Five More Environmentalist Myths

Last of the two-part series "Practical Ecology" - Part 1 was posted last week.

Ed "Redwood" Ring [EcoWorld Inc. / Sierra Energy / Anuvu Inc.] | POSTED: 05.02.03 @07:57

If you missed the first five myths of environmentalism, they are the following: environmentalism requires economic sacrifice, environmentalists are socialists, renewable energy is the answer, we need to recycle, and new housing must be confined to within the boundaries of existing cities. These myths, and the five that follow, have cost Americans trillions of dollars.

Myth #6
Natural wilderness and biodiversity are sacred.

No they aren't. Using the discovery of some obscure insect or creature to prevent building a power plant, or a road—or homes and factories and cities—is not always right. Europeans get along just fine without much pristine wilderness in most of their continent. Having wilderness and biodiversity at all costs is a choice that societies make; it isn't sacred and it has little to do with their well-being. Environmentalists are not wrong to want to preserve wilderness and wildlife—some of this should be preserved. But when they oppose all development, everywhere, they become ridiculous.

Myth #7
We must have mass transit.

If "mass transit" means more freeways, more cars, and more busses, then full speed ahead. Unfortunately, current U.S. federal law instead mandates that "light rail" and "carpool lane" options must always come first. This is a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money, the unwitting result of an uncontested environmentalist myth. This myth costs Americans billions to build slow trains that hardly anyone rides, and carpool lanes that are 75% empty during rush hour, right when extra lane capacity is most needed. Spend taxes on more freeways and more busses. Government funding should save trains for high-speed projects. Government regulations should focus on encouraging pollution-free cars, instead of mandating carpool lanes in a futile attempt to drive people out of cars altogether. Mass transit? It’s called more roads and more freeways.

Myth #8
There are going to be worldwide energy and water shortages.

If there are shortages, then environmentalists will share the blame. Both centrally planned mega-solutions and micro-managed regulations alike are the natural output of environmentalist-influenced governments. Over-regulated water and energy markets can lead to shortages where no real shortage need exist. Water and energy will be more abundant and affordable when innovators and entrepreneurs can invent solutions without red tape. Solutions for increasing available water range from small, decentralized rain-harvesting systems, to piping and underground storage systems built on a continental scale. These can co-exist in proper free-enterprise economies. The same holds true for energy.

Myth #9
There is a population explosion.

Not anymore. While human populations are still increasing at an alarming rate in a few places, the reality is that population growth always slows when prosperity grows. By fighting against new homes and roads, and by over-regulating energy and water systems, environmentalists create economic misery instead of prosperity. If prosperity were allowed to slow population growth, there would be more money to fight pollution, and fewer people to pollute. In any case, all population projections promulgated by environmentalists have been way over the mark. The current projected peak human population, eight billion in about twenty years, is the lowest estimate since serious projections began over fifty years ago. There aren't too many humans for this earth to support, and there never will be.

Myth #10
If we don't make drastic changes right now, the earth will become uninhabitable.

Don’t bet on it. And even if global warming does cause the ocean to inundate huge coastal areas across the planet, it won’t affect most of human civilization. Habitats, overall, would simply migrate northwards, with the tropical belt extending somewhat further up from the equator, and vast, viable summer agricultural regions opening up in the ample land mass of the upper northern hemisphere. Moreover, the theory of global warming, and the related evidence, is substantial but not conclusive. Fundamental uncertainties remain in all models of global warming that render their predictive value nearly worthless. Should we stop polluting? Of course we should, and we will, but not because the sky is going to fall tomorrow.

Being capitalist and being environmentalist are not incompatible, if the myths of environmentalism are constantly challenged when determining public policy, and companies that use and process energy and water efficiently are rewarded in a less-regulated marketplace.

Does a myth-free environmentalist still want to save species, preserve the ocean wilderness, and promote biodiversity? Yes, passionately— but with passion moderated by practical compromises. We don’t live in a perfect world, but environmentalists and capitalists don’t have to always be at war, and nature and technology can exist in harmony. Environmentalism can be relevant.

Part 1 of this artcle was posted last week.

