Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

by Michael Shellenberger

Throughout this book we have seen environmental support for various behaviors, technologies, and policies motivated not by what the science tells us but by intuitive views of nature. These intuitive views rest on the appeal-to-nature fallacy. The appeal-to-nature fallacy holds that “natural” things, e.g., tortoiseshell, ivory, wild fish, organic fertilizer, wood fuel, and solar farms, are better for people and the environment than “artificial” things, e.g., plastics from fossil fuels, farmed fish, chemical fertilizer, and nuclear plants. It is fallacious for two reasons. First, the artificial things are as natural as the natural things. They are simply newer. Second, the older, “natural” things are “bad,” not good, if “good” is defined as protecting sea turtles, elephants, and wild fish. This background and largely unconscious idea of nature is, in my experience, very strong. I have seen many environmentalists dismiss evidence demonstrating, for example, the larger impact of renewable energy and organic farming on landscapes. “Natural” things must, by definition, be better for the environment.