In Hollywood, they’re sweating bullets over what they see as the coming catastrophe of global warming. But in New York and other places, folks are facing the here-and-now consequences of injuries related to the cold.

Ironically, some of the same environmentalists like the Adirondack Council who profess alarm at the potential loss of human life from global warming are standing in the way of making people safer from today’s weather. They have repeatedly blocked attempts to provide cellular coverage in semirural areas like New York’s Adirondack mountain range, where severe winter weather recently claimed the lives of two motorists on Interstate 87, also known as the Northway. These drivers might have been saved if their cell-phone calls for help had been able to get through.

Many in Gotham are familiar with the heartbreaking story, covered by local papers, of Alfred Langner, the 63-year-old Brooklyn man who died of hypothermia in late January 2007. Langner and his wife, Barbara, were stranded for 32 hours at subzero temperature after his car went off the Northway. Barbara’s call for help made from her cell phone was unable to go through due to the lack of cellular coverage range. The Langner’s friends in Brooklyn are now campaigning for cell towers for that 50-mile area of the highway on which the Langners’ accident occurred.

About two weeks later, there was yet another death on the same stretch of the Northway that lacks cellular coverage. Stewart Crookes, a truck driver from Canada, who was driving in his car with his wife, suffered a heart attack after his rig slid off the Northway in a snowstorm. After his wife’s cell-phone calls failed, she flagged down other motorists to call for help when they were in areas with coverage, according to the Associated Press. An ambulance didn’t arrive until 90 minutes after Crookes had collapsed, at which time he was dead.

Despite these tragedies, regional environmental groups like the Adirondack Council still oppose the construction of adequate cell-phone towers. They say that the towers would despoil the natural beauty of the Adirondacks. And some of their comments indicate that they do not seem to be bothered by these recent deaths.

The Adirondack Council’s claim to support a plan for mini-towers that would be 38 feet tall is a red herring. These structures mainly would be ineffective, points out the state senator of New York, Betty Little, who represents the Adirondacks and is chair of the Local Government Committee. Ms. Little notes that these proposed towers would not rise above many of the trees along the Northway. She says cellular providers have told her that, even with a state subsidy, they could not provide service unless the new towers were around 100 feet high.

Even when cellular companies have gone the extra mile to accommodate natural surroundings, the Adirondack Council has not been willing to budge. In the Adirondack town of Lake George, Nextel Partners took great pains to make a 114-foot cell tower blend in with the surrounding mountains and pine trees. They agreed to paint the tower brown, and install fake branches and leaves.

But the Adirondack Council and other environmentalists immediately dubbed the tower “Frankenpine,” and sued the Adirondack Park Agency in state courts in an attempt to block its construction.

Finally, though, Nextel was able to build the tower last year. But area eco groups such as Environmental Advocates of New York and Citizens Campaign for the Environment vowed that they would never let another 100-foot tower to be built in the area again, despite the urging of public safety officers.

Comments like those of the executive director of the Adirondack Council, Brian Houseal, reveal the council’s intent to preserve the green vision of a pristine wilderness. “Placing a steel and plastic cell tower above the tops of every tree in the forest … would be like painting a beard and moustache on the Mona Lisa,” he said in a press release. “You can dress a tower like a tree, but that doesn’t make it a tree.” He concluded, “If we allow a cell tower to rise above the trees on this site, we have failed our children and grandchildren.”

Mr. Houseal’s concerns must ring pretty hollow for the Crookes and Langner families. After all, these men will never see their children, or any current or future grandchildren, again.

These modern environmentalists, such as the Sierra Club, remain a paradox: They paint themselves as guardians of human health and safety on issues such as global warming and industrial pollution, yet they seem perfectly willing not to be concerned about the health and lives of others when modern technology gets in the way of their aesthetic pleasures.

If Al Gore is as concerned about human welfare as he says he is — as well as being concerned about the reputation of the environmental movement — he should pick up his cell phone, call the environmentalists in the Adirondacks, and tell them to cease their misguided crusade. Because on the Northway, it’s an inconvenient truth that environmentalism is leading to unnecessary death and devastation.

Mr. Berlau, an analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, based in Washington, D.C., is the author of “Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism Is Hazardous to Your Health.”