What is really behind Kyoto - A Paranoiac's Journey
In a recent essay, I pointed out how the Kyoto Protocol is doomed to send any country that seriously tries to implement it into economic collapse, since only massive government coercion has any chance of achieving the greenhouse gas reduction goals, and that disruption to the market could not result in anything but chaos. Moreover, the government of Canada acknowledges the need for coercion, though they ignore what I think will be the inevitable results.
But no one wants economic collapse, right? I mean, environmentalists want us to be prosperous as a nation, while at the same time being ecologically sensitive, right?
I put it to you that the agenda of environmental groups is not to recreate society into some sort of self-sustaining ecologically-sensitive model that is both profitable and environmentally safe, but rather to destroy civilization as we know it in order to reduce the human population to a fraction of its current size (or perhaps eliminate humans altogether), and to return great swaths of the planet to a wild state.
I know it sounds bizarre, and I sound like I'm ranting, but if you look, the evidence is there that hints at this agenda. To be sure, most environmentalists would not subscribe to this sort of program, but I think at the heart of the movement (if there is a centre to such a diverse and anarchic movement) is a core group who truly believe that humanity itself is the problem, and that the problem must be eliminated.
What evidence? I'm going to point to a series of little tidbits here and there at environmental websites that, when taken together, made me wonder, and finally drove me to this unsettling conclusion.
First, a trip back in history. Andy Warhol was a pop artist known to almost everyone. His art defined "pop" for a generation, and he was a fixture in the counter-culture movement of the 60s. Many people also know he was shot, but survived the assassination attempt. The woman who shot him was Valerie Solanis, a disturbed individual by any account. Her claim to fame, besides being the person who shot Andy Warhol, was the SCUM Manifesto. Take a moment to follow that link and read it. It is quite the whopper. The Society for Cutting Up Men is an organization she founded (though as best as I can tell, never had any members) dedicated to the proposition that men were stupid and inherently evil, and should be destroyed. Yikes.
The Manifesto does not touch on environmentalism. In fact, environmentalism was not even a movement in the 60s. Indeed, the Manifesto proposes a high-tech "automated" society to deal with the material needs of the all-female culture. But look to the bottom of the web page. I've reproduced the reference here:
This version of the SCUM manifesto was posted to the Web by Rev. Chris Korda of "The Church of Euthanasia":
Envirolink is a link site to a number of other online environmental papers and environmentally-themed websites. To be fair, I can no longer find the SCUM Manifesto by starting from Envirolink. The link existed once, but no longer. However, this does not mean that they have disavowed themselves of the idea of reducing human population violently.
Obviously, at some time in the past, they once had a link to the aforementioned Church of Euthanasia, as indicated in the above reference. The Church website is blocked the firewall at the office (suggesting some pretty nasty content), but I found a faq that helps explain its doctrine:
The Church has only one commandment, and it is "Thou Shalt Not Procreate." In addition, we have four "pillars" or principles, which are Suicide, Abortion, Cannibalism and Sodomy.
Augh!! OK, that wasn't very professional, but for crying out loud!! This might explain why Envirolink no longer links to this -- it was just too obvious!
Too obvious? Maybe the folks at Envirolink really believe that what was espoused by the Church of Euthanasia was not morally acceptable? Perhaps, but then here is a sampling of quotes that are accessible from Envirolink.
First,
We must stop procreating. Or, else, pray for a reduction in our numbers.
This could be achieved benignly, for instance by colonizing space, or the ocean depths - both remote and technologically unfeasible possibilities.
Yet, the alternative is cataclysmic. Unintended wars, rampant disease, and lethal famines will ultimately trim our numbers - no matter how noble our intentions and how diligent our efforts to curb them.
Is this a bad thing?
Not necessarily. To my mind, even a Malthusian resolution is preferable to the alternative of slow decay, uniform impecuniosity [sic], and perdition in instalments [sic] - an alternative made inexorable by our collective irresponsibility and denial.
from And Then There Were Too Many, by Shmuel (Sam) Vaknin, an economist and philosopher from Israel.
