Climate Doomsaying is a Straw Man

You don’t have to believe the world is going to end in 12 years to care about the environment.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.

Environmental activist groups like “Extinction Rebellion” mean well.

They glue themselves to famous works of art, shut down major roadways — to the fury of late-to-work commuters everywhere — and otherwise attempt to make nuisances of themselves in order to draw attention to their cause.

Their cause, as they believe, is life or death. The stakes are so high, and the cause so just, as to justify morally objectionable, if not illegal, acts. Let’s hope industrial glue and die-ins are as far as these impassioned actors are willing to go.

Like the courageous conservationist heroes of the past, who chained themselves to trees and heavy equipment to forestall logging in the Great Redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest, today’s hardcore members of environmental activism groups are deeply committed.

Many long-time environmentalists wonder if groups like Extinction Rebellion are hurting the cause more than helping it.

You don’t have to believe the world is going to end in 12 years to examine the environmental evidence collected by scientists around the world for decades and give human beings low marks on responsible stewardship of the earth.