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Hit or Myth? A Dozen Dirty "Truths" With One Tiny Problem: They're False
Raise your hand if you're a open-minded eco-resident of the modern age with no patience for fairy tales and legends. Mythology, for most of us, evokes images of Jupiter, Hercules, and Thor, right? It's something the primitive ancients engaged in before modernity reared its enlightened head. But contrary to our post-modern pomposity, there's no shortage of myths making the rounds today, e.g. the media is liberal, Iraq has WMDs, and there are an abundance of wealthy Nigerians who need your help transferring money between accounts.
From global warming deniers to historical hoaxes, it pays for those in the green movement to be skeptical, too. Ideologues with a deep-seated anti-green agenda or corporate shills skilled in greenwashing or simply well-meaning eco-activists with a touch of gullibility--whatever the impetus, the dangers remain. It is through independent thought and serious inquiry that the myriad cracks in this rickety facade are duly exposed.
On that note, get ready for...
12 Eco-Myths Just Begging to Be Debunked
The Classics
1. Climate Change is a Hoax
Sure, when the summer is cold, it brings out the deniers but let's not forget we've just had the second hottest September ever on record. A crucial--but often overlooked point--is that we have nothing to lose by believing what almost every friggin' scientist on the planet says about climate change/global warming. The only folks afraid of green for green's sake? Corporate America.
2. Coal Can Be Clean
Greenpeace begs to differ: "No coal-fired power plants are truly 'clean'. 'Clean coal' methods only move pollutants from one waste stream to another which are then still released into the environment." Contaminants are always released in the coal burning process. That means fly ash, gaseous air emissions, water outflow, etc. It's inaccurate to call anything clean if it ends up polluting the environment to such a degree.
3. Nuclear Power is Carbon Free
"The no-emissions carbon footprint label assigned by the Nuclear Energy Institute ignores the significant environmental impact resulting from mining, transportation, processing fuel, using water as energy and coolant, and building nuclear power facilities," explains Barbara Rose Johnston, senior research fellow at the Center for Political Ecology and the co-author of The Consequential Dangers of Nuclear War: the Rongelap Report. Then, of course, you have to factor in the carbon footprint of health care costs, re: short-term and long-term health consequences of absorbing toxic heavy metals and the radioactivity.
4. Hunting Controls Animal Populations
The folks at PETA explain: "The delicate balance of ecosystems ensures their own survival--if they are left unaltered. Natural predators help maintain this balance by killing only the sickest and weakest individuals. Hunters, however, kill any animal whose head they would like to hang over the fireplace--including large, healthy animals who are needed to keep the population strong."
5. Wind Turbines Kill Birds
Birds are under assault by industrial civilization but putting the focus on wind turbines is just a convenient way to mask one's anti-green bias. "In the United States, cars and trucks wipe out millions of birds each year, while 100 million to 1 billion birds collide with windows," writes john Laumer, citing a 2001 National Wind Coordinating Committee study, 'Avian Collisions with Wind Turbines: A Summary of Existing Studies and Comparisons to Other Sources of Avian Collision Mortality in the United States,' that found 2.19 bird deaths per turbine per year. Bad news for sure, but not even in the league of bird mortalities caused by un-green sources.
Mealtime Mythology
6. "Free Range"
Speaking of bird mortality, the popular myth that 'free-range' egg-laying hens enjoy fresh grass, bask in the sunlight, scratch the earth, sit on their nests, and engage in other natural habits is, says the crew at Compassion Over Killing, "often just that: a myth." They explain that in many commercial 'free-range' egg farms, "hens are crowded inside windowless sheds with little more than a single, narrow exit leading to an enclosure, too small to accommodate all of the birds at once." In addition, male chicks are viewed as useless (they cannot lay eggs and are different breeds than those chickens raised for meat) in both battery cage and 'free-range' egg hatcheries and are killed shortly after birth. How? By grinding them alive or throwing them into trash bags where they suffocate. Sometimes "free" ain't "free."
7. GM Crops Will Feed the Poor
A 2008 Friends of the Earth report called "Who Benefits From GM Crops" does all the debunking you'll need: "The majority of GM crops are not destined for hungry people in developing countries, but are used to feed animals, generate biofuels, and produce highly processed food products--mainly for consumption in rich countries. GM crops have not increased food security for the world's poor. None of the GM crops on the market are modified for increased yield potential and research continues to focus on new pesticide-promoting varieties that tolerate application of one or more herbicides."
8. Hitler Was a Vegetarian
Hitler's dietary choices may not be of vast historical importance...but they do hold polemical value. Meat-eaters often toss off the "but Hitler was a vegetarian" line as a method of allegedly discrediting a plant-based diet. After all, their "logic" goes, if the epitome of evil himself eschewed meat, what possible good could come from such a lifestyle? While this premise obviously lacks even a shred of intellectual validity, one cannot discount the emotional power invoked by associating Nazism with vegetarianism. The information on Hitler's diet dug up by author Rynn Berry displays an even more variable use of the label "vegetarian" than we endure today. It seems the German dictator "had no fondness for meat except in the form of sausages, and never ate fish, he enjoyed caviar." (Is sausage considered a vegetable in Germany?) In addition: "Hitler's vegetarianism was quite strict... He avoided any kind of meat, with the exception of an Austrian dish he loved, Leberknödl." For those of you scoring at home, Leberknödl are liver dumplings.
9. Vegans Don't Get Enough Protein
How much protein do you think we need? The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition says 2.5% of our daily calories should come from protein. According to the World Health Organization, it's about 5%. How does that work out in grams? A lot lower than the US average of 100 grams a day, that's for sure. "To consume a diet that contains enough, but not too much, protein, simply replace animal products with grains, vegetables, legumes (peas, beans, and lentils), and fruits," clarifies the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine. As long as one is eating a variety of plant foods in sufficient quantity to maintain one's weight, the body gets plenty of protein.
10. Food Irradiation is Harmless
According to the venerable consumer group, Public Citizen, there are many reasons to oppose food radiation, for example:
- Irradiation is not necessary to prevent food borne illness and irradiation merely masks filthy conditions in slaughterhouses which cause meat to be contaminated with bacteria that cause illness.
- Irradiation forms new chemicals in food that are known or suspected to cause cancer and birth defects; destroys vitamins and other essential nutrients; and corrupts the flavor, odor and texture of food. A wide range of health problems have been observed in animals fed irradiated foods, including premature death, stillbirths, mutations, fatal internal bleeding, organ damage, immune system dysfunction, stunted growth and nutritional deficiencies.
- Irradiation facilities can create air pollution and other environmental and worker safety threats.
- In legalizing and endorsing food irradiation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization, respectively, ignored a vast amount of research suggesting that irradiated foods are not safe for human consumption.
Sacred Cows
11. Al Gore is an Eco-God
First, it was discovered that his Tennessee mansion, "consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year." Then came news that just one week after Live Earth (at which hot dogs and burgers were sold), Gore and the guests at his daughter's wedding in Beverly Hills "dined on Chilean sea bass-arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species." Al gore is not a god. He's a fallible human, just like you. As Chomsky sez: "We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas."
12. Personal Changes are the Most Important Step
They are an important step but only when part of a longer journey and that journey involves the concept of eco-blame: Transnational corporations, for example, and the military-industrial complex which happens to be not only the biggest gas guzzler, but also, the planet's top polluter. We need action on all levels, folks. Who's with me?