perfidy

Buckethead, interesting assessment. I don't necessarily agree with you, but I can't fault your logic.

Here's an observation with a question attached. You mentioned that technology has helped to overcome problems of famine in the past, which is true. But it is axiomatic that as technology becomes more powerful and more subtle, so do the side effects. If horse carts produce horseshit, fission reactors produce transuranics.

Given that your faith is in technology, do you have similar faith that sufficient attention is being paid to the potential dangers? Should, for example, we be on guard against another Nestle-formula fiasco, or against overuse of Roundup-ready crops so as to lead to roundup-resistant fungus?

What environmentalists are concerned with are threats to health. A threat to health comes in different _direct_ forms of threat to an _individual_:

1. Malnutrition/famine.
2. Pollution (chemicals).
3. Poison.
4. Radiation (UV, nuclear).

Indirectly, certain medicines can heal health problems. Many medicines have been formed biological sources; as such, biodiversity lends itself to the discovery of new medicines.

Environmental issues get linked back to the big threats, listed above.

global warming threatens biodiversity. if biodiversity is threatened, we undercut the natural food chain, which could result in less direct food production (like fishing). change in direct natural food production can create hunger (#1). if we shift production to agricultural methods, we increase pollution and toxins in the environment. food supplies can become toxic (#3), and we create more pollution (water and air, #2).

global warming threatens climates. change in climate threatens agriculture. when agricultural capability is reduced, we produce less food, which leads to #1.

if we destroy the ozone layer, there is an increase in radiation, which leads to #4.

With most issues we can play these kinds of games...what are the causes and effects? Hwo do they lead back to _real_ health issues for people?

On that front, economic issues like depletion simply don't concern me...although they can indirectly lead to health consequences (a poor economy has more trouble feeding its citizens).

I haven't mentioned anywhere, so far, the generally accepted desire for our environment to be aesthetically pleasing. We must place at least some value on that. I submit, though, that most environmental causes can be traced through to basic health threats.

Ultimately, it's all about _risk_. The bottom line is, we really don't know what the effects of climate change are going to be on agriculture and biodiversity. If there is an impact on biodiversity, to what extent will that tamper with the food supply? We just don't know.

Environmentalism isn't about being _right_ or being _wrong_; there's no black and white. It's about gauging _probabilities_ and their consequences.

"Conservatives" (I use the term loosely here), are all too willing to destroy or permit to be destroyed, natural resources and conditions that have been in balance for an eternity. They justify this through religious or ideological means, dismissing with prejudice the serious work of thousands of scientists who have spent a _lifetime_ studying these problems, and who are patiently going about finding the truth.

Nobody really knows what the truth is, for environmental cause and effect. It's time for anti-environmentalists to admit that. Pro-environmentalists have been studying the environment and, in a peer-reviewed scientific manner, revising their conclusions.

Ross, I said I would deal with the other three in subsequent postings. You're jumping the gun a little.

Your points 2, 3, and 4 I rolled into pollution. Global Warming, though related to pollution (and possibly to biodiversity issues) I separated because of the great controversy surrounding it.

I have more things on my list, obviously I care more about the environment. Heh.

Many if not most environmentalists would disagree with you on the black and white concept, and that environmentalism is about threats to health. They most certainly do not look at the problems that we face in terms of cost benefit analyses, probabilities and so on. They look upon nature as sacrosanct, and that almost any activity that mankind takes part in is damaging to mother earth. This is not just conservative stereotyping of the watermelon crowd; I worked with these people and they have a religious perspective on these issues. While they will use science to bolster their claims, they quickly discard it if it no longer serves their purposes.

Your final contention is interesting. "nobody knows the what the truth is." That is exactly what the many on the right have been insisting for years, against the claims of environmentalists that the we're all going to be burnt to a crisp by next Tuesday. Characterizing this position as anti-environment is putting the cart before the horse. The environmentalist movement is not composed solely of scientific angels going about their research while being badgered by mean spirited, nasty conservatives.

I'm glad that you raised the point of aesthetics, because that is something that I planned on making central to one of my arguments. The aesthetic value of the natural world is certainly not something to be taken lightly.

In any event, I will be dealing with those issues in posts that are - honest - just around the corner. I dealt with the first two right off, because they are the easiest.

As to you, Johno, you're absolutely right. Technology does raise its own problems. But the fact of the matter is, we have committed (as a species) to the technological road. And as long as we don't stop research and economic development altogether, today's problems become grist for tomorrow's inventors and investors. If a problem becomes sufficiently big that people see that something must be done, well, things get done. The crisis in Whale Oil supplies in the late nineteenth century was rendered moot by the switch to other technologies. Similarly, problems we face today aren't necessarily going to be solved as made irrelevent. Which will cause new problems. That is the human condition in this vale of tears.

But, the environmentalists of the seventies were being disingenuous when they worried loudly and publicly about resource depletion and over population. What they wanted was a lever to slow the development of our economy, to limit the predations, as they saw it, on the environment. They really could care less if we actually ran out - it would mean that industrial civilization would have to grind to a halt. Sweet!

