Civilizational Regression and the Environmental Left

by Alex Vronces

17 May 2012

Be wary of the wretched environmentalists who are now so actively fighting ad nauseam to claw back economic and atmospheric progress.

I can’t help but excoriate the inane behavior of the environmental left. Their overzealous fatuity is akin to that of an evangelical preaching sonorously from the pulpit. These fanatics, if left unchecked, will damage the very thing they intend to repair. They take on many forms, though a common trait that these radicals share is their lacklustre cerebral capacity. Friends, be wary of the wretched environmentalists who are now so actively fighting ad nauseam to claw back economic and atmospheric progress.

Proponents of Trees, Bees, and Everything Green relentlessly lobby governments to impose restrictions upon the utterly malevolent behavior of energy-intensive corporations. Nevertheless, adopting such policies will exacerbate the problem, expediting the insidious destruction of the very ecosphere we’re trying to protect. In truth, only by deregulating Canadian industry can we reverse this purported trend. Yet the green-blooded viscerally, vehemently, and sometimes ludicrously disagree.

NASA’s own James Hansen has deemed climate change a moral issue akin to slavery, akin to the utterly barbarous and sadistic subordination of our fellow human. If only Hansen knew that a global carbon tax has never in history abolished the serfdom against which he protests. Self-styled quasi-scientist, intellectual prodigy, and Hollywood actress Daryl Hannah once doltishly said, “It’s well documented that [Alberta’s] tar sands itself [sic] is one of the world’s largest ecological atrocities and disasters…the contribution to the carbon in the atmosphere is unprecedented.”

These kinds of dimwitted claims, fostered only by credulity, are the bane of civilization that will diminish our prosperity and, yes, damage our environment. Hannah’s platitudinous remarks, which rapidly disseminate throughout these environmental advocacy groups, are risibly fallacious. In 2008, the oil sands accounted for only five percent of Canada’s emissions and 0.08 percent of global emissions — if that is unprecedented, then so are the levels of hot air being discharged from her mouth.

The conventional wisdom of Mother Nature’s most ardent cheerleaders holds that an increase in economic growth leads to an increase in energy usage. Why else would they so adamantly wish to halt it? Quite the contrary, on a per capita level, Canada’s energy consumption in kilograms of oil has surprisingly gone from 7,831 kg in 1980 to 7,486 kg in 2010. It goes without saying – but I will say it anyway for the readers who may be a few dimes short of a dollar – that our energy demands have increased precipitously during that period.

We often take for granted our power to innovate, to forever enhance the efficiency of our consumption. The obstreperous infants who clamor for sustainable development like zoo animals are nothing more than false prophets, indeed Malthusian doomsayers. Thomas Malthus, long ago, forewarned of years and years of abject poverty due to the exponential demographic growth that would exceed agricultural production. He did not, however, foresee the profound effects of the industrial revolution, an epoch which saw an abundance of GHG emissions and the simultaneous improvement of human welfare.

It is technological development, spearheaded by economic expansion that allows for amelioration of any kind to occur. Economist Simon Kuznets is famous for the Kuznets curve, which depicts this relation. If the per capita income growth is unbridled, the chart illustrates that only after periods of high pollution will the high pollution begin to perpetually fall. Certainly, only an ecclesiastic of some sort repudiates facts such as these and, instead, consciously chooses to promulgate dogma — I dare say, sounding incredibly foolish whilst at it.

Disingenuously reprimanding corporations in the hope that they’ll pare down production is akin to admonishing the car you’re driving in the hope that it’ll stop burning fuel. In a competitively capitalist world, wherein western economies are currently in the doldrums, curtailing industrial production any further is asinine. For the sake of our financial and environmental prospects, any and every measure to stimulate growth should be adopted in haste, in fact without question. So, at the risk of sounding undemocratic, let’s keep the environmentalist zealots out of this one, perhaps by finding them another planet’s economy and environment to destroy.

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of The Prince Arthur Herald.

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