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I'm not. This article is an insult to the name of journalism. The Michigan Daily should be ashamed for even publishing this. Mr. Gaglio clearly hasn't done his research. I cannot believe I wasted my time reading this rubbish!

While I wouldn't characterize environmentalists as "evil," I definitely agree that man's progress is significantly more important than nature's preservation. I like that the green movement has helped us look to alternatives in unnecessary waste (ex: more fuel-efficient cars, reusable grocery bags, etc.), but when it gets to the point where people have to suffer just for nature, like your example about Al Gore, we obviously have to rethink what we're doing. Nature is primarily a tool for us. I'm glad the Daily published this article. Thanks!

What is anti-mankind is the purposeful and constant relegation of certain groups of people to under-class status. What is anti-mankind is the subsidization of agri-business so that it is cheaper to eat a fake hamburger from McDonalds than it is to buy a bunch of apples. What is anti-mankind, further, is the incidence of cardiovascular disease in children as young as nine years old due partially to the aforementioned. What is anti-mankind is that a Shell Oil plant in Peru knowingly poisons Peruvian children with lead so much so that they are accomodated by the establishment of a special school for their very special learning and physical disabilities. Environmentalists are seeking ways to improve humanity by prolonging the current state of the environment (which is indeed horrendous already) - how do you suggest human beings exist without the planet?

Your point of view is so short-sighted and not well thought out. If you want to write a political piece, than write a political piece. Don't however, tout yourself as "pro-mankind" and then adopt a crazy, narrow-minded position that ONLY values the interests of some human beings. Why don't you try doing a little research about what American Oil companies have done to living conditions in different parts of the world - or check out some articles on environmental racism in and around the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Ignorance at its finest. Here's a word of advice: don't write about what you DON'T know about, kid.

My dear young boy, the City of Trees welcomes you with open arms. Hopefully during your stay, our great university and INCREDIBLE community will succeed in not only educating you, but OPENING YOUR MIND and eyes so you can THINK FOR YOURSELF. Your piece sounds exactly like what I'm sure it must be, an article written by a freshman (presumably, an 18 year old) echoing his parents' teachings.

GO GREEN, my friend, and LEARN, LEARN LEARN!!!!

This is the most backwards, uninformed, retarded article I have ever read. Wow. I hope you're not planning on going into journalism becuase you obviously did NOT do any research or have any idea what you're even talking about. This was obviously written by an 18-year-old punk kid.

Steve - I encourage you to research "why we are setting all time cold records." You'll find that "they have to call it 'Climate Change' now" because that is what it is, and has been since the media made "global-warming" a buzz word. The detrement caused to the atmosphere leads to environmental extremes on both ends of the spectrum.

"Enviro-fascist" is quite an interesting character description. Perhaps you should dress as one next Halloween. The attire, I'm sure, would be as foolish as your argument.

Great piece! Environmentalism's anti-man philosophy needs to be exposed and contrasted with the pro-man philosophy of capitalism. The distinction is a matter of life and death.

Thanks!

Our leaders despise mankind? I sincerely hope that was an extreme exaggeration, otherwise I really suggest that you check the definition of "despise" in the dictionary. Besides nobody is saying not to create better technology, or increase living standards. I repeat, environmentalism is not about reducing technology, but further improving it. what is having better goods if you cant even breath the air of the are you live in? And just because you, who are probably living in some nice house in a nice suburb get better goods and better lifestyle, does that mean the condition of humanity is improving if the lower income classes are suffering because all these industrial centers are being built near their home and polluting their air and water? I suggest you look at the reality of what the current human growth has done. We will reach a limiting point if we keep continuing the way we are because for each gain we get, we lose so much more. environmentalism isn't about reducing the gain, its about reducing the loss. as for altering the environment for our own purposes... what? are you saying we are benefiting from the huge loss of topsoil in america, the loss of biodiversity, and the heavy pollution of air? sure we stand to gain from having cities and copious amounts of food, but there is absolutely no need to lose so much. If by chance that you are saying that said loss of topsoil, pollution, loss of biodiversity is good, then I would have to call you a biophobe. You are the hater of our home, this earth that gives humanity the ability to progress as far as we have and give us such satisfaction of being alive. and in doing so, you are the worst of the misanthropes. Thats right, human welfare is the primary goal. But I suggest you understand what human welfare is. is it how many TVs you have, how fast your new car can go? Or is it that you can breath clean air, not having the need to worry about your firstborn's son's asthma, and being able to use the money you would normally have to spend on your energy bills, and using it to get a nice meal in a nice restaurant?

