I appreciate your stance on nuclear power more than anything else.
One small point, I also grew up close to the Rouge River in Detroit.
One winter around 1970, me and a friend skated about 10 miles south to a small lake next a large industrial plant. I believe it was the Ford plant, so yes it did freeze.
"The environmental ideology is currently wreaking havoc on America’s industrial commons."
Arguably what was, seemingly, an ideology has become a religion, or a doctrine of a religion. Nature worship. "Nature is God". Gaia is a goddess. And so on.
I agree, climatism has morphed into a religion, serving the apparent human need for a religious structure, but not the traditional or historical ones from the past. As such, no amount of data or scientific proof of the fallacies they propound will change opinions.
"Having outgrown the Earth’s carrying capacity, our species’s appetite threatened to poison the environment upon which it subsisted. Our rapacity could only terminate in a wave of mass death."
Prosperity reduces fertility. In a prosperous world, humanity would cease to overgrow Earth's carrying capacity, and would most likely decline gradually rather than "in a wave of mass death" in Stalin's and Mao's and Pol Pot's style. But prosperity depends upon energy, which the "Population Bomb" crowd rejects.
"Love of nature and appreciation of the beauties of the landscape were foreign to the rural population. The inhabitants of the cities brought them to the countryside. It was the city-dwellers which began to appreciate the land as nature, while the countrymen valued it only from the point of view of its productivity for hunting, lumbering, crop raising and cattle breeding."
This is an extract from the book Human Action, published in 1949 by Ludwig von Mises. It is from Chapter XXII, "The Non-Human Original Factors of Production," section "The Myth of the Soil". In my view, the Austrian School of Economics is a humble and common-sense approach that relies on individual methodology and avoids any form of collectivism, such as apocalyptic environmentalism.
I'm a regular church goer. A few weeks ago our pastor (40 years of age) thought it fitting to base her sermon on our role in climate change. We had to read a piece out loud in which we confess and ask for forgiveness for our role in damaging the environment. I was overcome by rage! Talked to her afterwards and sent her a good video. I didn't receive a reply. This past Sunday I learnt that climate change features prominently in the theology curriculum.
A young lady, new to our family, is a second year City and Town Planning student. She confirmed that they are taught about 15 min cities and climate change, man-made, that is. She was surprised when I opined that most of it is hoggwash.
The climate propaganda is everywhere, including in the curricula.
Interesting study, and very valuable. However, it ignores the elephant in the room. The vast majority of money flowing into "environmental" non-profits are from large, wealthy donors. Their interest is not the environment, but in creating a fear in people to feed more and more government spending. This spending, of course, is oriented at expensive solutions offered by the largest donors. The money flows in profits, some of it flows back to non-profits and campaign contributions and the beat goes on. The loser is the citizen caught in a Fascist abyss caused by their own ignorance fueled by innate fears they hear on the media. I am all in favor of people expressing their opinions, but not in favor of the huge freedoms taken away by the government deciding how to spend our money, lots of it, to "solve" problems. This has accelerated since the Great Society days of President Johnson. No conservative, liberal or progressive has been able to stop it. The article does not discuss people in relationship to passion and emotion. Both of these interlopers are enemies of logic and critical thinking. Like a magician, oligarchs pay politicians to wave their hands in the air so our attention it drawn away from the evil. Government funding in the name of environmentalism has done nothing but make the situations worse, while raising our cost related to them. This is the evil.
This situation is nothing new since it has been used successfully throughout history to enslave people (Caesars, dictators, royalty, conquerors, etc). It is worse in our situation because we have the power to stop it (the vote), yet we do not use that power. We vote for more fear and spending because we let our emotions and passions overcome our logical thinking. After all, this is instinctive to humans. So, all morality and ethics is focused on encouraging us to overcome our natural instincts and use the large brain we were supposedly blessed with to overcome the foibles of those who would steer us into slavery for their own purposes. In our current US situation it can be stated, regarding government's enslaving spending: stop the spending, start the mending. "We the people" can solve our own problems (indeed, we are the only ones who do). We can even do so before a catastrophe. But we must overcome the forces of the "voices". We need to ignore the media and politicians, at least regarding them as "experts". We need to develop moral courage as an electorate. We had it before (Founding Fathers, Washington, Lincoln, perhaps Kennedy if he had lived long enough). If we do not get it back, we are just another Fascist dictatorship formed by the ignorance of our voting responsibilities. We must swing the pendulum back to logic and common sense even though ignorance and sloth feels so good.
Environmentalism is a good thing when embraced by individuals, but it has been used as a cudgel in the hands of oligarchs and politicians in the US. "We the people" must see the ruse for what it is (a trap to allow us to enslave ourselves) and turn it into a collegiate individual moral and ethical commitment to allow our quality of life to improve through innovation in technology while taking a sensible path related to our environment. Free enterprise (not what the word "capitalism" has come to mean which resembles Fascism) must be the guiding light. People are much more resourceful than government gives them credit for, but we must rekindle the wisdom to break our of the Pied Piper mode.
So, good article, but passion and emotion should be an important factor in the understanding of how humans run in herds.
Great essay, you are quite the eloquent writer.
I appreciate your stance on nuclear power more than anything else.
One small point, I also grew up close to the Rouge River in Detroit.
One winter around 1970, me and a friend skated about 10 miles south to a small lake next a large industrial plant. I believe it was the Ford plant, so yes it did freeze.
