Iain "Earth Man" Murray Day

I looked around the New York Times website this morning, but it was only after searching the site that I found Andy Revkin's quick blog entry. The Washington Post was reporting on Obama's Earth Day trip to some wind turbine manufacturer. The Boston Globe had a few token links.

Overall, however, its safe to say this day is not reminiscent at all of the surging, emotional environmental day of action of early 1970's. Instead of a fire-works rocket, we are left with a pop-gun dud. Instead of aurora borealis, we get a Windows XP screen saver. I was sort of sad about this...

Then I had the great misfortune of coming across an article by Iain Murray, director of projects and analysis and senior fellow in energy, science and technology at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington.

Ian has determined that Earth Day is not pro-Earth but "anti-human". You can read his infinite wisdom here, but I warn you he argues that banning DDT has been a net negative for the environment. So, there you go.

Iain does manage to make one good point in his otherwise soiled ideological gymnastics. He notes that, "when environmentalists talk about man's impact on the Earth... they always portray [it] as harmful."

On balance, this tendency is unfortunately true. That's probably because, on balance, man's impact on the ecological integrity of the Earth over the past 200 years has been catastrophic.

However, let's consider for a moment that humans do have the capacity to regenerate and nourish the Earth. We can plant trees, farm organically, try to help endangered species breed successfully -- you know, that sort of stuff. We did evolve from the Earth's ecological systems, after all. We can have a positive impact if we try. Let's not forget that. We could, if we massed our will power, turn our whole economic system into a Earth-nourishing enterprise whose joint objectives were to heal the planet and create wealth for humanity (which should be indistinguishable anyway).

I guess Iain must, in his own weird way, be trying to help out in such a cause. Its (very) hard to believe after-all, but he too is the culmination of eons of ecological evolution!

Let's all write Iain today and wish him well in his crusade?

imurray@cei.org

Tell him Rachel Carson sent you -- or something to that effect.