Well said, Gus–as usual. Logic, science, reason, and technology, do us well when they are informed by values, intuition, experience, and common sense. In current Western society, however, they have come to dominate public discourse, and values, intuition, and other “soft” aspects of humanity are hardly given houseroom.
In a way, Crichton and Doucet’s extolling of science and technology is, in itself, a religious belief–the belief that we are only a couple of breakthrougths away from being able to continue our current patterns of production and consumption forever. What they cannot abide is the idea, put forth by many environmentalists, that we will have to reduce our patterns of consumption and our standard of living, and reduce them significantly, if we want to survive in the long term. We’ve gotten where we are now by putting one and taking ten, and they don’t see any reason why we should stop. Needless to say, they will react fiercely against any suggestions that, if we know what’s good for us, we’d better start putting ten and taking one, and continue to do so for a good long time.

It is perfectly in keeping with the dark humor of chthonic goddesses that a guy like Crighton, who made a fortune writing science fiction, would become an advocate of “hard science” -like resurrecting a T. rex from DNA recovered from a fossilzed bug’s ass perhaps? This is symptomatic of a newly classified disease on the Right, “irony deficiency extremia,” a mental malady now strongly suspected to result in suicidal ideation, incoherent thinking and manic consumption of non-renewable resources. Victims of IDE have even been known to hang themselves by their tongue.
If any substantial fraction of the predictions of climate scientists is true, those who ridicule the effects of humanity on world climate will eventually be drowned out (perhaps literally) by events to come, but by that time millions (or more) of humans and thousands of species will have disappeared. The global stakes being what they are, it is time for the Doucets of the world to be hooted off the stage, pelted with rotten eggs, and run out of town. People who advocate mass suicide and what essentially amounts to the murder of other species are Jim Joneses ladling out the poisoned Kool Aid of an extremist “-ism,” in their case, “capitalism.”

Please send me your exploration of Chrichton’s presentation.
I am an earth scientist and Wiccan. I work in the oil patch and in environmental science. I am most emphatically NOT a tree-hugger, but am certain that we MUST begin to change our lifestyles now, if our children’s children are to have any chance of a better life than we have. I believe that our best efforts should be directed towards changing our society’s definition of well-being to one that is more sustainable than now prevails.
Thank you for your columns; your clear reasoning stands a chance of influencing those who are open to influence.

I would like to read your article about Crichton’s position. Thank you.

I agree with you, but question whether there are *any* really secular anti-environmental propagandists writing in that vein right now. These people are so obviously devoted to the religion of unrestrained greed they are unable to comprehend any other way of thinking. It has become their “One right true and only” religion.
At a time when the extranational psychowealthy are driving many humans to the edge of survival (or over it) in their insane pursuit of more wealth, I find it hard to believe anyone could be so stupid as to believe these people will do anything but ruin our planet if not controlled.
And most real environmentalism is driven by hard science.
Laissez-Faire capitalism is both anti-human and inhumane in its basic structure. Its proponents sound rather strident and hysterical right now as they stand in the ruins of its latest disaster.
Thermal

Leopold was quite right in noting that humans are the only species known to mourn the suffering or disappearance of other life forms. And as E.O. Wilson once remarked, we are lucky ants don’t have nuclear weapons. However, I find it curious to say that “Buddhists have developed a strong environmental ethic” unless we are talking only about theoretical applications. In practice the environment where Buddhism is prevalent show little benefit from its supposed environmental ethic. One could argue that Buddhism has never been allowed to apply its ethic, or that it has been corrupted, and that if only . . . . Unfortunately, religion and religious ideals do not exist in a vacuum. If a religion cannot become part of its larger culture, including politics and commerce, it may still be admirable in scripture but useless in practice.
Where Buddhism is widespread the populations are largely poor and have little control over the working of their own society and are ineffective in defending their own freedom or their rights to basic environmental amenities, whether we talk of clean water or wilderness.
Poor and technologically simple cultures sometimes live in relatively intact ecosystems, but not because of some desire to live that way. The condition is largely preserved by their lack of power to change their environment.
As far as improving the environment we have, it is no accident that the greatest efforts, informed by the best science has come from developed and affluent western countries.

