Environmentalism Can’t Replace Religion: A Note from Ian Plimer
Posted by Ian Plimer, August 21st, 2008 - under Opinion, Uncategorized.
Tags: Philosophy
Despite our comfortable materialistic lives, there are many who ask: Is that all? They want a meaning for life and yearn for a spiritual life. Some follow the traditional religions, others embrace paranormal beliefs and many follow a variety of spiritual paths.
A new religion has been invented: Environmentalism. The rise of environmentalism parallels in time and place the decline of Christianity and socialism. This environmental religion is terrified of doubt, scepticism and uncertainty yet claims to be underpinned by science. It is a fundamentalist religion with a fear of nature. It has its own high priests such as Al Gore and a holy writ, such as the IPCC reports. Like many religious followers, few have ever read and understood the holy books from cover to cover.
Like many fundamentalist religions, it attracts believers by announcing apocalyptic calamities unless we change our ways. Its credo is repeated endlessly and a new language has been invented. Logic, contrary data or questioning are not permitted. Heretics are inquisitorially destroyed.
It states that now is the most important time in history and people are told that humanity is facing the greatest crisis in the history of time. We must make great sacrifices. Now. This religion uses thinking out of the Judeo-Christian tradition: If the world has been destroyed, then we humans are to blame.
This new age religion tries to re-mystify the world, a world that its adherents neither experience nor try to understand. The apocalyptic doomsayers promote their new religion with seven second television grabs. A disunity between religion and science is created. The science that derived from the Enlightenment and which bathes in doubt, scepticism and uncertainty is willingly thrown overboard.
Contrary facts are just ignored. Enthusiastic reporting by non-scientists is undertaken. They report new science with alarmist implications yet there is no reporting of contrary information. Non-scientific journalists and public celebrities write polemics that encourage public alarm.
The environmental religion produces widespread fear and a longing for simple all encompassing narratives. It offers an alternative account of a natural world with which adherents have little contact.
Environmentalism embraces a myth of the Fall: the loss of harmony between man and nature caused by our materialistic society. It searches for the lost Eden, which probably never existed. In the ‘good old days’ there was only struggle, starvation and unemployment, not harmony with nature. Environmental evangelism has ritual and language that have substituted substance.
Over historical, archaeological and geological time, there have been thousands of global coolings and global warmings. Global coolings have always depopulated the Earth. We are the first humans ever to fear a warm climate.
Environmentalism exacerbates disease and food shortages and destroys economies. It is a highly flawed religion. Its morality and ethics are questionable.
When the environmentalists recognise the religious aspects of their stance, then real discussion with other scientists becomes possible. Until then, they are just like the creationists who claim that their stance is scientific when their very foundations are religious and dogmatic.
The contradictory religion of environmentalism has given people a purpose in life and, despite ignoring all the contrary science, this religion provides some of the stitches that hold the fabric of society together.
Traditional religious life and practice is experience. Traditional religion tries to make sense of what’s happening to us now and gives us the mechanisms whereby we can have hope for a meaningful life, in spite of its disappointments. Religion gives us the mechanism to cope with failure.
Environmentalism cannot provide for these needs.
This is an edited version of a speech given by Ian Plimer at the IQsquared debate ‘We’d be better off without religion’ on Sydney on August 20, 2008. Ian Plimer is Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Melbourne and Professor of Mining Geology at The University of Adelaide.
One last chance SJT,
Can you tell me which site, A or B, has the higher ‘biodiversity’?
Site A Site B
Plant species 204 109
Vertebrate species 50 42
Invertebrate species 75 91
Fungal species 10 17
Tonnes of bacteria 59 93
No appeals to God or Wikipedia will be allowed.
“One last chance SJT,
Can you tell me which site, A or B, has the higher ‘biodiversity’?
Site A Site B
Plant species 204 109
Vertebrate species 50 42
Invertebrate species 75 91
Fungal species 10 17
Tonnes of bacteria 59 93
No appeals to God or Wikipedia will be allowed.”
Can you tell me how gravity works? If you can’t, then will suddenly start floating around in the air.
