“There’s a paradigm shift taking place.”
So said a friend of mine who is very concerned about the effects of fossil-fuel CO2 and other ways humans harm the planet. The paradigm shift he was referring to was a change in the global “mindset,” if you will. A global (literally) change toward green living.
I asked my friend that, whether a shift were happening or not, would he prefer that it take place by government force, or by the free will or man? My friend didn’t answer directly, but did note that other shifts in history seemed to require swift coercion by a higher central power, rather than by the often slow action of the free populace. Putting an end to U.S. slavery was his prime example.
So I think it was clear what his answer was: We need to go green now, and if it required government to impose it on us—through regulation, taxation, imprisonment for non-compliance—then so be it.
Think I’m being hyperbolic? Go take a listen to the rhetoric of the environmentalist and then tell me if I am.
Despite the claim by liberals/Democrats that it is they who are for freedom, liberty, tolerance, and open-mindendness, today’s green movement, which is a very powerful arm of the Democrat Party, is quite illiberal and intolerant.
What’s more, the consequences of their policies, if fully implemented, would have disastrous—disastrous—on the world population. First, they would bring down whole economies, starting with our own, by forcing energy companies to go green. They want to force car companies to go green, even though the technology still isn’t here. (Yes, we have the Prius and other hybrid cars, but that’s just one step on a long road.) They want to force you in your own house to go green, hence the banning of the standard incandescent light bulb.
So, to hell with liberty, to hell with free will. Al Gore and his disciples say we must act now, before it’s too late.
Problem is, even here in the U.S., one of the most technologically advanced countries on the planet, we’re not ready to adequately and efficiently accomplish it. And none of the Kyoto-signing countries are even close to meeting any of the energy requirements they promised to abide by.
So like the authoritarians they are, they’re going to tax us and regulate us until we are ready.
The most frightening aspect of the green movement, however, is that their primary concern is not bettering human life; it is rescuing Mother Earth from human beings. That’s why the most prominent Greens support population reduction and green-supporting politicians, most recently Nancy Pelosi support government-funded abortion en masse. That’s why there are actually environmentally-conscious people who are choosing not to bear children—for the sake of the Planet. (Only benefit to this is that in about 25-30 years, these enviro-wackos will have died out without having passed on their ideology to a subsequent generation.)
People are expendable for the environmental movement. Period.
Again, am I being hyperbolic? Well, what if I said that millions of humans have already died needlessly due to environmentalism. I’m talking about malaria-ravaged Africa. That is to say, Africa that wouldn’t be ravaged by malaria if the enviromental movement wasn’t so bent on banning DDT. [UPDATE: A reader clarified that in 2006 many countries in Africa have lifted the DDT bans, resulting in significant decreases in malaria deaths; nevertheless, the environmental Left still lobbies for its disuse]
Last April I wrote a post on the banning of DDT, particularly on the support of this ban by the Union for Reform Judaism (the most liberal of the Jewish denominations, with which I used to affiliate.) I wonder if my fellow Jews in the Reform Movement care that the DDT-banning environmentalist movement with which they have aligned themselves has resulted in millions of malaria deaths for 40 years.
To make things a little more intimate, the Iowahawk blog shares this story [see original post for available links]:
This is Bakouma Kpatekatola, a young man from the West African nation of Togo. In 2003, when Bakouma was 9 years old, my family became his sponsor through the Childreach-Plan USA organization. In the years since we became occasional pen pals; a few times a year we’d get a letter from him, in his native French, along with an English translation from his caseworker. Sometimes he spoke of coming to America. At Christmas the letters would contain a photo, which we ritually magnetted up on the fridge to chronicle his growth. We reciprocated with our family pictures. I sometimes wondered if he wondered about us like we wondered about him. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t really notice when we didn’t receive his annual Christmas letter last year. Yesterday we received a letter from his caseworker explaining why: Bakouma died in December of malaria. He was 14 years old.
Bakouma was one of approximately one million people who died of malaria last year. Almost all of them were like him: poor, young, and African. And almost all of those deaths could have been prevented through vaccines, insecticide-treated netting, and (gasp) DDT spraying. Empirical research supports the indoor residual spraying (IRS) of DDT as not only safe, but the most economical and effective method for malaria prevention. For example, a 1996 DDT ban in South Africa, pushed by environmental groups, led to a malaria epidemic with over 60,000 cases reported in 2000. After DDT spraying resumed in 2001, infections dropped 80% in one year. Facing a mounting death toll across Africa the World Heath Organization and USAID have recently lent support to IRS using DDT, but its adoption continues to be opposed by environmental extremists relying on shoddy science and fearmongering.
Togo, incidentally, is one of the countries where IRS/DDT is not yet implemented. Would it have saved Bakouma Kpatekatola? Maybe, possibly, probably. The grim calculus involved in that what-if is, at this point, strictly academic. But it’s not too late to tip the odds in favor of the millions of other kids in Africa at risk. In memory of Bakouma, please join me in supporting Africa Fighting Malaria which advocates the use of all tools for malaria eradication, including DDT. Sponsor a kid through Childreach-Plan USA. Write your congressmen and President Obama and encourage them to continue the USAID policy of support for IRS/DDT. Finally, if you’re so inclined, please remember Bakouma tonight in your prayers. Thanks.
And Democrats said that George W. Bush hates black people? One million Africans died from malaria just last year. That’s one million black people.
And the Left accuses the Right of “fear, not hope”? Meanwhile millions of Africans at risk can’t even hope for a decent and long life because of the fearmongering of environmentalist hysterics.
What a topsy-turvy Bizarro world in which we live.
You’d think the environmental movement, who—let’s be honest here—are primarily liberal, Democrat-voting, middle-class and upper-class white people—would care that their policy preferences are killing one million black people per year.
But they don’t.
“There’s a paradigm shift taking place,” says my friend? I’d say the shift has already been occurring.
And as long as I can help it, I don’t want any part of it.
Recent Comments