The ‘Anthropocene’ and Hatred of Man

A vigorous debate has been going on inside the world of geology science. The question is, are we in a new geologic age marked by human influence on the planet? The answer—No. According to a New York Times report, 

The highest governing body in geology has upheld a contested vote by scientists against adding the Anthropocene, or human age, to the official timeline of Earth’s history.

The vote, which a committee of around two dozen scholars held in February, brought an end to nearly 15 years of debate about whether to declare that our species had transformed the natural world so thoroughly since the 1950s as to have sent the planet into a new epoch of geologic time.

On the face of it, this seems like a rather ho-hum subject for most people outside the scientific community. But an article applauding the decision drew my interest because it highlighted something I’ve long believed and said—the Environmentalist movement is fundamentally anti-human. In Scientists Just Gave Humanity an Overdue Reality Check. The World Will Be Better for It, NYT guest essayist Stephen Lezak is quite blunt: 

The world’s leading institution on geology declined a proposal on Wednesday to confirm that the planet has entered a new geologic epoch, doubling down on its bombshell announcement earlier this month. The notion that we’re in the “Anthropocene” — the proposed name for a geologic period defined by extensive human disturbance — has become a common theme in environmental circles for the last 15 years. To many proponents, the term is an essential vindication, the planetary equivalent of a long-sought diagnosis of a mysterious illness. But geologists weren’t convinced.

The international geology commission’s decision this week to uphold its vote of 12 to 4 may seem confusing, since by some measures humans have already become the dominant geologic force on the earth’s surface. But setting the science aside for a moment, there’s a reason to celebrate, because the politics behind the Anthropocene label were rotten to begin with.

For starters, the word Anthropocene problematically implies that humans as a species are responsible for the sorry state of the earth’s environments. While technically true, only a fraction of humanity, driven by greed and rapacious capitalism, is responsible for burning through the planet’s resources at an unsustainable rate. Billions of humans still lead lives with relatively modest environmental footprints, yet the terminology of the Anthropocene wrongly lays blame at their feet. Responding to the vote, a group of outside scientists wisely noted in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution that “our impacts have less to do with being human and more to do with ways of being human.”

[My emphasis.]

"A mysterious illness," “the [rotten] politics behind the Anthropocene label,” "the sorry state of the earth’s environments," and "greed and rapacious capitalism" is how the author refers to the “fraction of humanity [that] is responsible for burning through the planet’s resources.”  

But what did that guilty fraction of humanity give us? The Great Enrichment is how historian Deirdre McCloskey describes the explosive, almost miraculous improvements in the living standards, over the past 250 years, of the fraction of humanity that Lezak blames for the “mysterious illness” that gave us “the sorry state of Earth’s environment.” But that “mysterious illness” was Capitalism, which McCloskey believes is more accurately labeled Innovism. And that political system, which Lezak labels “rotten,” is the system of rightful liberty that unchained ideas, individual productiveness, and commercialism to bless the large portion of the world with vastly enriched lives. "Lives with relatively modest environmental footprints" is how Lezak approvingly thinks of the large portion of the planet that still lives in devastating poverty—and the near stone-age state to which the author apparently dreams of reducing the rest of us. 

The rate of economic growth of The Great Enrichment, McCloskey argues, will “in a few generations—if the virus, pollution, war, and tyranny do not intervene—bring everyone on the planet to a level of prosperity well above that enjoyed now in Western Europe.” Lezak does not cheer that potential glorious development. He wants to prevent it—and roll it back. He wants to keep those “Billions of humans [who] still lead lives with relatively modest environmental footprints” in their current state of poverty and misery.

This is the definitive cold-blooded Environmentalist view of human progress, and all you need to know about the motives of anyone who speaks of "saving the planet.” It is from a flourishing human life that the planet-savers aim to save the planet. Lezak is not an aberration or outlier. Humans live, survive, and flourish by impacting the planet. The Great Enrichment could not have happened, and can never expand, on an ideology of modest environmental impact. It could not exist by limiting the “burning through the planet’s resources” to what Environmentalists call a sustainable rate.* Humans can’t live “in harmony with nature,” as animals do. Man’s primary means of survival is his reasoning mind. Man needs to apply his reason to his labor in order to vastly improve the planet to live and flourish. We either sustain the planet in its wild, dangerous, unimpacted state, or we sustain humanity and human progress. It’s either/or. The Environmentalists choose planet sustainability. Humanitarians choose human life.

