by kevin, on October 19th, 2009
I was very optimistic when starting Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them by Steve Milloy that it would be a worthy challenge to my preconceptions. I was looking for at least a good fight. I was hoping for solid arguments that would force me to question my beliefs. I was well aware of Mr. Milloy and his questionable, and well documented, associations with oil, tobacco, and agribusiness. Associations being a euphemism meaning he’s in their pocket and regularly shills for them.
But the book is so deficient, so filled with venom and hostility, so riddled with gaps in logic, and so amateur that it’s difficult to take it seriously. There are too many flaws to cover here – I’ll dive into them in greater detail in following posts. Mr. Milloy’s literary tactics are time tested and terribly transparent. He pulls all the predictable moves – altered statistics, selective quotes taken out of context, unsupported opinion, bent lines of logic, questionable references (in particular, to his own work), irrelevant examples, unsubstantiated claims, selective comparison, exaggeration, and on and on. But the most pathetic move comes straight out of high school – if I can get more people to agree with me, I win. I don’t know about you, but I stopped using that technique when I left my teens and became an adult. Unfortunately, Mr. Milloy hasn’t figured that out yet.
At first glance it seems relatively well researched and documented. But spend a little time reviewing the references and you’ll see something rather unusual. Mr. Milloy uses his own previous writing to prove many of his points. In case you don’t believe him, maybe you’ll believe his self-reference. After all, he’s the expert. He does this twenty-five times. I can only assume he doesn’t expect anyone to check or call him out on it. Also, it seems like half the examples given are European. The very first words of the book are “move over red, white, and blue – America is going green.” Throughout, the tone suggests we have a problem in America being perpetrated by so called greens that will radically change the country if not stopped. If true, then why so many European examples? Some may be analogous to American circumstances, but that’s a stretch, and an assumption. If Mr. Milloy can’t find enough good American examples to prove his points, couldn’t we question his basic premise? On top of that, there’s no definition for what a green person is, even though every page refers to these undefined green people. You’re left to assume that someone green is anyone who questions the activities, motives, and effects caused by any of his income streams, or anyone who suggests an ideology different than his own.
If big oil has chosen this man to be their voice for an anti-green message, they’ve chosen poorly. Either that or they have a remarkably poor opinion of anyone who is undecided on the subject. If this book is meant as a way to nudge fence-sitters to their side, then it will only work if readers are as lazy as the author presumes. But I suspect the book’s biggest supporters will be those already predisposed to this sort of indolent thinking.
Green Hell is an excellent example of a double denial – there are no negative impacts from rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, and there are no significant consequences from industrialization. I’m less interested in the first denial. I happen to agree that human activity is contributing to increased levels of carbon dioxide thereby impacting global climate. For me, it’s not a question of belief in global warming, it’s whether or not you accept science. More importantly is the second denial. Such a refusal is based on either ignorance and/or lethargy. There’s no question that industrialization has been responsible for spectacular increases in standard of living. But positive improvements don’t give us freedom to ignore consequences. Industrialization has also had negative impact that must be addressed and not ignored.
Reading the book you would think that oil and gas industries are all sunshine and roses – they’ve never done anything wrong, so why shouldn’t we trust them to behave responsibly if allowing them to drill in protected wilderness or along the coastal shelf? Their record is as pristine as the environments they’ve repeatedly spoiled – it would be unfair to regard them with suspicion. They’ve left wealth and prosperity in their wake. Of course I’m being sarcastic. Oil, gas, and coal industries have a long history of planetary disregard. Their indifference to environmental and sociological consequences has kept them embroiled in law suits, paying penalties for misdeeds, and clean up efforts they’ve routinely tried to shirk.
Green Hell is nothing less than an eager defense of gluttony, greed, and sloth. To translate for Mr. Milloy, he wants us all to refuse change and maintain status-quo because doing so requires no effort. And by his juvenile logic, making such an effort must certainly diminish corporate profit, minimize growth, and reduce living standards. That reduced profit and extra effort may stop us from the divine guilty pleasure of gorging ourselves at someone else’s expense. Mr. Milloy and his big oil, big tobacco, and big agribusiness partners profit most if we all remain fat, dumb, and lazy. If they can convince us or scare us into doing nothing, then they win and the rest of us lose. I don’t think they represent the best we can be as Americans. Instead, Mr. Milloy and his friends represent a potential gray hell far worse than any he can imagine the so called greens producing.
Steve Milloy runs two web sites worth looking at – green hell and junk science. I find it good to know what ignorance breeds when enough dirty money is lavished upon it. Both are good examples.
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