Nobody likes to breathe dirty air. Nobody likes to drink toxic water, or swim in a garbage dump. Therefore, we are all, in a certain sense, environmentalists. Most of us even like animals. We like our cats, especially when they purr, and we love our dogs, unless they bite us. So what’s the argument? No sane person is anti-environment.

However, if you scratch a typical environmentalist, even a little bit, you will get someone who is anti-people; not anti-people in a particular sense, but, rather, anti-people in a certain, general sense. After all, every typical environmentalist believes there are too many people in the world. Who the extra people are, remains to be identified.

Fortunately, the Socratic method is available. If we use this method, we will never find out who the extra people are, but we will find out the axioms upon which the environmentalist belief structure is based. All we have to do is ask a few Socratic questions. Soon we will find that the reason there are too many people in the world is simply because there are not enough resources. People consume resources. If they keep consuming and multiplying, and consuming more and more, they will soon use all of our resources, then what?

The clever Socrates, at this point, will ask another question. "What do mean, dear environmentalist, by the assertion that there are not enough resources? What exactly is a resource?" As the questioning progresses, eventually we will discover that a resource is anything useful—oil, water, iron, etc. The fact is, what one considers useful varies. Cro-Magnon man didn’t consider coal to be very useful. Socrates didn’t have much use for gasoline, and Benjamin Franklin didn’t use electricity to run his personal computer. He didn’t have one. Aha! We soon realize that whatever anyone defines as a resource depends upon technological development. Science and progress determine whether or not anything we find in the environment is useful, and, therefore, whether or not it is a "resource."

The clever environmentalist, however, will not give up the fight. "Resources are limited," he will insist. "I have a degree in physics, and I know that the universe is entropic. That means there is only a limited amount of energy in the universe. Therefore, there is only a limited amount of energy on earth. Inevitably, everything in the universe will wind down and die out. If we use up our limited resources, we will all die sooner, rather than later!"

Socrates will not be such a dupe. He will not believe in a science that does not account for the existence of the scientist. If the universe were entropic, it were impossible for life to emerge in it, and it were impossible for cognition to emerge in it. If the clever environmentalist knew anything about the science of Kepler, Gauss, Riemann, Vernadsky, and LaRouche, he would know that the universe is provably anti-entropic. Matter, life, and cognition coexisted from the beginning, and constitute an ongoing, creative principle in the universe.

"But what about global warming? What about the ozone whole? Deforestation? Nuclear power? Overpopulation? Endangered species?" the environmentalist will hysterically insist. Socrates will calmly examine each item on the environmentalist fear list to determine its veracity.

GLOBAL WARMING

It’s a good thing that global warming is real. Without it, life on Earth would cease. Most global warming occurs as a result of natural moisture in the atmosphere, which keeps the heat in. According to environmentalist theory, however, the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which results from the burning of petroleum products, coal, and wood, will increase the temperature. The consequences, so the theory goes, will be dire. Sea levels will rise because of melting ice caps. Forest and farmland will be destroyed. Irrigation systems will be wiped out by increased evaporation, and changes in weather will cause droughts, floods, or worse.

While it may be true that man’s activity has slightly increased the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, such an increase would probably be beneficial. Plants, after all, breathe carbon dioxide, and would appreciate the added carbon dioxide we give them. They give us oxygen in return.

However, due to long-term astronomical cycles, particularly the precession of the equinox, which takes about 26,000 years, Earth is entering into an ice age. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that even a large increase in carbon dioxide would not cause significant global warming. For example, geological evidence shows that 50 million years ago, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were six times what they are today. Temperature, however, was higher by only 1.5° C.

THE OZONE HOLE

According to environmentalist theory, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used primarily in refrigeration lift themselves up into the stratosphere, release chlorine gas, and destroy ozone. Ozone, it is said, protects us from the cancers that would be inflicted upon us by solar radiation. Hence, CFCs should be banned.

Here are the simple facts:

1. CFCs are much heavier than air, and do not lift themselves up.
2. CFCs, if they could lift themselves up, would not destroy ozone, or anything else.
3. There is no proof whatsoever that ozone protects us from cancer.
4. More than 99.9% of chlorine gas occurs naturally, primarily from the evaporation of seawater, and volcanic eruptions.

