'The Creation'

Thanks for bringing to my attention E. O. Wilson's new book "The Creation" (C&EN, Oct. 30, page 3). While I am not a fan of Wilson's, you piqued my curiosity enough to buy the book and see what he has to say.

"The Creation" seems a strange title for a book written by an acknowledged secular humanist. "Creation" implies that there is a creator (or God), yet a humanist does not believe in theistic religion. Therefore, a humanist seeking to find common ground with a Christian pastor seems somewhat inimical.

Aside from that, Wilson advocates a type of radical environmentalism that portends mass extinctions, the depletion of resources, runaway global warming, and a desolate future. All will be lost, the alarmists claim, unless we immediately jump on the bandwagon of sustainability. Well, that's one view, but a radical shift to a so-called sustainable lifestyle would cripple the world's economy, severely damage developed countries, weaken core industries (like chemicals), and lead us toward a utopian world government.

Conservation of resources and the development of alternatives is good policy, and we should all support this. But I am of the view that the physical Earth is not in such deep trouble as activists like Wilson would have us believe. Earth and its life forms have survived many changes in the past—some of them catastrophic—and I predict that life will adapt to whatever nature has to bring in the foreseeable future. The environmental alarmists have hijacked science to support their politically correct agenda. The sad thing is that we've allowed them to get away with it.

Frankly, in today's world, I'm more concerned about radical terrorists, rogue dictators with apocalyptic visions, and unstable nations with nuclear weapons. Man's worst enemy is himself, not the vagaries of nature.

Robert Lattimer
Hudson, Ohio

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