It's conventional, but relevant and important. Michael Crichton made an impact on the sexual harassment debate with Disclosure and may do the same with his current novel State of Fear. In both books, he makes news with his concluding comments following the story. In the latest volume, he takes on the global warming hystericists. The Hearland Institute (where our own S.T. Karnick plies his editorial craft) has a nice summary of Crichton's remarks. Here's a sample:
"The current near-hysterical preoccupation with safety is at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism."
"[T]he thinking of environmental activists ... seems oddly fixed in the concepts and rhetoric of the 1970s."
"We need a new environmental movement, with new goals and new organizations."
My own suspicion is that the environmental movement has been damaged by an infusion of post-Soviet Marxists looking for a way to hamper the expansion of capitalism. Conservation is a thoroughly laudable goal, but it must not pursued in such a way as to destroy national economies. We've had enough of the centrally planned and controlled economic models of the past. There are many ways environmentalists can succeed using the incentives of the free-market to achieve their goals. It is that sort of new movement to which Crichton likely refers.
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