I would note that Crichton is a physician and an Anthroplogist. Doucet is an economist. These are “soft” sciences. Neither of these fields are likely to offer the solutions to environmental concerns that they feel science will somehow create. I submit that many of those who accuse environmentalism of having become a religion have, in fact, made a religion of technology. (note that I use “technology” here and not “science”.) They seem to expect that some Star Trek engineer will create a marvelous new invention at the last moment and save us from ruin as happens in so many really old Science Fiction stories from the Doc Smith era. Alas, real science doesn’t work like that. Massive grants and decades of research are usually required…and we are fast running out of time. Perhaps if they had paid attention in 1970 and started working on the problem then. Instead they spent forty tears alternately denying the problem existed and claiming any meaningful proposal would destroy the economy. Perhaps this is why a large number of Science Fiction writers who were grounded in “hard” sciences began writing dystopian novels in the 70s and many more switched to Fantasy.

Pigeons don’t have the brains to mourn the loss of another species.
As a biology major in college thirty years ago, I remember doing field work in stream ecology. Even then it was possible to see the horrific stress that industry was placing on the biome, and the willful blindness of those responsible. They were convinced that human industrial progress would have no impartial consequences. Emotionally, they simply could not tolerate believing otherwise.
The Earth, like cloth, consists of strands,
Where torn we ought to mend it,
For no one knows which thread, once torn,
May suddenly just end it.
We mourn the loss of a species of pigeons because it reminds us that we, too, will die, and we are afraid of annihilation. Nothing altruistic or superior there. That same fear and denial motivates us to invent religions in which we designate us the chosen species, the special ones that some human-faced God is going to save from the fate of every other species. There’s your bad science.

I’m interested in reading what you have to say about Crichton’s presentation.

Gaarik-
I need your email to send it to you and I do not have access to beliefnet emails unless I am asked to approve one
Or become a friend on Facebook. We can communicate that way.

You are being deceived. The world’s problems are not the result of left-wing, right-wing; that is a distraction that you bought into. Stop worshipping the earth, environmentalism, and witchcraft because your evil is destroying the world,and you will suffer for eternity in hell where you will have forever to practice being pagan.

I disagree with your statement “Science cannot solve the most important environmental problems because they are also questions of values. Science cannot tell us what is important.” Science is the only thing that can solve important environmental problems and also tell us what is important. Small example: growing corn for ethanol was supposed to be more environmentally friendly than petrol from oil. $6,000,000,000/year later, even Al Gore has said that this program was a ‘mistake.’ Can we hold him accountable for the $6 BILLION? No. But we continue to subsidize corn-ethanol anyway because the government just can’t stop now becuase it has suck too much money in it, politicians don’t want to piss off the Iowa caucaus, and the program keeps going, if only to save face. Meanwhile, world food prices continue to soar, and poor people in Haiti and elsewhere are left eating dirt or starving to death. (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080130-AP-haiti-eatin.html)

If the politicians had let the free-market work, manufacturer’s would’ve realized that corn ethanol wouldn’t have worked because it would’ve had to be subsidized, and we wouldn’t invest in it.

As a Voluntarist (anarchist), I know that the best thing for the environment is directly proportional to how good it is for my walet. If I drive slower, I save money. If I recycle plastic bags more than once, I save by not having to buy new bags. If I live in a small 750sq. ft. apartment, I spend less on heating, cooling, mortgage, insurance, land, and materials than a large house. My brokerage account soars, my wallet stays fat, and the environment is better for it.

Trevor-
Thanks for taking the time to explain your position, and I hope the following shows you it still may need some work.

Science cannot tell us what is important. That is a human judgment. Science can tell us the speed at which an internal combustion engine emits the least exhaust/mile traveled, but it cannot tell us how much to factor that in to how fast we travel. That is a decision based on evaluating several values that cannot be ranked objectively in importance.

The free market works quite differently depending on how property rights are defined. What constitutes crossing a boundary? How much of a chemical? How much sound? hat kinds of visual light? All these and countless other questions must be answered before the market has property rights with which people can engage in trade. And the market itself does not answer these questions – they are ultimately questions of value for a community as a whole.

Sometimes the market can work in environmentally friendly ways and sometimes not, but that question cannot even begin to be addressed until we define property rights.

Your view of voluntarist anarchism assumes everyone is interested in fattening their wallet, so once the rules are established the invisible hand serves both wallet and environment. But everyone is not interested in fattening their wallet. many of us like fat wallets, but we like other things far more. And to take your plastic bag example, if the bag is dirty, I may spend more time washing the bag in order to save it than the bag is worth in money terms. In that case if I acted purely financially, I’d toss the bag and get another.

The market is geared to people’s time preferences, the environment is not. For that reason if no other (and there are others) we can never assume harmony between the automatic working of the market and the environment. My last example – once it is cut down an old growth forest is not worth recreating because the time spent growing it will not bring in enough income to justify investing in the land and its replanting and subsequent protection. That is why no one does this for economic reasons.