Some years ago George Reisman began warning about a dangerous new trend emerging from man-hating environmentalists—i.e., “to make an international crime out of attempts to increase production and raise living standards, to the extent that those attempts entail an increase in the discharge of greenhouse gases.” (Read his most recent warning here: ‘The Environmental Noose is Tightening.’)
The trend is now accelerating, with a UK lawyer Polly Higgins campaigning to have what she calls “eco-cide” declared as an international crime on a par with genocide, war crimes, crimes of aggression (such as unprovoked war), and crimes against humanity.
Even global warming skeptics should fall under the ambit of the law, say Higgins’s supporters, which would include anyone acting “to discourage voters and politicians from taking action to tackle global warming and climate change.”
Think about that. Posting articles debunking Phil Jones and Al Gore would be a crime equivalent to the torture and imprisonment of innocent human beings. And if the absurdity were fully accepted, damaging insects, invertebrates or fish—or trees, or rocks or mud puddles—would be seen as a crime on a par with the industrial-scale murder of human beings. Nothing could more transparently reveal the man-hating ethic of environmentalism.
The implications of such an absurdity are as wide as they would be destructive. Reisman points out a few in his 1996 book Capitalism:
In casting the production of wealth in the light of a danger to mankind, by virtue of its alleged effects on the environment, and thereby implying the need for global limits on production, the ecology movement attempts to validate the thoroughly vicious proposition, lying at the very core of socialism, that one man’s gain is another’s loss…(p. 110)
“If the influence of the ecology movement continues to grow, then it is perfectly conceivable that in years to come, the very intention of a country to increase its production could serve as a cause of war, perhaps precipitating the dispatch of a U.N. security force to stop it. Even the mere advocacy of economic freedom within the borders of a country would logically—from the depraved perspective of the ecology movement—be regarded as a threat to mankind. It is, therefore, essential that the United States absolutely refuse to sanction in any way any form of international limitations on “pollution”—that is, on production. (p. 118)
“I regret having to say [said Reisman in 2007] that I can’t take very much satisfaction from having had this foresight. It’s like being marched to a concentration camp and saying, ‘I tried to tell everyone this is where we’d all end up.’”
Consider the absurdity of where we have ended up: a serious proposal to put the “mass-murder” of invertebrates on a par with the mass-murder of human beings. Made by people who (to paraphrase Reisman) have no problem with nuclear bombs in the hands of lunatics, but do have a problem with sane people pursuing their material self-interest by means of increasing production. That’s what they consider dangerous and needing to be stopped.
Instead of a new law attempting to make humans equivalent to slugs, sharks and mosquitoes, we need a new ethic recognising human beings are first.
UPDATE: The Onion plumps for ridicule:
- Pope Vows To Get Church Pedophilia Down To Acceptable Levels
The pope said he was deeply disappointed to learn that the number of children sexually abused by priests was almost 10 times beyond the allowable limit clearly outlined in church doctrine. Admitting for the first time in public that the overindulgent touching of "tender, tender young flesh" had become a full-blown crisis, the Holy Father vowed to implement new reforms to bring the pedophilia rate back down to five children per 1,000 clergy.
"The truth is there will always be a little bit of molestation—it's simply unavoidable," Vatican spokesperson Rev. Federico Lombardi said. "But the fact that young boys have gotten much more attractive over the past few decades is no excuse for the blatant defiance of church limits that have been in place for centuries." - Pope Forgives Molested Children
Calling forgiveness "one of the highest virtues taught to us by Jesus," Pope John Paul II issued a papal decree Monday absolving priest-molested children of all sin…
Share this post : |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
4 comments:
Polly Higgins needs a good bonk. She looked like here that she hasn't had one for a long long time.
Forget about campaigning for planetarium rights Polly Higgins because there is no such concept. It is bogus.
What I would recommend is that you should try to get your own bushy planet the rights it desperately needs, i.e., give it the dog's bone. You know, it has rights too, but you're denying that rights.
But what if it is true that we have brought the entire planet to the brink of both cultural and ecological melt-down?
Take the case of water stress and shortages for instance. Many places on the planet are in a state of water stress. Some people predict that future wars will be fought over access to, and control of water.
Control of and access to water is a key factor in the politics of Israel, and the Middle East altogether.
Look at the vexed politics around the water issue in Australia.
"Take the case of water stress and shortages for instance."
Very well, let's do that.
"Many places on the planet are in a state of water stress."
And if eliminating water stress was the goal of Higgins et al, then they would be looking at the many successes of property-rights based solutions in eliminating stress, shortages, and the secure access of human beings to water.
( See for example here, here, here, here and here.
But the fact is that neither human security nor the elimination of human stress is their goal.
Other than for a few genuine idealists scattered here and there, global warming doctrine (now conveniently re-named climate change) has all the hallmarks of an inflationary scam.
In looking for the causes of the devastation of our environment and depletion of natural resources (i.e. fish stocks) we needn't look any further than our monetary system.
The monetary system is an arbitrary and unilateral choice of government. That is, the choice of monetary system and the management of same are not part of the democratic process thus society has no say at any stage of the decision making process. Now! Since by and large the choice globally today is for a fiat monetary system, then there are a set of inescapable implications that few are aware of.
First and foremost, a fiat monetary system is inherently and by necessity inflationary.
But inflation is exponential in character. Thus, as the inflationary dynamic accelerates, demand and production are pulled forward in time at increasing rates thereby eventually resulting in excess demand and production hence the devastation of resources and the environment.
But that is not the only ramification of a fiat monetary system. There is a far darker side to fiat money.
If inflation is exponential in nature, it follows that its effects (expansion of GDP) must conform to the law of diminishing returns. This being the case, the inevitable implication of fiat money is that government must progressively become the largest actor in the economy. As this dynamic develops, government must initially tolerate practices that may be only border line illegal. But as the dynamic progresses, government has a vested interest in first tolerating but then eventually colluding in practices that are against the letter of the law.
Climate change is one of the more blatant examples of aberrant government behavior that has a double purpose. On one hand, CC doctrine aimes to steam-roll a swathe of democratic mechanisms thereby achieving concentration of power. The second aim is that to institute still more layers of payments and fees in an attempt at maintaining a positive inflationary trajectory in the monetary system.
If truly anyone wished to do something about the environment, then they would be well advised to start with the monetary system.
Post a Comment