Letters

From the August/September 2002 issue

(Page 3 of 5)

While I understand Bailey's comments on the role of "doomsday" environmentalists, he doesn't provide effective arguments to downplay their theories. Most reliable data show that global warming is happening, weather patterns are changing, ice caps are melting, coral reefs are dying, and species are going extinct. Do we need more doom? The environmental movement, like most, has used negative tactics to get its message across -- sometimes that is the only way to make people listen. But one should not confuse dramatic urgency with untruth. The health of systems is just as important to the earth as it is to our individual bodies.

Bailey writes: "The environmental canon is built on doom. In 1962 Rachel Carson's Silent Spring predicted that modern synthetic chemicals, especially pesticides, would cause epidemics of cancer and kill off massive quantities of wildlife." OK, maybe the cancer epidemic wasn't caused by chemicals, pesticides, and their byproducts, but if not, then what did cause it? Bailey doesn't even argue his case. At this point it is nearly impossible to quantify how many species are affected by synthetic chemicals. What we do know is that many species are devastated by habitat destruction, which is directly linked to population growth.

Another point Bailey makes is that the world isn't running out of "non-renewable" fuels or mineral resources. Generally speaking, the availability of oil or other nonrenewables is not a concern to modern environmentalists. Their concern is the availability of clean fuels and other alternatives.

Mother Nature is resilient. I think that is obvious. If she weren't we'd have much larger problems. But the fact remains that man does affect the environment negatively and his population continues to grow. Changes must occur.

Scott Ryan Whinery
Via e-mail

Ronald Bailey's protests against the "hidden agenda" underlying attacks on Lomborg were rather shrill and vacuous. A primary thesis seems to be that because some "environmentalist" scientists changed their views over the course of a quarter century, they cannot be trusted. If adherence to ideology is Bailey's measure of good science, I wonder about his "agenda." His bibliography makes me wonder more.

I attended a talk by Stephen Schneider in the early '90s and vividly recall Bailey questioning the conclusions of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) even back then.

Bailey seems shocked that we cannot model the biosphere-ecosphere of an entire planet with absolute certainty. We're not talking about the hydrogen atom here. I would also remind the author that when the shrill environmental books were written, the Delaware River would spontaneously combust, and Denver had worse air quality than Los Angeles. Environmental laws passed since then are directly related to air and water quality improvements we see today.

L.L. Williams
Via e-mail

Ronald Bailey replies: Apparently, Scott Ryan Whinery applauds "smear campaigns" against those with whom he disagrees and forgives environmentalists of what most people would call lying because of their sense of "dramatic urgency." In the trade, this is known as "lying for justice."

Whinery cites not a single example of incorrect data provided by Lomborg. Rachel Carson is wrong because there is no cancer epidemic. Except for smoking-related cancers, age-adjusted cancer rates have been essentially flat or falling for decades.

With regard to cleaner supplies of energy, rates of air and water pollution are falling in all developed countries. Global fertility rates have been falling for four decades and the latest United Nations projections show world population topping out at 8 billion or so in mid-century, then declining. v

L.L. Williams completely misses my point that adherence to an ideology, in this case political environmentalism, is exactly the opposite of good science. I am not at all shocked that researchers "cannot model the biosphere-ecosphere...with absolute certainty." In fact, that's exactly the point: Why would we want to remake the world's economy on the basis of such uncertain models?

The Delaware River never spontaneously combusted. That was the Cuyahoga, which now hosts a riverside dining/entertainment district in Cleveland.

Finally, both Lomborg and I cite numerous climatologists who, like Schneider, participate in the IPCC and who point out that the best temperature data from satellites and weather balloons indicate that global warming is increasing at only one-third to one-quarter the rate suggested by models. That means average global temperatures would rise perhaps 1.5 degrees Celsius in a century if current trends continue, which they won't. They'll shift as the centuries-long process of decarbonization of our fuel supplies continues, meaning that greenhouse gases will never accumulate to the extent projected, even without the imposition of draconian global energy policies.