Repeated and Uncontrollable Failures (The unbearable sadness of climate activism)

Tim Blair Blog ^ | 8-16-2014 | Tim Blair

[servo1969]

The unbearable sadness of climate activism:

Nicole Thornton remembers the exact moment her curious case of depression became too real to ignore. It was five years ago and the environmental scientist – a trained biologist and ecologist – was writing a rather dry PhD on responsible household water use.

Fair enough. That would make anyone depressed.

Thornton had always been easily upset by apathy towards, and denial of, environmental issues. But now she began to notice an oddly powerful personal reaction to "the small stuff" – like people littering, or neighbours chopping down an old tree.

So, she's a bossy type who wants others to obey her. No wonder Nicole is attracted to environmentalism.

***********

The United Nations was about to hold its 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen, and Thornton felt she had a personal investment in it. She, like many thousands of activists and scientists and green campaigners, had high hopes that a new and robust version of the Kyoto agreement would be created in Denmark.

“But the reality was a massive, epic failure of political will. It broke me,” she says. “The trigger point was actually watching grown men cry.”

I don’t mean to diminish anyone’s pain or suffering, but it is impossible to read those two paragraphs without laughing.

[EandH Dad]

It’s a movement led by Al Gore. That would be depressing enough for anyone.

[Blue Collar Christian]

Leftism is mental illness. A need to make everyone else get in line with your own agenda, for their own good, of course, and forget this liberty stuff.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

they cry