the church of the enviromentalist wacko

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

this is an excellent article

perc.org/publications/articl … speech.php

… You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday—these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know…

-Imp

2

Ah yes–environmentalists! Do they ever drive me nuts! Argh!

I just don’t care about the damn trees and recycling and all that crazy nonsense! Yet, part of me dessperately fears that she is being an ignoramous and simply may not understand or realize the importance of it all.

If someone would like to clue me in , please do. Otherwise…go away environmentalists!

3

The hassle with environmental issues is that they are real problems that will only continue to worsen as population grows and resources continue to grow scarce. The tree huggers aren’t wrong in their assessment, but alienate most folks with their extremist answers.

On the other end are those I call the ‘liberals’. The people who think that we can continue using resources at the same consumption rate we did in the 50’s and 60’s. Only the ‘conservatives’ are willing to say that we gotta make some changes in the way we do business.

My cynicism says that we will fumble the ball as we have in the past. Polie discourse with sincere efforts to find solutions seems highly unlikely. It would seem that in devisive issue such as the environmental questions, all we get is diatribe from the extremists on both sides. Dialog takes the hindmost.

JT

4

it’s really about a simple economical reality
nothing to do with religion

5

I have been told to recycle and lectured on the Ozone layer with such a superior air that—I want environmentalists to DIE!!! Just DIE!!!

:smiley:

6

God and nature are one and the same thing.

Personally I hope that there are still fish left in the sea by the time I have children so that they can run around on the beach carefree and play with the delights of nature, hopefully it will be a clean beach where wild animals still roam - to this end I won’t eat fish - to this end I will research my purchases and try my utmost to consume consciously. Is my reasoning that obscure, that to preserve our natural resources I recycle my glass, my plastic, my paper…is this such a strange concept to grasp? Does this make me seem superior PhilosophyGirl? I try to live my life as consciously as possible. I’m not perfect but I assure you I’m not self-righteous about it either. I live in the leafiest part of London, I pay a lot of council tax to live there, one of the most expensive council’s in London, but we have trees. We have 90,000 trees in our borough and we have 3 seperate woods (forests), we have the the heath (massive common grounds with trees and lakes and lawns), we have fresh water swimming ponds - we are fortunate. The air up where I live is fresh - everyone notices it when they come by to visit…My borough has a policy that if you don’t recycle you get charged £1000 fine. ~ Recycling puts resources back to use… it’s not that we think we’re superior, it’s that we love our environment. In this sense, I am deeply religious about the environment.

Loving God and cultivating spirit, we begin to see all things as one thing. The body is like the earth, if we put junk into it, it will whither and die prematurely I might add. And so, we take care of our planet, we take care of our body just as we take care of our spirit, we grow organic food, we consume the organic food and we take care of our very precious vehicles without which none of us would be here. Taking care of our planet, our body, our spirit, our mind assists us in understanding the love of God. It’s all a matter of wakefulness.

A

7

And here I thought the environmentalists were extreme…

Interesting post Imp. I would agree that your hardcore environmentalist fits the assessment well–but I don’t think it applies to all environmentalists, or even the majority of environmentalists. The majority of environmentalists are not the extremist type; that is unless you think having some concern for the environment is extreme and pompous, which apparently PhilosophyGirl does.

8

The economic “reality” of Malthus and Ehrlich has been embarassingly wrong every time a prediction is arbitrarily derived from their arbitrary misanthropy. It’s doom prophecy, and the date of our demise is moved further back with every failed prediction of scarcity and starvation.

I think the primary error with thinking about population causing resources to become scarce, is that the raw materials for an industrial civilization themselves exist in ridiculously abundant quantity (we’ll never run out of metal, glass, limestone for concrete, ect.) Even assuming 5, 10, 100 times our population, there is more of that stuff there in terms of raw mass than could possibly be used per capita. Forests regenerate far more rapidly than extreme environmentalists would have us believe. (Everywhere we haven’t been mowing these past 100 years in the East US has become forested again). We currently have a vast overabundance of farmland - so much so that we pay farmers not to farm their land to drive food prices up! We could probably support a few more times our population if we used all of it, and used GM food ect.

So, for all practical purposes, population is a source of resources as well as a sink. People generally tend, through their efforts, to produce more resources from the natural resource pool than they consume. As long as that trend continues, the resources of a civilization increase with population.

The only current resource that could plausibly run out is oil. If we develop more abundant sources of energy, such as nuclear and hydro-electric power, we’ll fix that limitation as well.

9

right, they aren’t wrong. They’re answers to the problems are whacked out.

