Earlier this year, you might recall a pair of essays I wrote challenging green dogma. They were published at Discover's website. The first was called "The Limits to Environmentalism" and the second, "Is Environmentalism anti-science?" This is a theme I've explored at Collide-a-Scape which, as one conservative reader has noticed, "provokes less than friendly responses from the environmentally correct." More recently, I've focused on how the GMO issue is covered in liberal media precincts and discussed by foodies and greens. That has been a lonely, thankless task. I know Chris Mooney thinks liberals are more open to new information than conservatives. That has not been my experience. Anyway, Fred Pearce has now picked up on some of the same arguments I've been making in an essay titled, "Why Are Environmentalists Taking Anti-Science Positions?" He writes that enviros
have been making claims that simply do not stand up. We are accused of being anti-science "” and not without reason. A few, even close friends, have begun to compare this casual contempt for science with the tactics of climate contrarians. That should hurt.
Oh, I think it has. The response to my Slate piece suggests that it hit a nerve. Pearce's essay may sting even more, given where it's published and his standing in the environmental journalism community. More importantly, Pearce joins a brigade of prominent, refreshing voices, such as Andy Revkin, Mark Lynas, Stewart Brand, and Emma Marris, who also are challenging entrenched, dogmatic positions in the green movement. We may soon be at a tipping point, where greens are forced to honestly reexamine some of the dominant worldviews that have shaped environmentalism over the past 40 years. That will be painful for them, but such a reappraisal is long overdue.
