Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (2003–2010): Season 1, Episode 13 - Environmental Hysteria - full transcript
Penn and Teller look at some of the more extreme claims of the various environmental organizations.
1971 the first official Earth
Day celebration
on the unicycle here.
This is
Penn jillette.
And this is his partner Colin
Motion.
And that
was bullshit
now.
It's 2003 and this is Penn
jillette and this is his
partner Teller and this
is bullshit.
This may look like 1971 but
actually it's today
once again.
People are taking to the
streets and protesting what
they say is a Global
Environmental catastrophe.
What could be more fulfilling
than getting together to dance
yell and save the world from
environmental catastrophe but
is it the same catastrophe as
1970?
Is it a different catastrophe
or is it the same catastrophe
only now, it's really a
catastrophe.
Whereas 32 years ago.
I really wasn't that bad.
I can't ask for me.
Even though at the time they
said it was you know,
it can get confusing this
environmental hysteria, but
one thing is clear.
There's
some bullshit.
Here
here in Washington DC on a
beautiful day with the trees
and flowers blooming and not a
cloud in the clear blue sky and
environmental March will
proclaim the Earth to be a
cesspool of pollution and Decay
and one of the main groups
participating is the
rainforest Action Network.
We asked the group to hook us
up with someone we could spend
the day with a knowledgeable
representative of there.
They introduced us to this
woman.
I think we're at a period of
environmental crisis around
the world, but that we have
the power to change it.
I'm Kate low a global Justice
activist.
Kate is an organizer for the
rainforest Action Network.
We need to get the message out
clean your act.
We need to be concerned because
we're all interconnected.
We need to be concerned because
we want the planet to survive
for our children and our
grandchildren.
Jade is Young passionate.
Means well,
but she's also a little
alarmist and naive and she's
not alone right now.
We're facing a global
ecological crisis.
We do not know if we're going
to be able to have our forest
left in 50 years.
We don't know if we're going to
have enough water for the
planet as global warming
increases.
It's definitely going to cause
some of the polar ice caps to
start melting,
you know, in 50 years.
We might not have Florida
because the ocean levels
Rising I've been really afraid
like there's an issue that
keeps me awake at night.
It's global warming.
Where do these well-intentioned
young people get ideas like
these from role models who
should know better.
I think a lot of people don't
acknowledge this problem
because it's overwhelming.
It's really scary.
I'm Ross Gelbspan, and I'm an
environmental journalist.
There's no debate that the
Glaciers are melting that the
oceans are warming up that
species are going extinct that
forests are dying.
There's no debate about that
stuff.
No debate about these stuff?
Bullshit!
There always has to be debate.
Basically, they are using
sensation.
Misinformation and scare
tactics, I'm Patrick Moore an
ecologist and lifelong
environmentalist.
The environmental movement was
basically hijacked by
political and social activists
who came in and very cleverly
learned how to use green
rhetoric or green language
to cloak agendas that actually
had more to do with anti
corporatism anti-globalization
anti-business and very little
to do with science or ecology
and that's when I left and what
did he leave the Greenpeace
organization?
Yeah,
Patrick Moore is he's a founder
and former president of the
granddaddy of all
environmental groups.
I realized that the movement I
had started was being taken
over by politico's basically
and that they were using it
for fundraising purposes.
In fact, if you listen to the
protesters you start to wonder
are they really for the
environment or they just
against anything to do with
capitalism?
What is creating Global Warming
is preparations and the
institution their bottom line
is how much money is in the
bank at the end of the day
Isn't the definition of bottom
line on money at the end of
the day?
For the rest of us the bottom
line is: do we have air to
breathe?
Do we have water to drink are
there still for us on our
planet?
I know the answer is yes.
Yes, and yes,
it's important to note that if
you're Pro Socialism or anti
globalism or anti Corporation.
Those are all I'll find
debatable ideas,
but couching them
environmentalism is bullshit.
Just say what you mean don't
say corporations are bad
because the water is worse
today because the water isn't
worse today.
We're not going to say there
are no good Arguments for
socialism, but the environment
ain't one of them.
We're to participate in
action to quarantine corporate
greed.
Most of the environmental
movement is composed of white
upper middle class people
who are
I think incorrectly telling
people in the rest of the
world what to do where people
don't live in nice houses and
don't have good drinking water
and good health standards.
I think the environmental
movement is basically elitist.
We came down to see the
Washington Monument.
We've been here for two days
now.
I think some of them are here
that don't know what they're
here for.
I really do.
I think there are people that
they've just gathered together
and I don't really think that a
lot of them know that they're
here
they're here for drumming and
dancing.
There's nothing wrong with
drumming and dancing but maybe
drumming and dancing and
studying the scientific data
will be more effective.
I know that the data
that every year it has gotten
increasingly
warmer
Across the entire world and I
think that's definitely
a trend that
that is substantiated by
by data
like ozone depletion
is a big thing
has
very powerful.
You know, it's a little bit
warmer out right now.
It's kind of a nice thing.
Actually.
I mean, I got to sit out in the
sun on in October and get a tan.
Our big question here is why
our cameraman was on this side.
Anyway, the idea that these
folks didn't really know what
they were protesting was a bit
disturbing
the check this possibility.
We sent one of our Pals Chris
McGaha
to a rally to collect
signatures for a petition.
She's going to ask people to
sign a petition Banning
dihydrogen
monoxide.
That's di
hydrogen.
