A Dash of Truth

The recipe for a lie usually includes at least a small pinch of truth. This includes even those small lies we tell ourselves to help cope with our own personal set of faults.

Mark Twain said that he was not addicted to cigars. He could give them up whenever he wished. He knew this, he said, because he had done it a thousand times.

At law, this is known as the "colorable argument'' - the lie that contains just enough truth that it can be told with a straight face, little risk of being accused of outright perjury, and a chance of success if the opposition is not quick enough in rebuttal.

The lies that are most dangerous to science, technology, and freedom in 1995 are also disguised by their own dashes of truth.

Consider, for example, the pseudoenvironmentalist enviro bums and agitators whose lies we discussed under the heading "envy'' in AtE 22-6. (This, we have told ourselves, represented great rhetorical restraint on our part. We could have resorted to vituperation.) Is careful preservation and enhancement of the natural environment a good thing? Obviously it is. Most farmers, loggers, and other individuals who make their livings close to nature are active environmentalists. They are continually taking actions to enhance and preserve the environment. Our region of the Northwest, for example, has been intensively utilized by farmers, loggers, miners, and a wide variety of other people for about 150 years. Most of these people have worked harder and earned less than their counterparts in urban areas. They have stayed here largely because they love this environment.

Now welfare-supported enviro agitators in collusion with national pseudoenvironmentalist groups are trying to eject these people from the Northwest because (they say) people may harm the pristine environment here. It is admirably pristine because those same people and their ancestors (whom the enviros vilify) have kept it that way.

Are there occasional people who irresponsibly harm the environment? Of course there are. These people provide the dash of truth in the enviro recipe for depopulation of the American rural Northwest.

We write frequently about the "global warming fraud'' in which carbon dioxide is being "falsely demonized.'' Is it not true, however, that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas? Yes, that is true. The earth is warmed in part by the energy trapped by atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is also true that there has been an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in recent decades. These are the pinches of truth in the "global warming'' recipe. It is not true, however, that the earth is slipping quickly toward global environmental disaster as a result of these truths. In fact, the only detectable environmental changes observed so far as a result of this rise in carbon dioxide have been uniformly favorable to the natural environment of the earth.

The ozone hoax also has its own truthful ingredients. It is true that chlorine compounds have been shown in the laboratory to dissociate and participate, under atmospheric conditions, in reactions that consume ozone. It is also true that CFCs such as freon decompose and participate in these reactions and undoubtedly do so also when they are released into the atmosphere. The extent of this participation is still unknown. We do know, however, that world atmospheric ozone levels are within the range of ordinary fluctuations. Most importantly, we know that there has been no significant increase in UV light levels at the earth's surface during recent decades. The few credible measurements show, in fact, a slight decrease.

These bits of correct atmospheric chemistry have been parlayed, however, into the lie that CFCs are leading to a global UV light disaster and mass cancer deaths - which can only be stopped by destroying chlorine chemistry-based technology.

Is it true that we would be slightly better off if our food contained no traces whatever of pesticides, herbicides, and preservatives? This is probably true in a very limited sense. In the broader sense, however, which includes the fact that elimination of these substances will markedly reduce the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables and will likely even increase our intake of dangerous substances from naturally resistant plants, this small truth supports a very large and dangerous lie. This lie may cause millions of early deaths.

Were the traces of DDT in the world food chain a hazard to human and animal health? Colorable arguments to this effect were made and an exhaustive search would probably have discovered concrete examples of ill effects - if one overlooked (in probably the most genocidal lie of omission in human history) the fact that DDT saved more than 500 million human lives before it was banned and failed to save hundreds of millions more thereafter.

Is recycling a sensible activity? Well, the free market thinks so. Aluminum, steel, silver, and many other items were being recycled long before the enviro industry became established. Does this small truth mean, however, that coercive laws should require that everything be recycled? Does it mean that paper must be collected, transported, deinked, and recycled? American forests are increasing so fast that our wood and paper industry could not possibly stay even with them. Burning waste paper (thereby fertilizing the trees) and manufacturing low-cost high-quality virgin paper is actually the most energy and resource-efficient procedure. The big recycling lie (based on the small recycling truth) serves as justification for coercive recycling - the interactive propaganda of the enviro industry.

There is no substitute for the truth - when it is the whole truth. The stock in trade of the liar is the small truth with which the large lie or falsehood of omission is disguised. The dash of truth is often like a spice that covers up the taste of poison in the whole brew.

We now have sufficient science and technology to eliminate early deaths and give almost everyone an opportunity for 80 to 100 years of vibrant good health; to explore our solar system and give all of the members of our civilization an opportunity for at least vicarious enjoyment of this spectacular and unprecedented new frontier; to provide such an abundance of low-cost energy and industry that even the least wealthy live more richly that the most wealthy of previous generations; and to banish hunger and other forms of human suffering as completely as we have banished smallpox.

We can do these things if we retain our freedom and our commitment to truth. If, however, we allow the large lies that oppose us to hide behind small truths, we may forfeit these great opportunities.

•	*A Dash of Truth*
•	ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE
•	LANGUAGE LESSONS
•	STARK RAVING MAD
•	GOOD READING

Vol. 22, No. 7

Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
Volume: Issues
Issue/No.: Vol. 22, No. 7

Date: March 01, 1995 03:48 PM
Title: A Dash of Truth