Fake environmentalism

This year, author Colin Beaven released his book “No Impact Man,” a book that involves living in New York City with his wife and infant daughter on the ninth floor of a Greenwich apartment complex and trying to have no impact on the environment.
And what better way to celebrate the idea of “No Impact” than to mass-produce a 300-page book on the topic rather than putting it online, as an e-book, for example? An examination of the book showed no evidence that it was even written on 100 percent recycled paper.

What was Beaven’s actual plan to have no impact? Basically, he unplugged everything in his apartment, didn’t use heat, bought only cloth diapers and used only bikes to commute. But as anyone who has lived on a multilevel apartment complex can attest to, it’s not hard to turn the heat off when you’re on the upper floors, roasting in your downstairs neighbors’ rising heat.

This method of “environmentalism” reveals a fatal flaw in logic even without reading the book. Granted, we could all greatly reduce our impact if we were dead or lived in small communes, Mennonite-style, with no electricity.

But on a planet of over 6 billion, the functionality of that is greatly flawed. This logic also goes against the idea of true progressive thought itself.

Fiction (not including dystopian fiction) has long told us that the future would have hovering cars and higher technologically advanced societies without massive environmental problems. And that future doesn’t have to be a figment of imagination.
But as it stands now, we find ourselves trapped between two diametrically opposed groups.

One: the right wing, which is made up of conservative, often Christian groups who deny human action has any impact at all, seemingly insists that the ooze coming from factories and semis is nothing more than happy smiley rainbows from God to us.
Two: a group of “environmentalists” who, instead of helping to find more efficient uses of energy and more practical manners of conservation, focus on telling you that HDTVs shouldn’t be allowed and that you need to unplug everything and live the Luddite life. Well, minus your iPhone of course; you’ve got to have that. And Internet access.

Neither group is willing to acquiesce that maybe its logic is flawed.

Instead of appreciating that hybrid vehicles are a good start on reducing our fossil fuel consumption, we call them lawnmowers with wheels.

Instead of reiterating the importance of reduce, reuse, and recycle, we buy bottled water by the case.

Instead of supporting and highlighting efforts to make more efficient use of energy, those who oppose conservation suddenly become the greatest defenders of the animals they hunted to near-extinction, claiming that wind power could be detrimental to bird populations after vigorously fighting the Endangered Species Act.

Wind power and solar power have a long way to go before, if ever, they become effective replacements for our current energy system. But in the words of Howard Zinn, “We can’t afford to be neutral on a moving train.”

And working against better environmental policy will be detrimental to us all.