Monoxide
water that's right water
and she's not going to lie or
even stretch the truth.
Not at all.
She's just going to talk about
what water is and what it does
with vocabulary and tone of
environmental hysteria.
This is a petition for
dihydrogen monoxide.
What it is is it's a chemical
that is found now in
reservoirs and lakes
pesticides to be kind of
companies are using this
styrofoam companies nuclear
nuclear companies.
And now when they using
pesticides when we're watching
our fruit and things like that,
it's not coming out which of
course means that it's end up
in the grocery stores and then
our baby's food and stuff like
that
causes excessive sweating
excessive urination anything
to help the environment. These
people signed.
We don't know if they thought
but they sign there we are.
Meanwhile, let's go back to
Kate.
Once again.
She's the hand-picked
representative from the
rainforest Action Network
surely.
She's hip to the real data on
global warming.
or at least their official
stance how big a threat to the
Earth is global warming?
Global warming or global global
chat climate
hard to say global warming is a
big fat to the planet increases
temperatures.
It makes
some species
it.
So how big is global warming?
Let's start over Okay.
So the spokesperson for the
rainforest Action Network is
not much of an expert on
global warming,
but who is? No one can agree on
what causes global warming or
even how bad it is?
There are some that say it is
not happening at all.
If the science is that
inconclusive
if it's possible that the
weather changes in the world
are a natural process and what
the fuck is all the hysteria
about.
We're living in an increasingly
narrow margin of stability and
the evidence is all around us
journalist Ross kelp span is
an influential
environmentalist author and
lecturer.
He likes to present an alarming
view of our Earth's future.
In fact, he seems to get off on
it.
Even if these students don't
the climate change Is
Happening Here and Now
In the year 2002 we've seen a
thousand people die of heat
waves in India and after us
and drought conditions, we've
lost something like six
million acres in the western
Us in Northern Canada to
forest fires.
We've seen this catastrophic
floods in
Germany and Russia and the
Czech Republic.
If you read any paper, you can
read a lot of stories about
environmental disaster, but
what you have to understand is
bad news sells
on Bjorn lomborg.
I'm a skeptical
environmentalist.
Bjorn lomborg is Public Enemy
Number One among
environmentalists.
His book The skeptical
environmentalist pissed them
off more than the sight of a
Ford Excursion caring only one
person.
It's important to get the
record straight.
What I've done here is really
I've tried to look at the data
that we've taken for granted
and say everything is going
downhill and looked at it and
said is this actually true
it turns out no, it's not
if our understanding is based
on myths.
We're likely to make bad
judgments. Lomborg's
Extensive research shows that
right now the health of the
planet is improving on almost
all fronts
and in areas where it's not
getting better.
It's getting worse at a much
slower rate than in years past.
So this guy looked at the same
data and killed with the
opposite conclusion
and that's not the end of
Bjorn's heresy.
He's raised the ire of his
critics because he doesn't
believe in just throwing money
at environmental problems.
A lot of the environmentalist
will tell us.
Yeah.
If this is a good cost we
should do it.
It shouldn't Matter how much it
cost. Using a cost-benefit
analysis is somehow immoral,
it somehow put a price tag on
life, and a price tag on
those things seems immoral.
I can certainly understand that
emotional response because I
feel exactly the same
emotional response.
But my argument is to say the
danger of the Doomsday waiting
around the corner
is that we end up prioritizing
it incorrectly.
But if you even suggest a
lowering of the volume makes
the environmentalist even more
hysterical. The question in
action will be unbearable. You
are talking about
crop failures.
You're talking about industry
shutting down
you're talking about lots of
unemployment unchecked global
warming will bankrupt the
global economy by 2065.
Where did Ross get that data?
How did he choose that date?
I'll tell you how this asshole
should be dead by then.
And won't have to own up and
that respect.
He's a lot smarter than the
people who in 1970s and we'd
all be in Hell by two thousand
a lot of them still alive and,
ho ho,
if they were still famous.
We could point and laugh
we need to get the debate back
to level where we say.
This is a good idea.
This might be a little better.
This is certainly not
worthwhile doing right now.
This is a very important issue
that we can discuss this in a
fairly level-headed matter.
That's the only way
That we ensure that we get a
correct or good prioritization
and democratic debate. A
serious level headed debate.
Okay, Ross.
Give us your worst.
First of all from what we know
in recent history 16 to 17
hottest years on record have
happened since 1980
the five hottest consecutive
years were 91 through 95.
1998 is the hottest year on
record.
That's it.
We're through the peak
1998 was a few years ago.
Does that mean we're now
heading into an ice age?
Should we run our SUVs Full
Throttle Round the Clock to
stop this horrible cooling Trend
if we plot
temperature patterns of the
last hundred years observe
surface temperature records
that we're all in agreement
about put them on a graph
and draw a trend line.
We all know what's going to
happen with global in the next
hundred years.
I'm Jared Taylor and I'm the
director of natural resource
studies.
He's with a Cato Institute a
Libertarian think tank in
Washington DC.
The warming will be relatively
moderate about 2/3 degrees.
higher over the next hundred
years.
It seems relatively manageable
given the fact we've had a one
degree Fahrenheit rise in
temperature in the last
hundred years and we've seen
the greatest increase in the
standards of living and
economic productivity of the
history of mankind and we've
also seen environmental
improvements all during that
time.
Well global warming is not
going to kill off Humanity.