Scientists Just Gave Humanity an Overdue Reality Check. The World Will Be Better for It goes well beyond the powerlust that politicians who use Environmentalism to gain power over our lives. At least they retain some respect for human progress, even though their policies would ultimately make progress impossible. What I sense when I read cold rubbish like Lezak’s article is pure hatred, and the resentment and envy of productive achievement that leads to it. 

* [Earth doesn’t actually give us resources. It gives us raw materials with potential. Turning those raw materials into actual resources comes from human thought and ingenuity.]

Related Reading:

Earth Day: a Pro-Human Perspective vs. the Anti-Industrial Revolutionaries

Greta Thunberg's Hatred of Man

Related Listening:

The Anti-Industrial Revolution, by Ayn Rand

Greta Thunberg's Hatred of Man

Climate catastrophist Greta Thunberg has used this year’s Earth Day to lament that there has never been a  “happy Earth Day.” MarketWatch covered her pronouncements in Reality check from Greta Thunberg: It has never been a ‘happy Earth Day’. After the obligatory “scientists say” and “climate crisis” Chicken Little scare buzzwords, the article states:

But many teenagers like 19-year-old Thunberg and others in their 20s — who will inherit the warming planet and its entrenched systemic problems — say politicians and members of older generations aren’t doing nearly enough to protect them from the ongoing climate crisis.

In a report released in September that surveyed 10,000 young people in 10 countries, almost six in 10 respondents said they were very or extremely worried about climate change, and nearly half said their climate anxiety impacted their daily life and functioning. Four in 10 said they were hesitant to have kids of their own.

My emphasis.

Since 1970, world poverty has plunged, far fewer people die from extreme weather, more than half the world has reached middle class status. Life in general is longer, cleaner, healthier, safer, and more prosperous than ever before. In short, human life and the planet has gotten steadily better since Earth Day 1 in 1970.  

And yet Greta Thunberg finds nothing to celebrate on this or any Earth Day. Why?

The "climate anxiety" being inflicted on young people by the climate catastrophists is educational malpractice, if not outright child abuse. Young people, in fact, have never faced a brighter future. Let's hope Thunberg never gets her "happy Earth Day". It would be catastrophic for human life, especially for young people. 

Greta is a hateful, ungrateful teenage sociopath. Her elders have bequeathed to young people a planet transformed from hostile to conducive to human flourishing. Yet she peddles unrelenting pessimism—she calls this vast improvement destruction. She may love the planet, but not man. She rants that “Earth Day has turned into an opportunity for people in power to profess their ‘love’ for the planet while at the same time destroying it at maximum speed.” This, from the avowed enemy of economic growth—the growth needed for young people to build good lives. Her idea that man is destroying the planet by making it an immensely better environment for human life and flourishing is the voice of the Dark Ages. A more honest alternate title for an article reporting on Thunberg’s pessimistic rant would be, Greta Thunberg's Hatred of Man.

Related Reading:

After 53 Earth Days, Society Still Hasn't Collapsed -- “The Limits to Growth is still ‘as wrongheaded as it is possible to be.’” by Ronald Bailey for Reason

The Anti-human Tyrade of an Ungrateful 16-Year-old

The Great Enrichment by Deirdre McCloskey

Fossil Fuels and Climate Change: Remember Life Before Them

Our Alleged 'Climate Crisis' is No Longer, Thanks to Fossil Fuels

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress—Steven Pinker

Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know by Ronald Bailey and Marian L. Tupy 

What 'progress toward fixing climate change' Looks Like. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

 QUORA: ‘When we were in shutdown, the Earth started healing, and evidence was clear that pollution can be controlled, so why are so many afraid of progress toward fixing climate change?’

I posted this answer:

Pollution can and has been “controlled.” Progress toward cleaner and cleaner industrialization has been going on for decades. But that has nothing to do with “fixing climate change.” 

