Atheism
Science and Religion
Scepticism
Anti-Green page
by Mark Humphrys.
OK so I'm not anti-Green in the sense that I want to pave the whole world.
I believe
very much in
preserving life on earth
(and indeed spreading it to the stars).
It's just that it should all be based on science,
not emotion.
I'm against most things the Greens say
about biotech, agriculture, genetics and medicine.
Much of it is provably false.
The Green movement is largely a movement that does not believe
in science and reason,
and often even explicitly rejects it.
I'm sceptical about their claims of looming apocalypse
due to climate change or population growth.
The threat of apocalypse due to
nuclear-armed communism
seemed real to me.
Apocalypse due to
nuclear-armed Islamism, or other future tyranny,
seems real to me.
Apocalypse due to peaceful consumerism seems far-fetched.
There might be climate change issues in the future,
but whether they will be apocalyptic I am not yet convinced.
We shall see.
I'm against almost everything the Greens say
about economics, trade, war, terror and international politics.
That's because it's just standard socialist nonsense.
I'm big into
human rights,
and I'm big into
preserving old buildings
and preserving endangered species, but I'm afraid that
much of the other things the Greens campaign for leave me cold.
They may have had a point in campaigning against
the Cold War nuclear standoff (*),
but nowadays most of the Green campaigns look to me
like not much more than simply a fear of science and knowledge,
and a preference for mysticism, ignorance and
New Age mumbo-jumbo.
- environmental issues
- (*)
About the Cold War -
What else could the West have done?
If it did not stand up to Russia,
then Russia would have invaded Western Europe
and enslaved us all.
If it did stand up to Russia,
it risked nuclear holocaust
which was surely far, far worse than slavery.
It was a miserable choice,
but I don't see what else Reagan, Thatcher, et al.
could have done.
In retrospect they were totally vindicated,
as the Evil Empire
finally collapsed, while the West stayed intact.
Agriculture
Global warming
- In terms of
armageddon scenarios,
I was afraid of nuclear war,
and I am still afraid of
nuclear terrorism,
but I am not very afraid of global warming.
I have a couple of questions:
- Is it really happening?
I am not qualified to say if global warming is happening or not.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was,
and there are certainly heavy-duty scientists behind it,
but it is funny how conveniently it meshes
with left-wing, anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist ideology,
and westerners' post-religious need to feel guilty
about their fantastic prosperity and consumer riches.
It may be just a coincidence.
But it's quite an amazing coincidence.
- How bad will it be?
It's not enough to say that changing the climate is scary. I agree.
It would be better not to do it.
But how bad will it really be?
Maybe it will just be a problem that we can adapt to,
and that can be reversed as technology (e.g. of cars) changes in the future.
We need to compare the cost of global warming with the cost of the solution,
and then make a rational decision as to which one is worse.
- In particular, the proposed "solution"
to global warming seems to be to reduce development
and to keep the
third world
undeveloped (i.e. starving and poor).
It seems to me that is worse than global warming.
- In short, if global warming is happening,
the greens need to tell us how we can be rich, developed,
consumerist, drive cars,
and still avoid global warming.
If the choice is between poverty and global warming, then
any sane person should choose global warming,
as the price we reluctantly have to pay for prosperity.
If the greens don't like that, they have to give us another choice.
- Kyoto cost/benefit clock
- The movie
The Day After Tomorrow
hilariously makes my points for me.
They obviously felt that showing a slightly warmer planet would not be very scary,
so they claimed that
what would actually happen would be
global cooling.
The movie thus
tacitly admits that:
- Global warming may not be armageddon.
That's why they didn't show it - because it's not scary.
- Global warming theory is rather new and speculative
- otherwise how could they get away with showing global cooling
and still be applauded by their fellow greens?
In truth,
scientists have difficulty predicting whether climate will
warm,
cool,
not change at all, or just change locally.
Why?
Because climate is practically the definition of a complex, chaotic system.
You can try to simulate such a system,
but you do not really know what will happen
short of trying it out.
Global warming theory is new and speculative, and
hardly has the same status in science as, say, the theory of evolution.
- To repeat, global warming theory is one of the more speculative theories of science.
There is a long history of failed predictions
in this kind of field.
I am old enough to remember, for example,
the great fear in the 1970s
of the world population explosion.
The predictions made about this turn out to have been nonsense
(Europe, for example, is facing a population crash),
so it is hard to take the green doom-mongers seriously about a new topic.
-
Fire and Ice:
Journalists have warned of climate change for 100 years
- article
by R. Warren Anderson
and
Dan Gainor
on the long history of alternate "global cooling" and "global warming" scares
over the last 100 years.
-
I agree people should be cautious,
and I agree that we should be looking at new technology that impacts less on the environment.
But I'm just explaining why I'm not very worried so far.
- If global warming is happening,
then technology, not rustic poverty, will be the answer:
- If global warming is happening, the only solution that will
actually work
will be a technological one.
That is, new technology to stop (and reverse) global warming,
yet still let us be rich, own houses and drive cars.
