mindless environmentalists slamed

A good read from proedgewire.com :
http://proedgewire.com/rare-earth-intel/the-anti-lynas-movement-and-the-rise-of-enviro-populism/


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The Anti-Lynas Movement and the Rise of Enviro-Populism

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Alessandro Bruno


The Kuantan High Court has granted the ‘Save Malaysia Stop Lynas’ (SMSL, an “NGO”), an interim stay for its request to repeal the Temporary Operating License (TOL) that Lynas was granted last August. Indeed, Judge Mariana Yahya has temporarily suspended the TOL until today, October 4. The High Court has agreed to SMSL’s requests to be given more time to study Lynas’s affidavits such that a final decision will have to wait until next October 10. In July, it should be noted, a Court found the same SMSL to be guilty of defamation and its alarmism lacking in any scientific basis and at the end of last August the Malaysian government granted Lynas the TOL. On 26 September, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur will hear from SMSL, who are defendants in the Lynas defamation case. The SMSL protests have drawn interest from the political opposition, which has exploited the public’s fear and misunderstanding of Lynas’s activities into an election issue.

The environmentalists and their political opposition allies hampered the Malaysian government’s efforts to support LAMP. It should be noted that while many mining companies, in the past, have engaged in unethical and environmentally damaging practices, providing fodder for the anti-LAMP activists, Lynas has made a valiant effort in resources and exercise to ensuring the highest safety and environmental standards. Lynas is not the only victim, it is perhaps the most visible example, of the Malaysian Opposition’s determination to distract voters from adopting a reasoned view of various development and industrial projects such as the Oil and Petrochemical Filtering Integrated Development Project (Rapid) in Pengerang. Shrill ‘enviro-populism’ is a very effective weapon of mass distraction from more insidious domestic issues. This is true in Malaysia as in many other parts of the world.

Today’s Court postponement for Lynas will not be the last obstacle, even though, activities at the LAMP facility have not yet technically started and the license has not been repealed. SMSL, especially as it continues to be backed by the Barisan party opposition (BN), will conjure up new blocks, until the next election. If not Lynas, the BN and its ‘agents’ will come up with new issues to block it. Nevertheless, at every obstacle, Lynas has received full support from the Malaysian government and SMSL has been unsuccessful in stopping LAMP from moving ahead. The SMSL brand of environmentalism is reflective of a general degradation of environmentalist thinking over the past few decades. The evolution of Greenpeace, the infamous NGO with worldwide reach and appeal, typifies the philosophical decay of environmentalism.

Greenpeace underwent an evolution; rather than growing into a sensible environmentalist movement; it has grown senseless, adopting an agenda that is anti-science and anti-progress, which it can be argued, is anti-human. There is no argument that the movements raising awareness about pollution and environmental degradation resulting from the tremendous technological advancements of the 20th century have been very beneficial. In the best of cases, the social and political response to environmental issues has found scientific approached toward their resolution, often improving the very quality of the product or service being addressed. Automobiles, airplanes have become more fuel and pollution efficient while industrial and energy producing processes have also been improved, producing more while polluting less from energy generation to chemicals processing.

All industrial processes have been affected by the more environmentally conscious approach spawned by such organizations as Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and their many imitators around the world. The activists of the 1960’s had a point and they helped to raise ecological awareness among the population, integrating its philosophy as an essential component of progress itself. Indeed, environmentalism does not have to be the enemy of technology; they can co-exist profitably and that is the essence of ‘sustainable development’ or ‘sustainability’. The environmental movement also had strong peace promoting intentions, combining fears of a nuclear holocaust spawned by the Cold War that characterized much of the ‘gestation’ period of the environmentalist movement, with fears of nuclear pollution from the development of nuclear reactors. The goal was to peacefully and reasonably challenge those who would threaten humanity, civilization and the environment. Greenpeace emerged in 1971 as a group of young idealists traveled in the North Pacific to protest the US military’s testing of a hydrogen bomb. The group failed to reach its destination but it gained invaluable publicity as news media reported its attempt.

The combination of media and environmentalism was born. This pairing would serve humanity well for a while, presenting and revealing hidden issues, environmental and social disasters to millions of homes around the world and prompting governments and corporations to take corrective actions. The environmentalist movement was formidable in raising awareness and changing opinions, building public support for their initiatives. However, much like the nuclear deformations they campaigned against, arguing for safer systems and a reduction of nuclear arsenals, Greenpeace and their offshoots mutated into caricatures of themselves over the course of the 1980’s. The collapse of the Soviet Union, moreover in the early 90’s, left many proponents of leftist politics without a compass; the fall of the Berlin Wall symbolized a philosophical collapse, and corresponding void, that had to be compensated. They felt betrayed by their own ideology and seeking new philosophical approaches and guidance they naturally fell upon the environmentalist movement.

The main effect of this alliance has been an increasingly blurring of the line separating politics and populism from scientifically sound environmentalism. Policy discussions on matters with important environmental implications have assumed an ever more political character, diluting the facts in favor of sensationalism, polluting discourse and reason. It has become ever more difficult to separate environmental activism from environmental radicalism and as political pundits mix with the environmentalists in established and emerging democracies, the hunt for votes tends to bury any valuable scientific discussion in the proverbial sand like an ostrich. Moreover, political parties have learned to take shots at each other using environmental issues as a football in order to score points with voters. In many cases, this combination of populism, non-scientific environmentalism and politics has generated anti-development ideas and policies. In recent decades, farmers in Africa have been discouraged from using pesticides or even mineral fertilizers because of scientific misrepresentation.

Nuclear energy and the elements used for its production, meanwhile, remain entirely misunderstood as information gets smudged and populist thought favors the ‘all eggs in one basket’ approach. In wealthy nations, environmentalists seem to ignore the tragic realities of poverty in developing nations as they promote entirely un-democratic and arrogant policy prescriptions that hinder development itself. Surely, this cannot be ‘sustainable’. Surely, there is a challenge, development and economic growth should be encouraged, even if in ways that manage to achieve equilibrium with social and environmental considerations. That is sustainability. The outright rejection of a proposition that leads to progress, technological innovation and economic benefit on populist grounds and misunderstood science is not sustainability; it is dogma. Dogma is not conducive to anything worthwhile. The Renaissance, or ‘rebirth’, of Europe began with a challenge to dogma. Greenpeace stopped being scientifically accurate and the many groups it has inspired around the world, would appear never to have even bothered with science. Herein lies the main problem with ‘Save Malaysia Stop Lynas’ (SMSL), an NGO in Malaysia that has come about simply for the purpose of blocking the development of the Lynas rare earth processing plant, LAMP, in the province of Kuantan. Fuziah Salleh, who has an MBA and a degree in management psychology (not nuclear physics), has been one of the most vociferous personages behind the “Stop Lynas Rare Earth” campaign in Kuantan. She personifies the very essence of shrill and scientifically baseless environmentalism. Failing to address genuine scientific enquiry is mindless and undemocratic and it hurts Malaysia.
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