You are creating pedantic nonsense masquerading as science. It’s the same trick played by creationists. No matter how science can tell you, there will always be something they can find that science can’t. Science is always dealing with hard to know or define, that’s what makes it so interesting. Playing games such as ‘what is the most diverse’ will not actually tell you much anyway, beyond a general indication of what is going on. That is because biodiversity is much more complex that a simple statistic can tell you.
“So the only reason you behave morally is fear of being punished?” SJT
No, I have my pet virtues as well as some stubborn vices. The greatest fear is that of being rejected by one’s Creator.
SJT,
Exactly my point. ‘Biodiversity’ is so complex that we cannot get a reliable grasp of it, and probably never will. If you play with Pascal’s Triangle you will see why.
So claims such as ‘Global warming will reduce biodiversity’ are not science, just religious rhetoric. Which returns us nicely to the topic of this thread.
P.S. Last time I looked (a few years back) there were many thousands of websites offering a definition of ‘biodiversity’. One, from Rutgers University, seemed to be simply a turgid paragraph on the word ‘biota’. Another mentioned political implications. Another suggested it was a good word to include in a funding application.
By the way, Amused, in answer to Godwin’s Theory, I plead Bentsen’s Defence.
Point well made Davey!
Ian Plimer makes an interesting point in his book,”a short history of planet earth”, that humans live right on the edge of survival. I always remember this point when people talk about dangerous climate change. They all seem to think humans live in paradise and we are going to wreak it.
It’s one thing to influence one of mother nature’s mechanism, but to think you can have control over mother nature! pure ignorance
“It’s one thing to influence one of mother nature’s mechanism, but to think you can have control over mother nature! pure ignorance”
To think that anyone has claimed we have control over the climate is sheer lies.
“SJT,
Exactly my point. ‘Biodiversity’ is so complex that we cannot get a reliable grasp of it, and probably never will. If you play with Pascal’s Triangle you will see why.
So claims such as ‘Global warming will reduce biodiversity’ are not science, just religious rhetoric. Which returns us nicely to the topic of this thread.”
No, you are wrong. Biodiversity is reduced because rapid climate change means that species that are adapted to a complex interdependence can’t change quickly enough to cope. What seems a long process is ocurring in the blink of an eye in geological terms and evolutionary terms. It is impossible to predict to what extent biological systems will impacted, it’s not a long stretch to know that they will be. Although the relationships are complex, they are notactively created and designed by the participants, but are the result of many years of adaptation.
As I said, we still don’t know how gravity works, that doesn’t mean we are floating around in the sky.
“To think that anyone has claimed we have control over the climate is sheer lies.”
True…so why are we all talking about global warming, if its out of our control?
It’s an unintended consequence. We can do something about that.
What the biodiversity indexes would be useful for would be measuring change in BD. Even if we can’t say exactly what it is measuring, if it’s going down and not up rapidly, then it’s an indication of something affecting the system.
Just like hitting an asteriod with missiles?
That’s a little unnatural is it?
If its so easy to push the planet out of balance,
humans are likely to have some serious competition.
“To think that anyone has claimed we have control over the climate is sheer lies.”
SJT. Well you seem to think that if we take a bit out, we will change the climate…so clearly you think we do have control!
“SJT. Well you seem to think that if we take a bit out, we will change the climate…so clearly you think we do have control!”
All we are talking about is taking out the bit we put in. If we can put it in, we can take it out, or at least stop putting more in.
…when I heard that “the debate is over” I knew instantly that truth could not be approached. Surprisingly, it is St. Thomas Aquinas who tells us that science and faith must agree or faith must yield (Anthropogenic Warming believers should read Chesterton’s book on Aquinas and note the astonishing ironic criticism about taking action before knowing what to do coming from, of all places, the Middle ages.)
What a lot of clap trap! In the end, the price of energy as driven by an ever increasing population dictates all. We will all be living in smaller houses, driving smaller vehicles, eating more locally grown products etc etc etc.. Commerce, governments and social systems will all be changed as a result. Not through dogma or concoius social design or “religion” as so poorly defined here, but by necessity. This is all argument about foregone conclusions. The earth’s population will dictate the future. Change is inevitable and most of this argument stems from those that want no change. They will be dragged kicking and screaming into the future by the reality that they try to deny. I imagine that much of the same arguments were presented at the advent of the change from whale oil to gasoline.
