EDITORIAL & OPINION — Environmentalists themselves a threat — Scaremongering

Notwithstanding a few notable exceptions, most self-described environmentalists are woefully ignorant of science. In fact, some are openly contemptuous of the discipline, which they blame for causing pollution and producing weapons of mass destruction.

Others are what might be described as logically challenged. Take the case of an activist in Ontario who was demanding zero discharges from all industrial operations. A scientist in the crowd pointed out that absolute zero could not be achieved because of the laws of organic chemistry. The unabashed activist then declared, in all seriousness, that the laws of organic chemistry must be repealed.

Scientists might find the story humorous, but it’s a safe bet that environmentalists could probably raise funds to do exactly that. When it comes to marketing, some environmental groups have no peers. They are masters of propaganda, selling their message through powerful imagery and evocative phraseology. In this manner, they perpetuate myths that are difficult to refute, because they are based on assumptions and not fact. In other words, environmentalism is more a religion than a science.

One example is the myth that human activity and wildlife are incompatible. People who work in northern mines often point out that their sites are a refuge for animals cut from the herd because they are aging or ill. Yet when new mines are proposed in Canada’s North, activists rush to warn newspaper reporters that resource development “threatens” various forms of wildlife. Caribou herds, said to be especially vulnerable, are particularly convenient; herds migrate over great distances and can always be counted on to stop by mine sites.

Most environmentalists have never seen a caribou and know nothing about their migration patterns, yet they are routinely quoted in the press, and their views are rarely called into question. Meanwhile, the mainstream press treats scientists with real-life experience in the northern wilderness with outright suspicion.

It would seem that all an activist needs to do is issue a press release warning of a disaster and make a few calls to uncritical newspaper or television reporters. The activist could be anyone — a high-school drop-out or an eco-warrior who believes that a return to nature is the only way to save the world from ecological disaster.

Before the resource developer knows what happened, public opinion has been molded by emotional images of fleeing caribou juxtaposed with scenes of men and machines charging over a pristine wilderness.

Many environmentalists have neither scientific training nor any understanding of the methods of science, yet they blithely lecture the public about the wasteful ways of industry, and intimidate government bureaucrats to adopt policies that may not be in the public interest.

There are, to be sure, real threats to the natural environment, and activism can serve a purpose in eliminating those threats. But environmentalists perform no service when they spread misinformation, for example, by repeating stories about people dying from the effects of a month-old cyanide spill, long after cyanide poisoning could have killed anyone.

Environmental groups need to move beyond finger-pointing and scaremongering to help find and promote solutions to environmental problems. To be effective at this they will have to deepen their understanding of science and the environment — and soon, too, before someone proposes that we ban volcanoes because they spew toxic substances into the atmosphere.