Sometimes I think rightwingers (I’m talking about you, Jonah) write these columns just to drive enviros up the wall. It’s such malarkey, to put it politely. Goldberg admits he’s no environmentalist, blames John Muir for environmentalism (which of course includes heinous measures to improve air quality, water quality, and reduce energy consumption) and claims he’s a conservationist, as if he were on the front lines with David Brower, saving Mineral King from Disney, and Julia "Butterfly" Hill, saving Luna. Right.
Goldberg then declares he’s trying to save environmentalism from environmentalists.
Insincerity, meet Jonah Goldberg.
But taking these arguments on with logic is probably the wrong way to go. Better to respond with the right’s favorite weapon, mockery, as Benjamin Cohen did for McSweeney’s, in a piece entitled An Anti-Environmentalist Drafts His Next Newspaper Column While Eating Takeout and Driving His Hummer.
Cohen opens:
Those alarmists have complained for
years that unsightly gobs of plastic bags won’t deteriorate for
centuries. In landfills, in oceans, flying out of the garbage truck in
front of me as I write this column on my PDA. Then they go and complain
about the tiny, tiny chemicals inside, like this bisphenol-A thing they
made up—chemicals they can’t even see! Or pronounce! So which is it?
Unsightly gobs or invisible fake chemicals? The environmental movement
is riddled with these moral contradictions.
And concludes…
You don’t have to worry about
global warming anyway. Some are now arguing that what we lose in cooler
temps we make up for with less spending on clothes. Bad news for Old
Navy; good news for Americans and the environment. It all evens out
economically, just like in that Seinfeld episode where everything always evens out. Can you believe that Kramer guy? What a racist!Incidentally, racism is no longer a problem. They caught Kramer. And that one guy is running for president.
Thank you, Ben.
Kit Stolz 