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21 February 2002  

Twelve-Tone Tympanic Torture

Andrew Hofer steers clear of "important" music.

11:18 PM |

Bjorn Again

In a good summary of the anti-Lomborg hysteria among environmentalists, a perceptive point is made by author Matt Ridley:

The pessimists argue that Lomborg's good news might lead to complacency. But [false doomsday scenario specialist Paul] Ehrlich’s counsel of despair is far more dangerous. Many people now work to improve the environment at a local level with optimism that they can make the world a better place. To be constantly told by the big pressure groups that all is doom and gloom is no help. There is something rotten in the state of environmentalism. It lies not just in the petty factual dishonesty that is rife within the movement — Stephen Schneider once said, 'We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we might have' — but in the very philosophy that lies at the heart of greenery: the belief in constraint and retreat.

If six billion people have both more food and more forest than their three billion parents did; if the prices of copper, wheat and natural gas are going down, not up; if there are 20 times more carcinogens in three cups of organic coffee than in daily dietary exposure to the worst pesticide both before and after the ddt ban; if renewable resources such as whales are more easily exhausted than non-renewables such as coal; if lower infant mortality leads to falling populations, not rising ones, then perhaps we need to think differently about what sustainability means. Perhaps the most sustainable thing we can do is develop new technology, increase trade and spread affluence.

10:33 PM |