Once again its Earth Day, when all the environmentalists can scare us with their predictions of doom and gloom. Nevermind the fact that over the last 30 years they have been wrong on virtually all their dire predictions. Perhaps the two worst aspects of the environmental movement are its abandonment of scientific rigor in favor of promoting their public policy agenda, and the anti-human nature of the movement.
Without a doubt, a large component of science is public policy, i.e. deciding how to use acquired knowledge to benefit society as a whole. Because of the high regard in which science and scientific inquiry are held by society, scientists have a special responsibility to maintain intellectual honesty. Unfortunately, when it comes to the environment and global warming, this has not been the case. From mercury in fish, to alar on apples, to clean air, to the biggest of all - global warming, the debate has been in essence closed off; dissent or divergence from the consensus is not tolerated, and is either used as evidence of the malevolence of the doubter or simply dismissed. Michael Crichton gave a speech on this a year ago; so its not new, but still relevant.
The anti-human nature of environmentalism is most evident in the radical environmentalists, yet there are definitely traces of it even in the mainstream. It is characterized by subordinating the needs of humans to the "rights" of animals, insects, and plants. A decent article about that is here.
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