Dr. David Deming has an interesting essay on the logical flaws in modern environmentalism that are rooted in a meme known as “The Noble Savage”.
Excerpt (with my bolded quote) below:
All of this would be of academic interest only, were it not the case that the modern environmental movement and many of our public policies are based implicitly on the myth of the Noble Savage. The fountainhead of modern environmentalism is Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. The first sentence in Silent Spring invoked the Noble Savage by claiming
“there was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.”
But the town Carson described did not exist, and her polemic, Silent Spring, introduced us to environmental alarmism based on junk science. As the years passed, Rachel Carson was elevated to sainthood and the template laid for endless spasms of hysterical fear-mongering, from the population bomb, to nuclear winter, the Alar scare, and global warming.
Human beings have not, can not, and never will live in harmony with nature. Our prosperity and health depend on technology driven by energy. We exercise our intelligence to command nature, and were admonished by Francis Bacon to exercise our dominion with “sound reason and true religion.” When we are told that our primary energy source, oil, is “making us sick,” or that we are “addicted” to oil, these are only the latest examples of otherwise rational persons descending into gibberish after swooning to the lure of the Noble Savage. This ignorant exultation of the primitive can only lead us back to the Stone Age.
Read the entire essay here
The Noble Savage and Noble Cause Corruption seem to be familiar bedfellows.
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100 Things You Should Know About DDT :
http://junkscience.com/1999/07/26/100-things-you-should-know-about-ddt/
@ur momisugly feet2thefire – top comment, F2TF, excellently put.
As for “How in the world does the world – as it exists now – ever get there, without killing off 6.5 billion people?” … I suspect Prince Philip, wanting to be reborn as a lethal virus; could give you a few pointers to “elite”-think on that one – and without those silly twinges of conscience about culling the “excess”.
DirkH says:
February 14, 2012 at 4:10 pm
So when Northern environmentalists stop indigenous people of the Amazons from developing their country or exploiting / maintaining the natural resources around them, this must be Harmony Of Nature as well, for we are nature, right?
____
The history of much of humanity has been a history of one group imposing its will (or attempting to impose its will) on another group. The group with the better technology, the bigger clubs, guns, tanks, raw numbers, and the brain to use those in a coordinated and strategic manner gets to impose its will on the other group. Note: there is nothing here about which group is “right” or “wrong”. 6 million Jews were killed by a more coordinated, powerful, and better equipped enemy, but there was nothing “right” in what happened to them.
But the game is always the survival of the fittest– with fitness being defined by that which survives and has offspring. And so “nature”, which is just a web of relationships, loves to make sure all parts of the web of life are strong. The lion eats the gazelle (often, but not always, the the sickest, oldest, and most feeble), and in doing so, both species get to survive and remain a part of the web. Here’s the part that is fun: the individual means nothing to “nature”, it is the web of relationships that matter. The individual gazelle will be sacrificed a million times to make sure both lion and gazelle as a interrelated set of species continue on.
DirkH says (February 14, 2012 at 4:11 pm): “A Vonnegut fan? :-P”
Heh. Vonnegut goes–whoosh!–right over my head. But I tend to take the long view, especially since I discovered WUWT. Maybe it all started when I read Asimov’s “The Last Question” as a kid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question
Of course Asimov only took it to the year 10^13. I recall a short column in Scientific American (in the 70’s?) describing the universe in the year 10^116. Unfortunately I can’t find it now, but I recall that even at this late date the “heat death” of the universe would be postponed by Hawking Radiation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation
Bonus question: Can anybody guess my favorite “Futurama” episode?
rg says:
February 14, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Humans are the only species on this earth that have to work and pay to stay alive
____
I’m not so sure about that. Dolphins display a need to do both as well. In captivity, if a Dolphin doesn’t get a chance to play it gets pretty depressed. In their natural environment, Dolphins work in teams to fish and for protection against sharks, etc. I would say Dolphins rank right up there in terms of a need for work and play.
A rusting diesel truck is as natural as an oak tree.
More Soylent Green! says:
February 14, 2012 at 10:04 am
If man is but a part of nature, there cannot be any AGW.
Absolutely, since humans are part of nature, if we cause any change it is by definition “natural variability”, since it is a result of a natural process.
Shane635 says:
February 14, 2012 at 5:08 pm
A rusting diesel truck is as natural as an oak tree.
Both are a result of life.
