“What’s clear is eco-activists and their allies will do anything to avoid talking about their real goals, which have less to do with cleaning up the environment than with pulling down capitalism.”
‘What Green Means’, Investor Business Daily, http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=326414989713648
Parts 1-7 of this series are archived here http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/tag/philosophy/
Picture shows the impact of crabs burrowing on the beach, Yeppoon, Queensland, May 6, 2009. Click on the image for a clear, larger, better view.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“What’s clear is eco-activists and their allies will do anything to avoid talking about their real goals, which have less to do with cleaning up the environment than with pulling down capitalism.””
How did you find out? It’s supposed to be a secret.
Capitalism did not realy need the green movement to pull it down. It is already down by a self distruct process (greed) and due to “limits of growth”.
I think that it’s up to the greens now (because they are supposed to be equiped with the essential scientific basics) to show people how to survive peacefully at an acceptable standard and quality of life. Good luck to them (the greens) with their new ventures noting that the laws of nature will always abide and that the forces of nature will always tend to overwhelm unless we humans understand them and behave accordingly.
Haldun,
I would suggest that your obit for capitalism is premature. I would also suggest that since political greens suffer from human nature, that they will have no more luck in making us live in peace and harmony than has any other human effort.
I would not count capitalism down and out just yet, yes it hit a bump in the road but the fundamental cause was not greed, that is always there, it was the inept incompetance of our political leaders who are supposed to enforce the proper regulations to keep our economies in a sustainable balance.
The carbon tax in its various forms is a classical example of political incompetnace, notwithstanding the motivation for it is a non existant problem. The carbon tax is a means to impose a massive tax increase on the general public by pretending to tax corporations for a nobel cause, two major problems here a) the cause does not exist and b) the tax will be passed on to the public with a mark up so the corporations will benifit.
Now that we have hit a world recession this tax grab will not be so easy to hide. By printing massive quantities of paper money the recovery will be followed by a significant inflationary period which will probably be harder to manage than the recession. This could easily be followed by a second an even deeper recession.
A major contributor to the inflation will be the high cost of energy caused not only by the carbon tax but by the fact that drilling to replace our current declining supplies is down to about half what it should be. Oil declines at about 15% per year Gas at 30% per year so we have to bring on new oil and gas at 15% and 30% just to stay even. Once the recovery begins and energy consumption starts to rise we can not play catch up, last year despite the propaganda from OPEC the world was maxed out on production 12 months from now it will be worse. If consumption ever exceeds last years numbers we do not have the refining capacity to cope, currently we are running about 83% of installed refining capacity and no new production or refining plants are being built, in fact about $200 billion worth of new projects have either been put on indefinite hold or cancelled.
Frankly the oil companies are not concerned about the carbon tax it has just given them an opportunity to set up a massive increase in the price of their product and save their working capital which in a world of rapidly decreasing credit availabily is the prudent thing to do so nobody can blame them.
Our politicians are stuck in the past and the massive hidden tax grap that they were drooling over is not there any more so they would be well advised to drop the charade and concentrate on the upcomming inflation problem.
Going green is not the answer. By the way could a green explain to me how when CO2 is a plant growth accelerant reducing CO2 assists plants.
Yes Hunter and Barry,
Perhaps I should have elaborated on the phrase “capitalism” to avoid confusion about a free (honest) trade and minimal government regulation which would result in a sustainable economy. What I meant by “capitalism” above was the process of seeding credits to collect large amounts of profit.
I have always felt (intuitively) that the “greens” knew what was going wrong with the world but preferred to act on artifitial matters(like the co2) that they thought would bring them more media attention.
So Jennifer whats your take on various Greens discussing the pros and cons of Gen IV nuc? Aren’t they supposed to be uniformly and theologically against nuc in any form?
Capitalism is simply individuals choosing what, or what not, to do in life, taking account at the same time that others also have that right.
All other systems are based on some authority dictating how one is to act or behave.
