None other than NJ’s Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Catherine McCabe was there, saying
"I want to thank Mother Nature ... for the 109-year loan" of the Paulins Kill for hydroelectric power, DEP Commissioner Catherine McCabe said. "And now, Mother Nature," she continued, holding a prop sledge hammer aloft, "you can have it back."
I left this comment:
Notice what’s missing from “Mother Nature”--man, and his survival needs. We are just “borrowers”; she’s being polite. She means hijackers.
To an Environmentalist, nature is a supreme benevolent consciousness that encompasses everything but man, who is a destructive, unnatural intruder. Why isn’t that dam considered “natural?” Because man built it to serve his survival and flourishing. If a beaver builds a dam, it is “natural.” But not man.
Nature is not a consciousness-- a “Mother.” That is superstition. Nature is impersonal existence, along with everything in it, including man. But nature doesn’t provide for man’s needs, as it does other species. Nature gives man a dangerous environment, albeit one filled with raw materials. Unaltered nature is wholesale death for man. But unlike other species, nature gives man a reasoning mind. To live and thrive, man must use his intelligence to transform raw nature to suit his needs, such as build dams.
I have no problem with dismantling an obsolete industrial project. I do have a problem with Environmentalism because its ideal environment does not include man--intelligent, creative, flourishing, nature-improving man. Environmentalism recognizes every species’ right to its means of survival as “natural.” But not man’s means, which is reason and productive work and harnessing nature. Man only “borrows”--at best. The statement by McCabe exposes the underlying anti-humanist soul of the Environmentalist Movement--the primitive-like valuing of “Mother Nature” over human life.
Related Reading:
Human Energy Needs vs. 'Mother Earth'
How Earth Day Anti-Industrialists Hijack ‘Science’ to Deny Humans the Benefits of Science
“Not-so-Sane” Environmentalists are Perfectly Sane--and Anti-Humanist
Trump Could Give Us a Welcome Respite from Environmentalist Political Domination
A Humanist Approach To Environmental Issues—Alex Epstein @ Forbes
1 comment:
This is all true, of course. But I would rather say nature gives us everything like it does animals, but that animals can access it as is, directly, given their instincts and their other physical abilities, whereas for us, we have our minds vice instincts, plus our own other physical abilities so we can process the raw materials (the 'as is') into our own man made environment. By giving us our reasoning minds along with our other abilities, nature gives us everything, as the potential. All we have to do is think, then act accordingly, as per our choices. I think that's better than saying nature doesn't give us what we need, but nonetheless gives us our reasoning minds. (Maybe my explanation can be shortened to about the length of yours.)
Actually, I think we should put the word give, here, in quotation marks. The word give implies that nature, indeed, is, or has, consciousness, and that it gives or withholds as it chooses. Maybe we should say, "in nature everything needed is there..." (since all life springs from nature in the first place), rather than, "nature gives...". But, maybe I'm unnecessarily splitting hairs, here.
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