The Lippard Blog: Environmentalism as Religion

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Environmentalism as Religion

I promise I had not read this article prior to writing this.

4 comments:

Lippard said...: Crichton isn't a reputable source on global warming.

If you're going to deny that there is global warming attributable to human activity, you've got quite a lot of peer-reviewed scientific literature to rebut:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26065-2004Dec25.html; November 23, 2005 at 2:14 PM
Lippard said...: Oh, and you should check out Chris Mooney's review of Crichton's latest book:
http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/crichton/; November 23, 2005 at 2:17 PM
Einzige said...: I just found it an interesting essay, is all.

I'm an agnostic when it comes to global warming.; November 23, 2005 at 2:58 PM
steve said...: Very fascinating article. I just hope people don't interpret Crichton's article as permission to act irresponsibly and let the scientists take care of the mess. There is no doubt that we as humans have the capacity to create positive changes environmentally during our time here and much of it is a matter of making minor adjustments to our lives. Responsibility and a general sense of empathy for the lives of others (including other species) doesn't have to be classified as religion. There will always be backlashes,cynnicsm, and even spite towards those who attempt positive change and though Crichton's article makes a lot of sense, at the same time it seems like he's saying the common joe on the street trying to make some positive change (environmentally) should stay out of it(as if he/she wouldn't know any better) and leave such matters to the guys in the labs. It almost reeks of elitism. As for the future of human-kind, I think we're generally hard-wired to want to survive and persist and it's natural for many people to reach a state of awareness and want to take some kind of action to preserve our future. It's really not a matter of preserving the Earth itself. It's no new tale, whether or not the human race survives in the not-so-distant future, the planet will keep on spinning and new life forms and species will come and go. As I've stated before, on the timeline of our planet's natural history, human-kind's mark is a mere speck. Achieving the same lasting status as the dinosaurs has yet to be seen (and that raises a whole other topic concerning our evolution--what will we evolve to/as if we are around long enough?).; November 30, 2005 at 7:19 PM