{"id":7002,"date":"2014-02-11T11:29:10","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T19:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=7002"},"modified":"2014-02-11T11:29:10","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T19:29:10","slug":"the-costs-of-the-environmentalism-cult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-costs-of-the-environmentalism-cult\/","title":{"rendered":"The Costs of the Environmentalism Cult"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

California is in the third year of a drought, but the problem isn\u2019t a lack of water. The snowfall in the Sierra provides enough to help us ride out the years of drought. All we need to do is store it.<\/p>\n

\"WaterArchives.org
WaterArchives.org via Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But California hasn\u2019t built a new dam in 35 years. Worse than that, every year we dump 1.6 million acre-feet of water\u2013\u2013about enough to serve 3.2 million families for a year\u2013\u2013into the Pacific Ocean in order to protect an allegedly \u201cendangered\u201d 3-inch bait-fish called the Delta smelt. California\u2019s $45 billion agricultural industry, a global breadbasket that produces nearly half of U.S.-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables, is set to take a huge hit, with hundreds of thousands of acres left fallow and the San Joaquin Valley region\u2019s already sky-high 17% unemployment destined to increase.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile President Obama continues to dither on approving the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada. The latest in a string of environmental impact studies since 2008 has determined that the pipeline poses no threat to the environment. Indeed, it will lessen spills and pollution by transporting oil by pipeline rather than by more risky trains. Nor will abandoning the pipeline reduce carbon emissions, as the 830,000 barrels of oil will simply go someplace else, most likely China, the world\u2019s leader in carbon emissions. What will happen is up to 40 thousand American jobs will not be created, and dependence on imported oil from hostile countries like Venezuela will not be reduced. Meanwhile because the pipeline crosses our border with Canada, Secretary of State John Kerry, a long-time environmentalist scold who as a Senator in 2012 voted against an amendment approving the pipeline, will probably end up making the decision.<\/p>\n

These are just two of numerous examples of how environmental policy harms our economic interests. Empowered by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, these policies cost the economy $353 billion a year, according to the\u00a0Competitive Enterprise Institute<\/a>, and untold billions more in oil wells left undrilled on federal lands and infrastructure like dams not built because of the numerous pettifogging environmental impact studies that look for risks that are the equivalent of the danger that a man could drown in one-eighth of an inch of water.<\/p>\n

Before around 1960, anybody other than a crank would have been flabbergasted at such suicidal stupidity and policies one would expect from an enemy or a rival. An illiterate farmer in the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century knew you had to husband natural resources and protect them for the future, but he would never have idealized a harsh natural world that only stubbornly and by dint of hard labor produces sustenance for humans.\u00a0But that was before environmentalism evolved into a cult for an affluent society of people so rich that they can take for granted their protection from nature by technology and industrialism, all the while it demonizes a modern world those same people couldn\u2019t live without for five seconds.<\/p>\n

What makes this cult particularly dangerous, however, is its patina of science that suggests such attitudes are not an expression of a sentimentalized romantic nature-love, but rather the fruit of reason and scientific fact. But behind all the quantitative data and mathematically based research lies a fundamental incoherence about humans and their relationship to nature. As usual, behind bad policy lies bad philosophy.<\/p>\n

The central mistake of the romantic environmentalist is to gloss over the profound differences between human beings and the natural world. We are not \u201cnatural\u201d creatures. What makes us human is everything that exists nowhere else in the natural world: the mind, language, consciousness, memory, higher emotions, and culture. None of these exist even in the highest primates. Apes do not craft tools, marry, name their offspring, bury their dead, live by laws or customs, or respect inalienable rights. This radical uniqueness of human identity means that we do not have a \u201charmonious\u201d relationship with nature, but an adversarial and conflicted one. The natural world is the alien, inhuman realm of blind force, indifferent to suffering, death, and beauty. It is meaningless, for only humans bestow meaning on the world. And that meaning reflects our knowledge that each of us is unique, a creature that appears only once, and that each of us must die.<\/p>\n

Most important, unlike everything else in the natural world ruled by necessity, humans are free. As French critic Luc Ferry writes, \u201cMan is free enough to die of freedom.\u201d And from that freedom comes morality, all the things we are obligated to do or not do, particularly in regard to our fellow humans. The nexus of consciousness of our individual uniqueness and necessary death, our freedom to choose to act against nature\u2019s determinism, and our moral obligations to one another is what makes us unnatural\u2013\u2013and human. Nature is our home only by dint of our alteration of it to make it suitable for such creatures, and that process is one of conflict and struggle against the brutal forces of extinction and destruction that have characterized the natural world for the 3.6 billion years life has existed.<\/p>\n

