Environmentalism & Religion

I love this speech by Michael Crichton. I think I posted it before in another topic, but I think it merits discussion of its own. I wish I could have written it myself. Unfortunately, I'm not capable of being so poetic. Though maybe, I would have backed away from some of the rhetoric about birds and a few other details...

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote05.html

I don't want to reprint much of the speech & the nature of his arguments, because I don't have permission. Yet, I think that many of you who read his speech will find it poignant.

Here is an interesting initial effort along the lines he is advocating:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_consensus

[Edited on Jan 23, 2005 by Dick_Cheney]

It's just the same warmed-over junk from the anti-environmental movement we've heard for years, down to trotting out the lame "The environmentalists won't let us use DDT!" line you hear all the time.

It reminds me of hearing "creation scientists" talk about evolution, about how since evolution can't be proven beyond any shadow of a doubt, it's a quasi-religious mindset. This falls in that same category. It's weak pseudo-science from a hack novelist. Pointing out that it's dumb isn't being "religious", and I suspect Crichton is trying a cheap rhetorical ploy to try to insulate himself from criticism.

i see where he is coming from. as an environmental activist i am often stupified by the ignorance that i find amongst other activists, and the willingness to do what they do in pursuit of some sort of ideal world that never exists and is unlikely to exist.

but i am an envirnmentalist because i believe that nature has an intrinsic value on top of an economic and social value, and i believe that it is better to be safe than sorry because quite simply for every piece of research this bloke can drag out to show that the ice in antarctica is growning we can find some to say it isn;t using other methods.

we have to prepare for the worst, and that way we can only win. this makes sense, rather than hoping for the best.


i deplore ignorance, i really do.

I agree with him , and he makes many valid points...you've got educated people on both sides of the ball worshipping something..many,urban educated people will not hesitate to slag a Judeo-christian religious belief, but will whole heartedly accept without question , worshipping the "planet" and 'gaia' and renouncing many forms of modern medical science for such quackery as homeopathy,chiropractors , and healing crystals.....

it goes both ways.

[Edited on Jan 23, 2005 by Racer_X]

You mean healing crystals don't work!?

Well fuck. There's another $30 down the drain...

Environmentalism might be partially spiritual to some, but I don't think that's the main motivation for most in the movement. I think the motivation is that we'd like the planet to not be fucked up beyond its capablity to support life anytime soon, if it's avoidable. Crichton goes in with a really stereotyped view of the movement, so toss a straw man on top of the other problems with the essay.

I feel Crichton has chosen that comparision to denegrate something he doesn't understand.

Lomberg is misguided. Sorry, but to start with the 'Copenhagen Consensus' is equivalent to the ducks on your village pond calling themselves 'The World Bird Council'.

If you take his point on how to make the most difference NOW it is a valid one.

However ignoring future threats (climate change to name one Lomberg takes issue with) is completely unequitable. There is little point improving the short term situation if in 20 years time the village will be under the sea. Ignoring the intangible and only including that which you can put a number on is inappropriate. Perhaps why NGOs like Oxfam took such issue with Lombergs work.

Read this quote from Crichtons essay:

Numerous studies have shown the dangers of second hand smoke - see the British Medical Journal and the New England Journal of Medicine. Cities may only cover 5% of the USA, but studies show they have an ecological footprint greater than the whole USA. Where does your food come from? Where does the coffee come from? The Sahara is greening as it under goes 20 year pluvial cycles, it has done for centuries, lake bed records will show you this. Right now it is in a wet phase, in the '80s it was in an arid phase. The antartic Ice sheet is THINNING as temperatures increase its ice sheets are breaking up, and the glaciers flowing more rapidly into the Anatartic Ocean. Crichton confuses Area with volume. In terms of sea level, with land based ice sheets like the West Antartic it is the volume of ice that melts that matters.

I would much rather believe the work of the IPCC than a biased think tank. Being involved in the scientific community researching climate change, I would have to say if we can predict what the climate was like in 1970, 1850, 1400, 10Ka BP using several different methods (Isotopes in Ice cores and sea bed cores and also palynology) which give climates matching with written evidence for those first three dates and these records show an unequivical match between CO2 and climate. We can be more certain than any other policy informer.

I agree that some environmentalists are 'faddy new agers' (to quote a friend), but Crichtons essay shows the same disregard for fact as the people he takes an aim at. Especially his "So I can tell you some facts" statement.