- No solution based on returning to rustic poverty will work.
The third world must become rich like us, and own
houses and cars like us.
It's up to us to invent technology to ensure that can happen without
ruining the environment. I'm sure we can do it.
Environmental sceptics
Environmentalism as "the religion of choice
for urban atheists"
As I say above,
environmentalism (or at least some of it) may be true,
but it is funny how conveniently it fits in with left-wing anti-capitalist ideology,
and our post-religious need to feel guilty
about our fantastic prosperity and consumer riches.
It may be just a coincidence. But it's quite an amazing coincidence.
- Michael Crichton
-
Aliens Cause Global Warming
-
Environmentalism as Religion
- "certain human social
structures always reappear. They can't be
eliminated from society. One of those structures is
religion
...
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the
Western World is environmentalism.
Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice
for urban atheists."
- "The truth is, almost nobody wants to experience real
nature. What people want is to spend a week or two
in a cabin in the woods, with screens on the
windows. They want a simplified life for a while,
without all their stuff. Or a nice river rafting trip for a
few days, with somebody else doing the cooking.
Nobody wants to go back to nature in any real way,
and nobody does. It's all talk - and as the years go on,
and the world population grows increasingly urban,
it's uninformed talk.
...
It's all fantasy."
- "We know from history that
religions tend to kill people, and environmentalism
has already killed somewhere between 10-30
million people since the 1970s."
- Environmentalism as Religion:
-
One NY Liberal's Quest to Destroy World Civilisation - Scott Burgess, March 26, 2007,
on a New York writer's plan to live a
"No Impact" life for 1 year.
-
Without, of course, giving up his
"elegant prewar on Lower Fifth Avenue".
Or his computer.
Or his cleaning lady, for heaven's sake.
- The guilt that sensitive westerners like him feel, and the absurdity of that guilt,
is replicated throughout the western world.
As Scott Burgess notes, this is very much like
traditional religious guilt,
mortification
and
flagellation.
- Asceticism
- There is a long history of guilt-ridden believers
mortifying their body to do penance for the world.
-
Cilices
- undergarments that torment the flesh
(e.g. hairshirts).
- Sadhus
- Hindu ascetics, some of whom practice extreme mortification,
such as
vowing never to use one leg,
standing on one leg for years,
holding an arm in the air for years,
or
remaining silent for years.
- Stylites
- the ancient Christian ascetics
who sat on pillars in the desert for years.
Other mortification included standing upright for years,
and a hermit who for decades never turned his face to the West.
- St Simeon the Stylite
lived for 37 years on a small platform on top of a pillar in Syria.
The fucking loony.
Wealthy greens
- Wealthy greens:
- Of course most greens are wealthy urban consumers,
who often lead a far more extravagant lifestyle
than I do (e.g. I fly less than once a year).
They have to struggle with this hypocrisy and their feelings of guilt.
I just laugh at them.
- Michelle Malkin
is hilarious on the hypocrisy of the modern
urban "greens",
from the Hollywood celebrities with their private jets
to the liberal-left upper middle-class
with their regular flights, second homes and multiple foreign holidays.
I don't mind them being wealthy and travelling.
I just think they ought to shut up lecturing the rest of us.
- A commenter on the ridiculous green ad
by the immensely wealthy multi-millionaires Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow:
"You have GOT to be kidding. Those two wasted more energy and causing more pollution
MAKING THEIR COMMERCIAL than I do in a year. The private jets and giant SUVs
THEY drive everywhere do more enviromental damage in a day than I do in a decade.
And they're lecturing me?"
- The immensely wealthy "green"
Prince Charles
generated more than 1,500 tons of carbon dioxide in 2006
(the average British person emits 10 tons per year).
Charles and Camilla flew 70,000 miles in 2006 alone
(the average British or American person flies 1,000 miles per year).
"In January he travelled first class to the United States with Camilla and 14 aides,
where he picked up an environmental awareness award.
...
In February he hired an Airbus A319, which can seat 140 people, to carry him,
Camilla and 23 aides to the Gulf at taxpayers' expense.
...
In May Camilla .. took a private jet to Greece for a short break with friends."
Meanwhile back home, the carbon dioxide emissions of
Charles's three homes
are equivalent to the emissions of 500 average houses.
- Al Gore:
-
The New Penance Doesn't Offset Much, Victor Davis Hanson, May 21, 2007,
on wealthy and wasteful millionaires lecturing the rest of us:
- "Thanks to carbon offsets, Al Gore keeps his mansion
- and still feels good while warning others we all can't live as he does."
- "George Soros ...
can lavishly fund liberal causes such as left-wing think tanks,
Web sites and ballot initiatives - and thereby offset his millions made speculating on exchange rates
and bankrupting small depositors."
- "John Edwards ...
lives in a 30,000-square-foot home, gets $400 haircuts and recently made a lot of cash
by working for a profit-driven, cutthroat hedge fund.
How's he supposed to alleviate his guilt over this? Presto!