So many are afraid because the consequences of COVID-19 combined with government-mandated shutdowns -- the destruction of jobs, businesses, livelihoods, educational opportunities for kids, shortages, etc. -- indicates exactly what “progress toward fixing climate change” looks like. And it’s only a taste of what awaits us if the pushers of this kind of “progress” fully get their way. Given how vital reliable energy like fossil fuels and economic freedom means for humans the world over, the ultimate outcome of the fantasy of “fixing climate change” would dwarf the damage done by the shutdowns. We would endure the worst human catastrophe in history. 

The alleged “healing” of the Earth we supposedly witnessed is evidence, alright -- evidence that we need continued industrial/economic/technological progress to empower man to continue the progress toward greater and greater prosperity and more and more climate mastery, livability, adaptation, and safety. It is also evidence that we need continued access to reliable, affordable energy like nuclear and, especially, fossil fuels, by far the best energy source available for now and the next few decades, at least. The “evidence was clear” that we need to abandon the catastrophic goal of “fixing climate change.” 

So, be afraid. It’s logical, if you value human life, which those who value nature over human life certainly do not. The “healing” of the shutdowns is a warning shot to anyone who cares about human well-being. Pursuing the path of “healing the Earth”—which means, forbidding man to alter the environment to meet human needs—is a frontal attack not only on human progress and flourishing, but on human survival as such. It is the path toward worldwide genocide. Be very afraid—of what the climate witch doctors have in store for us. Their idea of “controlling pollution” (which is not defined) is to stop human life.

There is a better, pro-human approach, backed by a huge volume of expert research, to solving the problems of industrialization without harming progress. It begins with, “First, do no harm.” A good place to start is with The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-First Century by Ronald Bailey. It’s only a start to accessing the sane, humane alternative to climate catastrophism and earth first fanaticism.

Related Reading:

Crisis? What crisis? -- CDN

Power mad: Visions of an eco apocalypse have been used to justify a headlong charge to carbon zero for years. But this current crisis [the British fuel shortage] is a mere harbinger of the candle-lit future that awaits us if we do not change course. By MATT RIDLEY FOR THE DAILY MAIL

On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare by Michael Shellenberger

New U.N. Study Shows Climate Catastrophists Getting More Open About their Totalitarian Designs

The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution by Ayn Rand and other contributors; examines the philosophical and moral underpinnings of the modern Environmentalist Movement.  

Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin

QUORA: ‘Do you believe in free market capitalism?’

QUORA *: ‘Do you believe in free market capitalism?’

I posted this answer:

I do believe in free market, or laissez-faire, capitalism. My belief is not in the nature of a religious faith, but as a reasoned position drawn from the observable facts of human beings’ nature and life requirements. 

The basic attribute that separates man from other animals is reason. Reason is man’s basic means of survival. Reason is an attribute of the individual. I believe, therefore, that every individual must be free to live and associate with others based on his own judgement without coercive interference from others--including others in their capacity as government officials. Put another way, I believe that every individual possesses the inalienable individual rights to life, to liberty rights, including rights to property earned by work and free trade, and to the personal pursuit of one’s own values, goals, and happiness. Rights are principles that sanction the individual’s freedom of action, as well as the limits of those actions, in a social context; the limit being the same rights of others. 

The government—acting as the people’s agent, rather than ruler—ensures peaceful coexistence through laws designed for the sole purpose of securing everyone’s individual rights equally and at all times. To “secure these rights” means to protect against aggressive, or initiatory, force; i.e., to establish freedom from force by law. Since man’s survival and flourishing requires thoughtful long-range action on the individual level, his number one social requirement is to be free from the only action others can use to stop him--physical force. A government that is limited to banishing aggressive physical force from social relationships is the only type of government under which capitalism can exist.

As a matter of principle and political philosophy, capitalism is the only social system to secure voluntary consent to mutual advantage based on equality of individual rights as the only basis for dealing with others. This, I believe, makes free market capitalism the only moral social system. Therefore, based on my morals and the laws of nature, I believe in free market, or laissez-faire, capitalism.

Related Reading:

Why Capitalism is Selfish--and Why That’s Good

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

QUORA: Is Ayn Rand's 'Selfishness' 'the middle between altruism and selfism?'

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

Capitalism and the Moral High Ground by Craig Biddle

Why Capitalism Needs a Moral Sanction

The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein

* [Quora is a social media website founded by two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:

Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

[You can also reply to other users’ answers.] 

