Retorts

Contrarians

The Contrarians. Note this name; you are going to hear about them increasingly in the lead-up to the year 2000.

Who are they? A small, shrill group who are "taking the fight to the environmentalists", according to the Guardian Weekly. What are their aims? To maintain the status quo in many facets of industry in an effort to avoid any hint of regulatory constraint over things like gas emissions, water pollution, energy usage and the like.

People who do not share their views are "Greenies" and "alarmists" who are attempting to stampede governments into actions which they consider inimical to the growth of the economy. Their fulminations have been labelled "greenlash", and they are predictably getting plenty of media coverage.

Sensible environmentalists (Contrarians consider this an oxymoron!) value their eccentric inputs as checks on opposing views, but there is a real danger that their ideas could swamp the steady and careful accumulation of data on topics like climate change and greenhouse warming.

A recent Contrarian article in the Press does not deny the existence of changes which so worry the world's scientists. Rather, the message is "If we don't worry about them, they might go away". Only one good thing can be said about the Contrarians: their views are good for business!

Meanwhile, thousands of scientists round the world are continuing to gather data from a huge array of sources while they struggle to create a picture of what human activities are doing to the planet. So far, the emerging news does not encourage me to join the ranks of the Contrarians.

Rex Stewart, Christchurch