Remarks to the Commonwealth Club Michael Crichton (Theme: Environmentalism is really Urban Atheism)

Michael Crichton ^ | September 15, 2003 | Michael Crichton

[FreedomPoster]

I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

[Freedom4US]

Excellent, very concise. I sort of figured a lot of this on my own, but of course he ties it all together very succinctly.

It's only rich white "liberals" who fret about all this stuff, and it is inexplicable why so many who are so unqualified are given so much power over the rest of us. Of course, they are sooooo much smarter than all of us and know what's best for us.

I've hiked thousands of miles over wilderness trails. I didn't do it naked with a pointy stick. The modern hiker or "backpacker" lives better than probably fully half the world's population - freeze-dried shrimp cocktail, titanium cooksets, ingenious (gasoline!!) stoves, nylon tents, sleeping bags and parkas, goose down, synthetics, GPS, Cameras, Binos.

Come to think of it, a big part of my conversion (or reconversion really) to the right side of the aisle was my discovery that enviromentalists and other lefty outdoor users are the most fascist bastards on the planet. Initially I thought we all had something in common - love of the Great Outdoors. But curiously, they didn't hunt, smoke, drink and never had anything good to eat in their backpacks. They complained about horses "ruining the trails" When I pointed out that the trails were BUILT by guys on horses and predated carrying your house on your back by 200 years, they changed the subject. Talk about micromanaging beeyatches, I go to the wilderness to get away from people like them.

I'm planning on a several month long trip starting in the spring. I need it.

[AmericanVictory]

Shades of the Fort Fisher hermit.

[Virginia-American]

Has anyone ever seen an environmentalist activist that isn't also a leftist? How about conservative environmentalists?

Not since Teddy Roosevelt, back when enviros were called "conservationists".

At least, being seen in the media; obviously, just from FR, there really are a *lot* of conservatives (IMO, a majority) who like the natural world enough to preserve a good chunk of it.

The trouble is, the "watermelons" are really after power. That's their goal in life, ruling their inferiors. If it weren't the environment, it would be some other unfullfillable goal, that lets them seize more and more power as they can't fullfill it.

"building true socialism", "abolishing alcoholism", "abolishing drug abuse", "making the world fair for [pick your favorite minority], [the poor], [wymmyn], [children], [who/what ever]", "making sure all the animals are happy", anything that sounds like Heaven on earth.

I really don't know what the power-mad listen to, except for something more powerful. If the enviros are Trotskey, do we need a Stalin to stop them? (pardon my cynicism, but the *voters*, the supposed power in the USA, re-elected B*ll Cl*nt*n and just barely stopped *l G*r*).

These people worship **power** with as much devotion and fervor as any true believer in a normal religion. It would be easier to convert the Pope or the Dalai Lama to Mormonism than to get the enviros to change.

All they undestand is power

[Virginia-American]

It's a nasty dilemma. The (pseudo-)scientists behind the enviro movement are as honest and well-educated as Duane Gish or Hovind, or any other creationist ripoff artist you care to name, and at least as cynical.

Better science isn't going to slow then down, much less stop them. They'll just lie some more to get more power.

Better science will only convince those with a good science education; but we're not the problem. It's the miseducated, innumerate that are the problem. I don't know how to convince them of anything scientific.

Doc, you've been on enough crevo threads to see where I'm coming from.

Crichton has a point, the followers are a lot like religious people; the pseudo-scientists who are leading them know how to exploit this innate human drive.

And if they don't, the lawyers and H*l*r**s and G*r*s behind them sure do...

How do you convince someone that their faith is misplaced and they should convert to another one? My experience, it's nearly impossible.

(I'm gonna talk myself into a major depression if I'm not careful..)

[oreolady]

Can you help me out with a quick response tonight?
When Freepers say they are going to "bookmark" this article, how is that done?
I wouldn't guess the regular way I bookmark pages, since what would happen to the pages not on this one page? I mean the next numbers to click?
Am I making any sense about this? Or is there a way to "save" it on our intro pages I am missing? (Because I see links on those freeper pages that I don't know how they get there!!!
I can't seem to find answer to this on the help threads, either.
Any help appreciated, thanks, oreolady

[Virginia-American]

depends which browser you're using. Try help, search for 'bookmark'.

Netscape navigator uses 'bookmark', Internet Explorer says 'favorites'

[general_re]

There's also the internal FR bookmark function, which oreolady may be referring to. Go back to the top of the page and scroll down to the bottom of the article - not the page, the bottom of the article. Underneath the keywords is a link labeled "Bookmark" - hit that link, and this thread will be added to your list of FR bookmarks that you can access from your profile page. Personally, I've largely abandoned that facility in favor of browser bookmarks, but there are a lot of people who maintain massive thread lists that way still...