Ethanol for example is produced with oil driven tractors using oil based fertilizers and pesticides. Then it’s harvested with an oil based tractor, and driven to the ethanol producing factory with oil driven trucks. Then the process to turn it into ethanol uses more oil, than they use oil to transport the oil.

Even if we are to believe the 44% energy increase from making ethanol, it took 21 million acres to produce 0.5% of the nations energy needs. (current levels.)

And that’s just ONE bad green example.

I agree we need a solution. both sides need to open their eyes though. If your on the side of oil and not worried about global warming, (which after the proof Katrina and Rita both of which were baby storms before entering the gulf of mexico which is abnormally warm) or acid rain (proven connection) you should be desperately concerned about peak oil. If we have no solid alternatives when that hits 100’s of millions of people will die from starvation.

At the same time, the greens force us into unreasonable alternatives that just do not work. Solar power takes 8 years to recoup and wind power is to intermittent (and land intensive) to be practical. What we really need is about 100 modern nuke plants.

10

Well, here’s something I’ve never said before. Tentative and Scythekain are both right. A big part of this problem is about extremists talking past each other, and environmental issues do need to be taken seriously. There are reasons not to trust energy producers, there are reasons not to trust environmentalists. I’m a conservative, so for my part, I don’t trust the stereotypical environmentalist because as far as I can tell, the actually don’t want humanity to prosper. For them, (or my image of them), it’s not about finding cleaner ways to do this and that. It’s about mankind being a virus or threat to Mother Nature that needs to be curbed. They wouldn’t be anymore happy with Nuclear power than they would oil, (or wind or solar or anything, honestly), the would just re-write their diatribes until we are all wearing hemp clothes and living in wigwams. So, when an environmentalist tells me some story about how oil consumption is going to do this and that to the environment in however many years, I A) Don’t believe a word they say, and B) suspect that they aren’t actually interested in finding a solution that doesn’t involve mankind going back to the Dark Ages.
The biggest problem is that environmentalism is so often hijacked for other concerns. Socialists, Anarchists, Democrats, and other assorted crazy people often use the ‘environment’ cause to strike at whoever their real enemy is- corporations, Government, or the current Administration. Truth be told, they don’t give a crap about nature any more than the next guy, but they know it’s a way to make the enemy look bad. So, so much of the talk about environmentalism isn’t even really about the environment.
Now like I said, there’s just as many reasons to be suspect of what oil companies and other energy producers tell us, but I’m just presenting my one-sidedness. Someone else could easily give how things look from their side of the table.

11

Will wonders never cease! I’m gonna print this out on a presentation sheet, frame it, and hang it on the wall! :laughing:

Uccisore,

You’re absolutely right. The environment is the last thing considered - by either side of the extremist arguments.There are two utopian views competing for attention; one is a return to the simple agrarian village with simple people living in simple ways, and the other is chasing money and power through technological ‘fixes’. Two competing ‘religions’.

That both have little concern for the environment they profess to care for is the sad part. And now I come back to my tired refrain. The moderates who are willing to accept the concept of compromise need to shut down the extremists on both sides and begin the dialog necessary to come up with the best possible solutions given the problems we face now. There are ‘green’ solutions available, or at least solutions that are as green as conditions will allow, but it takes leadership to get us out of the worst of all possible environmental states: the environment of polarization that we are experiencing. As long as diatribe reigns supreme, the necessary dialog will never happen - and the real environmental problems will simply continue to grow.

JT

12

well I wonder at this point what will do us in first, global warming or peak oil?

we already have the effects of global warming with two massive hurricanes pounding us in the balls (where oil is turned into gasoline). And hurricane season has THREE months left in it.

The immediate answer from the extreme right is;
we need more oil, and we need gasoline refineries in other locations (both are true but are short term solutions.)

the extreme left answers with;
we need to live in teepees and be self contained.

I agree with tentative we need real solutions.

I also agree with uccisore… the extreme enviros don’t want humanity to survive, they want a majority of us to die off in some massive catastrophe.

at the same time, the oil industry is SO blinded by the instant easy money that the black stuff provides that they don’t see the bottom of the well. And the bottom isn’t even the beginning of the problem… as soon as production drops 5%, prices will catapult…

an immediate answer is drive something more efficient, drive less, buy from farmers that use no pesticides. Buy products that are made locally (imports use oil to ship over here.)

if everyone drove vehicles getting better than 40 mpg the oil consumption would be cut in half. (I realize this is still short term, but a real replacement for oil energy is ALONG ways off.)

some good information on the problems with the “fuel cell”

caranddriver.com/article.asp … le_id=9978

this doesn’t mention two other problems… currently they are made from platinum which is rare and super expensive. and they will last roughly 12,000 miles before needing to be replaced.

anyone else have REAL solutions? or ideas? we need an idea man/woman.