Those who promote the idea that capitalism is dead don’t really understand the nature of human action, and what drives it, for capitalism is the system that comes spontaneously into existence from the interaction of free individuals.
That said, capitalism is no dogma and that is perhaps why it is disliked by most who prefer the security of an existence in which they personally don’t have to make decisions, in other words choose, and prefer to have their thinking done for them by authority. Consensus is also a sop to avoiding a personal choice – mob rule makes it easy to exist – you don’t have to think in that situation either.
Fortunately history shows that anti-capitalist mentality is always wrong.
Haldun,
From the behavior of the leading greens- gore and Hansen, I would say that their shortage of integrity and ethics will preclude them from ever doing more than acquiring wealth by way of theft.
The only way they will gain power is by deception.
Your defintion of capitalism is sort of like the extremist definition of sex as rape, I think.
Capitalism has built a world of unprecedented broad based prosperity and health. I think the wise course would be to be very cautious about turning power over to a group that has literally never built or operated anything.
from the IBD article:
“What’s clear is eco-activists and their allies will do anything to avoid talking about their real goals, which have less to do with cleaning up the environment than with pulling down capitalism.”
Is this a valid generalization? It’s true for some eco activists, but not necessarily true for all–or even most–eco activists. A couple of days ago, we had a thread speculating that The Goracle could become the world’s first carbon billionaire. Greedy Al looks very capitalistic to me. Here’s another angle.
One proposed version of Cap’n Trade would ‘grandfather in’ CO2 rights for existing polluters, for free. New, energy-efficient businesses would initially be at a comparative DISadvantage, because they’d have have to purchase the necessary CO2 rights from their competitors. Rather than being garden-variety Socialism, that initially counterproductive version of Cap’n Trade would be blatant corporate welfare, which is a component of NATIONAL Socialism, aka Fascism.
It’d be more accurate to say that eco-activists have a variety of motivations: partially informed altruism that reflects a genuine concern for environment issues; a backdoor approach for promoting Socialism (as the article points out); as well as greed, lust for power, and fondness of notoriety (in the case of Al Gore).
And let’s not forget True-Believer-ism. As Eric Hoffer points out, TB-ers are interchangeable to a large extent. TB-ers feel a great emptiness in their lives, which can only be filled by becoming a part of a glorious cause that’s greater than themselves. Environmentalism can fill the void as well as any other ideology.
IBD is a business, like any other business. IBD caters to business people, obviously; and not-so-obviously, it panders to doctrinaire Libertarians. The bumper-sticker mentality reflected in the article is par for the course.
Larry,
We know that as with any group there are always exceptions – JeremyC is stuck on the fact that not all Greens are anti-nuclear but the reality is that most are.
You have written: its true for some eco activists, but not necessarily true for all–or even most–eco activists. … that they are anti-capitalist.
A problem with using Al Gore as your example is that what he preaches is different to what he does … he says everyone should reduce their energy consumption but he leaves his lights on and flies around the world.
So maybe he believes it is good to turn your lights off and that captialism is bad … but he is special and therefore can leave his lights on etcetera?
I tend to think that a lot of Greens are probably very anti-free market.
I was also interested that the article wrote how much the greens don’t want to show their hand, so to speak. Since I started this series I have been fascinated by the level of avoidance of the actual issue displayed by those who obviously identify with the greens.
And I always remember this report and comment:
A report by James Whelan and Kristen Lyons titled ‘Rethinking deliberative governance: dissecting the Queensland landclearing campaign’ gives some insight into what drove the campaigning in Queensland that drove the legislation in Queensland. (It would be great if the Queensland Conservation Council made the entire report accessible from their website as it is a fascinating read.) And I quote from their report:
Firstly, it (the legislation) represents a significant shift in Queensland, and indeed Australian history, by establishing a framework for the regulation of land use on both leasehold and freehold land. This represents a significant departure from dominant ideologies that accept private landowners retain sovereignty over land management.