[Travis McGee]

I agree! Excellent read! It needs the widest possible dissemination, and because Crichton is perceived to be a Hollywood insider, it may even be published in mainstream journels.

[oreolady]

Thanks, that's the one I meant-the FR bookmark, when I see people saying they are marking an article.
I think I will do both to articles I want to make sure to read, thanks again.
(I knew about the regular way, just wasn't sure of the page capabilities of a second and third posting!!!!)

[MayDay72]

"Let me tell you about this planet. Our planet is four and a half billion years old. There has been life on this planet for nearly that long. Three point eight billion years. The first bacteria. And later, the first multicellular animals, then the first complex creatures, in the sea, on the land. Then the great sweeping ages of of animals - the amphibians, the dinosaurs, the mammals, each lasting millions upon millions of years. Great dynasties of creatures arising, flourishing, dying away. All this happened against a background of continuous and violent upheaval, mountain ranges thrust upand eroded away, cometary impacts, volcanic eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving... Endless constant and violent change... Even today, the greatest geographical feature on the planet comes from two great continents colliding , buckling to make the Himalayan mountain range over millions of years. The planet has survived everything in it's time. It will certainly survive us."

"Suppose there was a radiation accident. Let's say we had a really bad one, and all the plants and animals died, and the earth was clicking hot for a hundred thousand years. Life would survive somewhere - under the soil, or perhaps frozen in arctic ice. And after all those years, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would again spread over the planet. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain it's present variety. And of course it would be very different from what it is now. But the earth would survive our folly. Life would survive our folly. Only we think it wouldn't."

"If the ozone layer gets thinner, there will be more ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface. It'll cause us skin cancer. So what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Do you think this is the first time something like this has happened? Don't you know about Oxygen?"

"Oxygen is actually a metabolic poison. It's a corrosive gas, like fluorine which is used to etch glass. And when Oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells - say, around three billion years ago - it created a crisis for all other life around the planet. Those plant cells were polluting the environment with a deadly poison. They were exhaling a lethal gas, and building up its concentration. A planet like Venus has less than one percent oxygen. On earth, the concentration of Oxygen was going up rapidly - five, ten, eventually twenty-one percent! Earth has an atmosphere of pure poison! Incompatible with life!"

"My point is that life on earth can take care of itself. In the thinking of a human being, a hundred years is along time. A hundred years ago, we didn't have cars and airplanes and computers and vaccines... It was a whole different world. But to the earth a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We have been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we are gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us. Let's be clear, the planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't go the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves."

- Michael Crichton,
'Jurrassic Park'

[PatrickHenry]

Underneath the keywords is a link labeled "Bookmark" - hit that link, and this thread will be added to your list of FR bookmarks that you can access from your profile page.

Amazing. I've been doing it the hard way, by first accessing my profile page, then cutting & pasting to the "links" section, all the while muttering to myself that bookmarking is one of the clumsier features of this website. Good tip. Thanks.

[FreedomPoster]

FreeRepublic has amazingly feature-rich forum software. When you compare it to all the UBB-based, and UBB-knockoff-based, forums, it is just astounding how much more this system does. Quite an accomplishment by John Robinson et al.

[Ben Ficklin]

All three of you have touched on it.

The suthor is describing only one sub-set of environmentalists. Let me attempt to classify/catagorize/organize:

1. Mythists
1A Religionist- well described in the article
1B Polyannas - different from the religionists; the cute and cuddly crowd; bambi-ists; warm and fuzzy; highly motivated by the image of a harp seal being clubbed.

2. Watermelons- not actual environmentalists but use it to promote their socio-politico-economic goals. I'm sure this group could be sub-divided.

3. Capitalists- those that invoke environmentalism to promote their resource extraction over another competing resource extraction. A petro-chemical company will promote the use of natural gas in electrical generation by funding a foundation/enviro group to attack the use of coal as a fuel for electrical generation.

Feel free to futher classify or re-organize the above. After all, just as the the author points out that the human mind is likely hardwired for religion, the human mind is also hardwired to classify, catagorize and organize.

[KC_for_Freedom]

I always categorize environmentalists by whether they have an agenda or not.

The ones who are closely aligned with the left, (Sierra Club Etc.) seem not to care so much about the environment as to whether it helps socialist causes. (Let the forests take care of themselves, don't log; this saves money for other social programs and makes housing expensive so the poor need to rely on government subsidies.) These you call watermelons, but I have not heard that slogan.

Then there are the other kind like the recyclers who separate their waste glass not realizing that the recycling centers just dump the glass in a land fill because it really is cheaper to make glass from sand, and there is a lot of sand available for glassmaking.

