Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/complexity/complexity.html ^ | November 6, 2005 | Michael Crichton

[ventanax5]

Some of you know I have written a book that many people find controversial. It is called State of Fear, and I want to tell you how I came to write it. Because up until five years ago, I had very conventional ideas about the environment and the success of the environmental movement.

The book really began in 1998, when I set out to write a novel about a global disaster. In the course of my preparation, I rather casually reviewed what had happened in Chernobyl, since that was the worst manmade disaster in recent times that I knew about.

What I discovered stunned me. Chernobyl was a tragic event, but nothing remotely close to the global catastrophe I imagined. About 50 people had died in Chernobyl, roughly the number of Americans that die every day in traffic accidents. I don’t mean to be gruesome, but it was a setback for me. You can’t write a novel about a global disaster in which only 50 people die.

Undaunted, I began to research other kinds of disasters that might fulfill my novelistic requirements. That’s when I began to realize how big our planet really is, and how resilient its systems seem to be. Even though I wanted to create a fictional catastrophe of global proportions, I found it hard to come up with a credible example. In the end, I set the book aside, and wrote Prey instead.

But the shock that I had experienced reverberated within me for a while. Because what I had been led to believe about Chernobyl was not merely wrong—it was astonishingly wrong. Let’s review the data.

[Kay Ludlow]

Thanks - excellent article. I read State of Fear, and was surprised at how well he characterized a lot of the environmentalists - at least in terms of the environmentalists I know.

[canuck_conservative]

Another great Chrichton presentation!

[dsc]

"at least in terms of the environmentalists I know."

You know environmentalists?

My condolences.

[pacpam]

Too bad apparently so few have read it. But then, when environmental extremism is your religion, one is slow to give it up.

[Kay Ludlow]

A University grew up around my home town - I can't help but know environmentalists. I've also been to some of their conferences (opposition research), so I know what they're like when they have a friendly audience...

[TheHound]

But then, when environmental extremism is your religion, one is slow to give it up.

It may be religion for some but it is socialism from the leaders. I have a theory, that the big push to do something about global warming going on right now (while the Midwest has been it the deep freeze for almost a month) is that Sun activity could change at any time. If it were to do so and the earth enters a cooling phase before they were able to claim that their legislation was responsible, they would lose their moral high ground.

[piytar]

Excellent read. He leaves something out, though: The modern "environmentalists" might be able to grasp the ideas he presents so well if they cared to do so. However, they really don't care that their theories are too simple and might even be completely wrong. That's because their goal is political, namely socialism, not environmental. (One famous enviro-wacko even admitted this recently -- doing a drive by here before going back to work, so don't have time to dig it up.)

Of course, the same complexity theories apply to politics, and they will certainly reap unintended and unforeseen consequences if they succeed, but that's probably well beyond the reasoning abilities of most of them...

[sageb1]

Bookmarking. Thanks for posting this. My youngest daughter's bf is a lib. Nice guy, really, and very hard working. But he is having an effect on her. They watched "Inconvenient Truth" last night and she got all apocalyptical on me this morning. I gave her this and will be sending it to her bf as well.

[dsc]

"I've also been to some of their conferences"

What self-control you must have.