That is the problem - as scientists we have the luxury of saying we're 98% confident in our findings. Politicians don't have this, and their opponents will point this out to them; their opponents will also present to the public that their policy is based on imperfect evidence. Even if it is based on the best infomation we have.

Takes a deep breathe. Goes back to the day job. Oh this is my day job.


[Edited on Jan 23, 2005 by someoneUK]

I saw this on one of those 48 Hrs or 20/20 investigative report shows. While it certainly interests me enough to look into it further, I fear that it may be an open call to industrialists and their beneficiaries if it turns out to be true.

But ultimately I'm not going to take some potboiler author's word for it.

Spurious logic forms the basis for all of Chrichton’s fiction which is fine, for fiction. Skipping over little inconvenient things like gaps in DNA sequencing in order to get to the part of the story where the T Rex eats people is great fun for the world of a novel or movie. But it makes for lousy science and worse policy. He does this with a practiced slight of hand in this essay, in such a smooth fashion that you can almost admire him for the craftsmanship of such a bungled load of crap.

Shorter Michael Chrichton:

“Here’s a rhetorical fact about religion: it’s full of nonsense but it’s nonsense people really like. Now, because I don’t like environmentalists, I’m going to frame them as religious. Presto! Environmentalism is absurd, just like religion! Who wants to smoke a cigar lit with a flaming oil well?”

[Edited on Jan 23, 2005 by faustroll]

Exactly.

If you're going to have a religion, is it not better to have something that is actually worthwhile? Worshipping our planet in a practical way is far more reasonable, IMHO, than worshiping some imaginary god who does not reciprocate in any material way. If we do not 'worship' our planet it will kill us, If we do 'worship' our planet than we will be rewarded with a much more stable and sustainable environment.

So it's, "SpongBoB Squarepants is an abomination because he's a natural sea sponge taken from a fragile barrier reef!" Or, "SpongeBob's totally mo and he's going to Hell!"

well if you actually watch spongebob squarepants you'll see that he's happily inhabiting his natural environment. He's the environmentalist messiah

I dunno. I thought the Andromeda Strain was pretty good.

It's just more proof to me that if you read an argument in which the argument is making claims about the motivations of the other side, you're probably reading a steaming crock of shit.

Or you could worship the planet and it will kill you anyway with a tsunami, tornado, hurricane etc. The earth isn't an individual or a consciousness, it's a giant ball of rock.

For all practical purposes, someone calling environmentalism a 'belief system' is trying to discredit it, But it is an ideological construct (like, um, 'complexity', and even if it's more valid that other positions I can see how it would be useful for some people in filling a void in their lives that might otherwise be filled by religion. I don't think the claim he makes in the first paragraph is completely nuts.

It's hard to make a point like his without generalizing. Certainly not every environmentalist is a hippie, or clings to environmentalism to fill a need.


I haven't read any of Crichton's stuff on this, so I don't know his full argument, but those points were bugging me.

[Edited on Jan 23, 2005 by Jeff_Fries]

I said 'worship practically'. Have respect for the environment, pursue sustainable development and consumption and worship it aesthetically, for instance, instead of churches in every town, have a nature park in every town that was respected by the town. (not used by pimps and gangs). This would improve people's lives in general i think. Of course there would be natural disasters that will bring pain and misery to many people, but that's just a part of living on this planet.
Natural disasters are necessary for the eco system to maintain it's balance or to create a new balance where there has been a disturbance. There is no morality there, just as there is no 'god' punishing people by sending lightning and rain.

I keep trying to write a response to this. I get about halfway thru writing a sentence and then think of something else he got wrong. It’s very frustrating.

I guess the short answer is I don’t agree with Mr. Crichton’s remarks.

My bad, I misunderstood your post.

is what Crichton said in this article actually true ?

I would rationalize that second hand smoke does cause harm to you body but I would also said the effects would be negligible compared to an actual smoker. I always read that second-hand smoke is bad but I haven't come across any actual statistics where it said that causes lung cancer.

I'm not sure about the DDT stuffs .

He got me thinking whether or not the media has chosen to report the news that seems to agree with the general public.

In general, I would agree that we should stop dumping chemicals into the ocean and reducing gas emissions that detroys the ozone layer which I know are factual science facts that we have contributed to the depletion of the ozone layer. But he makes an interesting point that we should based our environmental decisions on actual science facts but no paranoia.

[Edited on Jan 24, 2005 by xgenehawk]

I love it. Relgious people claim that the areligious' beliefs are religious in order to somehow discredit them... as religious?

"Hey, you're just as stupid as we are!"

Beh.

That would be nice. Only, I'm not religious.