Environmentalism for the 21st Century

On "Environmentalism for the 21st Century"; this sums it all up really.

To understand "Environmentalism for the 21st Century" by Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore and keep your sanity, you must first stop thinking. Instead you must believe. You must believe that 21st century humanity sincerely strives for a day when all are equal. You must believe science can deliver us from the ultimate boundaries of reality. You must believe that technology promises an inexorable progress towards a better future for us all. You must believe that things are the way they are for good reason. You must not think.

The choice to believe rather than think forms the basis of, for want of a better word, our current development. Technologies and the interpretations, thus applications, of science are only products of the thinking of the day. If you choose to believe rather than think you choose to dismiss the fact that technology has always been, and humanity is as much, if not more, a product of technology than technology is a product of humanity. If on the other hand you choose to think, then you may conclude that thinking is our ultimate technology, and that all other developments derive from this.

Alternative thought therefore can never be anti-technology, or anti-science. Alternatives create their own interpretations of knowledge. Alternative thought will inevitably produce its own technological advances via its interpretations of knowledge to further one or more of its derivative ideologies and subsequent methodologies; ergo, it is a technology in itself.

And so "Environmentalism for the 21st Century" belongs on the intellectual treadmill; it offers nothing new. Like the noble but deluded points that conclude such confused and emotional utopianisms, it demands change while tacitly agreeing with the intellectual, political, social, economic and structural vehicles it believes it rages against.

Dr Moore’s "Environmentalism for the 21st Century" does establish one thing. This is that there is no difference in thinking between those whom he chooses to call "Environmental Extremists" and his "…middle road based on science and logic, the combination of which is sometimes referred to as common sense". Essentially both elements crave the same ends, both are based on the same faiths, and all that is left to argue is whose methodology is best. Again, the same rules apply and nothing changes. Maybe this is what "sustainable development" and "Environmentalism for the 21st Century" are all about?

AC Feb 2004