Two thoughts

Submitted by Diane (United States), Jun 22, 2010 at 11:24

Fascinating stuff. I've never seen it spelled out so clearly, and have been trying to figure it out for years. I have two thoughts:

1. origins: I first had an inkling of this new movement when protestors outside the 1992 WTO meeting in Seattle, for unexplained reasons, turned into a violent mob that trashed the city. Their fever spread to other cities too. I remember thinking: 'What's this? What do all these people want?' (Judging by their signage, they seemed to be a motley crew of enviornmentalists, anti-globalists and, as always, anti-Zionists.) We were living in the post-Soviet golden days, a Democrat was heading for the White House, talking about spending the "war dividend" on social programs. This rage on the left was a total mystery. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=314

2. irony: Sternberg's summary makes this movement sound absolutely moronic.The new order "will run on alternative energy, organic farming, local food markets, and closed-loop recyclable industry, if any industry is needed. People will travel on public transit, or ride cars that tread lightly on the earth, or even better, ride bicycles." A 3rd grader should be able to see why this won't work. How can a rational adult subscribe to such errant nonsense? I think it requires massive cognitive blinders. Earlier this year, I gave my 13-year-old son a thought experiment. His science teacher is a devout environmentalist who believes in zero population growth. In the wake of the Haiti earthquake, I asked my son: Which do you think is more important? Sending aid to Haiti or preserving the environment? The humanitarian woudl not hesistate. Save the suffering masses. From an environmentalist perspective, though, the more human lives we save in Haiti, a miserably overpopulated place, the more we hurt the island ecosystem. Perhaps the earthquake is nature's way of responding to the human plague there. What would your science teacher choose? For me, phrasing the choice in such a stark way provided a moment of clarity. We can't have it both ways: in a world of 6 billion people, one can't be for the environment and a humanitarian at the same time!

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