Quote Of The Day: Green God Edition

Whether it's adopted the trappings of religion or not, my biggest beef with environmentalism is how comfortably irrational it is. It touts ritual over reality, symbolism over substance, while claiming to be so much more rational and scientific than those silly sky-God worshipers and deranged oil addicts.
-- Jonah Greenburg

Jonah Goldburg's LAT column today, The Church of Green, is spot-on and full of quotable material for use in your next verbal joust with a hard-core Greenie.

At the core of the column is the simple truth that one can be a conservationist without being an environmentalist, and that the world would be a better place with fewer of the latter and more of the former.

Conservation, which shares roots and meaning with conservatism, stands athwart this mass hysteria. Yes, conservationism can have a religious element to it as well, but that element stems from the biblical injunction to be a good steward of the Earth, rather than a worshiper of it. But stewardship involves economics, not mysticism.

Economics is the study of choosing between competing goods. Environmentalists view economics as the enemy because cost-benefit analysis is thoroughly unromantic. [Bjorn] Lomborg is a heretic because he treats natural-world challenges like economic ones, seeking to spend money where it will maximize good, not just good feelings among environmentalists.

Many self-described environmentalists are in fact conservationists. But the environmental movement wins battles by blurring this distinction, arguing that all lovers of nature must follow their lead. At the same time, many people open to conservationist arguments, like hunters, are turned off by even reasonable efforts because they do not want to give aid and comfort to "wackos."

The environmentalists may be winning, Goldburg says, but there's still time to save the environment from the environmentalists.

Do give him a read.