In a recent discussion I was told how bad an environmental president George W. Bush is. I pointed out that he never got any environmental legislation to sign. The reason he never got any environmental legislation is because the environmental movement has not inspired Congress.
I know why the environmental movement failed to inspire Congress. Because environmentalism has a poorly conceived vision of an environmentally sound world and is fraught with dishonesty.
The blog below describes an article I wrote in 1979 pointing out that large cities are the viable environmental vision. Environmentalism has totally ignored the large city vision and settled for a sentimental and melancholy rural vision of an environmental future. Think Ecotopia, the main environmental vision created and published by my good friend Chick Callenbach.
I wrote an article, long ago, showing the data to support three large cities, in a variety of climates and geological settings, no city exceeding Los Angeles in size (acreage), as a sound and logical environmental vision.
Three such cities could be home to all the human beings on the planet, each with the same or greater living space than they have now. The rest of the planet would be an uninhabited park except for the American and Canadian farmland, which could supply everyone with plenty of food.
Such a vision is sound and logical; it would have large parks and efficient transportation and work. What it wouldn’t have is stand alone houses with a backyard or the equivalent.
Nobody would publish my article and the subject has never been broached to my knowledge. My vision (ignoring the governance of such multi-culture cities), is a more coherent environmental vision and could be accepted by a far greater base of the worlds peoples.
At the same time a rational vision has been ignored, the environmental community has thrived on three lies. None of which has been openly discussed among environmentalists. First, population Armageddon, which disappeared as a reality in 1994, when I wrote about it. Second, Global warming, for which the continual increase in contradictory evidence is growing and ignored. Third the Kyoto Treaty which was rejected by the United States because it didn’t include functional emission trading credits which is the only environmental control that has been shown to work.
A wrongheaded, illogical, rural vision of the environment and a pattern of head-in-the-sand public posture is the sure route to movement failure.