Environmental rhetoric is everywhere.

Banning incandescent light bulbs, taking fewer trips, capping energy production and other sordid ideas have become mainstream. Relentless imperatives to reduce one’s “footprint” have caused some to seek professional help for “eco-anxiety.”

People accept these moves because they believe environmentalism stands for reducing pollution, finding better sources of energy and improving man’s life.

But behind a veneer of pseudo-science and pro-technology jargon, environmentalism’s actual goal is not man’s well-being; it’s protecting nature from man. Anything that despoils nature is condemned, irrespective of its benefits to man. Environmentalism is thus profoundly anti-development, anti-industry and anti-man.

Perhaps the most accepted and celebrated environmentalist dogma is the idea of “sustainability.”

Proponents of “sustainability” treat energy as a finite quantity of “stuff” that will eventually run out. Since oil, coal and natural gas exist in some finite quantity, being “dependent” on such resources is to invite disaster. Instead, they say, we must find energy that exists in perpetuity, that can’t be depleted, that is “renewable.”

This ignores the fact that energy does not exist in nature but has to be produced. Oil is just black goo without the science of exploration and refinery. The energy value of our resources comes about because of man’s productive effort.

But, for the advocates of “sustainability,” who see energy production as essentially an act of consuming finite resources, production becomes the problem rather than the solution.

Fossil fuel — a grand technological achievement of discovery, refinery and conversion to energy — is regarded as a crutch, while man is regarded as a helpless dependent on Mother Nature’s “pie.” It would be hard to find a greater perversion of the truth.

The transition from whale oil to natural gas to electricity was not a result of government efforts to reduce energy dependence but of entrepreneurs like Rockefeller and Edison, who used their ingenuity to produce something better.

The transition from horse to car was not a result of cap-and-trade rationing of horse-feed but of men like Henry Ford who produced something better.

Better, cleaner and more efficient technologies are the product of inventors and entrepreneurs who are left free to use their minds. Industry is what transformed smoke-filled huts to modern homes, appliances and central heating. Industry is what replaced soot-spewing factories with cleaner, more efficient ones.

Contrary to the productive inventors of the past, advocates of “sustainable” energies claim that new energy sources require government subsidies and crippling restrictions on competing energies. Their euphemistic calls to “invest in alternative energies” consist not of actually attracting investors, but of manipulating government policy to favor unproductive sources at the expense of productive sources. Environmentalists claim that “alternative” energies will somehow be a market success given enough market intervention.

The truth is just the reverse. New energy sources should be adopted because they are better, not because government decides to subsidize them. Crippling production through rationing (cap-and-trade) and moratoriums, while diverting free-market investments to unproductive energy sources, can only result in less — and inferior — energy.

When government diverts money from free-market investors to, say, biofuels, it penalizes those able to attract investors while rewarding those who cannot. It replaces technologies able to succeed on merit with those able to garner political pull.

Succeeding based on merit is what “sustainability” advocates are against. It is not failure of oil, nuclear and other energies that environmentalists are worried about; it’s their success.

This is why environmentalists consistently champion energy sources that are poor at providing energy while remaining steadfast against productive sources. Nuclear sources of energy, despite being one of the safest, cleanest and most efficient sources, continues to be opposed by environmentalists. And despite their alleged worries about running out of oil, they actively oppose the only thing that can ensure its continued availability: drilling and building new refineries.

In every era, human life has been improved by man’s ability to mold nature and create the goods and services required to sustain his life. Such values do not exist as a nature-given “pie” to be consumed; they are products of inventors, entrepreneurs and industry.

Through the false idea of “sustainability,” environmentalism attacks human prosperity at its root. Those concerned with sustaining human life should reject the dogma of “sustainability” and adopt its opposite: industry, production and freedom.

Jim Allard ([email protected]) is a graduate student in biological sciences.