"But what about the ozone hole?" the environmentalist will ask. "I’ve seen pictures of it! It’s real!"

5. Those pictures were taken over the Antarctic, during the sunless Antarctic winter, when the strongest winds in the world converge on the South Pole, and apparently part the ozone. In the summer, there is no hole! Moreover, the South Pole is in the Southern Hemisphere (duh!), and 90% of the CFCs man uses, he uses in the Northern Hemisphere.

DEFORESTATION

When the first European settlers came to the Midwest, the area was a monotonous grassland created by the burning of forest by Native Americans. The burning took place over centuries in order to expand prairies, and thus, to expand bison herds. The settlers gradually began to plant trees. Soon, large areas of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota grew new forests. After 1920, the United States added an additional 140 million acres of forest, the equivalent of the land area of Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina combined. Billions of additional trees purchased from nurseries have been planted throughout the United States during the last century. All of this was made possible by scientific and technological progress. For example, as the United States developed advanced energy technology, burning wood for fuel was no longer necessary. Also, the mass production of such materials as brick, steel, glass, and cement, decreased the demand for wood.

More recently, a steady increase of forest fires in the United States has made a negative impact. During the year 2000, for example, a record two million acres of National Forest were destroyed by fire. The reason is clear; environmentalists have demanded the halting of forest management, such as the clearing of underbrush, and beneficial timber harvesting. Overly thick, unmanaged forests have created a national hazard.

If one looks south to the Amazon rainforest, the situation is worse. Here, deforestation is alarming. Two of the main causes of deforestation are the practice of slash and burn agriculture, and the use of wood as a primary source of fuel. The solution is simple: introduce modern agricultural techniques, and build nuclear power plants—the safest, cleanest and most efficient source of energy available.

NUCLEAR POWER

Briefly, nuclear power plants works like this: Uranium, a naturally occurring radioactive element is carefully formed into fuel cells, which produce large amounts of heat by virtue of their radioactivity. The fuel cells are placed in "reactor cores" made of steel, with extremely thick walls containing them. A system of water flows, with extensive safety features is built around the reactor core in order to maintain the correct temperatures, and to produce steam. The steam pressure is used to turn a turbine generator that produces large amounts of electricity.

High on the environmentalist fear list is the possibility of a meltdown (i.e., a fuel cell gets too hot, and melts the reactor core) resulting from poor design, human error, or sabotage. In the history of nuclear energy, two meltdowns have occurred. The first was the famous Three Mile Island incident. In this case, the containment walls did their job. No significant radioactivity was released. The second was Chernobyl, which had no containment walls. Today, production designs exist for absolutely meltdown-proof nuclear reactors which use helium instead of water for much greater efficiency.

After a predictable amount of time, nuclear fuel cells weaken and need to be replaced. "What do you do with the waste?" the environmentalist will ask. The best answer is to superheat it with a fusion torch, separate each constituent element, and use it for something else. However, due in part to environmentalist sabotage of research and development, a fusion torch does not yet exist.

We can also reprocess nuclear waste and reuse it. This technology exists, but is unused in the United States due to environmentalist sabotage. The present plan is to safely place the spent fuel in deep geologic storage. "But not in my backyard!" the environmentalist will demand. Good for him! We can put the waste in deep ocean deserts. The entirety of the radioactivity harnessed in the world by man is a very small fraction of the radioactivity that naturally occurs in the ocean. Disposal of all the nuclear waste in the world would be a "drop in the ocean."

OVERPOPULATION

Let’s do the math. Texas has 267,338 square miles, which equals 7.453 trillion square feet. There are approximately 6 billion people on the planet. 7.453 trillion divided by 6 billion equals 1,242.17. Therefore, every man woman and child on this planet could live in Texas and have over 1242 square feet on which to live. If we all live together in families of four, we would have just under 5,000 square feet. If that’s not enough, some of us could move to California.

Now, let’s look at the real world. Let’s look at population density and per capita income for a few select countries.

        PEOPLE PER SQUARE MILE   PER CAPITA INCOME  (1999 estimates)
Germany          596             $27,510
Japan            865              39,640
Netherlands      974              24,000
D.R. Congo        52                 120
Sudan             34                 800
Zimbabwe          76                 540