NJ Food Council Calls Out Environmentalists for their Anti-Humanism

New Jersey has no statewide ban on so-called “single use” plastic bags. But many municipalities have imposed local bans. Many are now calling for temporarily suspending these bans for health reasons, and some have done so, believing that reusable grocery bags increase the likelihood of coronavirus spread. 

This was the subject of a NJ Star-Ledger guest column by Linda Doherty, CEO of the New Jersey Food Council, We’ve got to use plastic bags during the pandemic. Environmentalists should understand this. The Food Council is a trade association representing the food retail industry. The Council has been supportive of the bag bans. 

What got my attention about Doherty’s column is not her support for temporarily lifting the bans. What made me sit up and take notice is her clear identification of Environmentalist groups’ motive in opposing the suspensions:

This simple request to help our stores function during a global public health emergency is blasphemy to New Jersey’s environmental lobbyists. Activist organizations like the Sierra Club, Environment New Jersey and Clean Water Action could care less about the health and safety of workers; they were outraged by the idea of pausing a few local ordinances.

These same tone-deaf lobbyists also have no sympathy for those facing financial hardship as a result of the pandemic. Many of these local ordinances that the New Jersey Food Council is asking a temporary reprieve from place fees on single-use bags, meaning customers without reusable bags pay for every single-use paper or plastic bag. Asking someone who just lost their job, is depending on food assistance programs, or might be facing reduced hours to pay a quarter for a bag is just kicking people while they are down.

My emphasis. I posted these comments:

That these 3 lobbying groups “could care less about the health and safety of workers” and “have no sympathy for those facing financial hardship as a result of the pandemic” is indicative of Environmentalist ideology generally. Environmentalism is fundamentally anti-human. It prioritizes raw nature over human improvement of the natural environment through science, technology, and industry. For further proof of it’s anti-humanism, look no further than it’s campaign to stop all fossil fuel projects in the state. This, on top of opposition to nuclear power. Nat-gas and nuclear provide 94% of NJ’s energy. So-called clean energy is nowhere near capable of replacing fossil and nuclear. Given that energy is the industry that powers all other industries, it is vital to continue to expand fossil fuel infrastructure to guarantee adequate reliable economical energy in the future. What will become of our health and safety and economic security if Environmentalists get their wish? Massive human hardship. But Environmentalists don’t care. Their concern is preserving nature over human mastery over nature. Doherty is absolutely right. But it’s beyond plastic bags. Environmentalists are uncaring and unsympathetic to human well-being, because Environmentalism is ideologically opposed to human progress.

Related Reading:

Mulshine on the ‘National Anti-Pipeline Movement’

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

Earth Day: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

Proper Plastic Disposal, not Plastic Bans, is the Solution to Plastic Pollution

The Anti-human Tirade of an Ungrateful 16-Year-old

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey

Earth Day: a Pro-Human Perspective

As I've said in past years, Earth Day grew out of the New Left's anti-industrial revolution. It's still true that Earth Day carries a bias against industrialization, man's great achievement at turning a hostile natural environment brimming with potential into a great place to live.

Here is my post from last year:

Earth Day: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

Here are four articles celebrating man's great industrial achievement:

Forget “Earth Day”…Celebrate Life On Earth Day!--Michael Hurd 

THIS EARTH DAY, SHRUG OFF ENVIRONMENTALIST FEAR AND GUILT—Amanda Maxham for The Ayn Rand Institute 

An Unnatural Amount of Happiness — Why I Celebrate Transforming the Earth--Alex Epstein 

5 Environmental and Human Trends Worth Celebrating This Earth Day--Ronald Bailey
Peak population, expanding forests, more abundant resources, falling air pollution, and plenty of farmland.

Proper Plastic Disposal, not Plastic Bans, is the Solution to Plastic Pollution

In a Star-Ledger Guest Columnist, We need to end plastic pollution now. Don’t wait for the state to act Jennifer M. Coffey wrote:

Plastic pollution is a threat to our wildlife and ecosystems right now, but it’s a very solvable problem. First, we need to turn off the plastic pollution machine. That’s where ordinances banning plastic and requiring the use of durable, recyclable, compostable or degradable materials is critical.

