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Resolved: Environmentalists Hate Humans

LowDown

LowDown

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Pro:

...beginning in the late 1960s, a subversive misanthropy began to gestate within environmentalism. This view does not see the earth and the fullness thereof—in the Biblical turn of phrase—as ours to develop responsibly for human benefit, but instead castigates humans as a “disease” (or “parasites,” “maggots,” “cancer,” take your pick) afflicting the planet, best treated with the antibiotic of radical human depopulation and implacable opposition to economic growth.

Declaring war on humans won’t make for a cleaner planet. To the contrary, the green misanthropes harm the cause by undermining environmentalism’s good public standing.
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Con:

I hope this “environmentalists hate people” saw, which must be as old and moth-eaten as Teddy Roosevelt’s union suit, gets packed away for good. Since we’re pulling quotes out of context to suit our needs, I’m going to turn to one from the late Thomas Berry. I think it starts to get at the root of the real concern, which is not that humans don’t belong on the planet, but that we should understand our place. “Any progress of the human at the expense of the larger life community must ultimately lead to a diminishment of human life itself,” Berry wrote. “A degraded habitat will produce degraded humans.”
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The latter sentiment, in which we protect the earth for the sake of humans, sounds more like conservationism than environmentalism. It seems to me that environmentalists want to protect the earth even if (or preferably if) it kills every last human being while for conservationists enhancing human life is what a clean and fertile earth is all about.

Watch for negative attitudes toward the human race among the replies to this post. I don't expect to see much conservationism sentiment.

Meanwhile, here are some quotes from environmentalists. They are taken out of context, but I hardly see how the context would make them less harsh:

  • The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state. - Kenneth Boulding, originator of the "Spaceship Earth" concept (as quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982)
  • We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion -- guilt-free at last! -- Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue
  • Free Enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process . . . Capitalism is destroying the earth. -- Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists
  • We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects . . . We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land. -- David Foreman, Earth First!
  • Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed. -- Pentti Linkola
  • If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other. -- Amory Lovins in The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22
  • To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem -- Lamont Cole
  • The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don't suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them. -- Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

It seems to me that environmentalists are enemies of mankind, and mankind should respond to them accordingly.
 
You think global warming is impossible because God would prevent it, don't you?
 
LowDown said:
It seems to me that environmentalists are enemies of mankind, and mankind should respond to them accordingly.
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If how you came to this conclusion (how you applied these association standards) is what we all get to use to talk about all ideologies and all political objectives, you will have opened up a door that I suspect down the road you will not like... at all.
 
LowDown said:
Pro:



Con:



The latter sentiment, in which we protect the earth for the sake of humans, sounds more like conservationism than environmentalism. It seems to me that environmentalists want to protect the earth even if (or preferably if) it kills every last human being while for conservationists enhancing human life is what a clean and fertile earth is all about.

Watch for negative attitudes toward the human race among the replies to this post. I don't expect to see much conservationism sentiment.

Meanwhile, here are some quotes from environmentalists. They are taken out of context, but I hardly see how the context would make them less harsh:

  • The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state. - Kenneth Boulding, originator of the "Spaceship Earth" concept (as quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982)
  • We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion -- guilt-free at last! -- Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue
  • Free Enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process . . . Capitalism is destroying the earth. -- Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists
  • We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects . . . We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land. -- David Foreman, Earth First!
  • Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed. -- Pentti Linkola
  • If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other. -- Amory Lovins in The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22
  • To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem -- Lamont Cole
  • The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don't suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them. -- Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

It seems to me that environmentalists are enemies of mankind, and mankind should respond to them accordingly.
Click to expand...

Most of those that beat the environmental drums do not in any way know the implications. So they would be witless enemies.

Of course, there are environmental problems that will cause more pain to us than the toys were worth.
 
Deuce said:
You think global warming is impossible because God would prevent it, don't you?
Click to expand...

From what do you draw this conclusion? Insofar as CAGW is concerned, I just don't think the science is there, and I say this as one who accepts most everything reported by the IPCC WG1.

Global warming is most likely occurring as we speak. It has been going on for about 300 years, since the little ice age ended. I question whether the science is able to make accurate predictions about future climate and whether anything politically or financially feasible that man could do will have any effect on the climate.
 
LowDown said:
Pro:



Con:



The latter sentiment, in which we protect the earth for the sake of humans, sounds more like conservationism than environmentalism. It seems to me that environmentalists want to protect the earth even if (or preferably if) it kills every last human being while for conservationists enhancing human life is what a clean and fertile earth is all about.

Watch for negative attitudes toward the human race among the replies to this post. I don't expect to see much conservationism sentiment.

