With most people's attention understandably on the economic situation and the G20 summit, let's not forget what environmentalists are doing. Among the various protest groups having their say in London this week, there is a general understanding that the future world they want to live in will be green and fair as well as being devoid of greedy capitalists. We have also had the "people's premiere" of "The Age of Stupid", a film brought to you by the makers of McLibel.
Whereas Al Gore's invaluable contributions to the debate have at least dealt with factual evidence (cherry-picked to tell a particular story, but still largely factual), the new film is a dramatic look back from a post-Apocalypse future at what went wrong. Not surprisingly, there are clear-cut heroes and villains, with the overall message that it's all been our fault. This message has been reinforced over the last week by Rowan Williams' lecture on responsibility in York Minster. In this, he summed up the belief of many (whether Christian or not) that the environment has been changed "appallingly for the worse". This, I suggest, goes against the experience of most people lucky enough to live in the industrialised world.
Rather than living currently in the Age of Stupid, when mankind wantonly destroys the planet, it seems more likely that we are actually in the Age of Gullible, when the majority of opinion formers, the media and intellectuals are willing to place unquestioning belief in the dire predictions of environmentalists.
Martin Livermore is the Director of The Scientific Alliance
