"Green" politics is sweeping the country, and people seem to be buying the promotion lock, stock, and barrel. The sustainability movement is being sold as a responsible program for making society better and preserving the world for future generations.
The people, however, have been sold a false bill of goods. Sustainability is a fraud. Worst of all, our academic institutions are actively and heartily promoting it to our younger, naive, impressionable generations as though it was unassailable fact.
Sustainability is the brain child of radical environmentalists, people who don't care much for developed societies, and even less so for freedom and rights of the individual. It is a weapon provided to advanced countries for economic suicide, which our politicians seem eager to engage. It is attached to beautiful visions and righteous sound bites to make it appealing to the unsuspecting, much like the Venus Fly Trap uses sweet nectar to lure its victims.
Many scientists promote the idea, insisting that there is a consensus, while ignoring the scientists who disagree, labeling them "deniers." The famous examples of Copernicus, the father of modern astronomy, and other ground-breaking thinkers, demonstrate the threat of scientific consensus to the truth. Much of the science is financed by politicians, and thus, it is not independent, but rather is tarnished and severely biased in the work that is promoted.
Sustainablists blame everything that goes wrong in the world on advanced society, whether it is poverty, famine, droughts, forest fires, or climate change. Advanced societies, however, experience proportionately less poverty, famine, and pollution, dramatically so, than de-industrialized societies, and the poor in those wealthier nations can hardly be called poor when compared to those in unfree and undeveloped countries.
Droughts and forest fires are natural phenomena which have been recorded throughout history, as has climate change. The Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period are well known examples of significant climate variations which occurred long before industrialized society had a chance to have any significant impact. For more than a century, alternating warming and cooling periods have piqued the imaginations of alarmists, insisting on impending catastrophe unless we let benevolent dictators control our lives.
The contemporary global warming scare has given way to warnings of climate change, since temperatures are no longer rising, and we are likely entering the next cooling period. "Climate change" is a dishonest catch-all phrase which can be used to demonize society for any change in temperature, pretending that there is and should be stability, some correct climate, and that someone knows what that really looks like.
The current spate of green promotions does nothing to sustain society, current or future, and nothing to sustain the earth. Wind and solar energy are diversions of resources toward inefficient methods of generation, while not resulting in the possibility of any fewer conventionally powered facilities. They are very unreliable, so full capacity of reliable sources must be maintained, meaning that all wind and solar electricity presently produced is redundant and wasted. Yet, because of irresponsible politicians, all taxpayers and electricity consumers are forced to pay the high price of making green millionaires, the wealthy, power-hungry promoters of green culture and sustainability.
Engineering has its place and has been used to greatly enhance lives in human society. Engineering and the physical sciences, however, have severe limitations when it comes to understanding the development of that society and the effect of scarce resources on human action.
Economists, when they aren't blinded by physics-and-math-envy, have a lot to offer in that understanding. Physical resources are infinitely reusable and recyclable, and the energy contained in the various forms on the Earth and continually received from Sun is virtually inexhaustible in the human frame of reference.
The operation of the laws of economics tend to guide a society toward the most efficient and effective uses of scarce resources, placing a high price on those which are less readily available and thus conserving them for higher- valued uses. The rule of law and the protection of property rights enhance the positive effects of economic freedom by hindering the ability of individuals and organizations to socialize their costs and damage the property of others. A properly functioning system of property rights will punish polluters and provide restitution to those whose property is damaged.
Hopefully the green bubble will soon burst, as people get sick of the distortion and begin to see the social manipulators and opportunists for what they are. It's time for more sanity and less fraud.
Dan McLaughlin is a columnist for The Post Journal. Contact him at danmcl999@roadrunner.com.