Ian Plimer [a climate change skeptic], Professor of Mining Geology, argues that atheists should not attack religion if they support environmentalism, because environmentalism is just another cult.
Bottom Line: He's right: Pay attention to science, not just emotion. He's wrong: Environmentalism is not ALL about faith and not ALL about humans. My take? Tax pollution and our world will be better.
16 November 2008
Environmentalism is the New Religion
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4 comments:
It may be useful sociologically in some contexts to treat environmentalism as a religion; certainly the resistance to pricing environmental commodities feels like a religious objection. ("Water/clean air/etc. is a right (or its preservation an absolute moral imperative), so you can't sell it (or a permit to release some carbon dioxide, which might look like "indugences").") A lot of the time these questions of labels and semantics come down to "what are you using it for?", and I expect that the classification of environmentalism as a religion is useful for certain purposes as applied to certain strains of environmentalism and less so for others.
Professor Plimer needs to stick to Mining geology. There is nothing new about Environmentalism my people (Cherokee) have practised it for hundreds it years. Yes it's spiritual with us but to call it a religion is absurd.
It's nice to know the world is thinking about this, that's what environmentalism is really about.
"Tax pollution out of existence".
I think Plimer has a perceptive point about how environmentalism may serve, for some, as a quasi-religion, but - so what? As Luke points out, every society has a religious-like approach to the natural world. The real qustion is whether the approach is a productive, health one or not; one that manages resources in a way that does not destroy the public-good resources or impose costly externalities on others.
While environmentalism may foster a dangerous level of dose of irrationality in some, Plimer asserts but makes no case that environmentalism has been destructive. I tend to disagree with him, even as I think that heavy-handed governmental regulation is overly expensive and maybe even counterproductive.
Of course Plimer's environmentalism-as-religion meme has its counterpart, in the reflexive use by many as an easy ad hominem that allows them to plug their ears and avoid investigating the problems that concern environmentalists.
Plimer's smug self-confidence thus may mask his own self-deception.
Hmm... well, it's environmentalism is certainly a value system. Religion is partly about adhering to how you rank your values and emotional fervor in the world. I think the difference is that environmentalists at least attempt to base their goals on real world phenomena, rather than the supernatural.
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