Environmentalists Can Be Smug Jerks

I read this first in Popular Science August 2010:

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behavior", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics".

“Do Green Products Make Us Better People” is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the "halo of green consumerism" are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. "Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviors," they write.

Well, people have been conned if they buy green products they are saving the world. So, of course environmentalists think they are better (read: do-gooders) who don’t buy green products. They develop a superiority complex.

There is nothing wrong with cleaning up pollution, recycling and even reusing certain products. That’s practical environmentalism. We are custodians of the planet. But thinking if you saving earth by using some green product is saving the earth—you are deluding yourself. You don’t have that much power over it. And if you worship the earth over God—you are a pagan.