For those who make the bogus claim that the environmental movement is ultimately concerned with making the earth more liveable for mankind, you need to do a better job of listening to the leaders of your movement. They despise mankind, pure and simple. If you look at global living standards, they have improved markedly since the beginning of the industrial revolution, i.e. the advent of modern pollution and "environmental degradation". Of course, the industrial revolution also facilitated man's ability to alter the environment for his own purposes. Gaglio isn't saying that environmental resources should be wasted, he's simply saying that man's welfare should be the primary consideration.

love it!! this was wonderful! great job!

With all due respect, this article simply shows the lack of understanding of the environmental movement as much as the skewing of what it means to be objective. for one, I can't believe someone who is willing to call himself objective would use the words "good" or "evil", both infinitely regressing and self defining terms.
Its true that many of the environmentalists to attribute an intrinsic value to nature. However, stating that environmentalists only care about the environment at the cost of humanity is akin to saying all religious people want to bomb buildings. It is an extreme point of view. most environmentalists share the opinion that the environment is a tool, or asset to man, or at least that man is also a part of nature.

however the environmentalist' thoughts go greater is when you consider the impact of the environment and how we treat it to human lives.
Economically, humans are at a crisis we have never experienced before. in the past, the limiting resources of human growth was simply the human ability to produce. how many factories can we build? how many workers can we get? natural resources on earth was considered unlimited and thus exploited without concern. however, that is not the case. our limiting factor is not how much saws we have to cut trees, but the number of trees left to cut. Its not the amount of fishers we have, but the number of fishes.
secondly, because of this resources management throughout the industrial era has been all but efficient. the incredible amount of wasted and overused energy and resources is taking its toll, but if resource use and energy use can be minimized, it has huge potential savings while having the same results as inefficient resource management. "environmentally friendly" companies such as Interface co. and Google demonstrate this effect.
Also, in the end, is not everything we do to maximize human satisfaction? the whole point of economy, money, government, all for human satisfaction? then who is satisfied by having asthma, breathing heavy polluted air, being unable to swim in their local river, or fish, or being unable to see the stars? Who is satisfied when their child is born with neurological damage because of the mercury and lead outputs of nearby industry? i am personally doing studies on children's blood lead levels around industrial complexes in detroit, and there is a startling correlation between the distances of the children from the complexes.
Environmentalism is not simply "tree hugging". It is a way to maximize human satisfaction, maximize the efficiency of our economy and industry, and maximize our lifestyle, not minimize. It is also social justice. the tar sands industry you speak of, what If I told you that the tar sands industry imports hundreds of foreign workers and keeps them in isolated workers camps not too far off from the style of the old internment camps? Or that its causing so much pollution in the nearby rivers that the native population are unable to continue sustaining themselves as they always have because their meat is contaminated with Arsenic? or that the Asthma rate in Bronx for children is 70%?

I strongly invite you to really look into the objective truth behind what environmentalism is, instead of that ignorant bias you have, when words such as "It seems to me that environmentalism’s ultimate aim is nothing more than the destruction of civilization and the reduction of mankind to a primitive, animal-like state." seems to indicate. President Obama is doing the right thing. He has gotten over the inconvenient truth that the threat to the environment poses to us, that denial that our government was in for so many years. I sincerely hope that you too can get over this.

Dear Daily,

Where the hell do you get these wackjobs?

Good article.

I used to think that environmentalism is a good idea, because I thought that one day we will run out of natural resources.

But that's false. Consider the oil fields in the Middle East. For centuries, the people there hated the sticky, smelly goop coming out from the ground. It was useless and a pain. Then one day, western technology came, and found a use for all this oil. Now everyone loves this oil.

As long as we continue to have advances in science and technology, we will never run out of energy. Want to eat more potato chips? Plant more potatoes. That's what farmers do. Want to consume more paper? Plant more trees. That's what the paper industry does. Want cheaper electricity? Build a nuclear power plant. (Nuclear technology is another energy source shackled by the environmentalists.)

Thank you, Adam.
Your point is very valid, and your logic is made clear. You are right, the environment is important, but man is the owner of this world, and it is our well-being that should be out first motivation in protecting this world's resources. As somebody above pointed out, if we don't care about ourselves and trash the planet, man will suffer and Earth will carry on without a hitch; it always has.
~David M.

What a silly, silly essay. You can't dismiss the ideas of preservation and conservation just by stating (ludicrously) that they are "anti-mankind", merely because they are an inconvenience. The Earth has a limited amount of natural resources and a narrow range of habitability. Doesn't it make sense to not exhaust these natural resources and not to destroy our habitat? Environmentalists don't advocate for the elimination of all technological advances in order to maintain a "pristine" Earth (which is meaningless anyway), they advocate using our knowledge to manage our consumption so that it does not cause excessive harm, and to use our scientific knowledge to produce advances that reduce our environmental footprint while also improving our lives. It seems to me that while you are advocating one objectivist principle (self-interest), you are ignoring others (science, knowledge, and reason).

