A short trip from red to green for many enviro-whackos
 

Commentary by Sid Knowles
(Special to ST. MARY'S TODAY)

 

            The thing I like the most about being an environmental activist is that you don’t have to waste too much time thinking about problems or researching them. Just say whatever comes into your head and you can create quite a stir and be on the road to becoming a successful spokesman like Al Gore.

 

            Environmentalists love hearing tales about the collapse of the ecosystem.  They’re like the old members of the Communist Party in that respect. For the Communists in the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, stories about the impending collapse of capitalism were swapped at social gatherings, at left wing meetings, on picket lines and in newsrooms. Nothing warmed the cold heart of a communist than the idea of Capitalism collapsing and the rubble crushing the life out of all the perceived enemies of the workers revolution.

 

            In fact, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the Communists began to realize that Capitalism’s shaky foundations were getting stronger all the time. It was as if the iron laws of history were melted down and used as re-bar in the poured concrete of capitalism. The Communists and their friends were desperate.   So when the environmental movement was born with its scenarios of pestilence, starvation, irreversible environmental damage, species eradication, overpopulation, birth defects, and health scares, the left wing had found a new home.  It was only a short shift in the political spectrum from being red to being green.

 

            The fall of Communism provided the impetus for many people in Europe to become green.  Many were already green with envy, which is why they became Communists in the first place. Plus the environmental movement was a better paying gig than being a left wing “servant of the people”. And switching from red to green wouldn’t require a new wardrobe. Blue jeans, corduroy sports jackets and running shoes were still the clothes of choice of both groups.

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            Today, environmentalist journalists drive from one environmental press conference to another in gas guzzling SUVs filled with radiation emitting electronic equipment. This equipment is so expensive and so fragile that the SUVs are kept idling in the wintertime to provide heat and in the summer to provide cooler conditioned air. Environmentalists don’t really want to ban all SUVs. They just want to ban your SUV. Environmentalists have convinced themselves that the emissions from their SUVs aren’t as harmful as the emissions from your SUV.

 

            Fear mongering about the environment can also lead to a well paying public speaking career. There is nothing like an environmental panic -especially one involving children- to scare concerned groups into paying exorbitant speaker’s fees. In the talk biz, we call this “fear mongering for fee mongering”. And as long as what you say has some proximity to the truth who’s going to object?  Other than PhD scientists who have spent so many years in the “scientific establishment” that they can’t tell a carcinogenic substance from one that causes cancer. And nobody listens to scientists these days anyway.

           

            It is ironic, given the green movements bright red past, that it is the unfettered markets of capitalism that allow them to get away with their distortions, falsehoods, and fallacious reasoning.

 

After all, checking the facts costs money whereas lying is dirt cheap.

 

            And it is also a fact that to become a successful environmentalist these days takes a great deal of entrepreneurial skill. Hustling crackpot environmental hokum is no different in reality from hustling an overpriced life insurance policy from some fly-by-night insurance company which moves from state to state every couple of years to avoid insurance inspectors.  The major difference I guess is that occasionally the life insurance policy pays off and at least one other person receives a benefit. This doesn’t always happen when environmentalists have their way.