How Environmentalism Has Arrested Development Andrew Olson • The West's Powerful Weapon Against the Third World Winter 2004

When asked to list the most damaging ideologies of the twentieth century—the ones that most severely compromised human rights, economic progress, and innovation—the average American would probably name communism, socialism, fascism, and perhaps post-modernism. But Paul Driessen would make sure to add one more ‘ism’ to this list: environmentalism. In his new book, Eco-Imperialism, he explains that, like other ideologues claiming to have the best interests of humanity at heart, environmentalists have wreaked havoc on mankind in the name of progress.

Driessen depicts throughout his work how the arrogance and affluence of environmental activists in developed nations lead them to advocate policies and practices that ignore the basic material needs of the malnourished, impoverished people of the developing world. These policies prevent the development of energy resources vital to these emerging societies, aggravate efforts to curb crippling diseases such as malaria, exacerbate malnutrition, and inhibit economic growth.

By insisting on sustainable development and tolerating only perfection, activists have brought economic development in much of the world to a standstill. They have repeatedly stymied efforts to build hydroelectric power plants that could have helped millions, instead insisting on inefficient, expensive solar cells. As a result, 70 developing nations in the world have regressed economically, becoming poorer over the past 24 years; in the same time period, the American economy has doubled in real size.

As he sheds light on such corporate irresponsibility, Driessen points out the self-righteousness of the so-called ‘socially and environmentally conscious’ elite. He criticizes the environmentalists’ substitution of drama for truth and reveals the absurdity of rejecting genetically modified foods by placing them in the context of a long history of biotechnological advance. For thousands of years, humans have benefited from selective breeding, a technique used in domesticating plants and animals to make them more useful or productive. People have also used crosspollination between different species to create new products like lemons and grapefruit. Mankind has genetically modified plants and animals since before recorded history; modern techniques simply work faster, more reliably, and more precisely. The modern cosmopolitan should already appreciate the science that makes our standard of living possible, but the popularity of eco-imperialist practices demonstrates the need for such a history lesson.

Driessen refuses to stand for bad science. He criticizes models that claim to predict the future of climate change or food availability by explaining the impossibility of foreseeing the capabilities and technologies of the future. He observes that despite frequent Malthusian assertions of overpopulation and resource depletion, the human race continues on with ample resources for the future. Eco-Imperialism challenges the reader to reevaluate a worldview now too often taken for granted. Yet even as his reader begins to question predictions of overpopulation and mass starvation, a nagging objection insists that the fecundity of the earth must have limits. Thus Driessen’s complete dismissal of doomsday predictions seems reactionarily illogical.

Driessen criticizes environmental activists for having their priorities wrong. His arguments should inspire, at the very least, thoughtful scholarly attempts at refutation. More probably, however, they will lead to disgust with the people who deliver environmentalist abuse from their ivory tower to the developing world. These people decry modern environmental “abuses” in developing nations, but rarely stop long enough to consider the deplorable environmental practices that created the prosperous society they take for granted—practices far worse than anything done today. Nevertheless, these “eco-imperialists” value environmental concerns above everything else: sustained economic development, real social responsibility, even ordinary human lives.

The developed world has the luxury to worry over the environment, but the immediate needs of the rest of the world— food, clean water, electricity, disease control—require action now. Let the environmentalists stress about modern technology, and let everyone else do what they must to survive.

Andrew Olson is a freshman in Branford College.