Tag: environmentalism

In “Global-Warming Hysteria,” Philip Stott states “The real crisis for 4 billion people in the world remain poverty, dirty water and the lack of a modern energy supply. By contrast, global warming represents an ecochondria of the pampered rich.”

This is true as far as it goes, but it does not go nearly far enough. As economist George Reisman states in his essay “The Toxicity of Environmentalism,” “Energy use, the productivity of labor, and the standard of living are inseparably connected, with the two last entirely dependent on the first.” In other words, reducing energy use and creating wealth (as well as eliminating poverty) are mutually exclusive aims.

 Taken in historical context, the campaign against “global warming” is part of a larger and more fundamental Environmentalist campaign to throttle energy use altogether, a campaign that has effectively eliminated nuclear power and has now set its sights on fossil fuels. As such, it is a campaign to stop, and then turn back, economic progress, and thus stop, and then turn back, the continuous increase in the health, wealth, and well-being of humanity as a whole. It is a tragedy in the making for the twenty-first century, driven by an anti-human ideology that has the potential to make the death and impoverishment caused by Communism seem quaint in comparison.

In your editorial, “America-bashing: The cause that never dies” (12/1/97), your writer states that “we are not really competent to discuss the validity” of the theory of global warming, “we” in this context implying “the average layman.”

Not true. There are a host of uncontroversial facts available to the average layman that disprove the theory of global warming. For example: the slight increase in the earth’s temperature (one degree Fahrenheit) during the past century followed a previous decrease in temperature, most of this rise occurred before 1940, and observations from weather satellite sensors show that no further increase has occurred over the last 20 years.

Environmentalism is not a field of science. It is an ideology that holds that unaltered nature is good and that the alteration of nature for human benefit, i.e., production, is bad. Thus, moderate environmentalists routinely call for an end to economic growth, while ideologically consistent environmentalists routinely call for an end to industrial civilization. It is by means of ideologically biased pseudo-science that both groups are rapidly gaining the ability to implement their nihilistic goals by law. Thus it is imperative that those who hold pro-human values either dismiss environmentalist pseudo-science out-of-hand, or learn how to refute it. Given such excellent resources as Dixie Lee Ray’s book, “Environmental Overkill,” the latter is not difficult to do.

In your article, “Clinton launches greenhouse gas education drive” (7/25/97), you quote the alleged scientific expert Stephen Schneider’s claim that “the increasing frequency and magnitude of ” this year’s severe Midwest and San Joaquin Valley floods “could very well be the first signs” of global warming. Your readers might also be interested in what Mr. Schneider has to say to his fellow environmentalists on the subject of honesty: “We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest” (quoted in the book “Trashing the Planet” by Dixy Lee Ray).

Contrary to President Clinton’s claim that “the overwhelming percentage of scientists believe [global warming] to be fact today,” the overwhelming percentage of honest, ideologically unbiased scientists believe quite the opposite.