"...the people are fucked."
So said the ever-brilliant George Carlin, right around the time the environmentalist movement was taking off. George was cursed with seeing the big picture. As the man continued to say, "We're so self-important. Everybody's gotta save something now... And the greatest arrogance of all; Save the Planet."
People know instinctively that the Earth is going to be fine, which is why they can brush us off as a bunch of tree-hugging hippies. If the environmentalist movement is ever going to be taken seriously and achieve its goals, it must tailor its message appropriately.
Nearly everybody in the movement is guilty of this brand of overstatement, even the patron saint, Al Gore.
"Our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill, and I know it's a challenge to the moral imagination."
This is, in fact, pure nonsense. It sounds shrill because it is. What's worse, Al Gore knows its nonsense. He's a bright guy, and he knows that the planet is not going through an emergency. This is not to say that climate change is not very real, or that it is not caused by humans, or even that we shouldn't change our ways. What I am saying is that Al Gore is engaging in a big lie. He, along with the environmentalist movement, think that their cause is so important, so life threatening, that they are justified in overstating their case and that the situation is so dire that overstatement is necessary to spur the populace into action. They are really shooting themselves in the foot.
What happens to any other successful species if they have no natural predators, and no competition for food? They thrive, that's what. In fact, they become so successful that they overrun their habitat. Then food becomes scarce, disease starts running rampant, and there's a painful contraction of the species. If there's nothing else to put a species in check, the Earth does it.
We are that super-successful species and our case is no different than any other animal that got too big for its own good. If we hadn't split off from our common ancestor with chimps, and the house cat had developed opposable thumbs, big brains, and walked on their hind legs instead, I promise you they would have invented the internal combustion engine. They certainly would have fished tuna to extinction. Then they would be having the same problems we are.
The environmentalist movement needs to stop using the rhetoric of Al Gore, and use the rhetoric of Bill Watterson, at least in spirit.
That's the attitude we should be taking. We need to make people understand that the Earth is going to eradicate us if we don't change our ways, as we do the excess deer population. The good news is we are the only species on Earth that can put ourselves in check voluntarily.
But, if we are to get back in check, we have to fight our natural instincts to do it. The change won't be easy, especially if we keep focusing on the wrong thing that needs saving here.
Because I have news for you. Nobody really gives a fuck about the polar bear. Say to the average person, "Imagine a world without polar bears," and they don't have to imagine too hard, unless they're an Eskimo. Most people's world doesn't involve polar bears except in an abstract, Coca-cola, trip to the zoo kind of way. However, if you say "The polar bear is going extinct because of our actions, and if we don't straighten up and fly right, we're next," that might get their attention.
Because there is no more powerful instinct in any organism than that of self-preservation. We're no different. Environmentalists won't get anywhere with people by appealing to the angels of their better nature, and they won't get anywhere exaggerating the threat. But tell people that they are in danger, and that we will go the way of the dodo, and that might get them to change their habits. This maxim goes for everything on the green platform, from rainforest destruction to plastic bag usage.
If there's anything the Bush administration taught us, it's that alarmism and fearmongering are dangerous and, given enough time, ineffectual. It's no more attractive of effective on the left than it is on the right. However, there's a saying about good intentions. The human race will be walking the road paved with them if they don't make their rhetoric more immediate, logical, and realistic. They need less of the perspective of Al Gore, and more of George Carlin.