Ron Arnold on Environmentalism and the Wise Use (Anti-environmental) Movement

(Some taken from Arnold's "Wise Use: What Do We Believe?")

 

Environmental Movement Challenges Dominant Western World View

Dominant Western Worldview

Anti-Environmental Movement Accepts Dominant Western World View

Growth not= Betterment

Unlimited growth not sustainable

Unlimited economic growth is possible and beneficial

Traditional growth is good and sustainable

Luddites?

Technological Pessimists?

Appropriate Technology

(Meadows et al. very much infavor of environmentally friendly technolgies)

 

Can technology solve the problems of poverty, starvation, discrimination, crime, species extinction, loss of wilderness, global warming?

Most serious problems can be solved by technology

Technological optimists

Techno-fix mentality?

 Geo-engineering for global warming? Solve global warming by dumping iron particles in to the sea, stimulate algal growth, which take out more atmospheric CO2? Inject sulphur particles into the stratosphere in order to suppress global warming by simulating volcanic eruptions? Solve pollution problems by engineering species that can withstand the pollution?

More skeptical of unregulated market’s consequences

Env. regulations are needed

Free Market Environmentalism?

Environmental and social problems can be mitigated by market economy with some state intervention

Little government regulation of the market

 

 

 

 

 

 

Environmental Paradigm

 

Yes; aim instead for betterment

Growth must be limited

No

Why restrain science? Encourage environmental science (e.g., for restoration).

 

Only env. harmful technologies need to be limited

Environmentally helpful technologies need to be encouraged

Science and technology must be restrained

Don’t believe this

Yes

Nature has finite resources

Don’t believe this:  A resource (not finite) is a natural object (finite) + work (not finite)

Nature knows best?

Human intervention in nature is bad by definition?

Nature has a delicate balance that humans should observe 

Balance of nature is a fiction

Nature is not necessarily good

 

Arnold’s critique of environmentalism:

  • Destroyers of the economy, jobs, and private property (with too much government regulation)
  • Destroyers of material well being (pushing life of simplicity)
  • Destroyers of Industrial Civilization (“Back to the Pleistocene”)
  • Destroyers of individual liberty and rights (favor a totalitarian, eco-authoritarian system)
  • Believe their use of the environment is the only legitimate one (environmentalists have a holier than thou, self-righteous attitude—skiing is better than snowmobiling)