It is certainly going to break
apart a global economy.
It's going to break apart a
coherent political system and
it's really going to pit
people against each other and
put us much more in a
Survival mode and it's really a
big step backward toward the
caveman era, you know, he may
have something there; Teller
gets grumpy when it's hot out.
If we don't do anything.
We're going to see a
breakdown of infrastructures.
We're going to see
interruptions in the food
supply.
We're going to see big
increases in infectious diseases
with a deterioration of
resources to deal with those
diseases.
I mean, it's a really ugly
regressive kind of a prospect
that we're facing. Again and
again and again, you see
environmentalists making
predictions that hold up about
as well as Jean Dixon's
predictions in the National
Enquirer in the mid 70s.
We were told the pollution was
going to cause a new Ice Age
because we had seen Trends
towards cooler air.
It turns out that was wrong and
many of the very same
scientists who argued that an
ice age was coming because of
industrial pollution then
shifted gears and argue that
no industrial pollution will
bring on a greenhouse warming
world with virtually no breath
in between. The hypothesis
that a warmer world will lead
to more extreme weather events.
Is being cast into doubt by the
last hundred years where it's
not a current
the big point is that science
changes as we gather more data,
we advance our ideas and our
theories.
It's okay.
The environmental movement is
gone from global cooling the
global warming, but they must
remember that we're still
gathering information.
We're not sure.
Yet
meanwhile back of the rallies.
They were hot and heavy on
global warming then
Well just about anything else
they could yell about
thank you very much
and our petition woman was
getting signatures left and
right.
Okay mostly left, but
There's a lot of people against
that evil water.
It's everywhere and we just
really need to ban it to more
supporters.
These passionate inform people
didn't even need to ask what
the hydrogen monoxide is.
They didn't even ask
is Passion supposed to replace
Common Sense.
We understand the desire to
join up and do something
important.
It's sexy to save the world, but
it got to spend a couple of
minutes to find out if you're
really saving the world and
not just being herded around
by some politically-motivated
assholes who may not really
care that much about the
environment.
But see this is some chance to
raise money for ever.
They think is a good idea.
No end justifies the means of
lying
because man, there were a lot
of people who signed the
petition and we're not talking
a handful of thoses.
We're talking hundreds
a lot of urination
vomiting
I will sign
Okay,
even the head organizer of this
rally signed the petition
eagerly.
Thank you very much.
Meanwhile, the hysteria
continued. It is critical to
the planet that we have our
forests intact.
We're actually gotten to the
point where we have less than
20% of our old growth forest
left globally.
Nobody's going to listen to you.
If you say the world is not
going to come to an end.
But if you say that the world
is coming to an end you get
headlines
and so sensationalism,
especially when it's combined
with misinformation leads to a
situation where people send
gobs of money to these groups
for campaigns that are
actually totally misguided.
We could face a situation where
our children have to go to
museum to see what an old
growth forest.
Looks like.
She's quoting Joni Mitchell's
ancient Big Yellow Taxi,
Just talked to the spokesperson
for the rainforest Action
Network about something
specific to the rainforests.
Are there any logging methods
that don't hurt the environment?
You know,
I'm not an expert on logging.
I know that the lugging methods
that I'm here in the streets
today that I work on in my life
destroy the environment and
destroy people's lives.
I know.
Okay.
Well maybe spokesperson Kate is
not much of an expert on
logging either.
So for answers, we went to one
of the leading Authorities on
trees.
Yes, indeed ladies and
gentlemen, I am a tree hugger.
I'm Julia Butterfly Hill.
I'm a person who cares
passionately about life and
I'm willing to do Something
about it in December 1997.
Julia made International
headlines when she climbed in
a redwood and lived there for
two years straight in an
effort to save the tree from
being cut down by a Logging
company.
I climbed up in the worst
winter in recorded history of
California.
El Nino of 97 90, mile-an-hour
wind sleet and hail and rain
and snow every day.
I climbed up into an active
logging plan.
So I had to Bear witness to the
devastation of a forest that I
know we Can't replace
I'm not against somebody living
in a tree
to bring attention to that
particular tree.
I mean it was a very old tree
and in the end it was
protected so she won and that
was good.
But on the other hand, there's
a tendency among environmental
groups
to resort to emotionalism kind
of 100% I didn't climb into
the tree expecting nature to
communicate but the longer I
stayed there the more I
realized nature was
communicating with me when
they were cutting
Down trees all around the tree.
I was in the tree started
pouring sat
and I realized that that was
the tree communicating its
breath
to talk about how the tree is
alive and has feelings and it
hurts it when you cut it down
and that sort of stuff.
That's pretty well kindergarten
talk.
I mean it's not true trees are
plants like carrots and
cabbages, but it's tough to
give money to protect carrots
even tougher has been two
years living in one
Nice tree
I would never take something
from life that I don't need
and I think that's our biggest
challenge as people
is
we are destroying what we need
for what we want.
We're addicted to our desires
without paying attention to
the responsibility of our
choices.
So I wouldn't cut down a tree
for paper because I think it's
a stupid waste of a gift of a
resource
She hates paper?
She'd rather have every single
tree of a medical textbook or
a Picasso painting.
You know the action they are
taking is turning incredible
magnificent trees like this
one into clear Cuts so that
somebody can have Decker siding
or a treehouse.
Where does she think her Lumber
came from? The campaign against
forestry is a classic case of
absolutely and totally
misleading the general public.
