Environmental Hogwash and Fraud

by Mustang

He became an “environmentalist” because he was drawn to the other-than-human world of the wild: fast-moving rivers, pounding waterfalls, chirping birds, and gorgeous sunsets.  Along the way, he developed a deep resentment toward those killing the things he valued most, but even more than that, he hated those who didn’t seem to care.

However, over time, he began to question his environmental emotions.  Self-reflection caused him to ask, “If he was truly an environmentalist, aren’t humans also part of the environment, and don’t they behave in the only way humans can?”

His conclusions led him to this reality: environmentalists have become utilitarian cultists. They had replaced their environmentalism with activism, their new raison d’etre.  The word for this latest effort was sustainability.  It was a very curious word, defined in many different ways—depending on who attempted to explain it.

The United Nations defines it as: “the integration of environmental health, social equity, and economic vitality to create thriving, healthy, diverse, and resilient communities for this generation and future generations.  The practice of sustainability recognizes how these issues are interconnected and requires a  systems approach and an acknowledgment of complexity.”

The preceding definition has no meaning to an average human being.  It lacks vision but does so in a widely accepted pattern of incomprehensible liberal-speak.  This is how institutions manufacture their visions for the future.  Interestingly, we find this same pattern of incomprehensibility in nearly every school district’s boilerplate mission statements.

The authors of such hogwash begin with a list of high-sounding words (buzzwords) and then undertake to make sentences out of them.  Here’s an example, taken from an actual school district vision statement, helpful compared to the definition of sustainability: “[Name] ISD is a multicultural community in which students are enthusiastically and actively engaged in the learning process — because all students can learn. 

Our vision is to promote and encourage every student’s success, help guide parents and staff, and provide timely and accurate information with passion and excellence.  [Name] ISD empowers students to become critical thinkers, visionary leaders, and active contributors in their community, fostering a pathway to success for limitless opportunities in a competitive global landscape.

The UN’s vision statement for sustainability appears to have been written by a committee of kindergarten teachers asked to provide a vision for global environmentalism.  Sustainability is an entirely human-centered politicking disguised as a concern for “the planet.”

In just over a couple of decades, this ill-defined worldview has become pervasive, parroted by presidents, international bodies, corporate entities, and every classroom (K-12) from coast to coast. 

How well is it working?  Do this: pull any recent high school graduate aside and ask them to define sustainability, and they are likely to respond in one of two ways: (1) either with the canned definition provided above or (2) without a clue about what you’re asking — neither of which is desirable.  Better yet, ask the student to give examples of sustainability in their personal lives.  Our conclusion must be that environmentalism’s success has cost it its soul.

Let me elaborate: if sustainability is about anything, it is about carbon and climate change.  To listen to most environmentalists today, one would think these were the only things in the world worth discussing.  The business of “sustainability” is preventing carbon emissions — even though we humans depend on carbon to sustain our planet.  The quest to reduce our carbon footprint has made one former Vice President of the United States one of the world’s wealthiest environmentalists.

The noted (lucid) environmentalist Paul Kingsnorth described it this way: “Carbon emissions threaten a potentially massive downgrading of our prospects for material advancement as a species.  They threaten to unacceptably erode our resource base and put at risk our vital hordes of natural capital. 

If we cannot sort this out quickly, we will end up darning our socks again and growing our carrots and other unthinkable things.  All of the horrors our grandparents left behind will return like deathless legends.  Carbon emissions must be “tackled” like a drunk with a broken bottle — quickly and with maximum force.”

Paul Kingsnorth expresses his concerns this way: “But what I am also convinced of is that the fear of losing both the comfort and the meaning that our civilization gifts us has gone to the heads of environmentalists to such a degree that they have forgotten everything else.  The carbon must be stopped, like the Umayyad at Tours, or all will be lost.”

Unless, of course, the demand for zero carbon is a trick being played to reduce the human population globally.  A few decades ago, Dr. John Holdren (former presidential science advisor to Bill Clinton) argued for the forced sterilization of human beings to save the planet. 

No one in the 1960s was ready for such radicalism, and they still aren’t.  Less threatening, however — a way in through the back door, so to speak — is this constant clamoring for reducing agriculture to save the earth.  Such arguments are prevalent inside the European Union, where mutton-heads such as Ursula von der Hayden preside.  Reducing agricultural production will produce artificial famine, a painful way to die.

What our planet demands from us is balance.  Do we want clean oceans free of used plastic milk containers?  Sure.  Do we want to denude the earth of trees to have cardboard milk cartons?  Maybe not.  How valuable are energy-producing windmills?  They cost more to manufacture and install than they produce in sustainable energy.  From the outset, gigantic wind turbines were a dumb idea — and one that takes away from the landscapes we claim to love.  And they kill millions of birds every year.  Should we care about that?

Let me pause to emphasize.  Is zero waste even possible?

Millions of people produce a substantial amount of waste.  What does the City of New York do with their waste?  Each day, New York City produces 13,000 tons of waste, which is incinerated, sent to landfills, or recycled.

What should Hong Kong do with its waste if it does not incinerate it?  Whatever solutions you come up with must be intelligent and sensible.  Sending trash into space is not an option.  Neither is dumping it into the oceans.  Should Hong Kong’s leaders take the advice of Dr. John Holdren and forcibly reduce the island’s human population?

Herein lies the problem: the activists offer us no reasonable solutions to the issue of waste management.  Incineration may not be the best solution, but it is a solution until something better comes along. 

Consuming crickets is not a solution, and anyone who offers such solutions demonstrates their lack of seriousness, intelligence, or both.  Herein lies an even greater danger if protecting the planet is our over-arching concern: Environmentalism, while a noteworthy conversation, is losing its credibility with the planet’s thinking population.

Mustang also has blogs called  Fix Bayonets and Searching History