Samizdata

The refrain that “environmentalism is the new religion” is common enough, and there is much truth in such a statement. Several years ago, when I was a confused, largely ignorant and idealistic socialist – thus environmentalist – someone (who was also partly responsible for my enlightenment) challenged me to consider the way I critically analyse the various doomsday statements environmentalists were and are prone to making. Even then, in a deep state of group-think, I had to admit to myself that the illiterate peasants of 16th century Europe probably responded to their priests’ exhortations in a similar way.

However, why is this? As a species, most of us are profoundly limited to our own tiny perspectives. For example, we look out over what is actually a gleaming Western city of unparalleled cleanliness, temporarily cloaked in off-coloured smoke caused by a transient climatic event known as a temperature inversion. This event gets us thinking. We think about how we live in only one of a great many cities. Many cities are bigger than ours and many cities are dirtier than ours. Our city is so ugly right now – imagine what effect this ugliness, multiplied across the world, is having on ‘the environment’. It looks bad here, and there must be a lot worse elsewhere. What is the cumulative effect of all this ugliness? It must be appalling. We are ruining our environment.

Of course, such considerations ignore the phenomenal machinations of the earth’s natural processes which dwarf our own so-called ‘footprint’. For all our technological advances, if humankind were to be deleted from the planet overnight, I believe our impact on the surface of the earth would be more or less completely erased within half a millennium – the blink of an eye in terms of this planet’s history. Our earth’s environment is durable because it’s been forged by billions of years of evolution. However, we humans only have an interest in our short lifespans. A priest tells you the marauding army that swept through your village, raped your wife and burnt your house is down to the fact that you have sinned by not obeying some political expedience which nevertheless failed to appear in the popularly-unread bible. An environmentalist tells you your dirty city – as evidenced by an unsightly, temporary smog or something similar – is destroying the earth, despite the fact that the science your environmentalist stakes their legitimacy on is less than kind to such a thesis. Both scenarios resonate with a huge number of individuals in their respective ages.

Humanity’s limited perspectives are a terrifying prospect, and today the most threatening manifestation of this can be found in the widespread acceptance of the environmentalist movement and its demands. We hear environmentalists claiming to act in the names of their unborn children and grandchildren, yet so many of the rest of us do not realise that if their demands were played out to a logical conclusion, the children of tomorrow would be considerably less comfortable; their future considerably less secure than at present.

And here I am, stumped by my own meagre perspective. I am an individual butting against the forces of vast armies who pressure and reassure each other into forwarding a creed I know will be ruinous for our species. They appear to be gaining a considerable amount of traction. How could I, an individual who firmly believes in the power of individuals, combat such a homogenous tide? Where to start, for starters. One thing I am sure of, however – the natural earth will go on, regardless of whether we decide to consign ourselves to misery and decline in our efforts to ensure that fact.