I was shown a video on environmental extremists called Penn and Teller - Bullshit! - Environmental Hysteria. It basically talks about how this trend into environmentalism is just a political ploy in conjunction with people's natural tendencies to join something.
Environmentalism as a cloak for anti-corporatism, anti-globalism, and anti-business.
Patrick Moore a founder and former president of Green Peace argues that environmental language has been cleverly injected into various political agendas to garnish support - misinformation and scare tactics.
1970s Crisis verse 2000 Crisis
The 70s was different because the issue then was the cut off from cheep oil, thus people had to find a new way of sustaining a large modern population's needs and wants. The 2ooo crisis is the belief that the environment is being drained of it's usable resources.
Anything to help the "Environment"
In the video they documented an experiment to see if people really knew what they were supporting, or do you just have to use buzz words like "it's for the environment" and they'll sign anything. So they ran a campaign to ban dihydrogen monoxide, which is water (H2O) by using environmental language to explain it's effects on people and nature. Waves of people signed the petition. This is probably because yes, people are joiners, they like to belong and being part of a group. It's a survival instinct, human beings are relatively fragile for an animal so we're more likely to live and last longer if we come together in packs. So when individuals see that a particular group is getting bigger (meaning higher likely hood of the pack's survival), they want to join. Problem is, they don't understand what they're choosing to participate in.
Is Global Warming really happening?
If you take the recorded average annual temperatures and draw up a graph with a trend line, it seems the Earth is warming up. Theoretically this will cause alterations in weather patterns, and we see this happening now. But did we cause this? How will this effect us? Some say that climate change may result in the melting of most of the polar ice caps (which will flood the earth and drown cities among things), a dramatic increase in natural disasters, and perhaps even push the earth towards the run-away greenhouse effect (basically turn the earth in to a second Venus). Others conclude with the fact that the earth has gone through these cycles of heating and cooling through out it's history of existence, we're due for an other one, and thus it's happening now. They cite that if you look at the averages of the total contributors of green house gases in the atmosphere, that you'll find the human contribution to be quite small compared to the rest. Environmentalist counters with saying that this may be true but the Earth's ecosystem is a delicate balance, that little bit may be enough to cross the line. All in all it seems that we just don't know, everything is theoretical (we're supposing). It seems the argument is yes the world is warming up, we don't know exactly what that means but we should perhaps prepare for the worse.
Bad News Sells
After watching this video, I found that the main issue with the eco movement seems to be the lack of reliable information. I've heard arguments for global warming and those that say it's just a natural occurrence that the Earth goes through. Thing is that despite all the research and theories, what it comes down to is that science is not fixed. No one knows these things for sure, and even if they say they are, things could change in reality and then they would cite that science has always been based on theories. They're human, and humans make mistakes. My point is that no one knows the future, we can only predict it, and predicting is different from knowing. It is also important to note that all information is presented with a bias, you'll never know what you think unless you examine the data your self. It like what happened with Bjorn Lomborg, he looked at the data for him self and came up with a conclusion opposite to that pro-environmentalist. I'm not saying he got it right nor that he got it wrong, just that the data spoke differently to him.
Personally, since grade school I've always liked plants, trees, and animals. I believe that we all share and live in this one closed space and we each have something to offer in sustaining that space. Therefore we should respect one an other, respect life, to promote co-existing. Rather then the Earth belongs to man kind thus we are authorized to act with out consideration to all the other creatures that are here with us.
But the thing is that this is how I think, who am I to say that this is how others should think. It was discussed before that my thesis should revolve around education, perhaps it should center on getting them to actively look for their own answers and conclusions over just copying someone else's. Get people to question. To stop the repetitive behavior of just sitting back and being spoon fed opinions and get up to form your own.
