But just as every playbook has a silver lining, there's always a counter point to remind you that mental illness is real and requires infinite patience. Just as ecomyths seem to rise Phoenix style every time they are dismissed, so do old environmentalists. So it was a great pleasure to read the latest missive over on Climate Resistance, once more eviscerating the latest reincarnation of ideological doom and gloom from Paul Ehrlich which Ben encapsulates in his essay Malthus's Zombie.
Can sustainability ever be achieved? What is the greatest barrier to successful implementation of effective strategies and policies? First, we must begin to recognize, acknowledge and finally ignore the willful stupidity still firmly embedded within the heart of environmental ideology. Rather than recycle the alarmist Zombie, we need to recognize that:
- the earth's resources are not limited: technology is advancing more rapidly today than at any other point in human history
- limits do not define the human existence: hope and ingenuity do. Sustainability must be built upon incentives, not censure.
- science and an understanding of the environment are not our primary constraint: politics and political will are
- before governance can be efficient, it must first be effective: zero-carbon is the wrong goal, we should be seeking to provide low-cost, decentralized energy worldwide to liberate people from poverty
- education needs to create divergent thinking and creativity: not conformity, fear and censure.
