Smirky columnist Jonah Goldberg's latest column in National Review Online is virtually worthless as a source of information, but it does provide good insight into the relationship of the modern conservative punditariat to the environment and the environmental movement. In the end, they feel obliged to say they care about the environment, but it doesn't particularly interest them, and as long as someone, anyone will reassure them that everything is peachy, that's enough. And of course, if there's one thing modern conservatives have in spades, it is an embarrassment of media sources devoted to telling them what they want to hear.
Goldberg uses the occasion of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment to riff on what is the core modern conservative position on the environment, namely: The rest of the world is polluted, because they are poor and socialist, but the U.S. and Europe are doing just fine, because they are rich and capitalist. There's a germ of truth in this, of course, but what Goldberg is utterly insensate toward is the basic fact that pollution, global warming, and overfishing do not respect national borders. Wait, he believes in that stuff, right?
And let's be fair, unlike the situation in America and Europe, there are some enormous environmental problems in the world. Even if you're a global-warming skeptic, there's no disputing that such problems as overfishing are real.
Sigh.
More slogging under the break.
He starts with a canard to which the right is bizarrely attached: that forest coverage in the U.S. is increasing. Of course it is -- and most of that is monoculture tree farms in place of diverse forest ecosystems. I suppose trees are a good thing in and of themselves, but this hardly seems like the totemic indication of environmental health Goldberg thinks it is.
Then there's this: "The literal greening of America has added vast new habitats for animals, many of which were once on the brink of extinction." Uh, no. The replacement of forest ecosystems with tree farms does not provide habitat, it removes it. The species Goldberg cites as recovering -- black bears, buffalo, bald eagles -- have recovered thanks to the concerted efforts of conservation groups and habitat protections provided by government regulation and private landowners. Tree farms had nothing to do with it. And of course, for every species that's recovering, there are hundreds more declining.
And this:
One of the most annoying tics of the media is always to credit the notion that human-animal encounters are the result of mankind "intruding" on America's dwindling wild places. This is obviously sometimes the case. But it is also sometimes the case that America's burgeoning wild places are intruding on us.
What does that even mean?
This is what really tickled me, though:
Anyway, there's more good news, of course. According to Gregg Easterbrook, air pollution is lower than it has been in a generation, drinking water is safer, and our waterways are cleaner.
Gregg Easterbrook: for your unstinting service as the conservative movement's House Environmental Bitch, a grateful nation thanks you.
All of this is prelude to Goldberg noticing -- via, hilariously, a TechCentralStation column -- that the MEA recommends, among other things, several market-based mechanisms to address the world's environmental woes. This is taken by the TCS nitwit and by Goldberg as earth-shattering, since they are deeply in the grip of anti-environmentalist stereotypes involving socialism and mud-worship. The TCS guy, according to Goldberg, is "the first, and perhaps only, commentator to notice that the U.N. report entertains the possibility that market mechanisms -- property rights, credits, trade -- are solutions to environmental ills, not causes of it."
Put aside for a moment the plausibility of Goldberg having carefully surveyed reaction to the MEA, and notice that he treats "market mechanisms" as monolithic. They are either "causes" of environmental ills or "solutions" to them. If you, like many conservatives, view "The Market" as a sort of demigod with magical powers, this makes sense.
Alternatively, one could view the market not as a natural category, but as a collective social creation. One could note that "market mechanisms" have, in fact, caused environmental ills, and conclude that other mechanisms need to be integrated into the market to ameliorate said ills. Just because it has the word "market" in it doesn't mean it's a natural outgrowth of "The Market" -- what the MEA is proposing is an intentional modification of how the market works.
And finally, Goldberg concludes his farrago of dimly understood shibboleths with this gem:
If the United Nations is actually serious -- fingers crossed! -- this would constitute enormous progress and a sign that the global environmental community has finally conquered what I call the cultural contradictions of environmentalism. Broadly speaking, environmentalists want to end poverty, hunger, and disease, but they also want to keep indigenous cultures unchanged. But you can't have both simultaneously. It is the natural state of indigenous cultures, after all, to be constantly vulnerable to disease and hunger, and no man fighting to keep his children alive cares about "biodiversity."
How can a person fit so many dumb things in one short paragraph? I'll leave it to readers to count them. This has probably been a waste of my time and yours, but occasionally one needs to peer into the belly of the beast to understand the kind of rotgut from which it suffers.
Comments
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hardisun Posted 6:39 am
04 Apr 2005
How do you penetrate a fortress mind that is bulwarked with tripe from Fox "News" and the National Review?
You call the bastards on it every time - thanks Dave.
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Biodiversivist Posted 8:55 am
05 Apr 2005
He failed to mention that you need the combination of poverty reduction (wealth) and people concerned about the environment (environmentalists) to get what we have today. Poverty reduction and technology by itself won't save our biodiversity but when combined with people, who love nature, it just might. As he stated, neither the UN nor environmentalists are against poverty reduction. Yet notice, he clearly dislikes environmentalists, the very people who are largely responsible for his forests, clean air and water. That is because the word environmentalist, like other words before it, has taken on a bad connotation. To many, it now invokes images of vegans distributing pamphlets with blood on them (I would not let my daughter handle the one offered to us on Halloween) and others who are convinced that free enterprise is the cause of all of our ills and that we must all return to our hunter gatherer roots and live in a sustainable manner with our ecosystem... all 6.4 billion on us. Many people today concerned about biodiversity shun the label of environmentalist, and that number is growing. Maybe it is time to cut the word loose.
The same thing happened to the word feminist. Many women don't want associated with those who insist that our children must be raised gender neutral in an attempt to create an androgenous society where men and women may look different, but act the same. To many, the word feminist now invokes images of bra burning nipple pierced lesbians (not to say there is anything wrong with that image).
The word overpopulation was crushed years ago. Extremists calling for increasing our death rate, eugenics, and mandatory birth control put the cabash on that word. Today, you can say population resource imbalances, but not overpopulation. NPG changed their name to Population Connection.
Some atheists have tried to lose the word. They now call themselves secular humanists, brights, non-believers, and agnostics.
It doesn't just happen to liberal words. The moral majority changed its name to dodge the negative image as well.
The way Goldberg made light of the report was pathetic and typical. Emphasizing the effects of poverty reduction, ignoring the accomplishments of those concerned about our natural ecosystems (note, I found a way not to use the word). Where is the balance in our world? Where are the people who have accepted the wisdom to be found in both sides of the environmental debate, and what are they going to call themselves?
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jdhlax Posted 5:35 pm
05 Apr 2005
Re people's dislike of our message, it's not our fault you all can't face the truth! It's not free enterprise, which is just a symptom, but the discovery of agriculture that began the downward ecological spiral on which we now find ourselves. Regardless of what you like or dislike, the facts remain that 1) living as a hunter/gatherer is the only natural way to live; agricluture is unnatural and very ecologically destructive, and 2) humans are the only animals that use agriculture to eat. Every other animal is a hunter, gatherer, scavenger, or some combination of them.
Re forests v. tree farms, 95% of our native forests have been destroyed. The fact that a relatively tiny portion of them remains intact is nice, but what about, for example, the forests so thick that a squirrel could wald from the east coast to the Great Lakes without touching the ground? I suggest you look at a before and after map comparing what our forests used to look like before the invasion of Europeans and what they look like now.
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