Dan , most of what you you say is true, but it is not that sceptics do not want change….rather that forcing change on some parts of the world ( the west)will create lower living standards and great hardship. The fact is we are being lied to that there is a no longer a debate about AGW, and we ar egoing to have ETS or carbon taxes thrust on us that will accomplish absalutely nothing in terms of reducing co2 and temperatures.
I have always said that with the approach of peak oil ( if we havent already passed it), that we will need to find alternatives and agree that it is likely tha tmany of teh changes you mention will occur naturally….that is fine. But it is not fine to distort the market.
We should be providing research and development grants and very significant prizes for individuals or organisations who do find viable alternatives to fossil fuels….how about 1 billion for the first person to find a way of storing alternative energy that will power a town…and not hydro/ water storage!
I truly believe that it is ignorant to suggest the majority of sceptics of AGW are against change…….against change that will cost trillions and solve nothing…bloody oath!
Davey
You can tell me things fall down, you can tell me how fast they fall down, but you can’t tell me how gravity works, can you? If you can’t define it, then we obviously can’ deal with it, can we?
I second toby. And also, when ever someone wants to rush me into to something I smell a great big rat. Panic is not a survival trait.
SJT,
Your gravity argument is just a red herring. Gravity exists, we don’t fully understand it, so a claim that it will change, or has changed, would need weighty evidence.
There is, no doubt, a diversity of life upon the planet. We don’t fully understand it. So claims that ‘biodiversity’ will increase, or decrease, are either naive, or scientifically dishonest. We don’t know enough about that buzzing, blooming abundance to say. A reduction in lions might lead to an increase in zebras – for a while. But who knows about all those little wrigglies? If humans disappeared, some bacteria might increase, but others, that live on and in us, might decrease. It’s complicated.
I am just reading a book about the use of ’science’ as a rhetorical tool. The author traces the progress of a scientific paper (itself tainted by tacit assumptions) through the news media and political arena. At every step the information is simplified, and made to sound more authoritative. Numbers are rounded up, and upper confidence limits used as if they are inevitable fact.
So I remain sceptical about claims that ‘biodiversity will decrease’, or even ‘has decreased’. I am equally sceptical about claims that ‘the environment is harmed by xyz’. As Ross McKitrick has said, the devil is in the generality.
But then those who have simplified the ‘environment’ to the Kingdom of Heaven, and ‘biodiversity’ to the Holy Ghost, will be annoyed at me. They might call me ignorant, and produce red herrings.
P.S. Amused – I have just realised that Simon Schama is Jewish, so outside Godwin’s jurisdiction. Besides who is this Godwin to make laws banning mention of Nazis? His first name isn’t Adolph, is it? Davey’s Law is that anyone who regards ‘biodiversity’, ‘environment’ or the ‘Precautionary Principle’ as Holy Writ has lost the argument on grounds of logical incapacity.
“Your gravity argument is just a red herring. Gravity exists, we don’t fully understand it, so a claim that it will change, or has changed, would need weighty evidence.”
No, it’s not. Can you define for me precisely how gravity works? I bet you can’t.
“There is, no doubt, a diversity of life upon the planet. We don’t fully understand it. So claims that ‘biodiversity’ will increase, or decrease, are either naive, or scientifically dishonest. We don’t know enough about that buzzing, blooming abundance to say. A reduction in lions might lead to an increase in zebras – for a while. But who knows about all those little wrigglies? If humans disappeared, some bacteria might increase, but others, that live on and in us, might decrease. It’s complicated.”
No one is saying they know what will happen, but if you disprupt a complex mechanism, you have a pretty good idea it will not continue working in the way it was.
SJT,
A. Of course I cannot explain gravity, but I can define it reasonably well. Neither you, nor I, nor Claude Shannon, nor Charlie Krebs, can define ‘biodiversity’. So predictions of changes in it are largely hot air.
