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Rant #143:
Environmental Evangelism

We cannot protect the environment as long as we're in it. We change things just by being here. All of the environmental preservationists and most of the conservationists are deluding themselves. If we wanted to return the Earth to a pristine state, we'd have to leave it. We are not outside the system doing harm to it. We are part of the system. We don't create messes from nothing, we only change what's already here. We can't truly destroy anything. The only conservation that counts is the Conservation of Matter and Energy. Everything we do changes something into something else. That's how the system works. We are agents of transformation, just like every other living thing and non-living thing on this planet.

The crusaders for animal rights and vegetarian diets do not consider all the habitats they may throw out of balance, nor the rights of all the plants killed, by their convictions. Moderate vegans don't consider the rights of aborted chickens when they choose to include eggs in their diet for protein. Animal ethicists don't know whether the spotted owl should thrive, or die off to make room for something else. These people aren't any more considerate, or humane, or conscientious than other people. They've simply chosen the animal kingdom as a focus for their fanaticism.

To live, we must eat. We are omnivores. We've always made use of materials around us, by moving rocks, cutting trees, rerouting water, kindling fires, thereby altering habitats. That's how we managed to survive and evolve as a species. We've relied on adaptation, and developed ingenuity to accomplish it. Plants consume. Animals consume. We consume plants and/or animals. If an individual chooses to restrict their diet or forego wood furniture to reportedly spare an owl, it's simply that, a choice. It behooves us to promote stewardship and practicality, like using the whole animal for food, clothing, even chemicals, instead of wasteful killing just for sport. But making blanket rules for appropriate behavior concerning selected slivers of the natural order, determined by a nanosecond of experience with it, is ludicrous.

We do not impact the air, the water, or the land, any more than uncountable natural processes which have shaped this planet since it formed during the birth of this solar system. In fact, our impact is an infinitesmally small percentage of change by comparison. To suggest that human activity is overriding the natural operation of this globe is phenomenal arrogance and/or naivete. We affect it, yes, but to think we can guide how and what we change with knowledge of ultimate results is even greater arrogance and/or naivete. We are barely beginning to understand how anything works. We haven't a prayer of designing actions to achieve particular outcomes in order to "Save The Earth!"

Why stress over the global effects of bovine flatulence and auto emissions when one good-sized volcanic eruption puts out more gasses than every cow and car in the history of the world? It's ignorant, in the extreme. Even when we play around with nuclear fission and create toxicity we had to invent words to describe, we didn't import the radioactive material from another planet. The only imports presently come from meteorites. We just manipulated some of the building blocks here. If we have a problem with the results, then we need to learn to adjust our methods. We also need to realize that the whole concept of toxicity is relative to our own welfare, not the health of the planet. She's seen a lot worse than we could ever dish out.

One basic fallacy is that all the environmental preaching is about the Earth. It isn't. It's about humanity. The environmentalists can say they're concerned about the Earth all they want, but they're not. They're concerned about humans. They want to fuss over what we do, but the only reason our activities hit their radar is when we're doing something harmful to us. The ozone layer has cycles based on natural cycles here on the planet. We only got concerned about it when it looked like depletion was harming us. And we think we caused it. So we want to fix it. So it won't hurt us.

The real irony is that if the environmental evangelists would get off their high-horses and realize their true motivation, then we might get somewhere with environmental goals. Joe Schmoe may not give a flying rat's ass about how his use of aerosols impacts the Earth. However, he might give a thought to how his spray deodorant is winning friends but influencing his chances of getting skin cancer from ultraviolet rays and radiation slipping through a hole in the ozone layer. Maybe that's a stretch for Joe, but the EE's are going to have to find ways to tie the actions to the harm and make it personal before people will change.

We're only interested in saving the Earth because we want to save Us, so the EE's should market it that way. They also need to pick their fights better and get away from trying to dictate how people -should- live. Offer choices and detail consequences. Forget the moral appeal, it doesn't. Devise alternatives instead of campaigns. Find ways to make ecology economical. Let the masses decide. If it's cheaper, easier, less painful, or just more fun, they'll do it. If they can see a correlation to their own lives, or their immediate environment, they may just take up the banner. But very few are likely to make changes based on long-range guesstimates for an overall change in a planet they take for granted. Besides, we're not mucking up all of that, we're just crapping in our own cages and that's where we need and truly want to make a difference. In truth, it's the only place we really -can- make a difference. We can maybe do something about our little mole hills. The mountains will take care of themselves, as they always have.