13

To further agree with people, I’ve never seen the problem with nuclear power. I mean, there is the slight potential for catastrophe, but I’ve never felt those odds added up to the damage that fossil fuels and smog and stuff do the the environment (and human health) all the time. I don’t advocate nuclear power for two reasons:

  1. It seems weird talking about building nuke plants during the current terrorist crisis.
    2.) I’m not a scientist, so there may well be all kinds of problems with it that I don’t know about.
14

Hi Uccisore,

I’m not a nuclear scientist either,but I can see that the problem of nuclear power is the need to mess around with materials that are both deadly and persistent. Radioactive isotopes with a half-life of 20,000 years presents a bit of a problem. Perhaps it would be different if we had managed to find waste storage facilities that could contain such long term lethality, but the political wrangling over NIMBY has raised serious questions about the government’s willingness and ability to provide safe storage for the wastes generated by nuclear power plants. I sit in southern Idaho with nuclear waste stored over the top of an aquifer that sustains about one third of the state. The feds have been promising permanent storage for as long as I can remember, and almost none of this crap has been moved. The Hanford site in Washington has the same problem. A couple of sites in the east suffer the same hassles. If we want more nuclear power, there has to be a safe and sane way of storing the waste products, and nothing suggests that we are even close to having that capability. Little wonder the resistence to more nuclear power. Three mile Island and Chernoble didn’t exactly generate a bunch of confidence in the way we handle this stuff.

Fusion is the answer, but we’re a long ways away from having that capability. I suspect that we’re going to hurt a long time before there are any adequate answers…

JT

15

i like the way you guys think… we need real solutions

i’ve got two years left to being an environmental engineer so you’re talking my language now

nucleair power eh…
the plants nowadays are so tightly secured i don’t think very big of the risk of a catastrophy
what bothers me is we have to find a solution for the highly toxic rubbish that comes out (even after regenerating) that is going to last for many million years

i think nucleair power is a necessary evil at the moment but should be replaced by better alternatives when they are there
about these alternatives i would like to say this:

there are many good clean alternatives for polluting energy-producers but they can’t be put to use everywhere
earth heat, wind energy, hydropower, solar energy… all don’t work great everywhere, but could damn well get us some cheap energy when applied properly in the right place
‘think globally, act locally’ - indeed

why do i say it’s all a simple economical reality? well, there is a cost to everything, a price, settled by the whatsitcalled… ‘offer and demand’ ?

because of limited resources, there is a global need for more efficiënt use of the environment
(for example: open space, clean air and water… is a resource, to think it’s all boundlessly available would be a mistake)
what are the costs of pollution in health care, ecological disturbances?
hard to measure, often things that go in the long run, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch… not even throwing things away goes for nothing

i don’t think we’re doomed… i’m pretty confident mankind will find a way round the corner and out the roof, but i would like to see it happening with as little sacrifice as possible

cheers
willem

P.S. i just read tentative’s post… i agree with him that fusion would take a great deal of our problems away

16

I’m very pro-nuclear power.

As for the nuclear waste, the waste that lasts hundreds of thousands to millions of years isn’t any big problem. That radioactivity was already there in the original isotopes. It’s the waste that only lasts a few years to a few decades that will kill you if mishandled. (There is an inverse relationship between the intensity of radioactive emission and the half life of the material).

That said, even that waste is easy to deal with as industrial waste goes. You put it in a water-proof armored container, and put it in the ground. I’m serious. This is really a very practical solution to the problem, even in the long term, despite the fact that it makes us squeamish. The quanitity of waste produced (in terms of both volume and mass) is ridiculously small compared to, say, the sulfur and acid produced by burning coal. Thousands of years worth of waste can plausibly be stored at a single well constructed site, such as a salt dome, or what they’re trying to do with Yucca mountain.
As to worrying about what might happen to it hundreds of thousands of years from now - all we have to do is maintain the containers. Pull them out every 500 years or so and re-laminate over the rust spots.

Another, perhaps less politically correct solution would be to powder it and throw it all over the pacific ocean, where it will dissolve into parts per hundred quadrillion- concentration - far too small to cause any trouble except in our overactive imaginations. :astonished: :evilfun:

As to how to use it in a car - you could possibly do one of the following

  1. Using hundreds to thousands of new reactors set up around the country, run artificial fuel factories to generate artificial fuel substances to burn in the engine: Coal gassification, boron-hydrides, other hydrides, perhaps pure hydrogen, provided you can keep the vehicle from exploding violently when the refridgeration system fails. :blush:

  2. Use that power to recharge some sort of advanced battery (though I wonder if they’ll ever quite measure up to good old combustion.