While I agree with some of what you say, to call it a "silly, silly essay" is IMO inaccurate. The essay simply demonstrates the other, far end of the philosophical spectrum of environmentalism vs. objectivist thinking, and in that sense it's an interesting treatise.

Humans are not separate from nature, they are part of it. We're as "natural" as deer, bunnies, the yew tree, etc. And similar to humans, lots of life forms have and have had a profound impact on the environment. Consider that at one time oxygen was a toxic gas emitted by certain single-celled organisms; the 'poisoning' of the atmosphere with oxygen created a niche that was eventually filled, and so I believe that the earth will survive whatever havoc humans reign down on it. IMO it's ultimate hubris to consider humans above the earth's ecosystem - as a species humans may ultimately poison ourselves out of existence, but the planet will continue nicely without us in whatever form evolution takes it. Just like it has done for millenia.

However, I agree that we should try and be good stewards of the planet, which to me means not deliberately causing massive damage. We can and should use petroleum and other carbon-based energy sources responsibly, and we don't need Obama's thinly-veiled tax grab via carbon to do it. We should have a mix of fossil, nuclear, wind, solar, water/wave, etc., power sources, and not put all of our eggs in one basket. But until we have workable solutions to our energy problems, I think we shouldn't make using and energy source, including fossil fuels, prohibitively expensive just so we can collect more taxes to fund social and other pet programs favored by the left.

"You can't dismiss the ideas of preservation and conservation just by stating (ludicrously) that they are "anti-mankind", merely because they are an inconvenience."

It is quite clear in the article that environmentalism is "anti-mankind" for reasons other than inconvenience. Did you read the article?

Wow! To think that this editorial appeared in the Michigan Daily. Congratulations to Adam for pointing out one of the most dangerous ideologies of our time.

And congratulations to the Michigan Daily for printing it.

Actually, even if there is a danger posed by global warming/climate change in the next century, that danger will disappear by 2020 because of the exponential rate of progress in nanotechnology. Unfortunately, then we'll have more important problems to worry about, even though we will fix the problems we now have in energy, pollution, food production and clean water.

See Howard Bloom's speech at Yale:
http://lifeboat.com/ex/screw.sustainability

And Ray Kurzweil's law of Accelerating Returns:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

Great article, but in Obama's budget outline his cap-and-trade program extorts $650 billion by 2019, not $150 billion.

You must be a freshman.

Why do you say that? Because one couldn't possibly be an upper class man at Michigan without having been tainted by other the students' idiotic, liberal ideas?

No, because one couldn't possibly be an upper class man at Michigan without having been tainted by logic, though I could very well be mistaken.

"Logic," funny...

No. Grad student.

I was referring to the author.

"Make no mistake, I value the environment. I value it as a tool to be used by man to enhance his existence. But frankly, I care more about people than I care about nature."

Amen!

At least a few of us are not sheep at UM.

By the way I volunteer to cut down all the yews if it save one person with cancer. After see what cancer does to people first hand everyday how could some one even debate this.

spot on! dirty air, erratic food supply, numerous cancers and an inhabitable planet in a hundred years is definitely "good for man." glad you sorted this out.

If we ignore the environment, we are asking for an environment that humans can not survive in. Is that not "anti-mankind"?

That was the whole point of the article. Humans aren't making an environment that they can not survive in. It is all alarmist nonsense. It is a bogus excuse used to destroy the free market. Please tell me why we are setting all time cold records if global warming is occurring? Have you noticed that enviro-fascists won't call it global warming anymore because they realize that the Earth is cooling? They have to call it "Climate Change" now.

The "free market"? We're now enjoying the financial benefits of the free market, aren't we.

The author and many of the commenters are obviously too young to remember the situation prior to environmental legislation. A river in Ohio was so polluted that it caught fire on several occasions; large portions of Lake Erie were unfit for swimming; many lakes and rivers were turned into cesspools; the Love Canal; mountains in West Virginia were flattened by mining; the air in some metropolitan areas was becoming unfit to breath. We're still trying to deal with many areas that have been rendered unfit for development because of the prior irresponsible disposition of hazardous materials. Left to its own devices, free of any legislative restraint, the free market would turn the Grand Canyon into a landfill and the Great Lakes into latrines, if it were found to be profitable to do so.

Oh here we go again, with that three trillion dollar "free market" that Bush gave us. Get a clue.

Excellent Article!!!

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