Thank you!
You know, I should check to see when Ford began their environmental clean up project. Thanks for pointing that out.
Happy New Year Nuclear Barbarism! With your Nuclear Cathedrals!
Excellent analogy, I worked at Diablo for 36 years. That place will easily last 100 years.
Thought provoking essay.
"The environmental ideology is currently wreaking havoc on America’s industrial commons."
Arguably what was, seemingly, an ideology has become a religion, or a doctrine of a religion. Nature worship. "Nature is God". Gaia is a goddess. And so on.
https://open.substack.com/pub/michael796/p/if-god-is-not-dead-can-leftists-kill
I agree, climatism has morphed into a religion, serving the apparent human need for a religious structure, but not the traditional or historical ones from the past. As such, no amount of data or scientific proof of the fallacies they propound will change opinions.
"Having outgrown the Earth’s carrying capacity, our species’s appetite threatened to poison the environment upon which it subsisted. Our rapacity could only terminate in a wave of mass death."
Prosperity reduces fertility. In a prosperous world, humanity would cease to overgrow Earth's carrying capacity, and would most likely decline gradually rather than "in a wave of mass death" in Stalin's and Mao's and Pol Pot's style. But prosperity depends upon energy, which the "Population Bomb" crowd rejects.
"Love of nature and appreciation of the beauties of the landscape were foreign to the rural population. The inhabitants of the cities brought them to the countryside. It was the city-dwellers which began to appreciate the land as nature, while the countrymen valued it only from the point of view of its productivity for hunting, lumbering, crop raising and cattle breeding."
This is an extract from the book Human Action, published in 1949 by Ludwig von Mises. It is from Chapter XXII, "The Non-Human Original Factors of Production," section "The Myth of the Soil". In my view, the Austrian School of Economics is a humble and common-sense approach that relies on individual methodology and avoids any form of collectivism, such as apocalyptic environmentalism.
I'm a regular church goer. A few weeks ago our pastor (40 years of age) thought it fitting to base her sermon on our role in climate change. We had to read a piece out loud in which we confess and ask for forgiveness for our role in damaging the environment. I was overcome by rage! Talked to her afterwards and sent her a good video. I didn't receive a reply. This past Sunday I learnt that climate change features prominently in the theology curriculum.
A young lady, new to our family, is a second year City and Town Planning student. She confirmed that they are taught about 15 min cities and climate change, man-made, that is. She was surprised when I opined that most of it is hoggwash.
The climate propaganda is everywhere, including in the curricula.
The l
Another church-goer..I share your frustration. What denomination, I’m curious?
Interesting study, and very valuable. However, it ignores the elephant in the room. The vast majority of money flowing into "environmental" non-profits are from large, wealthy donors. Their interest is not the environment, but in creating a fear in people to feed more and more government spending. This spending, of course, is oriented at expensive solutions offered by the largest donors. The money flows in profits, some of it flows back to non-profits and campaign contributions and the beat goes on. The loser is the citizen caught in a Fascist abyss caused by their own ignorance fueled by innate fears they hear on the media. I am all in favor of people expressing their opinions, but not in favor of the huge freedoms taken away by the government deciding how to spend our money, lots of it, to "solve" problems. This has accelerated since the Great Society days of President Johnson. No conservative, liberal or progressive has been able to stop it. The article does not discuss people in relationship to passion and emotion. Both of these interlopers are enemies of logic and critical thinking. Like a magician, oligarchs pay politicians to wave their hands in the air so our attention it drawn away from the evil. Government funding in the name of environmentalism has done nothing but make the situations worse, while raising our cost related to them. This is the evil.
This situation is nothing new since it has been used successfully throughout history to enslave people (Caesars, dictators, royalty, conquerors, etc). It is worse in our situation because we have the power to stop it (the vote), yet we do not use that power. We vote for more fear and spending because we let our emotions and passions overcome our logical thinking. After all, this is instinctive to humans. So, all morality and ethics is focused on encouraging us to overcome our natural instincts and use the large brain we were supposedly blessed with to overcome the foibles of those who would steer us into slavery for their own purposes. In our current US situation it can be stated, regarding government's enslaving spending: stop the spending, start the mending. "We the people" can solve our own problems (indeed, we are the only ones who do). We can even do so before a catastrophe. But we must overcome the forces of the "voices". We need to ignore the media and politicians, at least regarding them as "experts". We need to develop moral courage as an electorate. We had it before (Founding Fathers, Washington, Lincoln, perhaps Kennedy if he had lived long enough). If we do not get it back, we are just another Fascist dictatorship formed by the ignorance of our voting responsibilities. We must swing the pendulum back to logic and common sense even though ignorance and sloth feels so good.
Environmentalism is a good thing when embraced by individuals, but it has been used as a cudgel in the hands of oligarchs and politicians in the US. "We the people" must see the ruse for what it is (a trap to allow us to enslave ourselves) and turn it into a collegiate individual moral and ethical commitment to allow our quality of life to improve through innovation in technology while taking a sensible path related to our environment. Free enterprise (not what the word "capitalism" has come to mean which resembles Fascism) must be the guiding light. People are much more resourceful than government gives them credit for, but we must rekindle the wisdom to break our of the Pied Piper mode.
So, good article, but passion and emotion should be an important factor in the understanding of how humans run in herds.