Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
But let's focus now on our culture. How different are we from the thought leaders who influence our
culture? I think our motives are much better, but we have adopted many of their same bad thinking meth-
ods, and we partially share their nonimpact standard of value.
Notice that, with each issue surrounding fossil fuels, we all too easily believe the negatives and are
blinded to the positives. How many of us have ever thought to appreciate the man-made miracle that is
cheap, plentiful, reliable energy?
How many of us appreciate the people who actually produce it, rather than demonize them and laud
their imaginary replacements in the solar and wind industries?
How many of us consider the
possibility
that human beings could be a
positive
force climatewise,
whether by fertilizing the atmosphere or by creating an environment that maximizes climate benefits and
minimizes climate risks?
How many of us consider the possibility that we are improving our environment by using fossil fuels?
In my experience, not even the fossil fuel industry considers that possibility.
As a culture, we are consistently inclined to view the fossil fuel industry as negative, and in particular,
environmentally
negative.
Why? Because we haven't been taught the facts? That doesn't explain it—why don't we look for pos-
itive environmental facts about the fossil fuel industry, instead of
assuming that they don't exist
? Because
we believe that to be environmentally good, to follow an environmentally good standard of value, is to be
“green,” to not have an
impact
on things.
Green is often associated with a lack of pollution and other environmental health hazards, but this is
both far too narrow and highly misleading. Consider the range of actions that fall under the banner of
Green. It is considered Green to object to crucial industrial projects, from power plants to dams to apart-
ment complexes, on the grounds that some plant or animal will be affected, plants and animals that take
precedence over the human animals who need or want the projects.
It is considered Green to do less of anything industrial, from driving to flying to using a washing ma-
chine to using disposable diapers to consuming pretty much any modern product (there is now an attack
on iPhones for being insufficiently Green, given the various materials that must be mined to make them).
The essence of “going Green,” the common denominator in all its various iterations, is the belief that
humans should minimize their impact on nonhuman nature
.
The difference between our culture and the Green movement is that our culture believes that you can't
always be environmentally good; our culture regards Green as one of many competing ideals that we must
balance. But this attempt tobalance being onahuman standard ofvalue sometimes andanonhuman stand-
ard at other times is like trying to create a balanced diet that includes food and poison.
Why do we accept the Green ideal, the ideal that causes us to hate our greatest energy technology and
the people who produce it? In large part, we do so because environmental leaders have made us associate
the antihuman ideal of nonimpact with something very good: minimizing pollution, that is, minimizing
negative environmental impacts. But if you're antipollution, Greenness or nonimpact is a confusing and
dangerous way of thinking about the issue, for by associating impact with something negative, you're con-
ceding that
all
human impact is somehow bad for the environment.
And that's what the Green movement wants you to believe.
Instead of recognizing that transforming our environment is a life-serving virtue that can have environ-
mentally undesirable risks and side effects, the Green movement wants you to look at
all
transformation
of our environment as environmentally bad.
