portion of its positions are derived from emotion rather than rational thought. DDT is a point where you have to conceed that environmentalism is currently doing more harm than good and it does so in an irrational manner. When I go down the Greenpeace website, there are a lot of things I disagree with, and a lot of things that seem to we to be motivated by a set of beliefs that are more religious than rational.
From the website, point by point:
Stop Climate Change-
Great idea, how do they want us to do it. Energy conservation, alternate fuel sources, using carbon sinks, etc. are all ways to execute this. Nuclear energy can and should be a part of a comprehensive plan in alternate fuels, and yet they are completely opposed to its use.
Save Our Seas-
Again, a lot of important work to be done here in fishery preservation, etc. Too bad Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior cannot keep it’s own emissions in check or comply with shipping regulations. Also, why are they always trying to throw themselves in between flying harpoons and minke whales? There’s an example of a species which could be safely fished without risk of extinction, and yet Greenpeace refuses to entertain the possibility. Again, religion over rationality.
Save Our Forests-
I’m all for conservation of old-growth forests, but we can provide for our lumber needs through essentially farming trees. I think they are on the right track by developing and encouraging sustainable forestry. I think that this can go hand in hand with thinning out some of our National Forests here in the US.
Say no to Genetic Engineering-
Here’s a great example of fear-mongering and a superstitious fear causing the chance to help millions be ignored.
I’m not saying that environmentalits are never right, just that for many it’s more of an emotional exercise than a rational one.
I’m afraid that people like Ghanima are being drowned out in this debate. Again, the environment is important, but we need people like Ghanima arguing on its behalf and being invovled in the technical decisions rather than hippies trying to get themselves killed on by whaling boats.
Well, if you define religion by the most fanatical people then everything is a religion. What about the free market fanatics at “Africa Fighting Malaria” who propose the use of DDT in places where it is clearly not appropriate (e.g., where the mosquitoes are already resistant to it)? What about those who used DDT fanatically in agriculture so that bird species suffered, mosquitoes became resistant to it, and malaria rates skyrocketed?
And the difference between the fanatics on the environmental side and the fanatics on the anti-environmental side is that the former have limited influence while the latter are running the freakin’ government…For example, they are the person serving in the White House who edits the scientific discussion climate change in reports from the EPA even though he has no scientific training. Or, they are the Senator who heads the Committee on the Environment and Public Works who invites a science fiction author to give expert testimony on the subject of climate change.
And, that’s just on issues related to the environment. We are living in a nation that is going to war on the basis of emotion rather than facts and is clearly setting budgetary and taxation policy on that basis. In this kind of political environment, I’d say the environmental movement is more fact- and science-based than almost any other political movement in the U.S.
On specific points…
I don’t know what version of their main page you are looking at but what I pull up has the bullet item as “Protect ancient forests” not “Never cut down another tree”.
Well, I’d like to see evidence of that. I haven’t been able to find a history on this subject but I am pretty sure that the environmentalists were among the first to recognize the importance of fire for a healthy ecosystem. They are certainly the most vocal ones on this issue today.
Good on you for defending a stance that I all already agree with and stated as such in my previous post when I said, “I think they’re on the right track,” but I was literally going point by point like I said so that I could give an accurate representation of their views until I ran out of time.
I happen to think that the environmentalists have more power than you give them credit for, although I can see how it would be convenient for you to claim that whatever it is they believe or advocate doesn’t matter anyway because, “hey, if we’re wrong, nobody listens to us and we never get our way.”
I’m worried about West Nile Virus, personally, and I can’t get DDT to spray in my dorm room or aroud campus, can I? A number of EPA regulations continue to present undue burdens and cost upon our society well beyond their potential good. If I’ve got a hankerin’ for some Minke sushi, I have to fly all the way to Japan. Extreme forest fires affect my state yet environmental rules make it difficult for forest thinning to occurr.