Meanwhile, here are some quotes from environmentalists. They are taken out of context, but I hardly see how the context would make them less harsh:

  • The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state. - Kenneth Boulding, originator of the "Spaceship Earth" concept (as quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982)
  • We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion -- guilt-free at last! -- Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue
  • Free Enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process . . . Capitalism is destroying the earth. -- Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists
  • We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects . . . We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land. -- David Foreman, Earth First!
  • Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed. -- Pentti Linkola
  • If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other. -- Amory Lovins in The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22
  • To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem -- Lamont Cole
  • The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don't suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them. -- Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

It seems to me that environmentalists are enemies of mankind, and mankind should respond to them accordingly.
Click to expand...
Some seem to think that to have progress and jobs that we must destroy the planet in the process or that all progress is bad for the planet, neither is true. Come on folks we are smart enough to do it right and be the caretakers we are supposed to be.
 
LowDown said:
From what do you draw this conclusion? Insofar as CAGW is concerned, I just don't think the science is there, and I say this as one who accepts most everything reported by the IPCC WG1.

Global warming is most likely occurring as we speak. It has been going on for about 300 years, since the little ice age ended. I question whether the science is able to make accurate predictions about future climate and whether anything politically or financially feasible that man could do will have any effect on the climate.
Click to expand...

I draw this conclusion because an AGW "skeptic" once said it. This is how I conclude that AGW skeptics are enemies of reason and evidence.

It's the same method you used to conclude environmentalists are the enemy of humanity. Weird how that bothers you so much.
 
Deuce said:
I draw this conclusion because an AGW "skeptic" once said it. This is how I conclude that AGW skeptics are enemies of reason and evidence.

It's the same method you used to conclude environmentalists are the enemy of humanity. Weird how that bothers you so much.
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Sorry, but those are quotes from national leaders of the movement, not a fringe group. I can stipulate that some environmentalists are not anti-human, but it seems clear that hatred of the human race is deeply ingrained in the environmental movement and is informing some of its major policy efforts.
 
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joG said:
Most of those that beat the environmental drums do not in any way know the implications. So they would be witless enemies.

Of course, there are environmental problems that will cause more pain to us than the toys were worth.
Click to expand...

Which problems are those? Are you relying on computer models of the climate for that statement?

We already know how badly we can mess up the environment locally, anyway. Consider the iconic burning of the Cuyahoga River. But now no matter how clean the water and air gets the EPA just gets more and more powerful and wants to regulate more and more. It's a matter of statist class interest now.
 
LowDown said:
Sorry, but those are quotes from national leaders of the movement, not a fringe group. I can stipulate that some environmentalists are not anti-human, but it seems clear that hatred of the human race is deeply ingrained in the environmental movement and is informing some of its major policy efforts.
Click to expand...

The individual I referred to is an elected republican.
 
This thread is slightly more silly than saying that capitalists hate animals.
 
Deuce said:
The individual I referred to is an elected republican.
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One can get a sense of how wide spread the idea that environmentalists hate humans is from googling the subject. Where did all these people get this idea? Why do so many people sympathetic to environmentalism feel the need to write articles defending it from that idea?

I'll let it suffice to say that a lot of the rhetoric coming from principle figures of the environmentalist movement make their misanthropy perfectly clear. A reasonable person would have no difficulty seeing this.
 
LowDown said:
One can get a sense of how wide spread the idea that environmentalists hate humans is from googling the subject. Where did all these people get this idea? Why do so many people sympathetic to environmentalism feel the need to write articles defending it from that idea?

I'll let it suffice to say that a lot of the rhetoric coming from principle figures of the environmentalist movement make their misanthropy perfectly clear. A reasonable person would have no difficulty seeing this.
Click to expand...

And the same methodology supports what I've said in this thread, yes.
 
LowDown said:
One can get a sense of how wide spread the idea that environmentalists hate humans is from googling the subject. Where did all these people get this idea? Why do so many people sympathetic to environmentalism feel the need to write articles defending it from that idea?

I'll let it suffice to say that a lot of the rhetoric coming from principle figures of the environmentalist movement make their misanthropy perfectly clear. A reasonable person would have no difficulty seeing this.
Click to expand...
I would chalk it up to people watching too much Captain Planet as children.
 
without environmentalists you end up with toxic hellholes like chinese cities.
 
Jack Hays said:
You are confusing environmentalists with conservationists. Please review the OP.
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disdain for overpopulation, climate change and pollution laws are a sure give away to low information or easily persuaded people/
 
Jack Hays said:
Then the appropriate response is: So what?
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Clearly in a leadership position, and apparently that's relevant to this methodology.
 
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