A Mild Rant about Environmentalism

Enviromentalism, as has been remarked by a number of people before me, is a religion. Or, I should say, some kinds of environmentalism have religious overtones. Actually, I don't know much about the environmental movement, so basically, I'm just talking about the sort of thing that has come up at my college: the kind of holier-than-thou-because-we-care-about-trees-and-furry-animals stuff. I'll call it pseudo-environmentalism just to be safe.

Anyway, here's a mild rant about it.

One of the beliefs of pseudo-environmentalism is that all the world's problems would be solved if half of us got wiped out, presumably the half that OUGHT to be killed, kind of like Armageddon with the difference that Revelation-obsessed Christians think getting rid of wicked people will get rid of wickedness which at least makes logical sense if not human nature sense. Pseudo-environmentalists think that getting rid of wrong-thinking people will just get rid of a lot of people and then, snap pow, poverty and war will instantly disappear as everyone sprawls out and lives high on the hog.

This doesn't make any kind of sense if you actually study history. History is about small groups of people gathering into even smaller communities and then hounding each other and their neighbors to death with any weapons that come to hand. I mean, SURE the Assyrians could have moved to a different neighborhood—there was PLENTY of real estate in Texas at the time and Spain probably had a few free neighborhoods, but NO, the Assyrians decided they deserved the land next door which just HAPPENED to be occupied by a whole bunch of other people, don't ya know.

Of course, the REAL anti-population types want us to go back to the beginning of things, hunters and gatherers hunting and gathering around the planet earth. All I can say is that these anti-population types missed History 101 where the hunters and gatherers STOPPED hunting and gathering, presumably because, as a lifestyle, it was the pits. Sure, Igor, we mostly eat berries and we've got nothing but a bunch of bison meat and some cool cave art, but hey, at least, we don't have to share it with anyone, except, of course, those cave people over there who want to kill us and use our watering hole.

I suppose, a desperate pseudo-enviro hopes for continual global warming and natural disasters until only some Arthur-Dent like character is left all alone on planet earth. Until, that is, he decides it’s a waste of time and hoofs it with the next alien cruiser. And nobody will be left but the animals. So at least, in the end run, the PETA folks would be pleased.

But my biggest beef with pseudo-environmentalism is not their (not so) secret wish that everyone will perish except them but their attitude that the environment is something they can fold up and put in their pocket. They make noises about the grandeur of the environment but since really experiencing the grandeur of the environment gets you smothered in lava or eaten by sharks, they're pretty token noises. C.S. Lewis goes on a bit about people who treat God like their personal spa manager. And I think pseudo-environmentalists fall into this same trap. Because they care so much and waste so much ink yelling at other people about ruining the environment, they think the enviroment cares about them. Which it doesn't. Even when you include animism in the picture, I doubt that it does. The environment will drop a rock on you, bury you with a tsunami, open an earthquake under you or, well, smother you with lava quicker than you can say, "Green Peace." It's only our human anthropormorphism (see my post about Animals That Talk) that keeps us thinking the environment prefers green trees and unpolluted forests. But the environment doesn't care. A big bare rock would be fine with it.

CATEGORY: HISTORY & LEARNING