The following is the transcript of my troop deployment (i.e. ending rant) from episode 118 of my news podcast The Mind Killer. If you like it, please consider subscribing to the podcast
I care about the environment. I really like having clear air, clean water, and lead-free soil. Climate change sucks, and it’s important for us to collectively do what we can to mitigate it. But the environmental movement is bananas. Drill down into nearly any environmental policy advocated by the Left, and you’ll find it’s more about making sacrifices to the gods rather than creating any real tangible benefit. It’s one of the clearest examples of an entire movement that believes suffering is the unit of caring, and the more you suffer, the more virtuous you are.
Nowhere is the on greater display (other than the irrational hatred of nuclear power) than with bans on plastic bags and straws. Plastic bags and straws are really convenient! Paper straws are terrible and I don’t want to drink my iced coffee through a little spout in the lid. I’m happy to use reusable straws at home, but it’s not practical to constantly be carrying one. Plastic bag bans are even worse. I typically get groceries delivered through Instacart, so I’m now in the absurd situation where every delivery includes 4 or 5 “reusable” bags, which I promptly throw directly into the trash because I already have way more than I will ever need. Study after study confirms that these policies have very little or even sometimes a negative effect on the environment, but nobody cares, because it’s not about that. It’s about suffering for the cause.
This is a huge L for the environmental movement, but a win for transparency, since it makes it entirely clear that the goal of the environmental movement is to make your life worse any way it can that can plausibly be spun as “sacrificing for the environment.” And that if they can’t get their way by convincing people, they’ll get their way by using the power of the state to force you into it.
This trashes the popularity of the environmental movement, which is great because, as we’ve just been discussing, it sucks. The problem is that there’s no alternative movement dedicated to conserving the things that actually matter like our air and water, our soil quality, our natural resources, and our sources of incredible natural beauty.
For those of us who care about the environment, but don’t want to be confused for crazy anti-humanists, I propose we revive the old term “conservationist,” which associates us with the more effective environmental advocates of the 20th century who repaired the ozone layer, made most of our urban rivers swimmable, virtually eliminated smog, and dramatically reduced environmental lead.
Environmentalism has become completely deranged, but we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Conservation is actually quite important, and I hope we don’t forget that.