Environmentalism: The Creed of the New Dark Ages

Greeniacs and other clove-wielding neo-communists the world over gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark to witness globalist magnates ink the death warrant for the industrial economy. While Gen (oh G-d) Yers texted such bon mots as "Pray for a greener tomorrow!" and "This is our Woodstock - without the Hendrix!" on their I-phones, the capitalist system that provided the means for the Kaczynskyites to travel to the neo-malthusian orgy was being slated for destruction under the millenarian pretenses of "saving the planet." The end of Western civilization - all for a fleeting sense of deluded self-importance.

Yet as the world stubbornly continues to transform into an icy orb each winter solstice, the eco-fascist drumbeat is becoming increasingly discordant with the bridling masses. In addition to the recognizable trend of global cooling over the past decade, recent unsavory disclosures at the socialist hothouse The University of East Anglia have caused public confidence in the scientific nomenklatura to slowly evaporate.

So while frost-covered ecofanatics hold their breath in anticipation during the freeze on the punitive Copenhagen Treaty (not to mention out of their tremendous angst from harming the planet), due in part to a "Danish text" that has the oligarchs scrambling to wrangle in under-developed (read non-industrialized) economies, the EPA has apparently pre-empted any notion that America will be spared suicide should it pass this round of Russian roulette.

All the melting clock absurdity of the Jonestown cult-like atmosphere aside (make my Kickin' Kiwi Lime a double!), our American president has already pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by a chilling 83% by 2050. Instead of causing all Americans to be appalled, his acolytes in the press have reacted with euphoria at the notion of industrial suicide by auto-erotic asphyxiation. What kind of new Bohemian commune Obama ostensibly intends for our posterity is unclear; but one gets the feeling that the greens have taken the Weird Al song "Amish Paradise" a bit too seriously.

As radical environmentalists propose a "return to Eden," the parallel between the proposed ideal green lifestyle with Amish living is worth pondering for a moment. For those who glamorize living "close to the earth" let me explain as a firsthand witness to Mennonite and Amish living in rural Iowa what the similarities and differences might be if orthodox environmentalism won the day.

Amish people's preferred mode of transport is the horse and buggy; and I can vouch that it is quite a feat for those of us accustomed to driving to avoid demolishing the quaint carriages with our newfangled motorized contraptions. But observe that horse and buggies would be a luxury in the perfect environmentalist paradise. First of all, PETA would be extolling us all to abandon the enslavement of these beasts of burden under the rallying cry of "equestrian emancipation!" Worldwide PSAs would dramatize the evils of equine gas emissions by chiding us "Give a poop - don't pollute!"

So put the horses in the trailer and ship them off to the glue factory - the hard left ain't having it. But even if we poo-poo this version of a regressive communalistic habitat, shunning it for a technocratic utopia of boundless geothermal, solar, wind, and hydro-power, we still run into conceptual problems. We take for granted that innovation is fueled by logic, reason, creativity and freedom - all things that are anathema to a centrally administered state that desires sheeple to be pliable, obeisant, and sated. The mismatch between the left's vision of a homeostatic environment of perpetual peace and prosperity and the reality in practice of human beings bored to tears in a necessarily constricted world, with no hope of personal achievement or upward mobility, is a fatal flaw for any purported happiness that might be achieved in an eco-communist order.

The left's vision thus kneecaps the legs on which its hopes and dreams stand. It assumes the fruits of industrial civilization and technological progress that was achieved only by rejecting mysticism, sophistry, and unreality, and unleashing the forces of creativity under capitalism.

The disparity between modern fantasy and historical experience may also be seen by juxtaposing the glorification of a 100-person commune on the news serial Russia Today and the reality of socialistic living in an agrarian setting. While the RT piece claimed that the commune was discovering the secret to eking out a mere existence, with such Draconian measures as exiling non-compliant members to capitalist society to "fend for themselves," the anecdote of Plymouth Plantation might provide some adequate relief.

In the winter of 1621, the afore-mentioned Christian commune was practicing economy under the assumption the pre-marxist equivalent of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." As the neglected Aristotle predicted, decreasing productivity led to starvation, which wiped out half the population. William Bradford developed the radical idea to implement private property and by the winter of 1623, a veritable cornucopia of plenty was the settlement's reward. (We should take note that even in the austere Amish communities in America, income is supplemented by the sale of goods and crafts to "unclean" capitalists.)

Taking a longer view of history, we would do well to appreciate that once the bureaucratic, legal, and rational order of the Roman empire fell in the West, and much of Europe was plunged into barbarism and mysticism, the great achievements of precision-built aqueducts crumbled and magnificent roads like the via Appia and the via Aurelia fell into disrepair and became covered over with vegetation. The collective implementation of untruth by irrational people has consequences, as history has repeatedly shown.

Modern environmentalists fail to recognize that their positions assume the fruits of philosophical and economic developments in the West that their own ideology destroys. The totalitarian nature of the environmentalist movement makes this more than an academic point. There is nothing "pragmatic" about unreality, and nothing scientific about "noble lies" repeated to further the vision of a pristine global paradise, which in reality would be run like an eco-fascist state.