In 2016, the World Economic Forum released a robust study that said if we keep using single-use plastics at the current rate, by 2050 we will have more plastic than fish in our ocean [sic], measured pound-for-pound. In 2050, my now-10-year-old niece Giselle will be about my age. I owe her better than an ocean full of plastic, and I know many of you feel the same way. We also need to clean up the plastic that is already in our environment, and luckily, there are many nonprofit and for-profit organizations already working on that!

Coffey is the executive director of ANJEC, The Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions. She condemns “industry advocates”, the New Jersey Food Council, for trying to override a growing spate of local municipal bans by urging legislators “to push a weak plastic bag bill through the Legislature.” 

I posted these comments:

Note the bait and switch--equating plastic pollution with plastic use, as if everyone who bags their groceries in plastic bags goes home, puts the food away, then drives to the beach and throws the bags into the ocean. In fact, we reuse plastic shopping bags for trash can liners or car trash--double use.

The problem is proper disposal, and Americans are good at it. Americans contribute almost none of the “ocean full of plastic.” 95% comes from newly industrializing nations in Asia and Africa. Americans, in fact, account for less than 1% of “mismanaged” plastic waste and only 1/10% of marine debris. That’s America as a whole. Banning plastic statewide, let alone in any particular municipality, will do nothing to solve the ocean plastic problem, but plenty of inconvenience to NJ residents. A ban is a sledgehammer overreaction that only an Environmentalist could love.

The problem is not plastic use. The problem is plastic pollution. Plastics are a boon to human well-being. Kudos to the plastics industry for pushing back. They’re standing up for their livelihoods and our quality of life.

One thing I will say is at least the plastic ban warriors are addressing a real problem, actual pollution--unlike the climate crisis fearmoners, who claim that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, mislabeling it “carbon pollution”. 

Related Reading:

Plastic Bag Bans Won't Help the Environment, But They'll Cause More Foodborne Illnesses--Hans Bader

Why the Sudden Frenzy Against Plastic Straws?--Jeffrey Tucker

The Anti-human Tyrade of an Ungrateful 16-Year-old

The recent United Nations gathering focussed, among other things, on climate. And look who it put up as the face of the climate crusade, a 16-year-old “climate activist.” In World leaders promise to do more at the U.N. climate summit after Greta Thunberg’s appeal, Seth Borenstein reported for the Associated Press:

Leader after leader told the United Nations on Monday that they will do more to prevent a warming world from reaching even more dangerous levels. But as they made their pledges at the Climate Action Summit after an emotional appeal from 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, they and others conceded it was not enough.

“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here,” said Greta, who began a lone protest outside the Swedish parliament more than a year ago that culminated in Friday’s global climate strikes. “I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you have come to us young people for hope. How dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”

“People are suffering, people are dying,” Greta said as she sat on the dais with panelists who included a young clean-energy entrepreneur from India and a Brazilian lawyer representing youth climate activists. “Entire ecosystem are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?” 

“For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear,” Greta added. “How dare you continue to look away and come here and say you’re doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight?” [sic]

In the last 30 years, life expectancies have risen, world poverty has plummeted, and by 2018 the middle class has soared to encompass more than half the world’s population. People’s lives are getting better around the globe. This is no fairy tale. That is called economic growth. Money is the miracle lubricant that enables that growth. Money makes possible the division of labor by facilitating the ability of people to get better together through the shared prosperity of trade, thus enhancing the liberty of the individual to use his reason to advance his own life.

That economic growth means people are suffering less. Fewer and fewer people are dying prematurely from climate-related danger as steady economic growth dramatically improves climate and environmental safety. Still, many of the world’s people are still living in deprivation, lacking even electricity. There’s much more to do. “Eternal economic growth” is a vital necessity; vital, that is, if improving human well-being is your goal. 

Yet, Greta Thunberg wants to roll back the clock to a time when the climate really was a crisis for humans--a chronic crisis, a constant battle for bare survival against famine and disease and pestilence and weather. For what? She wants to save the ecosystems from “collapsing”—which means, to save the planet from human alteration. Life without technology and industry, the energy and freedom that powers it, and the economic growth that results, is wholesale suffering and shorter lives. She damns money and economic growth outright, thus regressing mankind back to the hellhole of life in raw nature, in the process stealing the dreams and destroying the futures of the very young people she arrogantly claims to speak for. 

