I forgive Michael Crichton for the lack of details I criticized in part one. He had an important story to tell, and the color of Peter Evanss walls were irrelevant.
Irrelevant.
That word comes up again and again, but in Crichtons text and in the readers mind. While reading State of Fear, I found myself using that term, boldly, even rudely, in numerous conversations and arguments. So much of what the left says is irrelevant. Totally and utterly irrelevant to the discussion at hand, the issue in general, and, most importantly, to society and the world at large.
Irrelevant.
Even clearer, though, is the relevancy of the dangers leftwing environmental groups pose to the earth and its people. While the Sierra Club, PETA, Greenpeace, Earth First, Earth Liberation Front, Animal Liberation Front portend to defend the environment, they are no different from Osama Bin Laden in their beliefs of mans role on the planet. They want us to live like savages. They oppose freedom, democracy, private ownership of property. They oppose progress of any kind. They seek to return the world some bastardized version of the Dark Ages.
In State of Fear, a Los Angeles lawyer who specializes in radical environmental law learns first hand how and why these organizations operate. Virtually free from the confines of fact, reason, science, morality, and philosophy, they seek to raise billions of dollars in order to destroy the source of those funds: capitalism.
Peter Evans, the lawyer, works with a billionaire philanthropist who supports several environmental groups. But some mishandled money raises questions in the billionaires mind. He works with a noted scientist to get to the bottom of NERF and ELF, only to find they are plotting to kill hundreds of thousands in order to save the planet.
Crichtons scientist-turned-commando, John Kenner, dispenses the truth about the delicate balance of earth. He informs a typical Hollywood type:
- There are over 20,000 glaciers on earth, and science has studied only 79 of them.
- Ice on Antarctica receded for 6,000 years. Then, in about 1970, it started growing again. And its still growing.
- There is no scientific evidence of the kind of global warming the media talk about. Idiotic fear-generators, like The Day After Tomorrow, are based on computer models which are not science; they are mere speculation, like stock-picking or weather predicting.
- Despite all of our technology, our ability to predict the weather in a given place tens days in advance is less than 1% more accurate than it was 80 years ago.
- The great Redwood forest in California is not natural, but man-made. The Indians made it by killing certain animals, destroying certain plants, and setting frequent forest fires over hundreds of years.
- Environmentalists attempting to fix Yellowstone National Park have permanently damaged its ecosystem.
- Even though DDT is safe enough to eat, the UN banned it. The result has been that malaria, which claimed 50,000 lives in the year prior to DDTs ban, now claims several million lives a year.
- Ocean levels have risen for 6,000 years at a constant rate which has not accelerated in the past 100 years.
And there are dozens of other facts, heretical to environmentalist wackos, documented with detailed footnotes to scientific studies that anyone can read or purchase online.
The DDT facts, which we on the right have known about for years, are the most damaging to the environmentalists defense. Clearly, those who pushed the DDT ban knew two facts: a) DDT was not a threat to humans or the environment, and b) its ban would kill millions of people. Thats the result they wanted. Why? Because they dont want third world countries to join the globalizing first world. Most of the developing world has a malaria problem. DDT was stopping it with minimal impact to the rest of the ecosystem. As malaria became little more than a nuisance, these third world countries looked more attractive for investment. When people get good jobs, they tend to vote Republican. And we cant have that.
So we kill them.
With malaria.
Mostly children.
Because liberals want the darkies to stay in the dark ages.
Crichtons book turned out to be excellent. I loved it. I recommend it to anyone, and I hope science teachers encourage their students to read it for extra credit. Let them try to debunk Kenners facts through there own research of scientificnot mediastudies. The ignorant kids who now where Save the Earth buttons will add something to that trite phrase: Shoot an Environmentalist.
Further reading:
State of Fear State of Fear Review, Part One Wikpedia on Radical Environmentalism
Untergeek on Jonah Goldberg on Discover
San Francisco Chronicle on The Day After Tomorrow
And, of course, JunkScience.com