The dangerous thing about the hard, bitter core of the environmentalist movement is that their policy prescriptions would lead to death on an unprecedented scale. If we really did away with all of our technology and returned to "sustainable" technologies, billions would die. That's not a good idea.

But before Ross has an aneurysm, thankfully most people who are concerned about the environment don't think that way.

Btw, what don't you agree with? As far as I can tell, these two really are non-issues. There's a lot more room for argument with the others, but it's become pretty clear that we're not gonna run out of stuff any time soon, and that within our lifetimes (barring accident) the world population will start heading south.

B, good question. I actually disagree with one of your first principles, and side with Ross instead (no!).

Your verdict on these first two points is, "I hereby declare them to be non-issues, and needing no corrective action of any kind." That's fine, but you didn't prove that. Instead, you ably demonstrated that the doomsday claims of radical environmentalists have not yet come to pass. Considering that Socrates also predicted overpopulation and mass-starvation, this is a load of foolishness worthy of your mockery.

By treating your five issues as distinct, you rob this first part of your argument of some power and subtlety. How does scarcity play into pollution, and should, say, oil be phased out gradually from the large-scale world economy in favor of cleaner fuels?

But back to my point. You categorically reject any claim that overpopulation and scarcity are problems. On the macro scale that's true enough, and no doomsday is in the offing. But greater population density still raises the specter of a scarcity-based famine (China and the Indian subcontinent being good candidates) independent of a political hand to cause one.

In short, by making your assessment so utterly categorical, you rob it of nuance.

Finally, because I so love stupid analogies, let me offer this one. Using your logic, I would never let you drive my Corvette in the winter. Say we're in the car with a spare, going down the highway at 75, and the spare says "Oh, god! Ice! Stop the car!! STOP THE CAR!!!" Using the logic you present here, the proper reaction to such over the top hysteria would be "ahhh.. shaddup!" What Ross has argued for on this point, and what I also endorse, is easing up the gas and turning on the foglights, just in case there is some ice on the road. Is it too much to ask that we exercise some due caution while we speed toward Quaker Steak & Lube?

Just because the radical environmentalists are wrong doesn't mean everyone who makes pro-environmental arguments is wrong. If that were the case, Buckethead, I could hold up a picture of John Derbyshire every time time you start talking all conservative, and the argument would end right there.

Johno, in the next couple posts, I fully planned on dealing with issues that are not so easily disposed of. And making arguments for caution, even. But on these two, I don't really see the need. In the absence of collectivized argriculture or truly bad public policy, there is little chance of even localized scarcity based famine. And again, given the trend upwards in food production pretty much everywhere, these local problems would be easily dealt with.

And, given that the population world wide is not going to be shooting through the roof, even by the UN's estimates, we will not being seeing a significantly greater load placed on the food production.

I think we can safely not worry about that. And most of our concerns with, say, oil, are not going to be with running out but rather with dealing with a surfeit of its use, which would fall under the pollution rubric.

Naturally, there are interrelations between these issues; but this being a blog, and me being a guy with a job, it seemed prudent to break them up, even at the loss of some nuance.

Something could certainly happen which would make scarcity based famine a real possibility - like global thermonuclear war, an asteroid hit, or simultaneous wheat, rice and barley plagues that wipe out 85% of the world's crops. But given things as they are and are likely to be in the near future, I think that there is no special action needed to deal with these non problems. Naturally, we should continue to not start a nuclear war, and we should develop our space technology to forestall the possibility of a dinosaur killer impact, and we should keep lots of botanists and geneticists handy in case plagues arrive unwanted. But that is certainly outside the scope of my argument, and definitely outside the scope of a blog post.

All evidence points to population decrease in the near future. Food production continues to rise, and would rise even absent new developments if more places used the current techniques. Ergo, overpopulation/famine not a problem. Again, this excepts politically motivated famine, but this not our problem here. That's pretty solid to me.

With the resources, again prices are falling, with the exception of oil, which has political factors influencing prices. That means things are more easily had, which means they're not getting scarce. Proven reserves have continued to grow, and will given the immense size of the planet we live on - again, even without increases in technology. So, ergo, no running out of stuff.

That's pretty close to proof - and if it didn't happen that way, it would because of some completely different factor - an out of context problem that effects what we're talking about.

And to clarify, environmentalists are often wrong, but that doesn't mean that people who care about the environment are wrong. I care about the environment, and I am certainly not wrong. But the key is that Environmentalism shouldn't be about being right or being wrong; there's no black and white. It's about gauging probabilities and their consequences - as Ross said. But when you look at these things, you have to weigh relative costs and benefits. Not everything that man does on this earth is harmful, and even if it is, it might still be worth doing because of the benefits it provides to people. My house undoubtedly did great harm to the marsh which was once there. But it benefits me and my family, and at one time provided work for construction companies and their employees, and so on. This works on larger scales as well.

BTW, have any of you other Ministers posted your responses to my challenge? I will be depressed if I took over a month hiatus and was the first one up with a response.