Ed Ring is Editor and CEO of EcoWorld Inc., publisher of www.EcoWorld.com

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Mass transit ala car-pool lanes and light rail is almost always a waste of money compared to more roads. Light rail certainly consumes more fuel than cars, because almost nobody rides them. You thought an SUV wasted gas, try using an entire train to move a dozen people around. Take into account the fact that you can't build a train station at the end of everyone's driveway and your coercive utopian (and simplistic) vision falls apart.

If proximity to freeways lower housing values (and they don't all that much because freeways, unlike light rail, get people to where they want to go, so it's nice to live near them) then permit lower-density development for a change (see Env. Myth #5). As for land taken up by freeways? What a shibboleth. There's plenty of land.

What increases the value of a neighborhood, or an entire city for that matter, is efficient transportation. Americans, for the most part, haven't invested in more freeways for 20-30 years, even through our population has gone way up. Soon cars won't pollute at all and will be extremely energy-efficient, i.e., the car is here to stay. It's time to get the bull-dozers out of mothballs and start pouring pavement.

Fanatic anti-car, anti-road activists, well-versed in half-baked but convincing (mostly emotional) arguments, have conned our populace and politicians into building carpool lanes and light rail and it's wasted trillions of dollars. More freeways, more busses (for those who can't afford cars) and no more gridlock!

Way, way off. Sweeping generalizations like "anti-capitalist ideologues hide behind environmentalism" have absolutely no meaning except to continue a trend of simplistic reporting on environmental issues. It is an attempt to marginalize anyone who has certain views (counter to Ed's) on a very complex, multidimensional set of ideas and policy options.

Efficiency of mass transit vs. highways? Measured by what? Amount of fuel needed to move a given number of people? Don't think so. Amount of land taken up by right of ways? Wrong again. How about reduction in housing values for any home within earshot of a highway? Don't think anyone measures that but it is definitely a consideration when I go house hunting. But even comprehensive measures of efficiency miss the mark. Mass transit, properly designed, increases the effectiveness of an economic area. It's like indoor plumbing. You can build houses a lot more cheaply without it but who would want to live in that neighborhood?

Ed Ring ends Myth #6 with the following: "Environmentalists are not wrong to want to preserve wilderness and wildlife—some of this should be preserved. But when they oppose all development, everywhere, they become ridiculous."

Mr. Ring, exactly which mainstream environmentals oppose all development everywhere? Maybe a few nut cases do, but environmentalists in general? Hardy. And suggesting that they do is, well, ridiculous.

Deborah Branscum

Sure, a few anti-capitalistic forces lie at the fringe of environmentalism. However, most Americans, when asked about their top 5 concerns, claim that the environment is one of them. It's doubtful that most Americans would define themselves as anti-capitalist - thus negating Ed's first point.

There was, still is, and probably always will be fringe fanaticism at the edge of the environmental movement; however, Ed is using the fringe to define the whole. IN so doing, he creates his own self-serving myths. It's best to manage fringe myths by pointing them out 'as such', instead of attributing their effects to the whole.

If one looks closely into the alternatives to Ed's concocted 'myths', it's clear that he is suggesting an environmental platform that many polluting organizations would love to embrace. [e.g. his suggestion to 'not worry' if global warming swallows up coastal areas, because we can 'move' 6.3 billion people 'north' is one of his more egregious suggestions].

In an attempt to sensationalize the environmental fringe, and use a 'noble lie', he does polluters a big favor, and degrades the mostly fine work that the *bulk* of serious environmentalists favor. (note: I would call this blog a 'naive noble lie', because I don't think Ed is being intentionally diabolical, he's just misinformed).

Note that the author has not debated the issues, really. Early on, one of this blog's publishers asked for 'substantive facts' to counter the general tenor of Ed's blog, because he felt that responses were solely based on emotional reaction, instead of sound reasoning. Many facts have since been presented. So, where's the substantive argument (that Ed promises) to counter contervailing facts?

To hear Ed argue it, we should have environmentalists lobbying for more freeways, and less mass-transit; less research on speeding up the introduction of hydrogen power, and more research on making polluting fossil fuels (a limited resource) cleaner; ditching most recycling programs, instead of looking for ways to invent 'cradle-to-cradle products; building out exurban America, instead of looking for more practical ways to develop our decaying urban areas; letting private enterprise buy up and sell water rights, instead of looking for cooperative ways to husband water resources into perpetuity; and on, and on.

