“Better, Greener, Smarter Cities: We have seen a brighter future, and it is urban”.
This is the rap the Scientific American is using to sell its new “special issue” about all the cool, efficient shit we could have if everyone—everyone in the whole damn world, that is—would just do what the Scientific American tells them to do. Not all of the articles are nonsensical, but overall the impact of the issue is highly depressing. A few years ago, when Bjørn Lomborg’s eminently sensible Skeptical Environmentalist started making waves, the SA went totally apeshit, publishing one of the most absurd “special issues” I’ve ever seen, bearing the grotesque title “Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist,” as though “Science” were some sort of hysterical virgin defending her chastity against the rapacious Mr. Lomborg. Naturally, “Science” couldn’t speak for “itself,” or “herself,” so SA enlisted a core of chesty champions to do battle against the dastardly Mr. Lomborg, who appears to have suffered little from their assaults.
When President Obama was first elected, right-wingers moaned that we were threatened by a new era of oppressive government regulation. The sad fact is, such complaints were largely true. Though not at all a socialist—no one could question the President’s devotion to Wall Street—the Obama Administration’s dreams of a green America were fantastically intrusive—a systematic reordering of virtually every detail of the way hundreds of millions of Americans lead their everyday lives, all for the sake, not of human beings, but seals, and polar bears, and salmon, all of whom would gladly eat one another if they had the chance.
Fortunately, those fantasies have all fallen to pieces on the hard rock of economic reality. It would be fantastically expensive to reorder American society to make it green, and money is one thing that we’re seriously short of these days. Yes, we’re short of money, but the Scientific American is not short of stupidity.
Afterwords
When not mooning over skyscrapers straight out of Fritz Lang (“smart” ones, of course), the Scientific American is an excellent, excellent magazine. Subscribe today, and get literate, you schmuck!
