Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

by Michael Shellenberger

“I have to say there is part of me that envies the moral clarity of the vegetarian,” writes University of California journalism professor Michael Pollan, in a passage from his 2007 book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “Yet part of me pities him, too. Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris.”70 The trouble with dogmatic vegetarianism is the same as with dogmatic environmentalism. It ends up alienating the very people needed for improving conditions for animals and reducing the environmental impact of farming. “In the eighties, the industry tried to communicate with animal groups and we got burned real bad,” a farmer told Foer. “So the turkey community decided there would be no more of it. We put up a wall and that was the end. We don’t talk, don’t let people onto the farms. Standard operating procedure. PETA doesn’t want to talk about farming. They want to end farming. They have absolutely no idea how the world actually works.”71 Taubes