Creating straw-man myths 'sells', but it doesn't do the environmental movement any good.

Sanford Forte

Throughout the blogs generated by this article and the one prior, there have been many profound thoughts but few facts to rebut my position that these ten "myths" are indeed myths. Whether or not I subscribe to a noble lie in order to manipulate the public (which many scientists have openly admitted - both with respect to "nuclear winter" in the '80's and "global warming," "tipping point," "non-linearity." etc., since the '90's, is irrelevant. As stated before I stand by my comments and will debate the underlying facts with anyone.

To recap, I believe that anti-capitalist ideologues hide behind environmentalism, that hydrogen power is way, way off, that most recycling programs are not helping the environment in any way, that confining urban development to within existing cities is tyranical and preserves virtually zero wilderness, that it's wrong to tie development up in court for decades over some minor insect, and that mass transit solutions are usually less efficient than more freeways. I believe that global and regional water and energy shortages can be better solved using the power of free enterprise, I think human population will level off within 20 years, and I don't think anyone has conclusive evidence that human activity is causing global warming.

Does this mean I'm an apologist for totally unfettered capitalism. Absolutely not. The point of these articles was to point out what I believe to be environmentalist myths - not to suggest that environmentalists are the only group to harbor myths. The "myths" of environmentalists are not beyond debate, and environmentalists would have more credibility and more success if they would remember that. We've wasted trillions of dollars on things like inappropriate recycling and inappropriate mass-transit solutions, to name two, and the only real beneficiaries are the mega-corporations who implement these phony solutions. Is that what environmentalists want? A little more thought and a little less fanaticism would go a long way in the environmental movement.

Papasik, The answer to your query *has* to be that the author *must* believe that the 'myths' he has proposed are real - otherwise he wouldn't have proposed them.

What baffles me is that his 'myths' are - again - straw men. The real 'myth' is, in fact, the 'myths' that the author has propounded with this article.

If most of what was spouted in his blog was taken as general truth, it would lead to legislation that only anti-environmentalists could love.

So was it a YES or NO answer? OK... just never mind.

The point is that this blog would have the reader believe that the 'myths' identified are essentially 'majority opinion' held by environmentalists. This just isn't true.

It's simply not accurate to insinuate that 'environmentalism' is largely infected and influenced by its most radical (counterproductive) environmental elements. This creates a kind of 'fear-mongering' of its own, and sets readers up to believe that environmentalists are 'quacks', or simply not able to see the larger for-profit enterprise picture, etc. Not so.

The one place I would agree with the author is that there is a need for more sustainable rapproachment among governments, private enterprise, and entrepreneurs. I would like to see more written about 'specific' ways that this can be accomplished, and less about so-called 'myths' that represent only the fringe of environmentalism.

A few more points to consider.

If current 'conversion trends' (logging, pollution) continue, all the best projections indicate we will run out of many, many vital resources before replacements can be found, or adjustments made.

*All* oceanic fisheries are currently at barely sustainable levels.

The shortage of potable water is already epidemic. Expanding populations (trying to mimic the West's standard and levels of consumption) in various regions are outrunning limited water supplies.

Global warming is a 'condition'. Very few people (relatively speaking) will die from it. However, it sets the ground for other problems. Who likes a warmer world? Mosquitos. Think Dengue fever. People will die because we/they can't get their/our consumption levels under control.

We're dumping massive watts of energy into our narrow envelope of atmosphere. The world - so far - has been mostly hospitable to humans, but that world is vanishing into a world that may not be a very pleasant place to hang our respective hats.

If biodiversity is constrained, and everything left just serves the 'human chain' (i.e., if we don't get serious about challenging *irresponsible* [not all!] corporate growth), future generations will deeply regret us having done everything possible to prevent that.



Sanford Forte

"Do you support or do you oppose these myths?" The point is that these "myths" are not beyond debate, as many environmentalists want us to think. Civilization will probably survive with or without the Spirit Bear or the Great Sea Turtle. I very much want to see wildlife and wilderness survive, and work towards those ends, but it's because that's a value I believe in, and want all society to embrace. But to demonize people who don't share my values, or turn theories about Global Warming, Ecosystem Collapse, "Tipping Point" etc. into fear-mongering dogma is counterproductive. In other cases, such as mass transit, urban development and many (not all!) recycling programs, I think environmentalists are often just plain wrong and waste their energy and credibility. And it would be great if more rapproachment could develop between environmentalists and entrepreneurs, because that is where the things we must do, like reduce pollution and manage our ocean fisheries, and things we want to do, like save the Asian Rhino, might be most effectively accomplished.

