Death by Environmentalism
Interesting read at
The Atlas Center (Ayn Rand):
Death by Environmentalism
What does it mean in practice to hold a philosophy that declares that pristine nature has intrinsic value in itself, and that regards Man and his activities as intrusive threats to the so-called ecological balance?
I have discussed the history, meaning, and basic premises of environmentalism previously, in my monograph The Green Machine and in my recorded talk "Green Cathedrals," both available from The Objectivist Center. I also explore these issues on my ecoNOT.com Web site.
But here I want to focus on the consequences of accepting core environmentalist premises—specifically, their deadly impact on human life.
In the same way that so many intellectuals once turned a blind eye to the massacres perpetrated by communists, most intellectuals now evade the three decades of mass destruction and misery perpetrated by environmentalists. Sharing the movement's underlying philosophic precepts and focusing their gaze upon its proclaimed goals, they remain blissfully ignorant of its wretched consequences, or—when brought to their attention— excuse them as unfortunate "excesses" wrought by a few overly zealous "idealists," whose hearts are nonetheless in the right place.
Come on Robert, tell us what you
really think! Heh...
Doesn't pull any punches. This is a long article so I'm just excerpting a bit. He gives a few examples and dissects them with a clear understanding of what is really going on.
A sample:
The French Heat Wave Deaths
According to an Associated Press report (September 9, 2003): "The heat baked many parts of Europe, killing livestock and fanning forest fires, but experts said the heat was more severe in France because temperatures did not drop at night, meaning those exhausted from the daytime heat enjoyed no respite when the sun went down."
However, the high temperatures alone do not explain mass deaths in a modern nation. After all, summer temperatures in the American West soar frequently above 100 degrees Fahrenheit—as they did again this year—without corresponding heat-related deaths. Indeed, climatologist Patrick J. Michaels pointed out on Fox News (August 20, 2003) that "the mean summer temperature in Paris is the same as in Detroit, Chicago, and Denver, and when these American cities heat up to record levels…there's no proportional number of excess deaths." What, then, was so different about France?
The Associated Press story gives the following clue: "The bulk of the victims—many of them elderly—died during the height of the heat wave, which brought suffocating temperatures of up to 104 degrees in a country where air conditioning is rare."
This prompts an obvious question: Why is air conditioning so rare in a technologically sophisticated country like France?
In an interview, Michaels told me that a major reason is the impact of environmentalism on government energy policy. To address the alleged threat of global warming, France, along with the rest of the European Union, has imposed steep energy taxes in order to reduce energy consumption. As a result, Michaels explained, energy costs to consumers in France are about 25 percent higher than to consumers in the United States. At the same time, average incomes in France are considerably lower than those in America, which, in relative terms, makes electricity there all the more expensive.
Sure enough, the high energy taxes have worked exactly as the environmentalists planned: they have reduced energy consumption. Seeking ways to cut their electric bills, French citizens realized that air conditioners consume more energy than almost any other household appliance. For the poor and the elderly, especially, air conditioning simply became unaffordable. So, by the millions, they decided to forgo the amenity that environmental taxes made so expensive. Air conditioning, so universal in America, became in France an indulgence of the well-to-do. As Chantal de Singly, director of the Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, put it in Le Monde (August 19, 2003), the heat wave revealed two classes of French citizens: "the France of the air conditioned versus the France of the overheated."
Temps in Paris are the same as many major American cities but the French, in fear over an unsubstantiated climate model that does not take into account the most pernicious Global Warming Gas of all, have taxed the comfort out of their citizens.
A government? A fraud...
Posted by DaveH at September 4, 2006 9:34 PM