Should Engineers Counteract Environmental Extremism?
Publication: Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 121, Issue 2
Abstract
This paper argues that extreme environmentalism, akin to a religion, is causing the expenditure of massive amounts of limited resources of both money and attention to solve relatively unimportant problems. A crisis mentality in the news media has fostered a distorted view of environmental issues. The public perception of environmental problems is far removed from that of the scientific concensus. Environmental policy is now based more on emotion and debate than on facts and rational calculation. The attempt to reduce risk from man-made sources to zero, while ignoring much more substantial natural sources, diverts funds from real problems that could be addressed to alleviate suffering and disease. A moderate, rather than fearful, reaction to environmental concerns is urged. Engineers should promote quantitative solutions to environmental problems, and should appreciate the economics of pollution control and risk reduction. The inclusion of supplemental materials to support a rational concern for environmental issues in environmental engineering courses is urged.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
Anderson, T. L., and Leal, D. R. (1991). Free market environmentalism . Pacific Res. Inst. for Public Policy, San Francisco, Calif.
2.
Bailey, R. (1993). Eco-scam: the false prophets of ecological apocalypse . St. Martin's Press, New York, N.Y.
3.
Balling, R. C. Jr. (1992). The heated debate: greenhouse predictions versus climate reality . Pacific Res. Inst. for Public Policy, San Francisco, Calif.
4.
Bast, J. L., Hill, P. J., and Rue, R. C. (1994). Eco-sanity: a common sense guide to environmentalism . Madison Books, Lanham, Md.
5.
Bolch, R., and Lyons, H. (1993). Apocalypse not: science, economics, and environmentalism . Cato Inst., Washington, D.C.
6.
Bureaucracy vs. environment: the environmental costs of bureaucratic governance. (1981). J. Baden, and R. L. Stroup, eds., Univ. of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Mich.
7.
Campbell, J. (1988). Myths to live by . Bantam Books, New York, N.Y.
8.
Chadderton, R. A.(1983). “Praxeology and engineering.”J. Profl. Issues Engrg. Education and Practice, ASCE, 109(3), 159–169.
9.
Chadderton, R. A.(1988). “An alternative to water pollution controls.”Water Resour. Bull., 24(1), 183–187.
10.
Chadderton, R. A.(1993). “Misesian assessment of systems analysis.”J. Profl. Issues Engrg. Education and Practice, ASCE, 119(4), 346–357.
11.
Dalton, B. (1993). “Superfund: the South Carolina experience.”Taking the environment seriously, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., Lanham, Md.
12.
Dorfman, R., and Jacoby, H. D. (1972). “A public-decision model applied to a local pollution problem.”Economics of the environment, selected readings, Dorfman and Dorfman, eds., W. W. Norton, New York, N.Y.
13.
Elkins, W. (1991). Environmental hazards and evaluation of risk . Pennsylvania Envir. Council, Philadelphia, Pa.
14.
Ernst, R. J. (1994). “The real environmental crisis: environmental law.”Imprimis, Hillsdale Coll., Mich.
15.
Foreman, D. (1987). Ecodefense: a field guide to monkeywrenching . Ned Ludd Books, Tucson, Ariz.
16.
Fumento, M. (1993). Science under siege: balancing technology and the environment . William Morrow and Co., Inc., New York, N.Y.
17.
Gore, A. (1992). Earth in the balance . Houghton Mifflin Co., New York, N.Y.
18.
Hazlitt, H. (1979). Economics in one lesson . Arlington House Publishers, Westport, Conn.
19.
Henderson, R.(1993). “Crimes against nature.”Reason, 25(7), 18–24.
20.
Huff, D. (1954). How to lie with statistics . W. W. Norton, & Co., Inc., New York, N.Y.
21.
Johnson, P. (1988). Intellectuals . Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., New York, N.Y.
22.
Lewis, H. W. (1990). Technological risk . W. W. Norton & Co., New York, N.Y.
23.
Marshall, J.(1992). “Risky business.”Reason, 24(4), 52–53.
24.
Michaels, P. J. (1992). Sound and fury: the science and politics of global warming . Cato Inst., Washington, D.C.
25.
Paulos, J. A. (1988). Innumeracy: mathematical illiteracy and its consequences . Hill and Wang, New York, N.Y.
26.
Paulos, J. A. (1991). Beyond numeracy: ruminations of a numbers man . Alfred A. Knopf, New York, N.Y.
27.
Pinkowski, B.(1993). “Whose risk is it anyway?”Civ. Engrg., ASCE, 63(10), 66–68.
28.
Rand, A. (1957). Atlas shrugged . Random House, New York, N.Y.
29.
Rand, A. (1971). The new left: the anti-industrial revolution . New American Library, Inc., New York, N.Y.
30.
Rational readings on environmental concerns. (1992). J. H. Lehr, ed., Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, N.Y.
31.
Ray, D. L., and Guzzo, L. (1990). Trashing the planet . HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., New York, N.Y.
32.
Ray, D. L., and Guzzo, L. (1993). Environmental overkill: whatever happened to common sense ? Regnery Gateway, Washington, D.C.
33.
Scarce, R. (1990). Eco-warriors . Noble Press, Chicago, Ill.
34.
Simon, J. L. (1981). The ultimate resource . Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, N.J.
35.
Simon, J. L., and Kahn, H. (1984). The resourceful earth: a response to global 2000 . Basil Blackwell Publisher Limited, Oxford, England.
36.
Stroup, R. L., and Baden, J. A. (1983). Natural resources: bureaucratic myths and environmental management . Pacific Res. Inst. for Public Policy, San Francisco, Calif.
37.
von Mises, L. (1966). Human action: a treatise on economics . 3rd revised Ed., Contemporary Books, Inc., Chicago, Ill.
38.
Wildavsky, A. (1979). Speaking truth to power: the art and craft of policy analysis . Little, Brown, and Co., Boston, Mass.
39.
Wildavsky, A. (1988). Searching for safety . Social Philosophy & Policy Ctr. Bowling Green Univ., Bowling Green, Ohio.
40.
Wildavsky, A.(1992). “How to read real science in order to understand the policy and politics of environmental and safety issues.”PERC Rep., Political Economy Res. Ctr., Bozeman, Montana, 10(2), 8–9.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Apr 1, 1995
Published in print: Apr 1995
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.