On the origins of environmental bullshit

I grew up in the Long Island suburbs of New York and have vivid memories of running behind the “fog trucks”. These trucks went through the neighbourhoods spraying DDT for mosquito control until it was banned in 1972.

Children play in the DDT fog left by the
‘fog truck’ in a New Jersey neighbourhood.

I didn’t know it until much later, but that experience, and exposure, was extended due to the pesticide industry’s lies and tactics – what is now labelled “post-truth”.

Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962. It was a beautifully written, if distressing, bit of what we today call “research translation”. The “silent spring” was the impact of DDT as songbird species were killed off.

Carson tried to expose the chemical industry’s disinformation. For doing so, she was roundly and untruthfully attacked as a communist and an opponent of progress. Silent Spring was one of the most popular and vetted overviews of environmental science of all time. Yet lies and bullshit prevented a decent policy response for a decade.

Read the piece on The Conversation by the Professor of Environmental Politics and Co-Director Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney,  David Schlosberg  -  “On the origins of environmental bullshit.”

Running naked, civil disobedience and climate change

Edmund Burke.

Those who gather Beneath the Wisteria in Shepparton recently discussed the idea of civil disobedience.

The tongue in cheek conversation was about running naked through the city’s Maude St Mall, but all agreed much more could yet be done to draw the public’s attention to the seriousness of climate change before resorting to such tactics.

Dr Jeremy Sammut, a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, discussed civil disobedience in a recent article Melbourne Age headed: “Coal hoax fails to dig deep without a martyr to the cause”.

A “kicker headline” on the story said: “Protesters need to face legal consequences to sway public opinion”.

Alerting us to this story, supporter Terry Court said: “I wonder who the gutless ones in this argument are. Nevertheless I have to do more”.

Terry’s sentiment is understandable, but the forces ranged against accepting the realities and implications of climate change are driven by massive self-interest and so those of us who gather Beneath the Wisteria need to remember the observation of Edmund Burke.

The 18^th century statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher once said in an almost prescient manner: “No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little”.

Those of us who regularly gather Beneath the Wisteria are really doing only a little, but at least we are doing something!