The beginning of this story goes back more than a quarter of a century, proving that our disconnection with accurate and truthful environmental reporting has been an unpleasant work in progress.

“Recycling is Garbage” was the headline on the cover of the June 1996 New York Times Magazine. The now infamous, one-sided expose on recycling in America generated what, at the time, was the greatest number of negative letters to the editor ever received by the Times.

Environmental curmudgeons have an undeniable right to make a case for their point of view. They do not have the same right to lie or tell half-truths.

Striving not to be guilty of the same one-sided writing, let me concede that recycling is not without its problems. But like so many challenges confronting the world today, only hearing part of our trash story makes it difficult to debate sound policy.

The 1996 column laments the cost of collection and processing and market struggles for recycled materials but disregarded a host of benefits.

The Northeast Recycling Council provided a spirited rebuttal. “I’m not sure what’s more appalling — (the) lack of regard for the impact our production and consumption has on developing nations, the environment, and the loss of resources for future generations or advocacy for simply ‘burying’ everything because civilizations have been doing so for ‘thousands of years.'”

The Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) stressed, “Recycling in the United States is a vibrant activity and a key driver in domestic and global manufacturing.”

Old habits are evidently very difficult to break, for several of the old guard of environmental cynics have renewed their campaign in 2024, this time denying climate change. Their strategy? Deny the facts and discredit the advocates.

The author of the 1996 piece recently contended in a syndicated editorial on the Mirror Opinion page, “There’s been no long term growth in the intensity or number of hurricanes.”

From where this information came is a mystery, as every reputable scientific entity one can find on an internet search says quite the opposite. While the increase in total hurricanes is modest, it still shows an upward trend. The number of Category Four and Five storms has increased significantly according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data.

The record warmth of the world’s oceans has provided the fuel, adding not just massive amounts of moisture but rapid intensification of storms.

Meanwhile, they charge environmental organizations with “deceitful self-dealing” to attract donor dollars to their “crisis industry” while lining the pockets of the organization’s administrative staffs.

They criticize the larger environmental organizations for providing generous compensation packages. But they fail to mention the overwhelming portion are responsible for more than 500 staff and usually make much less than their private sector industry counterparts.

By comparison, the top 15 highest-paying industry organizations (13 of which have embarked upon aggressive climate change denial campaigns) paid their CEOs an average of $3.2 million. That’s more than five and a half times the average compensation of environmental nonprofit leaders, according to data compiled by Politico.

The Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions further reported that those industry groups trying to undermine climate change prevention efforts spent an average of $276 million annually on lobbying, political contributions, advertising and promotion.

They failed to mention that was 27 times what environmental nonprofits spent.

John Frederick (www.johnjfrederick.com) writes about science and the environment twice a month for the Mirror.