Is environmentalism a symptom, or a societal disease?

When Barry Commoner made the cover of Time Magazine back in the 60’s many poo-pooed him some, and mostly his cause. Even if some of his ideas were credible, which they were, the ideas of law and owned property were also credible. Just who were those who would take over or dictate to an upstream polluter without buying them out. There were other ways to deal with an upstream polluter, to include shaming them in the cases of overzealous development. The response to, say for example, a paper mill on the North Fork of the Potomac River that polluted locally and regionally, was a combination of local, regional, and state action, as well as public shaming. In this whole process people and their jobs were a big factor, since we all lived and worked together, and sent our kids to school together. Bottom line, there were recourses to dealing with polluters, and they were practiced as part of the then American way.

Politically, this whole idea of environmentalism was probably advanced in time by above ground testing of nuclear weapons. The regional, national, and international effects of radiation pollution from the 50’s became well published. Even kids read about the possible effects of Strontium 90 ingested through cow’s milk (it acts like calcium to our little bodies). Back then reading was the usual way of getting news and information; facts, propaganda, or even comic book versions of it all.

The evolution of environmentalism continued to a new status that had more political bite. Local land owners and citizens jobs began to lose control to environmental and OSHA federal and later state laws that evolved from obvious polluters to “I have concerns” about species and job safety. In the latter case, most of the jobs people knew more about their job safety than those becoming their unelected representatives. And during this period, it seems the standards of scientific research began to decline to producing output based on funding and political objectives. Not just the scientists changed, so did our society. Kids who might have pursued educational lines that tended towards education, engineering, mathematics, or business, found another popular line of environmental “this and that” to pursue. Theory and good intentions were everything; even computer modeling (often unchallenged do to ignorance by the user) went unchallenged. Along the way there were exceptions. The recovery of the RCW (red cockaded woodpecker) in the eastern coastal plain, led by Ralph Costa and the FWS, was brilliant. Common sense, working together, and patience, made for a brilliant campaign, and a win-win. The opposite, unfortunately, has also happened, vis-a-vis the spotted owl debacle.

The evolution continued. Nothing's wrong with that except for the fear that this unchecked evolution may have even more economic impact, as in put now millions of peoples out of their jobs. The trip wire for this author was hearing “some environment types” proposing to take over the entire Rocky Mountain chain to form a movement corridor for wolves. The alarming part was the proposal to use “law” and not money to take over this huge area to use their idea, or theory. And later, and more locally, we have the NRDC (which spreads itself very thin) proposing to take over the Cumberland Plateau in the east to promote the most naïve and wildlife destructive ideas to the more informed, all without paying a penny. Now the antennas are up.

One should never take their pack off. Now those who wrap themselves in the environmental cause have gone global. The most recent issue is one of global warming. The science debate has much published about it, thank goodness. The reader can make up their own mind. One does not need to be a computer engineer, or any of the others who offer “expert” opinion, to know the ideas of “garbage in, garbage out”, or the influence of billions of public dollars of funding on decisions about what to research, and expected outcomes. Add in the popular culture ideas on the subject, even movie reviewers are weighing in, and what has the world come to.

And this is the point of this article. This is the most difficult point. Is environmentalism today an out of control societal disease that manifests itself as a religion, or even worse, an unchecked theocracy? Or is it more simple, a symptom of American and western do-gooderism? In either question, and answer, the author suggests considering the following. Is environmentalism about humans, or not?