As an unabashed capitalist, I often say that environmentalism is an evil religion that is dedicated to destroying Western Civilization. I think most people who hear this think “hyperbole, whatever.” Or I say that environmentalism is based on altruism (self-sacrifice)and mysticism (unreason). And eyes glaze over. But every once in a while, something happens that makes it more obvious.
I just came across an article that Brendan O’Neill wrote for Spiked last fall. Wow.
Some of the many money quotes:
“…the leader of the UK Conservative Party, David Cameron, offsets his carbon emissions by effectively keeping brown people in a state of bondage.”
“Feeling guilty about your two-week break in Barbados, when you flew thousands of miles and lived it up with cocktails on sunlit beaches? Well, offset that guilt by sponsoring eco-friendly child labour in the developing world! Let an eight-year-old peasant pedal away your eco-remorse…”
“More radical eco-activists … would rather that we all lived like those treadle-pumping, shit-burning peasants.”
“Where traditional imperialism conquered poor nations in order to exploit their labour and resources, today’s global environmentalist consensus is increasingly using the Third World as a place in which to work out the West’s moral hang-ups.”
“…a key driving force behind environmentalism is self-indulgent Western guilt. It is Western consumers’ own discomfort with their sometimes lavish lifestyles … that nurtures today’s green outlook, in which consumption has come to be seen as destructive and a new morality of eco-ethics and offsetting (formerly known as penance) has emerged to deal with it. … The very nature of carbon offsetting – where the emphasis is on paying money to offset one’s own lifestyle, in much the same way that wealthy people in the Middle Ages would pay for ‘Indulgences’ that forgave them their sins – highlights the individuated and self-regarding streak in the Politics of Being Green. “
“…today’s environmentalist agenda forces the poor of the developing world to adapt to poverty, accommodate to hardship, and effectively remain enslaved for the benefit of morally-tortured Westerners.”
“I would never pick up shit and use it to warm my home, or spend hours on a treadmill in order to raise water. Would you?”
Environmentalism is based on a perverted moral code. It motivates people to do self-destructive things. And now it’s clear that it makes them hurt others also.
Ragnar Danneskjold 