And another,
If developed countries let their population go into gradual decline they could adopt an affirmative recycling policy to keep real estate values rising. Rural and residential properties are reclaimed for more than market value and reverted to wilderness. The owners of properties reclaimed can then buy another property elsewhere. By this means the economy can be continually artificially stimulated.
Also with a buoyant economy and declining population the point will be reached where there are more jobs available than there are people to fill them. This is zero unemployment. Wages and salaries will continually rise according to the law of supply and demand. By adopting affirmative recycling policy with declining population it is possible to achieve an ever-escalating curve of prosperity for everyone.
from Scientists for Population Reduction. Zero employment leading to prosperity? Maybe a few economists should be invited to their meetings to explain Phillips-Curve inflation and the price-wage spiral.
And the piece de resistance, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (also blocked by our firewall, but Envirolink provides this helpful little summary):
VHEMT is a movement rather than an organization. There are no dues-paying members. VHEMT Volunteers feel that Earth's biosphere would be better off without humans, and favor our extinction. VHEMT Supporters aren't willing to advocate our extinction, but agree that the intentional creation of one more of us by anyone any where can't be justified today. "Thank you for not breeding."
And for Canadians reading this, this is the kicker! Envirolink provides what they believe to be "related" resources for each site summary page. Guess what link they list as related to the VHEMT? The David Suzuki Foundation!! I'm sure the Dr. Suzuki would disavow any implied support for the Extinction folks (well, I hope he would disavow any support), but someone at Envirolink figured that people interested in exterminating the human race would also be interested in what Canada's premier environmentalist has to say. I, for one, would like to know why someone thought the link was relevant.
So a quick visit to a premier environmental website uncovers a disturbing number of links to sites promoting a policy of radical de-population of the planet. To be fair, there are links to sites promoting sustained growth as well, including sites that argue that the population limit of the planet has not been reached. I have been cherry picking here, but I think the fact that these violent programs of wide scale death are considered valid approaches to solving environmental problems worthy of debate repels me, and makes me wonder what hope the "peaceable" faction of the environmental movement in the face of the "ultra-violent" faction that is welcomed in their midst.
But no one wants economic collapse, right? I mean, environmentalists want us to be prosperous as a nation, while at the same time being ecologically sensitive, right?
I put it to you that the agenda of environmental groups is not to recreate society into some sort of self-sustaining ecologically-sensitive model that is both profitable and environmentally safe, but rather to destroy civilization as we know it in order to reduce the human population to a fraction of its current size (or perhaps eliminate humans altogether), and to return great swaths of the planet to a wild state.
I know it sounds bizarre, and I sound like I'm ranting, but if you look, the evidence is there that hints at this agenda. To be sure, most environmentalists would not subscribe to this sort of program, but I think at the heart of the movement (if there is a centre to such a diverse and anarchic movement) is a core group who truly believe that humanity itself is the problem, and that the problem must be eliminated.
What evidence? I'm going to point to a series of little tidbits here and there at environmental websites that, when taken together, made me wonder, and finally drove me to this unsettling conclusion.
First, a trip back in history. Andy Warhol was a pop artist known to almost everyone. His art defined "pop" for a generation, and he was a fixture in the counter-culture movement of the 60s. Many people also know he was shot, but survived the assassination attempt. The woman who shot him was Valerie Solanis, a disturbed individual by any account. Her claim to fame, besides being the person who shot Andy Warhol, was the SCUM Manifesto. Take a moment to follow that link and read it. It is quite the whopper. The Society for Cutting Up Men is an organization she founded (though as best as I can tell, never had any members) dedicated to the proposition that men were stupid and inherently evil, and should be destroyed. Yikes.
