| MERCHANTS OF DESPAIR Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism Robert Zubrin New York: Encounter Books, April 2012 |
Rating: 3.0 Fair |
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| ISBN-13 978-1-59403-476-3 | ||||
| ISBN 1-59403-476-1 | 318pp. | HC/BWI | $25.95 | |
Dr. Zubrin asserts in this book that antihumanism and environmentalism are two sides of the same coin. He's wrong about that.
Of course there are those whose extreme demands would, if acceded to, virtually shut down industrial civilization as it exists today. And, if that happened, many millions of people would die of starvation and disease. But there are extreme demands coming from all sides in the long-running dispute over climate change. Getting at the truth of the situation requires moving away from the fringe positions. More than that, it requires of all sides the ability to listen to divergent views and assess them honestly, giving credence to valid evidence while steadfastly rejecting what fails to pass muster.
Treatment of the word "denier" is an example. Many who call themselves skeptical about the mainstream view of climate change insist that the use of this word is meant to link them to holocaust denial. This is incorrect. The word "denier" stands quite well on its own, and it applies to anyone who refuses to recognize the reality of a situation.
Dr. Zubrin does not make this mistake. But he does claim that the American government has for decades pursued a genocidal policy of sterilization directed against poor people in less developed countries (LDCs), and that global warming is the latest pretext for this. I submit that this historical revisionism offends both America and the leadership of the LDCs. The fact that pogroms have occurred in history does not mean America was responsible for them.
Is America blameless? No; but if it was conducting such a program as Dr. Zubrin describes, how is it that countries like Russia and China, North Korea and Iran, and the nations of sub-Saharan Africa, have not been raising hell about it? The simplest answer is that America has never conducted such a program.
History seldom lends itself to simple answers. Yet some would simplify every problem to an extreme, calling any measure to address it a conspiracy by some out group, some "them," against their interests. Lately it seems the same cabal and motive are said to be behind almost every proposal for change: one size fits all; zealots as Procrustes, recapitulating the same shopworn warning ad absurdum. I do not say Zubrin has joined them; but he is enabling them.
Dr. Zubrin has done some good work toward furthering the exploration of space. In particular, the "Mars Direct" plan he developed and still promotes would be an excellent way to explore the Red Planet.
However, I cannot countenance his recently assumed position on climate change — indeed, on environmentalism in general. It seems he has followed the same wrong road taken by geologist Harrison Schmitt, the only professional scientist to visit the Moon.
So, fair warning: I intend to tear this book apart.
But first the good news. This book demonstrates a truly commendable scholarship. It is also extremely well written. The result is an eminently readable polemic of considerable power. Chapters 3 through 7, on the development of eugenics and its relation to Hitler's Third Reich, offer a concise and convincing exposition of the evils that arose during that period. This is a history which was largely new to me. The account is a disturbing one: its import is that radical eugenicists1 were able during most of the twentieth century to forcibly sterilize millions of women in third-world countries, obtaining the support of the leaders of those countries by financial means (by making loans contingent on approval of population-reduction policies.) Zubrin also states that the eugenicists had the support of U.S. government agencies, even including presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Dr. Zubrin is impassioned in his denunciation of these activities, and on the surface he builds a formidable case that they did take place. It would take a great deal of work on my part to rebut his research. He depends chiefly on Matthew Connelly's Fatal Misconception (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010) and Steven W. Mosher's Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits (Transaction Publishers, 2008). There is considerable support for the view that both these authors are zealots, but I reserve judgment on that until I can read their books.2
However, Dr. Zubrin oversteps the bounds of good journalistic practice when discussing Darwinism and, more importantly, in the later chapters. There, he allows his bone-deep hatred for any restrictions on progress to overwhelm his awareness of nuance. Quite simply, the situation is not as clear-cut, nor so dire, as he paints it to be. I will examine the extent of his misunderstanding in the page linked below.
But briefly, here is the crux of the matter. Dr. Zubrin claims that an "antihumanist cult" composed of Darwinists, eugenicists, and environmentalists has since before the start of the twentieth century, using various pretexts, conspired to impose on the poor of all nations (but especially on the underdeveloped world, the non-white populations of the planet) harshly autocratic rules that stifle progress and even threaten the existence of those disadvantaged peoples. He claims further that racism is a large part of the motivation for these measures.
Thus, according to his thesis, concern about the safety of nuclear power plants masks an attempt to restrict the supplies of energy available to the world; concern about pesticides represents an attempt to cull third-world populations by means of limiting food supplies and allowing insect-borne diseases to run rampant; and calls to reduce the rate at which industrial nations add to the atmosphere's burden of carbon dioxide hide a covert quest for tyrannical repression.
"Antihumanism has recently enormously expanded its influence by raising hysteria about global warming. This phenomenon, by lengthening the growing season and increasing rainfall and the availability of atmospheric carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, has actually significantly enhanced the abundance of nature, to the benefit of both agriculture and the wild biosphere alike. Nevertheless, according to antihumanism, punitive measures, especially harmful to the world's poor, are required to suppress mankind's activity and economic growth in order to deal with this putative threat. That antihumanism should propose such global oppression as a response to an improvement in the world's climate should not be surprising, since, as this book will show in horrifying detail, similar vicious antihuman solutions to fictitious problems have been repeatedly advocated and implemented by antihumanism's followers for two centuries—that is, since long before global warming was an issue at all." – Page 2 |
Despite his exaggerated claims and his preference for slanted sources, Dr. Zubrin has compiled a very useful account of the eugenics movement. It should be read carefully, as much to detect the solid information within it as to debunk the dogma. His treatment of genetically modified organisms is also valuable. However, with respect to DDT, malaria, and Silent Spring he veers away from a factual treatment, and when he gets to the subject of climate change, he waves goodbye to objectivity altogether. Again and again he repeats disinformation and cites long-debunked sources in support of it.3 His distress at the prospect of measures to mitigate the effects of climate change drives him to the absurd position that any of them, no matter how mild, is a step toward a worldwide tyranny. Even the accepted fact that a carbon tax will make nuclear power, which he favors, more competitive with fossil fuels cannot overcome his apprehension. So I have mixed feelings about this book. A more balanced treatment of climate change would have gotten a rating of 4 or 4.5; but as it stands I must rate it only midway on the scale, in the fair category. Its chapters on eugenics are worth reading. Skip the rest of it. And it is not a keeper.
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