Groene activist Mark Lynas en zijn verschrikkelijke geheim dat hij met niemand kon delen

Mark Lynas, author of ‘Six Degrees: Our future on a hotter planet’, has now published an interesting new book, ‘The God Species: How the Planet can survive the Age of Humans’. At first glance, this is the sort of book you would expect to get a warm welcome from environmentalists and be roundly condemned by their intellectual opponents. But this is not really so; Lynas has written something which will infuriate many environmentalists while getting a cautious welcome from some who are naturally sceptical of tales of doom and destruction.

The interesting thing is that he is showing independence of mind. Famously, Bjørn Lomborg set out to assemble the quantitative evidence to back up the main claims of the environmentalist movement and ended up writing ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’, a heresy for which he has never been forgiven. Although Mark Lynas would probably not be comfortable with the parallel (he infamously once hit him with a custard pie in protest at his critical views on environmental issues) he is in fact following Lomborg’s footsteps.

Some greens may now think he deserves similar treatment. His first act of apostasy was to look at the evidence on genetically modified crops and conclude that there was little to be concerned about. He has this week written an op-ed for the Times (To abolish starvation Africa needs GM crops) in which he says ‘As a former anti-GM campaigner, I used to join “decontamination” actions in the middle of the night, trampling and slashing down crop trials in the UK in the late 1990s. Looking back, I realise I was caught up in something more resembling anti-scientific mass hysteria rather than any rational response to a new technology.’ Congratulations for not continuing with blind prejudice.

Similarly, Mark Lynas has publicly supported nuclear power as an essential way to generate low-carbon energy. This he does because he continues to subscribe to the mainstream view that it is carbon dioxide emissions which are driving potentially dangerous global warming. Another high-profile environmentalist who has come to the same conclusion is James Lovelock.

Coming back to Mark Lynas, he sums up the problem for many greens very well: 'Being an environmentalist was part of my identity and most of my friends were environmentalists. We were involved in the whole movement together. It took me years to actually begin to question those core, cherished beliefs. It was so challenging it was almost like going over to the dark side. It was a like a horrible dark secret you couldn't share with anyone.'

That really encapsulates the problem: if you identify with a particular movement, you are expected to share its main beliefs and questioning these is simply not welcome. Opponents are not deemed worthy of proper debate, and environmentalists who dissent on particular issues, such as Lomborg and Lynas, are regarded as traitors and treated as such (or occasionally, as suffering from some kind of delusion). Not that this is confined to the greens; identification with a particular cause or belief often means indulging in groupthink to fit in.