The Manifesto does not touch on environmentalism. In fact, environmentalism was not even a movement in the 60s. Indeed, the Manifesto proposes a high-tech "automated" society to deal with the material needs of the all-female culture. But look to the bottom of the web page. I've reproduced the reference here:
This version of the SCUM manifesto was posted to the Web by Rev. Chris Korda of "The Church of Euthanasia":
Envirolink is a link site to a number of other online environmental papers and environmentally-themed websites. To be fair, I can no longer find the SCUM Manifesto by starting from Envirolink. The link existed once, but no longer. However, this does not mean that they have disavowed themselves of the idea of reducing human population violently.
Obviously, at some time in the past, they once had a link to the aforementioned Church of Euthanasia, as indicated in the above reference. The Church website is blocked the firewall at the office (suggesting some pretty nasty content), but I found a faq that helps explain its doctrine:
The Church has only one commandment, and it is "Thou Shalt Not Procreate." In addition, we have four "pillars" or principles, which are Suicide, Abortion, Cannibalism and Sodomy.
Augh!! OK, that wasn't very professional, but for crying out loud!! This might explain why Envirolink no longer links to this -- it was just too obvious!
Too obvious? Maybe the folks at Envirolink really believe that what was espoused by the Church of Euthanasia was not morally acceptable? Perhaps, but then here is a sampling of quotes that are accessible from Envirolink.
First,
We must stop procreating. Or, else, pray for a reduction in our numbers.
This could be achieved benignly, for instance by colonizing space, or the ocean depths - both remote and technologically unfeasible possibilities.
Yet, the alternative is cataclysmic. Unintended wars, rampant disease, and lethal famines will ultimately trim our numbers - no matter how noble our intentions and how diligent our efforts to curb them.
Is this a bad thing?
Not necessarily. To my mind, even a Malthusian resolution is preferable to the alternative of slow decay, uniform impecuniosity [sic], and perdition in instalments [sic] - an alternative made inexorable by our collective irresponsibility and denial.
from And Then There Were Too Many, by Shmuel (Sam) Vaknin, an economist and philosopher from Israel.
And another,
If developed countries let their population go into gradual decline they could adopt an affirmative recycling policy to keep real estate values rising. Rural and residential properties are reclaimed for more than market value and reverted to wilderness. The owners of properties reclaimed can then buy another property elsewhere. By this means the economy can be continually artificially stimulated.
Also with a buoyant economy and declining population the point will be reached where there are more jobs available than there are people to fill them. This is zero unemployment. Wages and salaries will continually rise according to the law of supply and demand. By adopting affirmative recycling policy with declining population it is possible to achieve an ever-escalating curve of prosperity for everyone.
from Scientists for Population Reduction. Zero employment leading to prosperity? Maybe a few economists should be invited to their meetings to explain Phillips-Curve inflation and the price-wage spiral.
And the piece de resistance, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (also blocked by our firewall, but Envirolink provides this helpful little summary):
VHEMT is a movement rather than an organization. There are no dues-paying members. VHEMT Volunteers feel that Earth's biosphere would be better off without humans, and favor our extinction. VHEMT Supporters aren't willing to advocate our extinction, but agree that the intentional creation of one more of us by anyone any where can't be justified today. "Thank you for not breeding."
And for Canadians reading this, this is the kicker! Envirolink provides what they believe to be "related" resources for each site summary page. Guess what link they list as related to the VHEMT? The David Suzuki Foundation!! I'm sure the Dr. Suzuki would disavow any implied support for the Extinction folks (well, I hope he would disavow any support), but someone at Envirolink figured that people interested in exterminating the human race would also be interested in what Canada's premier environmentalist has to say. I, for one, would like to know why someone thought the link was relevant.
So a quick visit to a premier environmental website uncovers a disturbing number of links to sites promoting a policy of radical de-population of the planet. To be fair, there are links to sites promoting sustained growth as well, including sites that argue that the population limit of the planet has not been reached. I have been cherry picking here, but I think the fact that these violent programs of wide scale death are considered valid approaches to solving environmental problems worthy of debate repels me, and makes me wonder what hope the "peaceable" faction of the environmental movement in the face of the "ultra-violent" faction that is welcomed in their midst.