He can lecture others about the inequity of an American system
that unfairly created two unequal societies"
- The Live Earth concerts, July 2007,
burned more carbon in a day than 3,000 average Britons do in a year.
-
Estimate:
"Its total carbon footprint, including the artists and spectators' travel and energy consumption, was likely to have been at least 31,500 tonnes".
-
More:
"The most conservative assessment of the flights being taken by its superstars is that they are flying an extraordinary 222,623 miles between them to get to the various concerts - nearly 9 times the circumference of the world.
...
The total carbon footprint of the event .. is likely to be at least 31,500 tonnes
...
Throw in the television audience and it comes to a staggering 74,500 tonnes. In comparison, the average Briton produces 10 tonnes in a year.
The concert will also generate some 1,025 tonnes of waste at the concert stadiums - much of which will go directly into landfill sites."
- And of course we are being lectured to on our destructive habits by
obscenely wealthy multi-millionaires
whose habits are a thousand times worse than ours:
"an audit of the lifestyles of the A-list performers appearing at Live Earth, reveals that they are among the worst individual polluters in the world, as their world tours and private jets billow thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. One hour in a Gulfstream jet burns as much fuel as driving a family car for a year.
The Daily Mail has found that five of the top performing acts together have an annual output of almost 2,000 carbon tonnes. Madonna alone has an annual carbon footprint of 1,018 tonnes ...
Remember, the average Briton produces just 10 tonnes.
...
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail has learnt that Bon Jovi left the UK this week to travel back by private jet to the U.S. to perform at the New York stadium for the American leg of Live Earth."
-
With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming, 30 Mar 2007.
John Travolta encouraged his fans to "do their bit" to tackle global warming.
He himself owns 5 private jets.
"Clocking up at least 30,000 flying miles in the past 12 months means he has produced an estimated 800 tons of carbon emissions - nearly 100 times the average Briton's tally.
...
Travolta's five private planes - a customised £2million Boeing 707, three Gulfstream jets and a Lear jet - are kept at the bottom of his garden in the US next to a private runway."
Travolta
commutes by private jet
5 days a week.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
commutes by private jet to his office.
"Some environmentalists say the trips expand his carbon footprint enough to undermine his image as a crusader against global warming, despite the pollution credits he buys to offset the damage."
No kidding.
"The governor's Gulfstream jet does nearly as much damage to the environment in one hour as a small car does in a year".
- As Libertas says:
"People like Schwarzenegger and Al Gore, those who claim to study global warming and believe in it, aren't acting like there's a crisis. Why the hell should I?"
-
You hippy-crites! When it comes to saving the planet do celebrities practise what they preach?, Tom Sykes, 6th May 2008.
- Trudie Styler and Sting own 7 homes, and have a carbon footprint 30 times greater than the average Briton's.
"we do need to get around", she said.
- John Travolta flew to Ireland on a Boeing 707 on which he was the only occupant
(it normally seats 150).
- Chris Martin of Coldplay flies an estimated 100,000 miles by private jet each year.
- Madonna's carbon footprint is estimated at 100 times the average Briton's.
For a New Year holiday recently she flew to India by private jet.
- All of these people have lectured the rest of us about the environment
and global warming.
Radical environmentalism
Radical environmentalism, if taken seriously,
threatens billions of innocent people with starvation and death.
Of course, radical environmentalism is only a pose
by people who live comfortable lives
in a wealthy, inter-connected,
industrial consumer society,
and it will never be adopted en masse.
But it is interesting to consider that it is the only major, popular philosophy
that, if it were actually adopted,
would threaten the human species itself
with global death and extinction.
- As Scott Burgess
notes,
if everyone lived like "No Impact" man,
urban civilization (i.e. all civilization) would quickly collapse,
hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people would die,
and the world would return to the stone age.
"Eventually some kind of equilibrium may be reached
- a low-population, low-lifespan, pre-industrial world in which
the material and intellectual achievements of the last thousand years or so;
such as, for example, the extension of human lifespan
and mass inter-generational transmission of knowledge (no paper!) are wiped away."
-
Towards a Deep Green Stone Age by Scott Burgess, March 27, 2007
- He finds some radical environmentalists who actually admire the Stone Age.
And they want to use violence to get us there.
"their .. aim - to
bomb us back to the stone age.
Literally."
- Green anarchism
- Eco-anarchism
- Anarcho-primitivism
- Neo-luddism
- The burning of libraries and research labs
by primitive environmental fascists.
- The Cambodia democide
of 1975-79
was all about back-to-nature,
empty the cities,
anti-property, organic food produced with no technology, and alternative, non-western medicine.
If you want to know what society the radical environmentalists would lead to,
just look at the Khmer Rouge.
- The burning of libraries
-
Violent anti-globalisation, anti-capitalist protesters
The alternative
The wonderful alternative is that we use our fantastic human brains,
and our ever-improving science and technology,
to make the entire world rich and comfortable like us,
while preserving (and even improving) the planet.
I'm sure we can do it.
Science, democracy and capitalism will save both the planet and the third world.
Return to
Scepticism
page.