Blog Action Day—October 15, 2007Today, for those of you not yet in the know, is Blog Action Day. A day where tens of thousands of bloggers (over 15,800 as of today) focus the day’s post on one subject. This year’s theme? The environment.
I’ve considered myself a part of the Earth Day Everyday, land conservation, be-wise-about-the-environment crowd for nearly as long as I can remember. In the 70’s, when I was a kid, I was running around with a “Save the River” t-shirt on trying to encourage people to stop California from damming a portion of the Stanilaus River. (A failed effort, as that section of the Stanislaus is now known as the Melones Reservoir.) We recycled, composted, raised chickens for eggs, and tried to conserve water at every opportunity. We had a huge organic garden long before “organic” was a buzz word, and, in my neighborhood at that time, we were the crazies on the block. There was nobody doing what we were doing.
My parents certainly influenced my environmental point of view, but my personal reasons for being conservation minded were simple; I loved the outdoors.
My parents certainly influenced my environmental point of view, but my personal reasons for being conservation minded were simple; I loved the outdoors. I backpacked, rock climbed, rode horses, tide-pooled, body-surfed, swam in outdoor lakes and streams, and as a kid spent almost my entire summer in the Sierra where my grandparents had a cabin. My attachment to the the environment came as the result of my experience with the world around me. The world was mine, I loved it, and I thought it was important to preserve what I/we could.
Which brings me to the present day…
While I still love the outdoors and seek to preserve it and while I financially support conservation-minded organizationsâ€â€Scenic Hudson, an excellent local conservation group being one of themâ€â€I find myself more and more removed from what I consider to be the mind-numbed-robots of the current environmental (emphasis on “MENTAL”) movement. Especially when it comes to the wholesale adherence to a recently crowned Nobel Laureate’s thinly documented “documentary,” An Inconvenient Truth.
From where I sit, the hoopla surrounding An Inconvenient Truth has more to do with a kind of, you-shoulda-been-president, fan-boy boosterism than any kind of scientific or environmental reality.
From where I sit, the hoopla surrounding An Inconvenient Truth has more to do with a kind of, you-shoulda-been-president, fan-boy boosterism than any kind of scientific or environmental reality. Are there tid-bits of truth in the Gore video? You betcha. But not enough to satisfy my curious (and questioning) nature. (Have a look at “The Science” behind the Gore video and you’ll discover a very weak set of pseudo-scientific references. The kind of stuff that would have gotten you a “D” in any high school report containing the same information.) And there’s enough contradictory evidence to suggest that the “scientific consensus” may have more to do with a political agenda than any kind of real science. Especially when scientists who hold beliefs contrary to the “consensus” are marginalized and accused of being “paid off” for their opinions, even when the opinions they hold stand up to scientific scrutiny. (See Juliet Elperin’s Outside Magazine article An Inconvenient Expert about MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen.) By the same token, it would be equally possible to accuse Al Gore of benefitting from his position on global warming and the environment since he makes money off of both the sales of his movie and related products and the sale of carbon credits. In other words, making money as a result of an opinion is neither an argument in favor of or against the validity of either side’s argument.
The danger we face if we tie our legitimate environmental concerns to specious science is that when the science gets outed as being bad, the legitimate environmental issues may get thrown out with the illegitimate science.
The conservation and preservation of our natural resources is, no doubt, an important issue. And to our credit, the pursuit of wiser environmental decisions has resulted in cleaner oceans and rivers, cleaner air, more efficient fuel consumption, and a variety of other benefits that will be passed on for many generations. But the danger we face if we tie our legitimate environmental concerns to specious science or a specific political agenda is that when the science gets outed as being bad or the political agenda doesn’t fit the agenda of the listener, the legitimate environmental issues may get thrown out with the illegitimate science and the political agenda.
Save the environment, save the world? No doubt that’s true. But it’s time that we tied our star to something other than the latest political superstar or science designed to fit our political, social, and economic needs. Otherwise we’re doomed to fail.