Posted on 02/07/2008 5:33:54 AM PST by Clive
By any means necessary
David Suzuki says he wants anti-Kyoto politicians thrown in jail. How did environmentalism become this totalitarian?
No one knows how many forests have been felled to print all the stories that have been published about David Suzuki, Canada's much-honoured but continuously controversial environmental crusader. The dead trees probably number in the many thousands, a (supposedly) global-warming-causing harvest so plenteous as to lead one to assume that preacher Suzuki might have begun moderating his apocalyptic sermonizing, lest he trigger yet another round of clear-cutting.
But no. Instead, Suzuki has lately pumped up his rhetoric with even more frantic language, apparently as part of an all-out, last-ditch attempt to persuade Canadians that the world is fast approaching an environmental meltdown. It's not clear whether he's changing any minds with his new bellicosity, but he has at least been doing his bit to keep the country's loggers busy.
So what exactly has Suzuki, who is on the university-lecture circuit these days, been saying? For starters, he told a University of Toronto audience last month that the next federal election ought to be about the environment. No problem there. However, as reported by a student newspaper, he then opined that government leaders who aren't acting quickly enough to save the environment "should go to jail for what they're not doing right now … What our government is not doing is a criminal act."
His allegation of law-breaking was apparently no mere slip of the tongue. Speaking a few weeks later at McGill University, Suzuki again equated governments' alleged inaction on the environment with a criminal act; in fact, he is reported to have said students ought to find a legal way to throw politicians in jail for ignoring climate-change science.
The geneticist-turned-broadcaster had particularly harsh words for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Premier Ed Stelmach of Alberta because of their alleged favouring of economic growth over environmental protection. "It is an intergenerational crime" -- there's that concept again -- "that, in the face of the work of scientists over the last 20 years, they keep dithering as they are," Suzuki declared.
Suzuki's alarmism is nothing new, and more-prudent scientists have long ago answered his hyperbole and exposed his faulty logic. And it's also long been abundantly clear from his speeches and books that his position is driven by both a quasi-religious zeal and a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of humanity's relationship with the natural world.
On this latter matter, he told the McGill crowd there is actually no difference between human beings and the environment in which they live. "We are the environment. There is no distinction," he declared, thereby equating, for example, a newborn baby with a mud puddle. How heartening.
But this is old ground. What we haven't seen from him until now is such an incendiary call to arms. Taking to the streets to protest climatechange inaction is one thing. Calling for the jailing of politicians is quite another -- especially considering the fact that, the last time I checked anyway, there is nothing in the Criminal Code of Canada to prevent the Prime Minister from attempting to enhance both the country's economy and its environment. It's called balance.
We shouldn't really be surprised at Suzuki's latest tactic. Eco-pirate Paul Watson, formerly of the Sea Shepherd Society, has long argued that he answers not to the law of man, but to the law of nature. And we're not talking here about his need to take bathroom breaks while chasing down whaling ships on the high seas. Suzuki now seems to be adopting a similar philosophy: that human-written law should be subordinate to that of Mother Nature (except, of course, when it comes to incarceration; human-constructed jails are so much more reliable than caves or thickets). And, of course, it's only Watson and Suzuki's special hot-line to Gaia that allows them to interpret nature's law; the rest of us unenlightened ones need not apply.
We should also not be surprised at the intolerance that permeates Suzuki's "lock 'em up" rhetoric. After all, despite the multicultural mantra that we "celebrate our differences," there's a disturbingly illiberal tendency these days (as shown in the recent "human-rights" prosecutions of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, for example) to censor those with whom one doesn't agree. It's only a very small step to try to throw such disagreeable persons into prison, too. Perhaps U.S. author Jonah Goldberg ought to be thinking of adding a chapter to his high-profile new book, Liberal Fascism, to explore this subject further.
Actually, Czech President Vaclav Klaus (who, coincidentally, is up for reelection tomorrow) has already done a lot of thinking in this area and has concluded that environmental zealotry poses as great a threat to human freedom as did communism. Klaus, whose book Our Planet is Blue not Green will soon be translated into English, believes that climate-change alarmists persuade governments to launch costly and unnecessary programs that have the ultimate effect of impoverishing people, thereby making them less free.
"When we look at it in a proper historical perspective, the issue is -- once again -- freedom and its enemies," Klaus wrote last year. "Those of us who feel very strongly about it can never accept the irrationality with which the current world has embraced climate change (or global warming) as a real danger to the future of mankind, as well as the irrationality of [anti-globalwarming] measures because they will fatally endanger our freedom and prosperity."
Suzuki is actually supporting a more direct attack on freedom than that which worries Klaus. Suzuki's plan would lead to a loss of freedom, not though punitive economic measures, but through the incarceration of politicians with whom he disagrees. I have a better idea: Let the court of public opinion decide this at the polls. And if Suzuki doesn't like the democratic outcome, he can always show his displeasure by giving us back his Order of Canada medal.
oneills@telus.net - Terry O'Neill is a Vancouver editor and writer.
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“How did environmentalism become this totalitarian?”
Liberal facisim. “Fascism will come to America, but likely under another name, perhaps anti-fascism.” Huey Long. Libs love to project their facism onto neocons.
