I KNEW this would happen

[jakesbrain]

The eco-fascisti have taken over the global warming movement.

Emphasis mine:

Transport policy-makers should start preparing now for a dramatic reduction in motorised travel that will be brought about by carbon rationing, one of the country's leading environmental thinkers told LTT this week

Comments

[davetheinverted]

I will cheerfully agree that this guy is out in cloud-cuckoo land...but I'd need to see more to agree that he in any way represents the mainstream of thought on how to deal with climate change.

Dav2.718

[kawaiiranchan]

It looks like people aren't going to take the global warming movement seriously because of these eco-nazis.

Can't you be for or against something without having to be some kind of facist? (I'm sorry I can't spell the term.) I am all for cleaning up the enviroment and taking care of nature, but I'm not some kind of egomaniacal crazy about it. Seems a bit unnessicary IMHO.

[jakesbrain]

I'm in favor of cleaning up the environment, but my God, I'm not so attached to it that I'd give up a significant portion of my civil rights in order to save it.

Pope Benedict rece3ntly said that we are called to be stewards of the earth (after all, he believes that Someone gave it to us to take care of), but that taking care of the earth CANNOT get in the way of our ability to take care of each other.

Al Gore, Philip Pullman, James Dobson, and Michael Moore are all examples of taking a pretty-good idea way too far, to the point at which you're willing to push other people around to ensure that the good idea gets implemented. Saving the world should not - CANNOT - include the deployment of coercive tactics (I say coercive because fascist sounds too much like hyperbole).

Even if it turns out I don't have a choice in such matters as environmentalism, rationalism, charity or social welfare, I would at least prefer that they be decent enough to grant me the illusion of choice.

[hentailoveslave]

Michael Moore isn't involved in the environmental movement to any significant degree. Al Gore is not recommending any specific policy, but has said a cap-and-trade system for CO2 would be effective. You've erected an enormous strawman of environmentalism, one where the end goal is living in caves for some reason or another. Also, sometimes coercion is necessary to achieve a goal that is good for society. Economic self-interest can conflict with the self-interest of the species or basic ethics, and since the former is more immediately gratifying, it wins out over the latter. See the Ford Pinto memo for an example of this.

(http://www.calbaptist.edu/dskubik/pinto.htm)

People are basically good, but we're not Ayn Rand-style Ubermensch, and we never will be. "Voluntary" environmental regulations simply don't work.