The flip side (or corollary…) of the noble savage idea is that “Humanity is a virus…” as described by Agent Smith http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHiX0FZcjkA
Man can be civilized or natural but not both. It is amusing that those that claim Man is just another animal claim what we do is unnatural. IF we are just an animal, like all the other animals, we can’t then be held responsible for doing what comes natural. Deer poop where they sleep all the time.
If the logical conclusion results in an absurdity, the problem is not with the logic but with one or more of the assumptive premises. GIGO.
@Steve Garcia says:
February 14, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Well said.
I’ve enjoyed all of the comments (there were 93 when I started reading) and as I am late to the party, most of what I would propose or rebut has already been posted. Your post best sums up (and surpasses) what I’d add. I’d recommend a re-read of your post to others. Of particular note is your comment regarding women making babies until they died in childbirth. For men, life was nasty, brutish, and short. For women, it was often shorter.
Shane635 says:
February 14, 2012 at 5:08 pm
A rusting diesel truck is as natural as an oak tree.
—–
Indeed, except only one of them has the ability to use energy for replication & growth. One can only slowly decay, while the living thing uses energy to create negative entropy for itself. For more on this, consult the amazing book by Schrödinger, “What is life?” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_is_Life%3F
Steve, thanks for reminding me who made the lethal virus remark. Very telling.
As an aside, I don’t think there is a utopia anyone can conjur they would enjoy living in. Unless, of course, they were the king or some such.
Jim
Gates says:
“… only one of them has the ability to use energy for replication & growth.”
Flames use energy for replication and growth.
http://reason.com/archives/2004/01/07/ddt-eggshells-and-me
“However, Bitman’s findings were eventually overturned because he had also fed his quail a low-calcium diet. When the quail were fed normal amounts of calcium, the thinning effect disappeared. Studies published in Poultry Science found chicken eggs almost completely unaffected by high dosages of DDT.”
The Pompous Git says:
February 14, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Michael Palmer said @ur momisugly February 14, 2012 at 10:56 am
This is nonsense, of course. If the lion eats the gazelle, it guarantees the continuation of the lion only, but it ends the life of the gazelle. The continuation of the gazelle occurs not because of, but in spite of preying lions.
There are few subjects so marred by lazy thinking than the role of death in biology.
And your thinking here is a prime example. When top predators are eliminated, the prey species overgraze and deplete their food resources to the detriment of themselves; i.e. they starve to death …
—
What you describe is, of course, due to the fact that the reproduction rates of the prey species had already priced in the constant decimation by predators – as I said, the prey species persists in spite of, not because of predators. Dominant species such as lions provide you with an example that the establishment of a balanced population density does not require decimation by predators. Indeed, among lions, death by starvation is common; I don’t see how this is fundamentally better or worse than death by being eaten.
R. Gates says (February 14, 2012 at 4:51 pm): “The individual gazelle will be sacrificed a million times to make sure both lion and gazelle as a interrelated set of species continue on.”
Until “Nature” drops an asteroid on them both. “Nature” may or may not “care” about her “children”, but I’m pretty sure she has a sense of humor. I suspect “Nature” brought us into existence just so someone could appreciate her practical jokes; an audience, if you will. And I think she “created” the IPCC to keep us amused in between sets. 🙂
Smokey says:
February 14, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Gates says:
“… only one of them has the ability to use energy for replication & growth.”
Flames use energy for replication and growth.
——–
It may have been a long time ago Smokey, but you can probably remember when you were young and the flame of passion burned inside. Now you’re just “”Smokey”.
“Minor quibble, but if you’re trying to give a proper timeline, you have the order wrong. The .45-70 was a US Civil War rifle round which was common for years afterwards because surplus single-shot “trapdoor” Springfield rifles were widely available. .45 Long Colt (revolver) came later (1870′s I believe; it was adopted briefly as the US Army standard sidearm, but a more common cartridge for both revolvers and rifles was the .44-40 Winchester). .30-06 is a revision of the original .30-03 which was so named for its adoption year 1903. The cartridge design was revised in 1906 to use the new pointed (“spitzer”) bullets and the existing stock of M1903 Springfield rifles rechambered to accept it. Finally the .45 ACP was designed for the M1911 Colt Automatic Pistol which was accepted by the US Army in 1911.”
The .45-70 wasn’t used in the Civil War. It was developed in 1873…the same year as the .45 Long Colt (in the spectacularly wonderful Colt Single Action Army, aka “Peacemaker”) and the .44-40 Winchester (via the also-spectacular Winchester ’73 rifle). The Trapdoor Springfield was a modification to the muzzle-loading .58 caliber rifles left over from the Civil War, reworking them into metallic cartridge breechloaders. Initial Trapdoors (1865) used a .58-caliber rimfire cartridge with mixed results. This was followed with the .50-70 centerfire, and finally the .45-70 in 1873.
