Green Fanaticism vs. Rational Humanism

On Aug. 5 The Epoch Times posted an article on the economic collapse and social anarchy of Sri Lanka, a thriving nation of approximately 20 million up until the election of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019. While his government’s corruption was certainly a factor, its pursuit of an agenda that was both anti-capitalist and radically “green” seems to have been largely responsible for his country’s present day food and fuel shortages, financial dysfunction and general chaos. The writer of the article, Stephen Moore, cites as an example of that agenda the 2021 banning of all synthetic fertilizers and pesticides from the nation’s farms in the pursuit of a more “organic agriculture.” The resultant decline in farming productivity, including the possibility of a massive famine, led Rajapaksa to flee his country in the middle of the night just a few weeks ago. This same syndrome, Moore insists, is apparent in the recent history of a number of South American countries [Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, etc.] whose Neo-Marxist leaders, in consort with green radicals, have seen fit to impose all sorts of environmentally motivated burdens on the entrepreneurial classes with little concern for the practical impact of their policies.

The immediate, frenzied reaction of those who believe everything they read is that the future of the planet and indeed our very species is at stake. But as is typical of almost everything coming from the Left, the global warming narrative endorsed by those who claim to be rational and objective is rife with half truths, gross generalizations and outright lies. We are constantly told that 97% of the science community is onside with the notion that Man is primarily responsible for global warming. That is a lie. A group called Energy Advocate, for example, produced a petition signed by 16000 experts opposed to the recommendations of the 1997 Kyoto Accord. The experience of climatologist Judith Curry who left the Georgia Institute of Technology due to what she described as the “tribal nature” of the hostility she endured as a result of her refusal to ignore the multitude of uncertainties included in what are being proffered as undeniable Facts, is typical of the tyrannical nature of the contemporary Left. The geological record shows the earth’s climate has been fluctuating throughout all of history. That and a host of unanswered questions make the anthropogenic narrative little more than a hypothesis. Yet those who hate the West, those who hate Capitalism, Technology and ultimately Human Achievement itself because it conflicts with their devotion to Inclusiveness, gleefully indict any activity, however beneficial to the species, however insignificant its emissions, if it can be in any way tied to global warming.

[Did you know that termites produce more than twice the CO2 emitted by all the world’ industrial smokestacks?]

I am in no way suggesting we simply disregard the anthropogenic narrative. But certain pragmatic realities seem utterly beyond those fanatically committed to that narrative. The first is the fact that we must continue to produce fossil fuels even as we transition away from them. To cancel energy projects when we have no way of reproducing their benefits is to quite literally imperil the well-being of millions across the planet. At the same time it is insane for the environmentally “woke” not to acknowledge that certain fossil fuels [i.e., liquid natural gas] are inordinately “cleaner” than others. This distinction, sadly, has had little effect on those sanctimoniously given to disrupting every new energy project in sight. Several natural gas pipelines in the Appalachian region of the U.S. have been abandoned due both to the opposition of environmentalists and the regulatory burdens imposed by government. In Feb. of this year protesters launched a violent attack on the Coastal Gas Link pipeline in B.C.. In April the Quebec government banned all new oil and gas exploration in the province. Is it possible these well intended though ill thought out initiatives are doing to the Western World precisely what Rajapaksa did to Sri Lanka? Is it possible the political Left, in consort with environmentalists, is committed to the end of Western Civilization itself?

The Canadian territory of Nunavut is blessed with some of the richest iron ore deposits on the planet. Its Inuit population relies heavily on the jobs born of the exploitation of that resource. Yet when the Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation requested government permission to increase production from 4.2 to 6 million tonnes annually, it was rejected. This resulted in the termination of 1100 of the company’s employees on July 31, a devastating blow to the small population of the Iqaluit area.

As Sri Lanka’s plight suggests, hostility towards the energy sector has of late come to be directed towards the farming community as well. Emissions produced by both fertilizers and cattle apparently contribute to the greenhouse effect. You may recently have noted articles suggesting we need to begin eating insects as opposed to the beef which has traditionally been a staple of the Western diet. The Trudeau government, through the imposition of taxes and other measures, hopes to reduce the use of fertilizers by 30% in the near future. In a recent survey, 72% of the farmers polled said the tactic will seriously imperil food production in this country while of course inevitably inflating your weekly grocery bill. The Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association stated flatly that the policy will reduce its members’ revenues by approximately 840 million dollars annually. Given these facts, one wonders how our brilliant Prime Minister intends to achieve his stated goal of radically increasing our food exports by the year 2025 so as to feed the 300 million across the planet living under the constant threat of starvation.

The absurdly contradictory nature of Trudeau’s agenda is hardly unique. On his first day in office Joe Biden cancelled the Keystone XL Pipeline. Subsequently banning energy projects from various government owned lands, he made it quite clear the U.S. was fervently committed to sources other than fossil fuels. Yet just weeks after his inauguration he was begging the Saudis and others to increase their oil production to compensate for shortages within the States! The irony of the fact that he had stifled the flow of oil from Canada which submits all energy projects to intense government oversight, while inviting nations with little environmental conscience whatsoever to increase their production, was apparently lost on simple-minded Joe.

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency warns that many native species are in decline due to emissions produced by the country’s farmers. But it is estimated that the government’s attempts to limit both the use of fertilizers and the raising of livestock will lead to the closure of over 11,000 farms. The toll this will take both on the country’s food supplies and those thousands of families whose lives will have been devastated, remains to be seen. It is a fact that more than 5 billion species have gone extinct over the millennia as a result of natural phenomena utterly unrelated to Man. I am not suggesting a callous disregard for the non-human occupants of our planet, but really, ought not the human repercussions of its policies be of greater concern to the Dutch government than a decline in the numbers of various animal species?

There are no simple solutions to what may or may not be a disaster in waiting. Environmentalist David Suzuki who, by the way, has become a millionaire in pursuing his holy quest, [you might want to investigate his “carbon footprint”] manifested the disdain for the Rule of Law typical of so many on the Left when he gleefully predicted “pipelines will be blown up.” While his contempt for what is a fundamental principle of all healthy Democracies is despicable, what is truly troubling is the extent to which those such as he ignore not only the multitude of uncertainties which mar their “science” but the host of dire predictions made by so-called experts which have proven to be laughably incorrect.

In his 1968 book “The Population Bomb,” Prof. Paul Ehrlich predicted the 70s would see hundreds of millions starve to death across the planet, many of those in the U.S. itself. Oddly, given he was 100% wrong, he continues to maintain that his hypothesis was basically correct!

In 1970, a Life magazine article cited environmental experts in predicting that the ensuing decade would see urban dwellers across the planet forced to wear gas masks in order to survive the scourge of industrial pollution.

In 1979 Leonard Nimoy narrated a documentary averring the world would be engulfed in a New Ice Age by the year 2000. As a number of climate gurus concurred, The N.Y. Times suggested this to be a simple, scientific fact!

I could go on at length citing examples of the fallibility of “scientific” narratives which purport to explain the future of the planet. This, of course, in the parlance of the Left, makes me a “denier,” one so stupid as to deny the historical fact of the Holocaust. But the analogy, while typical of the tactics of the Left, is absurd. Even more so is the insistence of the contemporary global warming movement and its multitude of mindless adherents who in most cases have put no effort at all into exploring the subject, to ruthlessly imperil the lives and well-being of millions across the face of the planet on behalf of a narrative that is as much a result of Ideological Bias as it is of actual scientific evidence.