  3. Use a small nuclear reactor to run a gas turbine onboard the car. :evilfun: :evilfun: :evilfun: No fuel requirements after purchase, no flammable or poisonous materials. All you’d have to do is make sure you get a few meters away from auto accidents until the peices can be picked up by qualified professionals. And don’t check under the hood without proper protective gear. :stuck_out_tongue: This one has some problems with it, but from a pure engineering standpoint would probably be relatively easy to pull off.

The energy problem is the one environmental problem that I think we really need to pay close attention to. It is real - oil will only last us another 70-100 years. (2020 is ridiculous, we still have another 40 years of proven reserves left, not counting new reserves and alternative oil deposites such as shale oil). But it will run out. And we do have to have something more permanent and substantial. Provided that abundant non-chemically based energy is available, closing any other recycling loop as necessary only becomes a function of throwing enough energy at the problem.

I would reccommend hiring the big eeeeevil energy and engine companies to help out in developing alternative fuel cycle schemes. Why? Because they have armies of engineers who intimately understand the technology of engines and fuel cycles, rather than a few government pipe-dreamers in a think tank. They have the factories and infastructure to act on any new plan and put it into full scale production. They probably intimately understand the oil situation, and have an actual numerical perspective on the issue, rather than the chicken-little/political football perspective that most politicians understand. Finally - they’re energy companies - they exist to produce energy. Any newer better source of energy (ie, one that will actually work!) that they can put into play would allow them to dominate their competitors and earn tremendous profits. This conspiracy theory that they somehow want oil to run out to raise the price is baloney - it’s simply bad economics. The price of oil is mostly determined by the extremely inelastic demand, not the competitive supply. Furthermore, in a competitive economy, no one company can control the prices by withholding supply. They’ll simply get owned in short order by their competitors. The objective of any company in a competitive economy is to sell the most of something that they possibly can right up until the point where the price of demand would preclude making any profit.

17

I am assuming by the little faces you put after this that you were joking. If not God help us if you are ever in a position to make these kind of calls. Perhaps we should just add it to our water supplies, or add it in powdered form to our foods. It wouldn’t be too disimilar to flouride. :astonished:

18

I did mean it as a half serious joke.
Buuuuuut . . . . consider the following:
The Pacific ocean has around 6.67*10^17 meters^3 of water. That’s a whole lot of saltwater. We have produced somewhere around 50000 metric tons of nuclear waste since the dawn of nuclear power. 50,000 tons is nothing, as far as waste is concerned. If you did powder it and finely distribute it throughout the pacific ocean, you would get concentrations of around 7.48E-11 kg/m^3. This is so small it’s zero for all intents and purposes. And that’s just assuming it somehow magically stops diffusing at the boundaries of the pacific ocean.

For reference, the natural seawater concentration of uranium is 3 miligrams per ton, or around 3E-6 kg/m^3. Source:http://www.science.org.au/nova/002/002key.htm This is 40 thousand times the concentration of waste that we would be introducing. In fact, the concentration is high enough that Japan ran some experiments to see if it could be extracted from the ocean to produce net power (a good example of exactly how powerful a gram of uranium can be, to be able to have energy gain after sifting through thousands of tons of seawater to get it!)

So, even though this was originally a joke, it is a serious possibility for waste disposal, upon dispassionate consideration. There is no way that anything in the 10^-11 kg/m^3 range can cause a problem. If it could, we wouldn’t have bothered building an atomic bomb - we would have just dropped the powder on our enemies! :stuck_out_tongue:

I would actually be against it. We need our nuclear waste. Why? Because we can use it again in breeder reactors, and get far more energy out of it, than we could just using U-235 in the initial reactor. It’s wasteful to consider nuclear waste waste. :smiley:

I think one of the things that keeps us from honestly considering possibilities like this is the “religion” of environmentalism. Waste is not to be quantified and disposal of it is not to be considered by means of reason or logic. The fact that it exists is a sin, and anything that follows from it is automatically wrong, regardless of our attempts to atone by proper disposal.

19

I’m reminded of a controversy that flared when a scientist suggested that dumping our waste materials into the ocean was beneficial. He was crucified in the press, scientific journals, or any other medium available.

Finally, he pointed out that damming all of our rivers was depriving the inshore ocean waters of nutrients that was flushed into the ocean via siltation. The complexity of the inshore environment had been disrupted, and by dumping our ‘waste’ off shore, we could begin re-establishing the nutrient cycle needed for the active ‘green zone’ of plant and animal life that we were destroying with the dams…

No one had thought of that. :unamused:

JT

20

I don’t care about the environment. There I said it. :smiley: