At the beginning
of last week I had an
essay on environmentalism, accompanied by more or less same
issue essays by Mike
Rozeff, Eric
Englund, and Christian
Sandström.
I received
one direct response e-mail regarding the said essay. The e-mail
was not exactly of a polite nature, although I wouldn’t characterize
it as hate mail. The subject line of the e-mail read:
Al Gore
blast uncalled for and uninformed
The body
of the e-mail was basically [spelling errors intentionally left
intact]:
Your blast
of Al Gore was ignorant, arrogant and completely off track.
How can
anyone believe that social issues are more important that environmental
issues? Without an environment there will be no humans.
Keep studying
and researching whole systems thinking, permaculture, etc.
First of
all, I never said that social issues are more important than environmental
issues. I never suggested it either. I would suggest that people
read what I write, and stick to that. Especially, I would recommend
those who accuse me of arrogance to heed that advice. To be fair,
the e-mailer hasn’t directly said that I believe, or have suggested,
that social issues are more important than environmental, but
it is suggested.
Strictly
speaking, if issue A is more important than issue B, measures
within issue A must be implemented at all costs with no regard
for issue B if there are conflicts of interest. I never said that
there are things more important than the environment. I never
said the opposite either.
That said,
I do believe that there are things more important than the environment.
I believe mankind is more important than the environment. Yes,
mankind is dependent on the environment, so the environment is
something that we should care about, but – as I have said before
– there are also other things to be considered.
The e-mail
suggests that I was right in my claim that the slightest sign
of deviation from the climate orthodoxy will result in name-calling.
In this case the name-calling was directed at my piece and not
directly at me personally, but it still is an example of name-calling.
As for the
statement that there will be no humans without an environment,
I find it meaningless. As long as this planet and its atmosphere
exist, there will be an environment on this planet. A relevant
question may be if the environment is friendly enough towards
us for us to survive. That the environment will become too fierce
for us because of certain present activities of mankind I believe
is highly unlikely. Many of us may have to move due to, e.g.,
a rising average sea level, even give up lots of fertile land,
but the environment will likely not become too fierce as such.
I am not
here doing an in-depth study of the issue of rising sea levels.
Nor am I doing a complete survey of all aspects, if anyone should
be in doubt. However, I will mention a few things. According
to Dr. Bjørn Lomborg, 98% of the Antarctic is getting
colder. Most of the ice that would threaten our current sea level
is in the Antarctic and Greenland. However, that is not what primarily
has been contributing to the rising sea level lately according
to the IPCC. The IPCC has actually
reduced its estimate on the rise in global average sea level to
the range 18 to 59 centimeters – less than two feet – in its recent
report from the 9 to 88 centimeters range in its last
report. The IPCC estimates an increase in average sea level
of less than two feet over a period of more than a century. This
may be a lot to a whole lot of people, but the change is said
to take time, and this estimate is no grounds for proclaiming
a crisis. There is ample time to adjust. There is ample time for
technological development.
Now, if we
do stop emitting tomorrow and the climate changes are due to our
emissions, system delays may cause man-made global warming to
continue for quite some time.
I’m not saying
the IPCC necessarily represents the truth. What I am saying is
that its estimates are not particularly alarming. With respect
to alternative views to the climate orthodoxy, Dr.
Tom V. Segalstad may, amongst others, be worth having a look
at.
Environmental
taxes have been used supposedly to help the environment, but do
they help with other things than fiscally strengthening government?
These days
you can hear complaining about the climate, and it is implied
– sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly – that this is because
of our emissions. However, a completely stable climate is an abnormal
phenomenon. The Vikings settled in Greenland, research has shown,
in a significantly warmer climate than Greenland has today. It
may be so that emission from modern human activity is largely
responsible for "permanent" changes to the climate,
but whether this is so or not; it is in both cases on the verge
of insanity this obsessiveness with weather and climate variations.
Variations will be here, whether emissions from modern human activity
have an impact or not.
Permaculture
is, according to Wikipedia, amongst other things, a
philosophy that "started with the belief that for people
to feed themselves sustainably they need to move away from reliance
on industrialized agriculture." What implications does this
have for the amount of land needed for producing enough food for
the billions of people we have on this planet? Is it sustainable?
As for the
concept of whole systems thinking, I believe it is completely
in pact with "whole systems thinking" to consider other
things than the environment, such as society’s ability to support
a human population of several billion, the concern for liberty,
and the danger that government power may rise to even further
heights.
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