THE ENVIRONMENTALIST movement is a modern hoax. Its substance is nothing more than a sense of self-righteousness, similar to the complacency found in religious fanaticism.
Environmentalists would be free from attack if they were more sensible, for example, by acknowledging that there is a tradeoff between preservation of nature and modern convenience. But the liturgy of the environmentalist movement is one of absolutism and intolerance of alternative viewpoints. This must come to an end if we are ever to achieve sensible policy regarding wildlife and the environment.
Environmentalists' common argument is that the environment is sacred and always ought to be protected from the humans who use it to their gain. The point to be taken here is that the environmentalist sees no room for compromise; instead, he views his stance on the environment as an absolutely and undeniably right one.
The logic environmentalists rely on is deceptive. They say that protecting the environment is the right and moral thing to do, which would put them into the realm of benefits and costs. If they were to argue that protecting the environment was the most socially beneficial thing, they would have to show that this yields a surplus of benefits over costs. But this charge is too much for the dogmatic environmentalist who knows above everything else that she is right and who is too busy jumping to convenient conclusions rather than doing some serious thinking about the issue. The environmentalist, therefore, is a moralist of necessity.
Environmentalists make sloppy moralists. Why is it right to protect the environment? The environmentalist's answer is that it is the right thing to do because we owe the earth for its bounties. But is it wrong to use the earth for what it's meant, living on? The environmentalist will invariably reply that it's just the wrong thing to do because we need to preserve the environment. He is in one of those logical circles from which it is simply impossible to escape. The logic of the environmentalist movement is as silly as it is circular.
Environmentalism further is mired in self-contradiction, rendering it a rather meaningless movement anyway. Protecting species that are bound to die out naturally, for example, is toying with nature just as surely as is bulldozing a forest and building a parking lot. The interference with nature occurs here as well, just in the reverse direction. So when the environmentalist speaks of not interfering with nature, he's using a form of doublespeak. The environmentalist doesn't buy his own principle. Neither should you.
Environmentalists fail to recognize that the environment is not infinitely valuable. This means that its preservation only is desirable up to a point, but today's environmentalist does not contemplate what that point is. The typical environmentalists, the ones who lobby Congress and spout their rhetoric as talking heads on CNN, are the ones who insist that the environment can never be forsaken.
This absolutist position is untenable. Even our kids may prefer the wealth that we accumulate and bequeath to them to the sight of some extra trees. To assume that a healthier environment is better for our kids is to assume what our kids would want. The environmentalist naturally assumes that if someone had their druthers, they'd choose greener trees and grass over heftier cash gifts (which would be foregone if we spent it today on saving the environment).
But this contradicts the evidence. In general, people don't offer lawn services to their friends as birthday gifts, but they do offer money. So it's a safe assumption that people prefer cash to grass, and there's no reason to believe future generations will be any different.
The public should purge its mind of this sloppiness and stupidity if it wants to make any headway in its public discourse over the environment. To paraphrase P.T. Barnum, the environmentalist can fool some of the people some of the time, but he can't fool all the people all the time. Let's just keep the sometime fools from setting our policy on the theory, powerful though it may seem to them, that they're right.
(Jeffrey Eisenberg is a Cavalier Daily opinion editor. He can be reached at jeisenberg@cavalierdaily.com.)
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