The .45 Long Colt was adopted by the Army in 1873 and lasted until 1892 (a little longer than “briefly”), when it was officially replaced by double-action revolvers chambered in .38 Long Colt. These proved to be ineffective in the Philippines at the turn of the (last) century, resulting in the re-fielding of refurbished Colt SAA revolvers. These were eventually phased out by the .45 ACP cartridge in the Colt 1911 semi-automatic pistol. The .45 ACP cartridge was developed to match the ballistics of the older .45LC cartridge in 1904 by John Browning for early prototypes of his automatic pistol. It did not enter mass production until the adoption of the Colt 1911 in…wait for it…1911.
Of all the cartridges mentioned, the .45-70 is the one most appropriate for the discussion. It was employed by the US Army to devastating effect at the end of the Indian Wars. FYI, the .45-70 with a 500-grain bullet will kill at 3,500 yards. That’s two miles or 3.2 kilometers. Kinda hard to aim at that range, though :-).
Now I’ve forgotten what the original topic was about.
I’ve said before; It is civilization that has a tenuous grip, not nature.
Kasuha said:
“And being cute is not the best reason for a species to being protected – in fact, that only creates a new kind of evolutionary pressure which leads to Earth full of extremely cute but completely useless animals. Do we need that? No, we don’t.
——-
This was the most humorous thing I’ve read today. Thank you!
Eric Simpson says:
“Obama’s Science Czar’s John Holdren’s past call (before the AGW scare) to “de-develop the United States” and create a “stable low consumption economy” is the political expression of the leftist dream, and they will push and push for that.”
Seems like Obama and Holdren are well on their way to “de-develop” the United States, although they have yet to admit that they are doing it on purpose. When Obama said he was planning to “fundamentally transform” this country, no one thought to ask him what he meant by that. However, I doubt that many would have changed their vote even if he had admitted that he wanted to create a low consumption economy on par with the stone age. Until they are paying $10 a gallon for gasoline and can no longer find their favorite foods on grocery shelves, people assume that “low consumption” was only meant to apply to others.
Gary Hladik says:
February 14, 2012 at 6:34 pm
R. Gates says (February 14, 2012 at 4:51 pm): “The individual gazelle will be sacrificed a million times to make sure both lion and gazelle as a interrelated set of species continue on.”
Until “Nature” drops an asteroid on them both. “Nature” may or may not “care” about her “children”, but I’m pretty sure she has a sense of humor. I suspect “Nature” brought us into existence just so someone could appreciate her practical jokes; an audience, if you will. And I think she “created” the IPCC to keep us amused in between sets. 🙂
———–
The price of existence is risk. And yes, it actually is all very much humorous– a divine comedy if you will. For the universe to bring about self- reflective consciousness is certainly to prevent the boredom that would have been the alternative. Still…it is just a game of hide and seek and the real joke is…we are all It!
Gates,
I’m a young 63. And with age comes wisdom.
[Smokey was the name of my wife’s big gray tomcat, with ear notches from all the fights he was in. And Mrs Smokey has never complained about a lack of passion. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.☺]
John says:
February 14, 2012 at 2:24 pm :
You mention eastern Canada as a place where peregrine falcons survived implying that this was because there was not much DDT spraying going on there as opposed to the northeastern United States. Actually, New Brunswick had an extensive DDT spray program in the 1950s, as did I imagine the forested parts of Nova Scotia and parts of Quebec. This was for spruce budworm which was a threat to the logging (pulp and paper) industry. In fact, some of the data Carson drew upon was observations by salmon biologists that DDT runoff in the Miramichi was killing larval salmon and other stream life. It does seem to have higher toxicity in aquatic animals.
However, as regarding birds’ eggs, I note that the works you cite date from the period in which scientists were very actively looking for evidence to support Carson’s contentions, a methodology which, as we know, can be problematic. There were both earlier and later studies that cast doubt on the egg-shell thinning, as there is considerable evidence that this predated DDT spraying. There is also the problem regarding Carson’s work in that it is hard to distinguish whether her horror stories are referring to DDT (which she suspected erroneously had some link to the breast cancer from which she died) or to organophosphate pesticides, for which I believe human and animal negative health effects are much better documented. Ironically, thanks to the hysteria surrounding DDT, the more harmful organophosphates continued to be used for decades longer than DDT.