Environmentalists ruleThanks John.
I'm afraid I have no idea who actually selects the new year's honours lists.
Wayne.
----- Original Message -----
From: John Foster
To: Wayne Butler
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 10:44 PM
Subject: Re: Environmentalists rule
The National Post is a Canadian daily run by Conrad Black. He is now an expatriate...he wanted the Queen to Knight him but she declined. I guess that is up to the House of Lords, No?
The National Post is 'conservative leaning' paper...
chao
john
Subject: Re: Environmentalists rule
John,
Is this an American publication & study?
Interesting stuff - I thought we were still perceived as just a bunch of ageing hippies - or perhaps that's just my friends. ;o)
All the best,
Wayne.
----- Original Message -----
From: John Foster
To: Wayne Butler
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 11:31 PM
Subject: Fw: Environmentalists rule
This ought to generat some lovely discussion
Subject: [LW:] Environmentalists rule
PUBLICATION National Post
DATE Wed 05 Feb 2003
EDITION National
SECTION/CATEGORY Financial Post: Editorial
PAGE NUMBER FP17
BYLINE Lawrence Solomon
STORY LENGTH 872
** HEADLINE: Environmentalists rule
** To the chagrin of many conservatives, environmentalists as a group
have more credibility than business executives, government
officials, politicians, journalists and -- apart from scientists
-- just about everyone else that public opinion pollsters compare
them to.
** This great confidence that the public shows in environmentalists,
a confidence that spans more than a decade and covers all manner
of environmental issues, stems overwhelmingly from one factor.
** Environmentalists have generally been right in identifying serious
environmental problems, often spectacularly so.
Nuclear power provides one of the clearest examples of
environmentalists making clear-eyed analyses while everyone else
was blinded by a business or a technological euphoria. Throughout
the 1950s and the 1960s, and well into the 1970s, nuclear power
had been virtually unquestioned as the fuel of the future. Then
some environmentalists began questioning the government's wild
projections of growth in electricity demand -- planners asserted
the power system would need to double every decade, indefinitely.
These environmentalists also questioned the industry's claims that
nuclear electricity would be "too cheap to meter," that nuclear
accidents couldn't occur, that radiation was benign and that there
were no alternatives to nuclear power. Most people, however,
weren't alert to the looming disaster. Scientists, business
executives, governments, journalists, even oil industry executives
and the majority of environmentalists who didn't work on nuclear
issues, swallowed the industry's outlandish claims. Nuclear
power's approval ratings remained well above 90%.
Today, only a minority -- mostly among die-hard conservatives and
nuclear industry employees -- remains deluded. The environmental
and economic wreckage of the nuclear industry -- The Wall Street
Journal, in the 1980s, called its financial collapse the biggest
in corporate history -- continues to be felt in every jurisdiction
that foolishly embraced the atom.
In other energy debates, environmentalists were right, and almost
everyone else was wrong, in recognizing that conservation and
energy efficiency could quickly and cost-effectively counter the
OPEC oil crises of the 1970s. Environmentalists were similarly
ahead of almost everyone else in recognizing that big dams could
no longer be economically built, but that co-generation and other
small-scale power technologies, if allowed to compete, would
replace not only nuclear power but many of the dirty coal and oil
generating plants that the power monopolies favoured.
The extraordinary track record of environmentalists can also be
seen in pitched battles in other fields. Cities that listened to
environmentalists and cancelled expressways slated to destroy
urban neighbourhoods now count their blessings, while those that
struggle with the many unanticipated consequences of expressways
count their costs. Cities that preserved their heritage buildings
and older neighbourhoods were rewarded with properties that
appreciated and contributed to their tax base; cities that
converted built-up blocks into parking lots, expecting new
developments to spring up, are still waiting.
Environmentalists correctly warned of the loss of the cod and
other fisheries, while most blithely accepted rosy projections by
government and industry experts. Environmentalists correctly
criticize pollution from large-scale farming operations, and
embarrass large-scale farmers for their dependence on subsidies,
while conservatives pooh-pooh the costs of farm pollution to
neighbours and are oblivious to the large-farm sector's utter
dependence on subsidies.
Environmentalists aren't always right. Their record is spotty in
condemning this or that chemical, and particular groups, or
particular people, have remarkable losing streaks: the Worldwatch
Institute's Lester Brown on global famines, for example, or
biologist Paul Ehrlich on the population explosion. Neither can
the many environmental groups funded by governments and unions,
such as the Canadian Environmental Law Association, be relied upon
for independent thinking. Neither can groups capitalizing on
environmental concerns to push separate agendas, such as
nationalists like the Council of Canadians.
But Greenpeace, the new international network of Waterkeepers and
other environmental groups that rely on small donations, unlike
many of their corporate-funded conservative critics, tend to be on
the right side of history. Because these environmental groups need
public support for their very survival, they have become expert at
tailoring their message to the public at large, helping them win
the contest in the marketplace of ideas over narrowly funded
critics. At a defining moment in the history of nuclear power --
the day Margaret Thatcher privatized the electricity industry --
Greenpeace UK, Friends of the Earth UK, and other broadly based UK
environmental groups were clinking champagne glasses. They knew
that Thatcher, by allowing competition and cutting the industry
off from open-ended government support, had signed the industry's
death warrant.
The UK's conservative think-tanks, expecting a liberated nuclear
industry to flourish, also toasted Thatcher. When a privatized
nuclear fleet, in the form of a company called British Energy,
later offered stock to the public, they and their followers
finally had the chance to invest in their darling. These true
believers then lost their shirts when British Energy went
bankrupt.
In contrast to environmentalists' exemplary record at diagnosing
environmental ills, their record in issuing prescriptions is
abysmal. In the case of global warming, environmentalists are
certainly correct in asserting that society generates economically
and environmentally unjustifiable levels of emissions, and just as
certainly incorrect in backing the central planning exercise that
is Kyoto. Because Kyoto is so unworkable, saner approaches will be
adopted, saving society from burning money along with fossil
fuels. And adding another notch to the environmentalists' string
of successes.
--
new web site on the state of the Great Bear Rainforest
http://www.canadianrainforests.org
