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The real source of danger we face: Merchants of Despair

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John James Posted: Fri, May 25 2012 3:53 PM

A really good and really important piece.  Share this extensively...

 

Robert Zubrin: Radical Environmentalists and Other Merchants of Despair

 

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The "green movement" is statist and is just using the fact that civ is unsustainable to impose more tyrannical statist policies. I don't pay them any attention.

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Perhaps you should go live in the woods.

 

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Greg replied on Fri, May 25 2012 5:17 PM

"the fact that civ is unsustainable"

I might be stepping in a big turd here, I would be worried about thread-jacking but seems like OP might agree lol...

Whaa? Like civilization is unsustainable??? Like we should all go back to banging rocks, picking berries, and hunting down all our own food? "I'd have to stop using the internet first," says that guy, the first step is gonna sting rofl. Confused am I.

 

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." - F.A. Hayek
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Neodoxy replied on Fri, May 25 2012 5:41 PM

 'Like we should all go back to banging rocks, picking berries, and hunting down all our own food?"

Yes, it's very sustainable you know. 

The entire point is irrelevant, primitivism is what's gone out the door and been replaced by civilization for some seven thousand years. One is sustainable, the other is not. I would go by what has been sustained. But at any rate, if this was worth arguing, we would have made a thread about it...

I suppose if I was going to post here I should have had something that would actually deal with the thread topic so here goes:

Environmentalism sucks. 

 

At last those coming came and they never looked back With blinding stars in their eyes but all they saw was black...
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Greg:
"the fact that civ is unsustainable"

Whaa?

You must be new here.  (Take it to one of those threads, if you don't mind.)

 

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Greg replied on Fri, May 25 2012 7:57 PM

Whoo seeing those threads - stepped in poo I have. Haven't been here in quite a while back on topic:

Not a perfect analogy but environmentalism in many ways seems like a religion to me. 

Original sin = Human carbon footprint

Hell = Global warming

Savior = government

Beleive you bunch of sinners ahahah!

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." - F.A. Hayek
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Greg replied on Fri, May 25 2012 8:01 PM

The speaker makes a great distinction between practical environmentalism (solved by strong property rights) and ideological environmentalism (the pseudo-religion I highlighted earlier.) Usefull terms, good video.

 

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." - F.A. Hayek
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Perhaps you should go live in the woods.

Are you going to tell me this every time i post on here?

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Kakugo replied on Sat, May 26 2012 1:57 AM

Environmentalists are nothing more than tools, to be picked up and used when needed and ignored when not needed anymore. If DuPont wants to have Freon banned because the patents are about to run out and they stand to lose billions, put them on the front page and wine and fete them in Montreal. If environmentalists are protesting the latest land development which will result in decreased quality of life but will enrich both the city council and big development firms, ignore them.

As writers such as Sutton, Howe and Kolko remarked, monopolists are completely immoral. They will not stop at supporting those who on paper look like their worst enemies to obtain and defend monopolies. Global Warming is one perfect poster child: it allows Western monopolists to defend their positions from such dangerous competitors on global market as India, Malaysia, China etc. Big Western industries such as General Electric, Siemens, Alcoa and Eneos can afford to "adapt" to carbon emission standards, cap and trade etc. Chinese and Indian companies cannot. On top of that they can recoup the costs incurred by either generous tax breaks (in the name of a "clean environment") or by simply unloading them upon their customers, perhaps by patronizing them about how caring and gentle to Mother Earth they are.

This reminds me when Wall Street generously financed the Bolsheviks. On paper it looked like an idiotic idea: capitalists financing men threatening to hang them at the first opportunity. In practice it put in place a repressive government which kept Russia as a backward country, completely unable to pose a threat to the Western industry. And they made money on top of that: American and French firms made millions (in 1930's money) by selling Stalin the tools and the tech to carry out his ridiculous five years plans.

 

Together we go unsung... together we go down with our people
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Freedom4Me73986:
Are you going to tell me this every time i post on here?

Well you're complaining about people who live in "civilization"...and you constantly express a desire (through your words anyway, certainly not your actions) to live in the woods.  I was just making a simple suggestion that would fulfill your stated desire and get you away from these people and the environment you are against.

 

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Greg:
Not a perfect analogy but environmentalism in many ways seems like a religion to me. 

Original sin = Human carbon footprint

Hell = Global warming

Savior = government

Beleive you bunch of sinners ahahah!

Yup, environmentalism is actually a rather exact mapping of judeo-christian religion. It goes like this: In the beginning there was a state of grace and unity with nature (paradise = pre-industrialization). But due to mans sinning (polluting) we provoked a fall from grace and divine retribution (environmental degradation). This will come in the form of a warm place where we will suffer for eternity (hell = global warming). But this punishment can be averted by accepting a set of beliefs (environmentalism), confessing your sins, and receiving absolution through following a set of moral guidelines (changing lightbulbs). But even if you follow all moral guidelines, you will still be a sinner just for being born, due to original sin (carbon debt).

"They all look upon progressing material improvement as upon a self-acting process." - Ludwig von Mises
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John James replied on Mon, May 28 2012 11:40 AM

EmperorNero:
Yup, environmentalism is actually a rather exact mapping of judeo-christian religion.

It's already been essentially legally declared a religion in the UK.

 

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