The unnatural uniqueness of humans makes talk of \u201charmony\u201d with nature the Disneyesque fantasy of rich people protected from nature\u2019s cruelty by a high-tech civilization. Thus the proper view of nature should be how do we interact with our world and use its resources in order to benefit the greatest number of humans today, and to ensure that those who come after us have the resources to live well. Every environmental policy should start with that assumption. And we should determine the goods we want from nature\u2013\u2013from economic development to the preservation of natural beauty\u2013\u2013through the democratic process, not by the diktats of self-selected elites who mask their preferences as science rather than taste, and enlist the coercive power of the federal government to impose those subjective preferences at the expense of the well-being of everybody else.<\/p>\n

As it is today, the biggest beneficiaries of our civilization indulge a sentimentalized nature love the cost of which is borne by others. They attack the technology and the free-market economic system that have created the unprecedented wealth, comfort, and leisure that they take for granted, but that their policies deny to others less privileged. The irrationalism and hypocrisy of modern environmentalism is a \u201cblack-market religion,\u201d as Chantal Delsol puts it, a feel-good cult that makes its adherents feel superior to the grubby masses and the corporate barbarians who create the wealth and products that make their existence possible. Meanwhile jobs are not created, economic growth is burdened by costly regulations, and our national interests are compromised by the failure to exploit our country\u2019s resources. That\u2019s too high a price to pay just so some people can enjoy a pleasing fantasy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine California is in the third year of a drought, but the problem isn\u2019t a lack of water. The snowfall in the Sierra provides enough to help us ride out the years of drought. All we need to do is store it. But California hasn\u2019t built a new dam in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,11,16],"tags":[1014,289,581,405,479,427,926],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1OW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2043,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-other-california\/","url_meta":{"origin":7002,"position":0},"title":"The Other California","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton City Journal In 1973, as I was going through customs in New York after spending the summer bumming around Italy and Greece, the customs agent looked at my passport and said with a Bronx sneer, \u201cBruce Thornton, huh? Is that one of them Hollywood names?\u201d Hearing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7817,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/mythologies-and-pathologies-of-the-california-drought\/","url_meta":{"origin":7002,"position":1},"title":"Mythologies and Pathologies of the California Drought","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJMedia The third year of California drought has exposed all sorts of water fantasies. If in wet years they were implicit, now without rain or snow for nearly three years, they are all too explicit. Add them up. Take the Bay Area, Ground Zero of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Global Warming"","block_context":{"text":"Global Warming","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/global-warming-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/silicon_valley_duck_race_3-30-14-1-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1051,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-marxism-killed-keystone\/","url_meta":{"origin":7002,"position":2},"title":"How Marxism Killed Keystone","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The global warming apocalypse and its Elmer Gantry, Al Gore, may have faded from public view lately, but that old-time green religion is still making mischief. President Obama has just delayed until after November\u2019s election a decision on the Canadian Keystone XL pipeline. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Energy"","block_context":{"text":"Energy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/energy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6987,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-tale-of-two-droughts\/","url_meta":{"origin":7002,"position":3},"title":"A Tale Of Two Droughts","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0Tribune Content Agency\u00a0 Despite recent sporadic rain,\u00a0California\u00a0is still in the worst extended drought in its brief recorded history. If more storms do not arrive, the old canard that California\u00a0could withstand two droughts -- but never three -- will be tested for the first time in memory.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo Credit: NASA\/NOAA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/california-snow-drought-extreme-critical-fire-risk-los-angeles-san-francisco-oakland-january-2014.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7175,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/fish-instead-of-people-ideologies-without-consequences\/","url_meta":{"origin":7002,"position":4},"title":"Fish Instead of People, Ideologies without Consequences","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media\u00a0 If only people had to live in the world that they dreamed of for others. Endangered species everywhere are supposed to be at risk \u2014 except birds of prey\u00a0shredded by wind turbine farms, or reptilian habitats\u00a0harmed by massive solar farms.\u00a0High-speed rail\u00a0is great for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8373,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-californias-drought-was-completely-preventable\/","url_meta":{"origin":7002,"position":5},"title":"Why California\u2019s Drought Was Completely Preventable","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online The present four-year California drought is not novel \u2014 even if President Barack Obama and California governor Jerry Brown have blamed it on man-made climate change. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, California droughts are both age-old and common. Predictable California\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Almaden Reservoir in San Jose, Calif. (Justin Sullivan\/Getty)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/pic_giant3_040815_SM_California-Drought-Lake-G-500x292.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7004,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7002\/revisions\/7004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}