Regarding global warming (and so many other issues), “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.” George Orwell
Environmentalism is a means to an ends. The ends is wealth redistribution and governmental control. Environmentalism is just one of the tools. Control of foods, language, prohibition, etc. is all part of the plan.
“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny” Jefferson
“Those who control language control minds.” Ayn Rand
In the end, “As the Left breaks down the self-discipline of Judeo-Christian religions, more and more laws are needed simply to keep people from devouring each other.” Dennis Prager
The plan was announced years ago,
CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture—education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [”]united force[”] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm
Until this election, I had faith America wouldn’t fall. Now I’m looking for a place to take refuge.
That was always its purpose. "Environmentalism" is just a way to get people to accept a totalitarian government.
Duh, it was started as a Marxist means to end capitalism preying on peoples emotions and feelings. Our education system continues to dumb the children leaving only emotion to judge issues not science or thought. This is why it is gaining popularity and becoming tyrannical, an emotional person made to drink the kool aid with no ability think through the fraud and illogic will act just the way that pathetically shallow Carl Marx wanted, Revolutionary. Revolutions are generally very tyrannical which is what made ours one of the few in history that actually changed something for the better.
>>an all-out, last-ditch attempt to persuade Canadians that the world is fast approaching an environmental meltdown.<<
I do disagree with this one line of the article.
Its not a last ditch attempt although environmental radicals may try to cast it that way. They have been presenting the situation that way for 40 years even as cars, factories, water and everything else has gotten cleaner because reasonable environmental measures were taken.
So, no matter how urgent they make it, we need to remember we are in a long battle and no matter what we do about real environmental problems there will be something else alarmist next because their real objective is to undermine modern Western lifestyle and they will always find a new wedge.
Thanks for posting this.
I sent the Author an email expressing my appreciation for this great article that nails the envirowackos....
Absolutely!!! The “Dark Side” has nefarious intent and are trying to “program” the sheeple to do their bidding.
And the envirowackos, most of them, don’t even know this little known scientific fact.
The average CO2 content of our atmosphere is one third of one percent.
As a young teen, back in 1962, I recieved my first telescope for Christmas.
I remember, as though it were yesterday, the delight I experienced as I viewed for the first time, the rings of saturn.
I also remember vividly, looking at Mars and being amazed at the size of its polar ice caps.
They were so large as to cover almost a third of the Planet.
Today, I have a much more powerful scope (A dobsonian 18 inch) and when I look at mars...the ice caps are gone.
So you see, I KNOW THAT ANTHROPOMORPHIC GLOBAL WARMING is a SCAM and a RUSE....what I haven’t quite figured out yet, is who is the real man behind the curtain.
They’ve always employed Stalinist tactics. This is what the cry against political correctness has always been. There is no dissent allowed.
The Left got away with calling the era of the 1930s-1960s a “Red Scare” but they know that George Orwell’s words ring true criticizing NOT ONLY Stalin’s USSR but also global Socialists that refused to condemn him while at the same time denouncing the US/UK DURING WWII. So the Left tries to portray Bush’s wire taps of international calls with terrorists as “Orwellian” which is patently false.
Communism kills. Socialists lie.
Ever shall be.
Leftists have been trying to destroy their respective home countries for decades. You would think hey would be in *favor* of global warming(?)
Thanks for the perspective. You’re right, it’s not new. What is new is that, for some reason, it’s starting to gain traction with many many in the West.
Our effect and and contribution is negligile. Here is more detail on that:
"Total human CO2 emissions primarily from use of coal, oil, and natural gas and the production of cement are currently about 5.5 GT C per year (giga tons of carbon per year). A recent update says 8.6 GT, which probably includes the usual stretching. To put these figures in perspective, it is estimated that the atmosphere contains 750 GT C; the surface ocean contains 1,000 GT C; vegetation, soils, and detritus contain 2,200 GT C; and the intermediate and deep oceans contain 38,000 GT C. Each year, the surface ocean and atmosphere exchange an estimated 90 GT C; vegetation and the atmosphere, 60 GT C; marine biota and the surface ocean, 50 GT C; and the surface ocean and the intermediate and deep oceans, 100 GT C."
Thats about 1% (using their likely exaggerated numbers)of all contributions to atmosopheric CO2. Knowing that CO2 is no different from any source then we are now to believe we live on 1% threshold. Also, we know natures contribution varies and natural disasters such as volcanoes will spew more co2 into the air than we could ever in short amount of time. The 1% would have relegated earth to a dustbowl long ago if it were true,its absolute non sense So ridiculous that only a "properly educated" person could possibly believe it. Granted the fraud has answers for this to but those answers are as idiotic as this one. The problem with arguing AGW is that there are so many fabrications they have created that answering only one of them doesn't slow down the fiction train .
“We are the environment. There is no distinction,”
If this is accepted as fact, then man made global warming is no more unnatural than increased sunspots or an El Niño condition. All the rest is just an engineering problem, as another Freeper once posted.
Canada stands to benefit greatly from any warming, turning frozen land into prime real estate. What’s really going on is they are using the issue as an excuse to attack Canada’s eternal object of envy: the USA.
Because the "environmental" movement is just a front for anti-personal rights and property totalitarians.
There are some well-meaning folks who are genuinely interested in ecological issues, but the organizations are run by the same old leftist slime.
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