More here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2005/06/talking-veg-tomorrow-in-both-blackall-canberra/
Jennifer, you wrote:
“A problem with using Al Gore as your example is that what he preaches is different to what he does … he says everyone should reduce their energy consumption but he leaves his lights on and flies around the world.
So maybe he believes it is good to turn your lights off and that captialism is bad … but he is special and therefore can leave his lights on etcetera?”
I think that you’re being too charitable. Conflicted emotions and outright hypocrisy among eco activists are not limited to Gore. Or to eco activists, for that matter. And hidden agendas are almost ubiquitous. Observation: In the U.S. there’s a large overlap between vegans and eco activists, although that connection is often downplayed.
I participate in a camping & outdoor cooking board. One person described the experience of cooking his breakfast bacon. Some militant vegans in the next campsite got irate, because they could clearly smell it, and said that they were disgusted by it. Of course, we both know the real issue. Having experienced the wonderful aroma of cooking bacon, the vegans desperately wanted to eat some, but their ‘beliefs’ wouldn’t allow them to. That posting resonated with quite a few people on the board. My darker side thought that the whole thing was funny. Anyway, my conclusion is that vegans are to animal-based foods as Catholic priests are to sex!
While I think of it, did you receive my whimsical email about mountain lions? (There are some big gaps in my computer skills.) I hope that you consider it for next April 1, if you don’t consider it to be in ‘bad taste’.
Green antipathy towards capitalism is based on an ideological animosity towards material prosperity; people like Clive Hamilton have been critiquing materialism for some time; hatred of capitalism follows because it is the best vehicle for producing material prosperity; since capitalism is based on private ownership of property and means of production this explains the merging of ecotism and socialism; with centralised, non-individual economic control lip service can be given to preserving nature; but as I have shown in the 10 Worst man-made disasters, the worst examples of environmental despoilation have been in non-capitalistic societies.
Still, the defining characteristic of the green is misanthropy; it is ridiculous for any green supporter to claim that it is only fringe fanatics who espouse drastic reductions in human population, or even eradication; such people as John Holdren, Lovelock and Gus Speth are mainstream greens and have clearly enunciated programs for reducing population. the irony is of course that material prosperity is the best check on population as most Western nations show.
Prosperity is also the best for nature as Lomborg shows but there comes a point when it has to be said that the interests of humanity diverge from the idea of pristine nature. The idea of pristine nature is terribly elitist and decadent; only a person nurtured by an advanced, unnatural culture could develope a non-utilitarian aesthetic about nature which dominates survival exigencies; how could it be otherwise; if one was living the sustainable life based on natural dictates one would be too busy doing what had to be done to survive to bother about that tree or that koala. This aspect of green ideology is both hypocritical and unrealistic; it is also as good an example of cognitive dissonance as a human could produce.
You guys are really, really very funny. Thankyou for making me laugh out loud.
Cohenite
“if one was living the sustainable life based on natural dictates one would be too busy doing what had to be done to survive to bother about that tree or that koala.”
Otherwise known as living at the subsistence level, during which every every waking hour is used to find sustenance, with no time for genuflection.
It was only with the division of labour that humanity discovered an alternative to the wretched existence of subsistence, commonly misinterpreted as a sustainable life-style.
Those who have never starved, been indigent or reached the nadir of existence could ever understand the driving force behing capitalism.
An ecological sustainable lifestyle is oh so middle class mentality.
Jennifer,
My interests is how much denialists have to continue to manufacture their own world view and that means disregarding evidence that doesn’t fit. Hence my challenge to discuss how much the green movement has moved on from your ideological touchpoints. Your reaction just demonstrates the denialists ease in disregarding inconvenient data.
JC; I have given you Hamilton, Albrecht, Lovelock, Speth, Holdren; how much ‘evidence’ do you want; show me the evidence that ‘green’ has moved on from the characteristics shown and values expressed by these fine hypocrites as described in my post above. I’ll read any serious attempt.
Larry,
Yes got the piece on Mountain Lions. But you might want to post it in this thread anyway – and then I will be able to find it again – for next April 1!
Jen