Are Environmentalists Bad for the Environment?

At the end of a hot summer, environmentalists are once again debating global warming. They proclaim that man-made global warming is a fact. Like medieval popes, they threaten excommunication and banishment to any heretic that crosses their world point of view. In the 16th century, over a thousand years of study of celestial bodies had led to the scientific consensus that the earth was the center of the universe and the sun went around the earth. In fact, anyone with any intelligence could see this was true. When Copernicus proposed that the the earth went around the sun, Pope Clement VII had no choice but to threaten him with excommunication. Copernicus recanted under the pressure and the world lived under this misperception for hundreds more years but at least the scientific consensus was unanimous. Today, Heidi Cohen of the Weather Channel, calls for the revocation of meteorologist credentials for anyone disagreeing with the theory of man-made global warming. Over 400 years after Clement's declaration, Pope John Paul I declared that Copernicus may have had a point. Ya think?! Do we need to wait 400 years to question the veracity of environmentalist dogma and ask if environmentalists might even be bad for the environment. Here are the facts.

Scientists tell us that the earth has gone through ice ages where the average surface temperature was possibly a hundred of degrees lower. According to the experts that helped Al Gore make his award-winning movie, man's activities could raise global temperatures as much as 0.07 degrees. Man-made emission of green-house gases has steadily increased over the last century but global temperatures have not. Global temperatures in 1900 were much warmer bottoming the the 1970s when scientists predicted we were entering a new ice age. Natural sources of green-houses gases, such as volcanoes, can emit century's worth of pollution in mere months. The admonishment to "Go green" is a bit like saying "Don't spit in hurricanes" for fear that it might increase flooding.

Medieval papal abuses and hypocrisy did great harm to the medieval church. This led Martin Luther and others to question if the pope even knew what he was talking about. Today, Al Gore preaches conservation for every one else while he spews tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from his private jets. The garbage created by his concerts to bring awareness to global warming (as if not everyone knows already) will last centuries longer in anaerobic landfills than the radioactivity of spent fuel rods from your local nuclear plant. Environmentalists have done great damage to the environment over time. They declared that coal burning was bad. We put in scrubbers and built hydroelectric plants. But the scrubbers have highly toxic chemicals, such as palladium, which we have to encase in cement to dispose. And, now they have decided the carbon dioxide is given off warms the environment. The hydroelectric plants kill fish so we need to use more wind power. But wait, that kills birds. Let's use less energy by driving hybrid cars and using fluorescent light bulbs. But electric batteries are high in cadmium and the energy needed to produce hybrids far exceeds the energy the car will ever save in its life time and the fluorescent bulbs contain high levels of mercury. I can just hear the whining now when they start polluting the landfills. Do these guys even know what they are talking about?

So I ask, are environmentalists bad for the environment?