Swedish Toxicologist On Environmental Frenzy

Swedish toxicologist professor Robert Nilsson at Stockholm University had an article in today's DN about the environmental frenzy. His concern is directed towards the fact that swedish governmental insitutions lack the general insights as to what real threats against our environment are.

What is a real environmental threat anyway? Environmental extremism or fundamentalism can really cloud our judgements as to what is a real threat and we cannot really trust our governmental institutions in these matters.

If you want to know more about radiation, particles in the air and other toxic related stuff, then you have to gather information from several sources.

I for one do not really know if all the particles, data and transmissions in the air is hazardous or not. I have no way of knowing this without looking at scientific facts or trying to sense how I am feeling. I will not entirely trust any external sources in these matters nor will I force my beliefs onto someone else, but I cannot go and hide from all the dangerous stuff either; I will not avoid the debates and discussions concerning these matters.

The institutions rely on different kinds of labelling and categorization. The climate friendly, ecological and the environmental friendly have gone from being serious concepts, to becoming static clusters of non-meaning with economic and political connotations.

When I hear these concepts in the media or in politics they feel so dated and stagnated. I still buy a lot of ecological stuff when i buy food and I like to have that option, however, politicians use our awareness and our fear in order to change and manipulate us, as well as the politics and our society as a whole.

Even though there are real threats, politicians tend to make us believe that everything is a threat. There is a sort of notion in swedish politics that citizens are stupid and cannot know what is good for our society and our environment. The political situation is even worse when intellectuals and scientists are not allowed to have different opinions on these concepts and about the so called threats.

The politics as well the different opinions and 'facts' are shoved down our throats and we are not allowed to have different opinions because different opinions can be 'dangerous'. That is the worst possible climate for an intellectual debate and a serious perspective on science. This is proof of a poor insight as to what type of threats we have to address first.

We cannot shut down our socio-economical structures and industries when we are going to battle climate change. We have to embrace all possibilities, technologies as well as be highly progressive. One has to realize that the world's climate is changing over time and that we cannot blame everything on mankind. The earth has always had different time periods of climate change.

We cannot just neglect or reject all the research on our sun, the oceans as well as our air when we are looking into what is 'causing' this.

I presume that cause & effect in this matter is more complex than what politicians are willing to admit or even understand. The one thing that I am concerned about is that people are excluded from the general media as well as debates simply because they have different opinions from the given facts handed down by the European Parliament as well as the swedish government.

What about Nilsson then? What does he think? Well, he blames the ignorant and clueless politicians of course. He also points our that we have gotten worse products since the alarmism started and that these concepts have weakened our economy.

Has anyone noticed how quiet all environmentalists became after the recent economic recession?