Anti-Environmentalism
Email From: John Senner
>
> Thank you for publishing ‘God Wants You Dead‘, it was a very very
> insightful read. I have only one issue to take up with you; you
> advocate correcting others when they reject or accept an ideology,
> when ignoring one or more of its parts, but pages later condemn
> environmentalism out of hand and seemingly in total. Yet one of the
> main ideas of environmentalism is the conservation of resources in
> order to prevent a decline in human standards of living, which seems
> like a good idea. Seed banks, electric cars, solar power, and other
> progress minded memes are formed by this ideology, despite its flawed
> ideas of saving charismatic megafauna and rejecting nuclear power.
> What do you think of this? Thank you again for the great thoughts
> you’ve shared with me.
>
> John
>
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Email From: Paul Rosenberg
>
> Hi John,
>
> You’re welcome!
>
> Yes, I see your point; we’re criticizing environmentalism as a whole.
> I guess it depends upon how we define it. I’d have to go back and
> check to see how precise we were. Perhaps we should add a line or
> two of clarification.
>
> Like you, I think making less of a mess is a good thing, and such
> actions could be defined as “environmentalism,” and I wouldn’t
> criticize those things in particular. (Though I would still object to
> them being included in a big bag of ideas and acted upon just because
> they were in the bag.)
>
> I’ll forward this note to Sean and see if he has any responses. (He’s
> been pretty absorbed in a few things of late, so he may not be able to
> respond.)
>
> Best regards,
>
> Paul
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Email From: Sean Hastings
>
> John,
>
> The second paragraph of GWYD’s section on environmentalism reads:
>
In defining what we mean by the Environmentalism idea-organism, we can say that we are referring to that which goes above and beyond the simple altruistic meme “try to minimize your impact on shared resources.” As we have seen with other Ideologies, Environmentalism may have some symbiotic and altruistic memes, as well as many parasitic memes bundled together. — GWYD 2.7.3.3
>
> This is clearly a nod to the fact that some memes grouped into the
> standard Environmentalism package might certainly have beneficial
> effects if applied without the attached religious dogma. It is
> possible that you feel that we are picking on Environmentalism only
> because it is the Ism we discussed that you have the most attachment
> to. However, I will acknowledge that Environmentalism is particularly
> worrisome to me for a number of reasons, so it is also quite possible
> that I am overly critical of it, even if I believe that my reasons are valid ones.
>
> Where deistic religions revere mankind as the creator’s greatest and
> most important creation embodying divine spirit, and collectivist
> philosophies believe that mankind acting together as a whole
> represents the greatest good, environmentalism actually treats mankind
> as something separate from, and even opposed to, the natural order
> which it casts as the highest good.
>
> Considering how many horrible abuses of human rights have resulted
> from philosophies that supposedly held humanity in the highest esteem,
> the potential of a philosophy that shows signs of promoting the same
> level of zealotry, while casting human beings in a much less favorable
> light, quite frankly, scares the crap out of me.
>
> Additionally, the attack on science that the whole “Climate Change”
> thing represents bothers me greatly. The scientific method is one of a
> precious few tools that we have to find real truth in the world, so I
> am bothered by anything that degrades the term “science.”
>
> Here is something I wrote just the other day on the topic:
Drawing conclusions about what will actually happen to the climate, based on climate models, is not science as defined by the scientific method. The scientific method requires us to form a hypothesis, set up a testable experiment, observe the results, draw conclusions, and make all of the above public so that others can confirm that the experiment is repeatable.
In the case of long term models of the behavior of a planetary climate, each model can be taken as a new hypothesis. The only possible experiment to confirm a model/hypothesis would be watching the climate and seeing if it conforms to the model’s predictions.
Previous climate data is the source of such models, and thus can not also be taken as confirmation of those same models. Only future climate behavior can scientifically confirm any model.
If your hypothesis makes 100 year long predictions, the experiment will take 100 years to run once, and another 100 years for others to repeat.
Until that happens, it can not rise to the level of being called science.
Since waiting around for 200 years, to see if a given long range climate model is reliable, is not practical in terms of Human lifespans, instead of science, we get people arguing about which hypothesis they think is more likely to be true, and who’s credentials make them more likely to be able to predict the results of an experiment that would take far too long to actually run.
Even if the people creating these models and arguing about them are “scientists,” as defined by having a degree from a university in some science, what they are doing in this field is not science by its most basic and important definition.
>
> Anyway, I hope I have adequately addressed your point – and sorry for
> the rant. I do tend to go on a bit once you get me going. :-)
>
> –Sean
>
> PS. Is it ok if I put your letter on my blog?
>
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Email From: John Senner
>
>It’s great with me if you blog this – thanks for two great responses.
>
>By the way, I got your book from legaltorrents.com but have
>just now ordered a hard copy to get the word out – way to stick up for
>rationalism and original thought.
>
>John