Michael Crichton was a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of ER. Wrote the novel "State of Fear" He died in 2008.In 2003, he wrote this essay called "Environmentalism as a Religion"
It is a plea to get back to a scientific basis for doing things. He starts with a statement I can believe in: "The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda."
Unfortunately he then follows it up with what appears to me as an Orwellian essay trying to convince people that environmentalism is a religion, that environmentalists kill people just like religious fundamentalists do. Was this essay a joke to prove a point? As far as I know, Crichton never issued a statement saying "Surely you didn't take that seriously. It was just irony illustrating my point about the dangers of propaganda!" His essay is obviously not a work of science, but a persuasive essay. It does very little to promote the search for the scientific truth, and a lot to damage the credibility and character of environmentalists.
Check this link if you want to learn how to write a persuasive essay. By the way, this stuff is not taught in science classes, it is taught in English classes.
Another quote from Crichton's essay: "I studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion."
Logically, that does not make environmentalism a religion. I studied psych 101 in college, and one of the things I learned is that people see what they want to see. And often what people want to see is what makes them money. And money has a way of corrupting our more honest natures.
A third quote. "Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die and didn't give a damn."
I lived in mosquito infested town in northern Quebec that was drenched in DDT in the 50's. Although I didn't get sick from the DDT, I remember spray planes fogging the softball diamond while spectators sat in the bleachers cheering the plane on, munching their fries and hot dogs as the fog settled on them. Their only concern was covering their cars so they didn't get dirty. Anyhow, to get back to the point: All that spraying for several years, and there were still lots of mosquitoes and black flies. I don't know how much DDT it would take to actually eliminate these pests, but I assume (unscientifically) a hell of a lot! (pardon my irreligious language.) So nobody should be assuming that DDT would rid the world of malaria carrying mosquitoes.
James Hansen's response to Michael Crichton's book "State of Fear" on global warming: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2005/Crichton_20050927.pdf
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