A tiny segment of the global population has been waging an effective war against environmental awareness for years, warping hundreds of millions of otherwise sane individuals into believing that pollution is little more than a liberal, left-wing bogeyman.

This most recently came to light with the publication of Christine Todd Whitman's new book, It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America (Penguin Press, 2005), in which the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (and a former favorite politico among scores of conservatives) describes how the Republican-led U.S. government has systematically gone about crippling the EPA's usefulness. Whitman was not loved by Democrats or environmentalists, but she makes a strong case for herself as being the lesser of many evils. In fact, under the pressures of an anti-environment administration and powerful corporate lobbyists, she stood her ground until forced to resign.

On Sept. 15, 2003, best-selling fiction author Michael Crichton, with his prestigious Ivy League anthropology and medical degrees in tow, did his part to confuse the issue. In his speech before the Commonwealth Club, he stated that pro-environment thinkers are steeped in mythical beliefs, that "second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was" and "evidence for global warming is far weaker than its proponents would ever admit." He goes on to equate environmentalists to a fundamentalist religious cult (which, not coincidentally, is also the theme of his anti-global-warming-theory novel, State of Fear)

The comparison of environmentalism to other religious systems is valid--particularly the idea that modern environmentalism contains aspects of age-old mythic structures, even variants of Judeo-Christian concepts such as of Eden and Judgment Day. I wouldn't consider pulp-writer Michael Crichton the most literate authority on these matters, but he notes an abundance of interesting parallels between religious and environmental beliefs.

And Crichton's base argument is also sound--he wants to take the politics and myths out of science and environmental conservation, in an effort to have people from all aspects of the political system participate in scientific studies and practical conservation efforts. Regrettably, right-wing industrialists have latched onto Crichton's philosophical thoughts and science-fiction paranoia to bolster their case against environmental conservation in general.

Christian writer Regis Nicoll vehemently attacks environmentalists in The New World Religion: Environmentalism and the Western World using Crichton's words as proof positive. He takes the concept a step further by implying it's thoroughly un-Christian to care about the environment too much. After all, if the world is a polluted wasteland, it's a just punishment for mankind's Original Sin: "According to the biblical worldview, things like our planet's wellness are the way they are not because man has broken shalom with creation, but because he has broken shalom with his Creator."