And same question to author - so do you SUPPORT or do you OPPOSE those "myths"?

Is it written by the same person as previous 'myth' article? Well, never saw two so opposite texts coming from the same author.

Part 2

Ed’s Myth #9
”There is a population explosion.”

“There aren't too many humans for this earth to support, and there never will be.”
----
On the one hand you say population is under control, but on the other hand, you say it doesn’t matter. Which one is it? Furthermore, who has been most responsible for disseminating much of the information and means to help population come under control? It has been environmental and citizen lobbies at the governmental and grass roots level (the exception being China).



Ed’s Myth #10
”If we don't make drastic changes right now the earth will become uninhabitable.
Don't bet on it. And even if global warming causes the ocean to inundate huge coastal areas across the planet, it wouldn't affect most of human civilization. Habitats, overall, would simply migrate…”.
---
This is the single most preposterous – and dangerously simplistic - thing I have yet seen spouted as a viable option to doing everything we can to stop, or slow, global warming. Consider the social cost and inefficiencies of this ‘final solution’.

Within the next 30 years, more than 6.3 billion people are expected to make their home in densely populated coastal corridors, worldwide. A warmer, wetter world creates complex scenarios that will create complex – and devastating – outcomes for human populations. For more: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993655


Ed continues:
“Being capitalist and being environmentalist are not incompatible”
---
Bottom line: The actions of the majority of environmentalists – at their core – are simply nowhere near the assumptions the author attributes to them. The author’s prototypical ‘myth-free environmentalist’ simply doesn’t exist – except at the margin. The author has created a straw man to bash any environmentalism.

I see only finger-wagging, and pointing at some made-up mythical ‘left-environmentalists’ as the problem pointed to in this blog. I would have liked to see 1) more informed insight; 2) less sensationalistic ‘myth making’; and, 3) specific, worthwhile, suggestions of well-compromised solutions.

Sanford Forte

Part 1:

Ed’s Myth #6
”Natural Wilderness and Biodiversity are sacred.
No they aren't, unfortunately.”
---
Biodiversity is the key to the ‘success’ of life on our planet. Extinction is not an unnatural process. What is unnatural is the present rate of extinction. It's a fact that species depletion on our globe is proceeding at an unprecedented, astounding pace.

Ask the Germans what they think about the disappearance of the Black Forest from acid rain, and other manmade blight. Look at the depletion of fisheries, worldwide, etc.



Ed’s Myth #7
”We must have mass-transit.
"...If "mass transit" means more freeways, more cars, and more busses, then full speed ahead. … Government funding should save trains for high-speed projects. Government regulations should focus on encouraging pollution-free cars...”
---
Pollution-free cars have been kept off the back burner - by commercial lobbies - for years; only pressure form environmental groups has kept the fuel efficiency effort alive.

Curiously, Ed’s last ‘myth’ (#6) uses a situation that developed in Europe over centuries…i.e. the depletion of pristine wilderness - presents an example to suggest (wrongly) that we can live without our own (or less) wilderness.

Why doesn’t Ed point to the success of European mass transit as an example for the US – rather, where we might be if auto companies and other commercial non-regulated interests hadn’t ripped up urban trolley lanes in the 1930’s to guarantee that their products would not see threats from urban mass transit w/o a huge re-capitalization cost to the public. Ed wants it both ways.



Ed’s Myth #8
There are going to be worldwide energy and water shortages.
Well if there are shortages, then environmentalists will share blame.
---
This is a misleading ‘myth’. Millions die from current water-related (shortage and pollution) constraints every year. Look at UN projections for worldwide water shortages.

Further, with whom should environmentalists ‘share blame’. Could it be unrestrained commercial and government interests that have trammeled on water resources? Are you saying that regulations, designed initially to help the environment have caused the problem? What were those solutions created in response to? Ed’s argument is akin to blaming a citizen’s group for creating more air pollution because traffic slows down due to their demands for a safe crossing (by placing a crosswalk) over a busy thoroughfare. Nonsense.