And what kind of life do today’s young people have to look forward to? 300 years ago, at the dawn of the Enlightenment, the odds were that a youngster like Thunberg wouldn’t have lived to 16 years old. And if she did, she could count on a brutish life of extreme poverty and drudgery in a hostile natural environment--the same stagnant life of her parents, grandparents, and generations past. Instead, a young person today faces a long, prosperous, much safer life full of opportunity. What brought that magnificent progress? Freedom, money, and economic growth. Today is the best time in the history of humanity in which to be a teenager. That’s the future that her elders bequeathed to today’s young people. And for that gift, all she has to say to her elders is, “how dare you?” How ungrateful.

But that’s not the worst of it. What of her claim that “the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight?” Nonsense. We’ve had decades full of hundreds of $billions in subsidies and regulations to encourage “clean energy” imposed by governments. It hasn’t worked. People want their reliable fossil fuels because economic growth needs reliable, cheap, plentiful energy, and economic growth is the only means of improving human life. But political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. To date, not enough political power has been brought to bear. The limited political solutions of subsidies and regulations have not made the impossible possible. Some controls have been tried, and have failed. So Thunberg demands what every utopian who thinks she has a right to force her values on everyone else. Though she doesn’t come right out and say it, she demands the total politics of socialist totalitarianism, plainly laid out by Leftists politicians. She’s addressing a government body. She demands that they force aside economic well-being. That means freedom must go.

How dare her! Hers is the voice of a monstrous evil. Thunberg’s message goes beyond the fairy tale of some prosperous “clean energy” future. It goes beyond windmills and solar panels. She proclaims the true heart and soul of Environmentalism, the moral supremacy of nature over human life. Give her credit for honesty. She doesn’t cloak her agenda in promises of jobs and economic growth, the way climate fear mongers do in pushing to outlaw fossil fuels and nuclear in the name of renewable energy. She flat out attacks freedom, money, and economic growth. “Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth, ” Thunberg bellows. We need “politics” (force) to impose “solutions” like: “Everyone and everything has to change so why waste precious time arguing about what and who needs to change first?” Sounds a lot like “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” as the UN puts it, that only totalitarian powers can bring about, as every utopian thug who ever sought to shape society to his liking has shown. She demands we “make the best available science the heart of politics and democracy.” That’s not a new sentiment. Karl Marx’s “scientific socialism” resulted in 100 million deaths by government trying to implement just that. The science of eugenics justified the German National Socialists’ examination policies. That’s what you get when you make science rather than protecting individual rights “the heart of politics.”

I don’t know how much of the 16 year old Thunberg’s vision is indoctrinated ignorance and how much is her actual conviction. Perhaps she is an innocent child victim of extreme exploitation “to advance a political agenda” or “vicariously living out her parents’ own dreams of global fame via their daughter,” as Emma Freire argues. Perhaps Thunberg is a victim of “betrayal,” having “been misled by the hysterics of doomsayers to spend their formative years trembling with dread” in order to make her a mouthpiece for those who aim to “massively increase government power” and “go from capitalism to socialism,” as Jon Hersey argues. Or perhaps she’s not so innocent. I do know one thing. Her utopian vision would be disastrous for human life on Earth. Such utopian disasters are never innocent. Whatever the case with Thunberg, that is the vision that the United Nations, the institution whose members claim to represent all the people of the planet, gave its platform to. How dare they!

Related Reading:

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress—Steven Pinker

New U.N. Study Shows Climate Catastrophists Getting More Open About their Totalitarian Designs

Paris Climate Agreement Adopted: New Central Plan for the World’s Economy and Climate—Ronald Bailey for Reason.com

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey

The sustainability myth—Alex Epstein

Trump Provides the Right Kind of Leadership in Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord

The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution—Ayn Rand and Peter Schwartz

The Formula for a Richer World? Equality, Liberty, Justice—Deirdre N. McCloskey

Extreme poverty has been reduced by 1 billion people in the last 25 years

Maternal Mortality Rates Are Plummeting in the World’s Poorest Regions

We Owe Our Children a More Technologically Advanced Society, Not 'Preserved' Nature

Fossil Fuels and Climate Change: Remember Life Before Them

Our Alleged 'Climate Crisis' is No Longer, Thanks to Fossil Fuels

Think Globally, Shame Constantly: The Rise of Greta Thunberg Environmentalism--NICK GILLESPIE