It's true that we are losing
forest in the Tropics of this
world, but it's not because of
logging companies.
It's because of of poor people
millions of them who are
trying to make a living and
grow some food for their
families.
The fact is in North America.
They're still as much Forest as
there was a hundred years ago.
And the reason there's so much
Forest is because we use wood
because we cut trees down to
make our houses,
but the environmental groups
have got people thinking that
when you go into a lumber yard
and by would you're causing the
force to be destroyed when in
fact what you're doing is
ordering new trees to be
planted.
It is something we have to do
in order to feed and house.
The six billion people on this
Earth.
Meanwhile, the thousands of
people the rally were really
Cutting Loose up in Portland,
Oregon primate Center they are
actually selling monkeys. We
want to offer a solution,
solutionism.
We can oppress people can press
animals and cut down
rainforests.
We do anything we want for
money.
Hi Lisa,
and our petition was still
getting signatures
companies, like pesticide
company styrofoam companies
nuclear companies all of these
people use it.
Finally we let her tip it. Are
you concerned about water?
I am
Is water something that
should be banned?
what sort of wattage? Water.
Should be banned?
Yes.
No, I don't think so.
I think we need to drink water
and
I don't know what you mean by
water should be banned.
This
petition is to ban water
Hydrogen monoxide is water
H20
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay,
we set these folks up but it
does show that maybe they're
not so much environmentalists
as they are joiners
of anything.
One of the reasons people like
environmentalism is that for
years and years and years.
They've been guilt-tripped for
having a car for having a big
house for having things like
that
I think that's what
environmentalism really is
today.
It's a way for people to get
rid of guilt feelings.
They have about the way they
live.
If everything's fine,
why is there a global corporate
anti-corporate movement saying
enough is enough you're
destroying the planet? And it
drives me even further crazy
to have them say they're
against globalization when
their main tools of trade are
cell phones and the internet
it just makes no sense at all
to be
against science and technology
and then to use It's
technology whether it's jet
planes to get to International
environmental meetings or cell
phones or laptop computers you
are part of globalization.
So, how can you be against it?
Let's check back in with Kate.
Remember?
She's a prominent member and
chosen spokesperson for the
rainforest Action Network.
Maybe she can clarify another
argument of environmentalist
species Extinction Kate.
I think something like the
Smithsonian Institute says
we're losing 300 species every
day, I think.
Something to be concerned about
and and logging is a direct
part of that.
Why should the average American
be concerned about whether
plant and animal species
become extinct.
We keep saying that Kate is the
chosen spokesperson for the
rainforest Action Network
because if we don't keep
saying that it seems like
we're just picking on somebody
she's not some poor little girl.
She's a woman and she's the
woman they chose to represent
them sure, we're a piddly
stupid crap show.
So
maybe they said in the junior
varsity speaker, but has no
one ever asked any of these
very basic questions that we
asked?
has she never asked these
goddamn basic questions of the
group that she so fervently
supports.
Let's hear from another
alarmist on species Extinction
frankly.
It looks like we're on a crash
course towards massive species
extinctions in the next 20
years.
I'm Nina feste own vice
president of species
conservation with Defenders of
wildlife.
We could lose 1/5 or 20% of our
species within the next two
decades.
That's a very short amount of
time.
Well Greenpeace and the World
Wildlife Fund actually try to
convince us that 50,000
species are going extinct
every year in this world when
there isn't one shred of
evidence for that.
We're talking about the full
gamut of species plant and
animal and within animal
amphibians reptiles birds and
mammals
nothing.
Is safe when it loses when it's
a result of habitat loss and
they say the main cause is
logging.
Of course, they love to blame
logging for just about
everything bad in the world,
but it's absolutely
Preposterous.
There is no evidence of 50,000
species going extinct the best
science tells us that less than
1% of the species in this world
will go extinct in the next
hundred years.
So what about this?
It's difficult to pin down hard
numbers on this ha ha
on this issue, but it's
important.
to point out that
if you're on a ship heading
toward an iceberg, you don't
wait until you have the exact
measurements of the iceberg
before you put on the brakes
and you have to try to not
become obsessed with that
great fictitious white whale
people care about species more
now than they used
to
so therefore when species go
towards the brink of
Extinction, we generally put a
program in place to help them.
That's a good thing.
But to scare people into
thinking that half the world's
species are going to die off in
the next 50 years is absolutely
irresponsible.
There's really no need anymore
to spread guilt and fear about
the environment.
The solution side is to try and
figure out how to do things
better
not to have campaigns against
everything in the world.
But rather to have campaigns in
which you are shifting from the
way you did things before into
doing things in a new way that
still provide the goods and
services we need but do so at
less cost to the environment.
Of course, there are
real problems with Environment
and it's a natural thing to
want to save the world to be
the hero to purge the
corruption to lead the
Revolution
and revolutions are essential
Revolution gave us freedom
Revolution gave a science
without Revolution.
We shrivel
we die.
But when we feel that sexy
instinct to save the world
were especially vulnerable
if we don't stop and do our
homework, we can waste our
noblest instincts on bullshit.
It's easy to feel like a hero.
It's a little harder to be one.
Do you feel that
each person has a an individual
personal responsibility?
I do. Do you do you do that
yourself?
I myself I don't.
So our day with Kate has come
to a close.
We've marched alongside these
joiners and we've seen their
commitment, but what's behind
it all let's ask the
spokesperson for the
rainforest Action Network Kate.
Wow.
Day celebration
on the unicycle here.
This is
Penn jillette.
And this is his partner Colin
Motion.
And that
was bullshit
now.
It's 2003 and this is Penn
jillette and this is his
partner Teller and this
is bullshit.
This may look like 1971 but
actually it's today
once again.
People are taking to the
streets and protesting what
they say is a Global
Environmental catastrophe.
What could be more fulfilling
than getting together to dance
yell and save the world from
environmental catastrophe but
is it the same catastrophe as
1970?
Is it a different catastrophe
or is it the same catastrophe
only now, it's really a
catastrophe.
Whereas 32 years ago.
I really wasn't that bad.
I can't ask for me.
Even though at the time they
said it was you know,
it can get confusing this
environmental hysteria, but
one thing is clear.
There's
some bullshit.
Here
here in Washington DC on a
beautiful day with the trees
and flowers blooming and not a
cloud in the clear blue sky and
environmental March will
proclaim the Earth to be a
cesspool of pollution and Decay
and one of the main groups
participating is the
rainforest Action Network.
We asked the group to hook us
up with someone we could spend
the day with a knowledgeable
representative of there.
They introduced us to this
woman.
I think we're at a period of
environmental crisis around
the world, but that we have
the power to change it.
I'm Kate low a global Justice
activist.
Kate is an organizer for the
rainforest Action Network.
We need to get the message out
clean your act.
We need to be concerned because
we're all interconnected.
We need to be concerned because
we want the planet to survive
for our children and our
grandchildren.
Jade is Young passionate.
Means well,
but she's also a little
alarmist and naive and she's
not alone right now.
We're facing a global
ecological crisis.
We do not know if we're going
to be able to have our forest
left in 50 years.
We don't know if we're going to
have enough water for the
planet as global warming
increases.
It's definitely going to cause
some of the polar ice caps to
start melting,
you know, in 50 years.
We might not have Florida
because the ocean levels
Rising I've been really afraid
like there's an issue that
keeps me awake at night.
It's global warming.
Where do these well-intentioned
young people get ideas like
these from role models who
should know better.
I think a lot of people don't
acknowledge this problem
because it's overwhelming.
It's really scary.
I'm Ross Gelbspan, and I'm an
environmental journalist.
There's no debate that the
Glaciers are melting that the
oceans are warming up that
species are going extinct that
forests are dying.
There's no debate about that
stuff.
No debate about these stuff?
Bullshit!
There always has to be debate.
Basically, they are using
sensation.
Misinformation and scare
tactics, I'm Patrick Moore an
ecologist and lifelong
environmentalist.
The environmental movement was
basically hijacked by
political and social activists
who came in and very cleverly
learned how to use green
rhetoric or green language
to cloak agendas that actually
had more to do with anti
corporatism anti-globalization
anti-business and very little
to do with science or ecology
and that's when I left and what
did he leave the Greenpeace
organization?
Yeah,
Patrick Moore is he's a founder
and former president of the
granddaddy of all
environmental groups.
I realized that the movement I
had started was being taken
over by politico's basically
and that they were using it
for fundraising purposes.
In fact, if you listen to the
protesters you start to wonder
are they really for the
environment or they just
against anything to do with
capitalism?
What is creating Global Warming
is preparations and the
institution their bottom line
is how much money is in the
bank at the end of the day
Isn't the definition of bottom
line on money at the end of
the day?
For the rest of us the bottom
line is: do we have air to
breathe?
Do we have water to drink are
there still for us on our
planet?
I know the answer is yes.
Yes, and yes,
it's important to note that if
you're Pro Socialism or anti
globalism or anti Corporation.
Those are all I'll find
debatable ideas,
but couching them
environmentalism is bullshit.
Just say what you mean don't
say corporations are bad
because the water is worse
today because the water isn't
worse today.
We're not going to say there
are no good Arguments for
socialism, but the environment
ain't one of them.
We're to participate in
action to quarantine corporate
greed.
Most of the environmental
movement is composed of white
upper middle class people
who are
I think incorrectly telling
people in the rest of the
world what to do where people
don't live in nice houses and
don't have good drinking water
and good health standards.
I think the environmental
movement is basically elitist.
We came down to see the
Washington Monument.
We've been here for two days
now.
I think some of them are here
that don't know what they're
here for.
I really do.
I think there are people that
they've just gathered together
and I don't really think that a
lot of them know that they're
here
they're here for drumming and
dancing.
There's nothing wrong with
drumming and dancing but maybe
drumming and dancing and
studying the scientific data
will be more effective.
I know that the data
that every year it has gotten
increasingly
warmer
Across the entire world and I
think that's definitely
a trend that
that is substantiated by
by data
like ozone depletion
is a big thing
has
very powerful.
You know, it's a little bit
warmer out right now.
It's kind of a nice thing.
Actually.
I mean, I got to sit out in the
sun on in October and get a tan.
Our big question here is why
our cameraman was on this side.
Anyway, the idea that these
folks didn't really know what
they were protesting was a bit
disturbing
the check this possibility.
We sent one of our Pals Chris
McGaha
to a rally to collect
signatures for a petition.
She's going to ask people to
sign a petition Banning
dihydrogen
monoxide.
That's di
hydrogen.
Monoxide
water that's right water
and she's not going to lie or
even stretch the truth.
Not at all.
She's just going to talk about
what water is and what it does
with vocabulary and tone of
environmental hysteria.
This is a petition for
dihydrogen monoxide.
What it is is it's a chemical
that is found now in
reservoirs and lakes
pesticides to be kind of
companies are using this
styrofoam companies nuclear
nuclear companies.
And now when they using
pesticides when we're watching
our fruit and things like that,
it's not coming out which of
course means that it's end up
in the grocery stores and then
our baby's food and stuff like
that
causes excessive sweating
excessive urination anything
to help the environment. These
people signed.
We don't know if they thought
but they sign there we are.
Meanwhile, let's go back to
Kate.
Once again.
She's the hand-picked
representative from the
rainforest Action Network
surely.
She's hip to the real data on
global warming.
or at least their official
stance how big a threat to the
Earth is global warming?
Global warming or global global
chat climate
hard to say global warming is a
big fat to the planet increases
temperatures.
It makes
some species
it.
So how big is global warming?
Let's start over Okay.
So the spokesperson for the
rainforest Action Network is
not much of an expert on
global warming,
but who is? No one can agree on
what causes global warming or
even how bad it is?
There are some that say it is
not happening at all.
If the science is that
inconclusive
if it's possible that the
weather changes in the world
are a natural process and what
the fuck is all the hysteria
about.
We're living in an increasingly
narrow margin of stability and
the evidence is all around us
journalist Ross kelp span is
an influential
environmentalist author and
lecturer.
He likes to present an alarming
view of our Earth's future.
In fact, he seems to get off on
it.
Even if these students don't
the climate change Is
Happening Here and Now
In the year 2002 we've seen a
thousand people die of heat
waves in India and after us
and drought conditions, we've
lost something like six
million acres in the western
Us in Northern Canada to
forest fires.
We've seen this catastrophic
floods in
Germany and Russia and the
Czech Republic.
If you read any paper, you can
read a lot of stories about
environmental disaster, but
what you have to understand is
bad news sells
on Bjorn lomborg.
I'm a skeptical
environmentalist.
Bjorn lomborg is Public Enemy
Number One among
environmentalists.
His book The skeptical
environmentalist pissed them
off more than the sight of a
Ford Excursion caring only one
person.
It's important to get the
record straight.
What I've done here is really
I've tried to look at the data
that we've taken for granted
and say everything is going
downhill and looked at it and
said is this actually true
it turns out no, it's not
if our understanding is based
on myths.
We're likely to make bad
judgments. Lomborg's
Extensive research shows that
right now the health of the
planet is improving on almost
all fronts
and in areas where it's not
getting better.
It's getting worse at a much
slower rate than in years past.
So this guy looked at the same
data and killed with the
opposite conclusion
and that's not the end of
Bjorn's heresy.
He's raised the ire of his
critics because he doesn't
believe in just throwing money
at environmental problems.
A lot of the environmentalist
will tell us.
Yeah.
If this is a good cost we
should do it.
It shouldn't Matter how much it
cost. Using a cost-benefit
analysis is somehow immoral,
it somehow put a price tag on
life, and a price tag on
those things seems immoral.
I can certainly understand that
emotional response because I
feel exactly the same
emotional response.
But my argument is to say the
danger of the Doomsday waiting
around the corner
is that we end up prioritizing
it incorrectly.
But if you even suggest a
lowering of the volume makes
the environmentalist even more
hysterical. The question in
action will be unbearable. You
are talking about
crop failures.
You're talking about industry
shutting down
you're talking about lots of
unemployment unchecked global
warming will bankrupt the
global economy by 2065.
Where did Ross get that data?
How did he choose that date?
I'll tell you how this asshole
should be dead by then.
And won't have to own up and
that respect.
He's a lot smarter than the
people who in 1970s and we'd
all be in Hell by two thousand
a lot of them still alive and,
ho ho,
if they were still famous.
We could point and laugh
we need to get the debate back
to level where we say.
This is a good idea.
This might be a little better.
This is certainly not
worthwhile doing right now.
This is a very important issue
that we can discuss this in a
fairly level-headed matter.
That's the only way
That we ensure that we get a
correct or good prioritization
and democratic debate. A
serious level headed debate.
Okay, Ross.
Give us your worst.
First of all from what we know
in recent history 16 to 17
hottest years on record have
happened since 1980
the five hottest consecutive
years were 91 through 95.
1998 is the hottest year on
record.
That's it.
We're through the peak
1998 was a few years ago.
Does that mean we're now
heading into an ice age?
Should we run our SUVs Full
Throttle Round the Clock to
stop this horrible cooling Trend
if we plot
temperature patterns of the
last hundred years observe
surface temperature records
that we're all in agreement
about put them on a graph
and draw a trend line.
We all know what's going to
happen with global in the next
hundred years.
I'm Jared Taylor and I'm the
director of natural resource
studies.
He's with a Cato Institute a
Libertarian think tank in
Washington DC.
The warming will be relatively
moderate about 2/3 degrees.
higher over the next hundred
years.
It seems relatively manageable
given the fact we've had a one
degree Fahrenheit rise in
temperature in the last
hundred years and we've seen
the greatest increase in the
standards of living and
economic productivity of the
history of mankind and we've
also seen environmental
improvements all during that
time.
Well global warming is not
going to kill off Humanity.
It is certainly going to break
apart a global economy.
It's going to break apart a
coherent political system and
it's really going to pit
people against each other and
put us much more in a
Survival mode and it's really a
big step backward toward the
caveman era, you know, he may
have something there; Teller
gets grumpy when it's hot out.
If we don't do anything.
We're going to see a
breakdown of infrastructures.
We're going to see
interruptions in the food
supply.
We're going to see big
increases in infectious diseases
with a deterioration of
resources to deal with those
diseases.
I mean, it's a really ugly
regressive kind of a prospect
that we're facing. Again and
again and again, you see
environmentalists making
predictions that hold up about
as well as Jean Dixon's
predictions in the National
Enquirer in the mid 70s.
We were told the pollution was
going to cause a new Ice Age
because we had seen Trends
towards cooler air.
It turns out that was wrong and
many of the very same
scientists who argued that an
ice age was coming because of
industrial pollution then
shifted gears and argue that
no industrial pollution will
bring on a greenhouse warming
world with virtually no breath
in between. The hypothesis
that a warmer world will lead
to more extreme weather events.
Is being cast into doubt by the
last hundred years where it's
not a current
the big point is that science
changes as we gather more data,
we advance our ideas and our
theories.
It's okay.
The environmental movement is
gone from global cooling the
global warming, but they must
remember that we're still
gathering information.
We're not sure.
Yet
meanwhile back of the rallies.
They were hot and heavy on
global warming then
Well just about anything else
they could yell about
thank you very much
and our petition woman was
getting signatures left and
right.
Okay mostly left, but
There's a lot of people against
that evil water.
It's everywhere and we just
really need to ban it to more
supporters.
These passionate inform people
didn't even need to ask what
the hydrogen monoxide is.
They didn't even ask
is Passion supposed to replace
Common Sense.
We understand the desire to
join up and do something
important.
It's sexy to save the world, but
it got to spend a couple of
minutes to find out if you're
really saving the world and
not just being herded around
by some politically-motivated
assholes who may not really
care that much about the
environment.
But see this is some chance to
raise money for ever.
They think is a good idea.
No end justifies the means of
lying
because man, there were a lot
of people who signed the
petition and we're not talking
a handful of thoses.
We're talking hundreds
a lot of urination
vomiting
I will sign
Okay,
even the head organizer of this
rally signed the petition
eagerly.
Thank you very much.
Meanwhile, the hysteria
continued. It is critical to
the planet that we have our
forests intact.
We're actually gotten to the
point where we have less than
20% of our old growth forest
left globally.
Nobody's going to listen to you.
If you say the world is not
going to come to an end.
But if you say that the world
is coming to an end you get
headlines
and so sensationalism,
especially when it's combined
with misinformation leads to a
situation where people send
gobs of money to these groups
for campaigns that are
actually totally misguided.
We could face a situation where
our children have to go to
museum to see what an old
growth forest.
Looks like.
She's quoting Joni Mitchell's
ancient Big Yellow Taxi,
Just talked to the spokesperson
for the rainforest Action
Network about something
specific to the rainforests.
Are there any logging methods
that don't hurt the environment?
You know,
I'm not an expert on logging.
I know that the lugging methods
that I'm here in the streets
today that I work on in my life
destroy the environment and
destroy people's lives.
I know.
Okay.
Well maybe spokesperson Kate is
not much of an expert on
logging either.
So for answers, we went to one
of the leading Authorities on
trees.
Yes, indeed ladies and
gentlemen, I am a tree hugger.
I'm Julia Butterfly Hill.
I'm a person who cares
passionately about life and
I'm willing to do Something
about it in December 1997.
Julia made International
headlines when she climbed in
a redwood and lived there for
two years straight in an
effort to save the tree from
being cut down by a Logging
company.
I climbed up in the worst
winter in recorded history of
California.
El Nino of 97 90, mile-an-hour
wind sleet and hail and rain
and snow every day.
I climbed up into an active
logging plan.
So I had to Bear witness to the
devastation of a forest that I
know we Can't replace
I'm not against somebody living
in a tree
to bring attention to that
particular tree.
I mean it was a very old tree
and in the end it was
protected so she won and that
was good.
But on the other hand, there's
a tendency among environmental
groups
to resort to emotionalism kind
of 100% I didn't climb into
the tree expecting nature to
communicate but the longer I
stayed there the more I
realized nature was
communicating with me when
they were cutting
Down trees all around the tree.
I was in the tree started
pouring sat
and I realized that that was
the tree communicating its
breath
to talk about how the tree is
alive and has feelings and it
hurts it when you cut it down
and that sort of stuff.
That's pretty well kindergarten
talk.
I mean it's not true trees are
plants like carrots and
cabbages, but it's tough to
give money to protect carrots
even tougher has been two
years living in one
Nice tree
I would never take something
from life that I don't need
and I think that's our biggest
challenge as people
is
we are destroying what we need
for what we want.
We're addicted to our desires
without paying attention to
the responsibility of our
choices.
So I wouldn't cut down a tree
for paper because I think it's
a stupid waste of a gift of a
resource
She hates paper?
She'd rather have every single
tree of a medical textbook or
a Picasso painting.
You know the action they are
taking is turning incredible
magnificent trees like this
one into clear Cuts so that
somebody can have Decker siding
or a treehouse.
Where does she think her Lumber
came from? The campaign against
forestry is a classic case of
absolutely and totally
misleading the general public.
It's true that we are losing
forest in the Tropics of this
world, but it's not because of
logging companies.
It's because of of poor people
millions of them who are
trying to make a living and
grow some food for their
families.
The fact is in North America.
They're still as much Forest as
there was a hundred years ago.
And the reason there's so much
Forest is because we use wood
because we cut trees down to
make our houses,
but the environmental groups
have got people thinking that
when you go into a lumber yard
and by would you're causing the
force to be destroyed when in
fact what you're doing is
ordering new trees to be
planted.
It is something we have to do
in order to feed and house.
The six billion people on this
Earth.
Meanwhile, the thousands of
people the rally were really
Cutting Loose up in Portland,
Oregon primate Center they are
actually selling monkeys. We
want to offer a solution,
solutionism.
We can oppress people can press
animals and cut down
rainforests.
We do anything we want for
money.
Hi Lisa,
and our petition was still
getting signatures
companies, like pesticide
company styrofoam companies
nuclear companies all of these
people use it.
Finally we let her tip it. Are
you concerned about water?
I am
Is water something that
should be banned?
what sort of wattage? Water.
Should be banned?
Yes.
No, I don't think so.
I think we need to drink water
and
I don't know what you mean by
water should be banned.
This
petition is to ban water
Hydrogen monoxide is water
H20
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay,
we set these folks up but it
does show that maybe they're
not so much environmentalists
as they are joiners
of anything.
One of the reasons people like
environmentalism is that for
years and years and years.
They've been guilt-tripped for
having a car for having a big
house for having things like
that
I think that's what
environmentalism really is
today.
It's a way for people to get
rid of guilt feelings.
They have about the way they
live.
If everything's fine,
why is there a global corporate
anti-corporate movement saying
enough is enough you're
destroying the planet? And it
drives me even further crazy
to have them say they're
against globalization when
their main tools of trade are
cell phones and the internet
it just makes no sense at all
to be
against science and technology
and then to use It's
technology whether it's jet
planes to get to International
environmental meetings or cell
phones or laptop computers you
are part of globalization.
So, how can you be against it?
Let's check back in with Kate.
Remember?
She's a prominent member and
chosen spokesperson for the
rainforest Action Network.
Maybe she can clarify another
argument of environmentalist
species Extinction Kate.
I think something like the
Smithsonian Institute says
we're losing 300 species every
day, I think.
Something to be concerned about
and and logging is a direct
part of that.
Why should the average American
be concerned about whether
plant and animal species
become extinct.
We keep saying that Kate is the
chosen spokesperson for the
rainforest Action Network
because if we don't keep
saying that it seems like
we're just picking on somebody
she's not some poor little girl.
She's a woman and she's the
woman they chose to represent
them sure, we're a piddly
stupid crap show.
So
maybe they said in the junior
varsity speaker, but has no
one ever asked any of these
very basic questions that we
asked?
has she never asked these
goddamn basic questions of the
group that she so fervently
supports.
Let's hear from another
alarmist on species Extinction
frankly.
It looks like we're on a crash
course towards massive species
extinctions in the next 20
years.
I'm Nina feste own vice
president of species
conservation with Defenders of
wildlife.
We could lose 1/5 or 20% of our
species within the next two
decades.
That's a very short amount of
time.
Well Greenpeace and the World
Wildlife Fund actually try to
convince us that 50,000
species are going extinct
every year in this world when
there isn't one shred of
evidence for that.
We're talking about the full
gamut of species plant and
animal and within animal
amphibians reptiles birds and
mammals
nothing.
Is safe when it loses when it's
a result of habitat loss and
they say the main cause is
logging.
Of course, they love to blame
logging for just about
everything bad in the world,
but it's absolutely
Preposterous.
There is no evidence of 50,000
species going extinct the best
science tells us that less than
1% of the species in this world
will go extinct in the next
hundred years.
So what about this?
It's difficult to pin down hard
numbers on this ha ha
on this issue, but it's
important.
to point out that
if you're on a ship heading
toward an iceberg, you don't
wait until you have the exact
measurements of the iceberg
before you put on the brakes
and you have to try to not
become obsessed with that
great fictitious white whale
people care about species more
now than they used
to
so therefore when species go
towards the brink of
Extinction, we generally put a
program in place to help them.
That's a good thing.
But to scare people into
thinking that half the world's
species are going to die off in
the next 50 years is absolutely
irresponsible.
There's really no need anymore
to spread guilt and fear about
the environment.
The solution side is to try and
figure out how to do things
better
not to have campaigns against
everything in the world.
But rather to have campaigns in
which you are shifting from the
way you did things before into
doing things in a new way that
still provide the goods and
services we need but do so at
less cost to the environment.
Of course, there are
real problems with Environment
and it's a natural thing to
want to save the world to be
the hero to purge the
corruption to lead the
Revolution
and revolutions are essential
Revolution gave us freedom
Revolution gave a science
without Revolution.
We shrivel
we die.
But when we feel that sexy
instinct to save the world
were especially vulnerable
if we don't stop and do our
homework, we can waste our
noblest instincts on bullshit.
It's easy to feel like a hero.
It's a little harder to be one.
Do you feel that
each person has a an individual
personal responsibility?
I do. Do you do you do that
yourself?
I myself I don't.
So our day with Kate has come
to a close.
We've marched alongside these
joiners and we've seen their
commitment, but what's behind
it all let's ask the
spokesperson for the
rainforest Action Network Kate.
Wow.