B. You may think that papers in refereed journals are ‘Holy Writ’, but it has been pointed out that scientists, being humans, often have ‘tacit presuppositions’ (Michael Polanyi 1962 ‘Personal Knowledge’, Uni of Chicago Press).
C. Disturbance of a complex system (I am wary of your rhetorical ‘disruption’) will probably change it, but for how long, and in what direction? ‘Better’ and ‘worse’ are human perceptions. ‘Nature’ has no particular preference for forest, grassland, tundra, or desert.
D. In law, ‘legal fictions’ are recognised as ways of sidestepping an impasse (Pierre Olivier 1975 ‘Legal Fictions in Practice and Legal Science’, Rotterdam University Press). So religions use ‘psychological fictions’ to avoid confronting truths, such as our own death. Some of these fictions are beautiful in themselves. For example, St Francis of Assisi’s Sermon to the Birds.
E. It is important, however, to distinguish between religious fictions (however useful, beautiful, or understandable) and the truth about our relationship to our surroundings.
F. So I think that Ian Plimer’s combination of rhetoric and reason is spot on. ‘Environmentalism’ (’Surroundingism’ doesn’t have quite the same rhetorical effect) confuses religion and science. We, the news media, and the politicians, need to distinguish which is which, in order to make decisions that are the ‘best’, at least for humans. But then, not all humans will agree on what is ‘best’. It’s hard, isn’t it? Send for Adolph …
“A. Of course I cannot explain gravity, but I can define it reasonably well. Neither you, nor I, nor Claude Shannon, nor Charlie Krebs, can define ‘biodiversity’. So predictions of changes in it are largely hot air.”
No you can say things fall down, that things attract, with what force, over distance. I can describe how it behaves quite well, although even then there are questions over larger distances. I can say what a lion eats, and how much nutrition it needs each day to live, what rate it breeds at, how long it lives, plenty of observational facts and evidence. As for how gravity works, it’s still a mystery, but we are working hard at it. Similary for bio diversity. It is the interdependence of species, and we can describe a lot of those interactions. No one is trying to describe changing those interactions, they are just saying we can disrupt the system with climate change.
“C. Disturbance of a complex system (I am wary of your rhetorical ‘disruption’) will probably change it, but for how long, and in what direction? ‘Better’ and ‘worse’ are human perceptions. ‘Nature’ has no particular preference for forest, grassland, tundra, or desert.”
I know, and the rocks have been doing well as well. We depend on a certain stability in our environment. To say that because we can’t describe that precisely, therefore there is no need to worry about it, is wilful ignorance.
Our actions, if they have any effect at all, could well be reducing the rate of change, given that climate change is a constant.
“Our actions, if they have any effect at all, could well be reducing the rate of change, given that climate change is a constant.”
Anything could well be happening. That’s why scientists have been investigating all kinds of things for many years now, to see why things happen.
“B. You may think that papers in refereed journals are ‘Holy Writ’, but it has been pointed out that scientists, being humans, often have ‘tacit presuppositions’ (Michael Polanyi 1962 ‘Personal Knowledge’, Uni of Chicago Press).”
Not at all, this is what annoys the hell out of me, people assuming they know what I am thinking, and even why I am thinking it, even though I’m not.
I quite agree, acomplia. I assume that was a comment on SJT’s ‘logic’.
“I quite agree, acomplia. I assume that was a comment on SJT’s ‘logic’.”
So you have nothing to say?
“The contradictory religion of environmentalism has given people a purpose in life and, despite ignoring all the contrary science, this religion provides some of the stitches that hold the fabric of society together.”
Is Socratic Ignorance science now?
“Anything could well be happening. That’s why scientists have been investigating all kinds of things for many years now, to see why things happen.”
Science-workers SJT. Field workers. And no they haven’t been doing that. They have instead tried to prove that industrial-CO2 was making the changes. And it wasn’t.
Now your point was that there ought not be this change to the climate. I said the climate always changes. And that were we having any effect it might be to slow the rate of change.
My total neutralisation of your idiotic point stands.
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