Environmental Mush: An Ethical Abyss

By Alan Caruba

Parents are often appalled to discover that their children’s school books are full of misinformation or have an agenda that has little to do with the supposed subject. The rise and the maintenance of the Green movement have a great deal to do with the infiltration of school systems and textbooks with often deliberately misleading information. Many Green programs are aimed at the youth here and around the world.

A few days ago I received a news release from an organization calling itself 350.org announcing the launch of “Great Power Race, a clean energy competition between America, China and India. This web 2.0 race will reveal who can rise to the challenge of the climate crisis with the most, and the most creative, clean energy action.”

I wrote to the person identified as having sent the email and asked her to identify the “climate crisis” noting that the Earth has been in a cooling cycle for a decade or longer. I asked what any of the students do about this alleged crisis.

The response was that “The Great Power Race gives students in China, India, and America the opportunity to use social media to compete, communicate and collaborate on clean energy actions and projects. Campuses will each come up with their own clean energy project like, for example, light bulb exchanges, lowering thermostats, education events, installing solar panels on campus, and more.”

This is just environmental mush. It is an invitation to engage in meaningless activity and, of course, the “climate crisis” mentioned in the news release is not even mentioned.

That should come as no surprise to anyone who must read the daily flow of news releases from environmental organizations and subsets like 350.org. Much of it is devoted to stopping any form of traditional energy, coal, natural gas, or oil from ever being used for any reason. In effect, it is a campaign against electricity and against transportation.

It is not just absurd, but it is insane.

So I wrote back again. “Why should I ask more questions when you didn’t answer the one’s I asked? Your release refers to a ‘climate crisis’ and you did not tell me what that crisis is.” I then asked whether the respondent seriously thought that changing light bulbs would have any direct affect on the climate.

The response was “I’d like to think that a little action goes a long way. You’re right though…my small actions of installing solar panels on my home and getting fresh produce from a co-op garden to help avoid pesticides in my food will not have a direct impact on the climate, but it will directly impact my well being, health, and quality of life.”

“So, why are we positioning the race under the ‘climate crisis’ umbrella? It’s an urgent call to action.”

The Climate Race has, in fact, nothing to do with the climate. And, apparently, there really isn’t a climate crisis unless you believe that 350-parts-per-million of carbon dioxide (CO2) will reduce an urgent threat to life on Earth. It relies on a fraudulent “climate crisis” to further the use of the two worst forms of energy production, solar and wind.

Green propaganda is an ethical abyss.

Ultimately, my respondent admitted that “the biggest political and economic task we’ve ever faced (is) weaning ourselves from coal, gas, and oil.”

I doubt that my respondent can even conceive of a world that could function without coal, gas or oil. That’s not just naïve; it is stupid and dangerous to a future where energy is essential to improving the lives of billions, particularly in China and India.

Reducing CO2, the supposed reason for 350.org, is also the reason being offered to impose Cap-and-Trade legislation. It would drive up the cost of electricity to manufacturing facilities, to small businesses, to homeowners, and to everyone.

It would have zero effect on the climate.

This is the kind of fuzzy, feel-good, fact-less, anti-energy, anti-development, anti-capitalism philosophy that dominates environmentalism. Its appeal is to people too young to have any idea where the power for their computer comes from.

Its use of a non-existent “climate crisis” is precisely the same that has maintained the United Nations climate control hoax for decades. It’s the reason President Obama went to COP 15 in Copenhagen last December. It’s the reason that the EPA is threatening to regulate CO2 as a pollutant.

The truth, least of all scientific truth, means nothing to the Greens.

© Alan Caruba, 2010