Thus one group is out to destroy capitalism, believing like Nader that it will lead to a ruinous world. Of course this group is used by the marx loving crowd and is aligned with the democratic coalition. The other group simply lacks understanding, and likes to go with the flow. This "feel good" group would well be served by Crichton's call for better environmental science, because they really believe MTBE is good for the world (as opposed to a harmful subsidy for big oil), and they worry that the oceans are rising not mindful of the fact that Holland is below sea level and has been for years. This group believes that fuel cell will save us without considering the environmental cost of making fuel cells and generating and distributing hydrogen.

I have not thought of capitalists as a sub group, but you are right when they use environmental images in their advertising, attempting to create good will for their industries.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The lawyering of science is a big problem. Most proposed legislative actions do not follow from the scientific investigations. However, accusing those who misuse (or misinterpret) scientific evidence of merely being "religious" doesn't help; doing so abandons the idea of correcting scientific misunderstandings. Most of the people I know who are "environmentalists" are rather sincere but have little knowledge of the scientific data. They are rather like a jury trying to understand DNA or fingerprint or ballistic analysis.

[Ben Ficklin]

Of course nomenclature is important in classification. I'm surprised that you are not acquainted with "watermelon". Green(environmental) on the outside, red(socialistic) on the inside. Environmental morphs into environmental justice and becomes linked to social justice.

Those you mention in regard to seperating their garbage are known as the "self-decievers". The fact that curbside recycling is an economic net-loss to the environment is well documented most notably by libertarian Lynn Scarlett, former President of the Reason Foundation and now working in the Bush administration as Undersecretary of Policy and Budget at the Interior Dept. But you see, curbside recycling makes these people feel good about themselves. With that in mind, they could alternatively be called the "feel-gooders", which would make the a sub-set of the do-gooders".

Those that think that the un-attended forest will revert to pristine are known as the "benign neglectors".

I'm afraid that my previous grouping "Capitalist" is lacking. It is possible the the "capitalists" should be a sub-group of those that have an economic self-interest in promoting environmentalism. The Teamsters could hardly be called an environmental group yet they joined with environmental and social justice groups in the lawsuit over the environmental inpact of admitting Mexican trucks to the US, which would impact the earnings of the individual teamster and the political power of the Teamster Union. Another sub-group here would be the the NIMBY who really cares nothing about the environment but is opposed to development because of a percieved loss of his property value.

Perhaps I have opened a can of worms that would be best left to someone with 7 researchers and a $75,000.00 budget.

[KC_for_Freedom]

Thanks for the watermelon explaination. As I read it I remembered having heard it before. Perhaps it was a senior moment (that I have from time to time).

My main thesis in categorizing has been that the democratic party is made up of a diverse group without common concerns. They are joined primarily by a desire to govern from the left. So you have envrionmentalists of all stripes joining minorities, illegal immigrants, homosexuals, jews, and out and out socialists. Of course their common agenda was to fleece the country's wealthy and mooch. The environmentalists are a strange ally in this group, because they don't get much out of socialism. No socialist country took care of the environment, so much of what they do is on faith. (The kind of faith Michael Crichton is talking about.)

Then you get strange results like the Sierra Club voting to remain neutral about unfettered immigration, when immigrants are stressing the social fabric and the environment. Likewise you see Nader running for office and stripping enough votes from Gore to hurt the democrats because the democrats are not strong enough on the environment.

Finaly you have clear thinkers like Carri-Okie proposing market based solutions to the environment which environmentalists cannot even look at for fear of disrupting the coalition.

[PatrickHenry]

My main thesis in categorizing has been that the democratic party is made up of a diverse group without common concerns. They are joined primarily by a desire to govern from the left.

Another common concern is that they all deny reality, one way or another. Socialism will make us happy, taxation will make us prosperous, unionism will make us productive, pacifism will bring peace, disarming will make us secure, diversity is strength, self-esteem is a right, poverty can be outlawed, etc. In these and maybe hundreds of other ways they are characterized by the delusion that wishing for something will make it so. Presumably those at the top of that foul heap are aware that it's all lies, but it's their gravy train. Yet even a few of them are probably fooled.

There's some of that in the Republican party too, but nowhere near as much.

[Prodigal Son]

When Freepers say they are going to "bookmark" this article, how is that done?

Yes, if you look at the main body article... Just underneath you see Topics and Keywords... Just underneath that you will find a

Report Abuse and Bookmark link

(this is just above post number one on any thread). Simply click on the bookmark link. You will be presented with a page that allows you to name the bookmarked link what you like (useful if you're bookmarking it more for a comment that you want to remember). Once you choose "OK", the article will be added to your Freeper profile page. You can then access it whenever you like by going to your own profile page and clicking the "Links" option in the upper left.

I hope that helps.

[RightWhale]

what more and more groups are doing is putting out is lies

Chrichton's writings stand because they are based on scientific and medical fact. You don't see any great environmentalist literature, not that they don't try. All it takes is one sour note in a novel and it drops from a NYT best-seller to a trade publication--1000 copies printed, 4 sold.