by Mike Pyatt
It has been more than fifty years since the publication of The Population Bomb, written by extremist “population biologist” 86 year-old Paul Erlich, that predicted “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death” in the 1970’s. He’s still around announcing the unprecedented redistribution of resources’s needed to end the over-consumption of resources by the “rich who now run the global system” that gather at the annual conference in Davos. It’s one tentacle of the ubiquitous “green beast” unleashed in 1968, that found the disruption as the population growth, and over-consumption per capita is driving civilization over the edge. How many of those dire predictions came true?
In a 2013, interview with Forbes Magazine, Erlich acknowledges that many details and timelines of events were off. However, he stands by the overall premise of the book. “Sadly,” he said, “the book was much too optimistic.” When asked what President Obama should focus on in his second term, his initial reaction was “To transition away from fossil fuels and to deal with the two main drivers of environmental deterioration; deterioration and growing individual consumption.” “His advice today, like yesteryear, fits the secular humanist knee-jerk solution, “Make modern contraception and back-up abortion available to all and give women full equal rights, pay and opportunities.” That’s opinion.
Is that science? Or elitist philosophy? The guru of carbon foot prints, and environmentalist sight-of-hand artist Al Gore, twenty years ago, forecast global doom, with computer generated graphics of New York City underwater; starring global warming as the disrupting culprit. Was that science too? Victor Davis Hanson humorously cast truth this way, “If you’re loudly green, you can have a footprint the size of Godzilla’s.”
Since “convenience science” gained a foothold on legitimate scientific inquiry, such as Erlich’s wild claims of population explosion and ensuing pandemic death, with the elevation of feelings over facts, as Al Gore advanced a conclusion, then searched for facts to support it. We’ve been warned not to put global warming on a list with UFO’s and Crop Circles, because “It’s settled science.” What could be more laughable? One who’s fairly versed in the certitude of the green movement, and opposes the scientific validity of its premise that mankind its the primary violator and causation, understands one’s letter to the LA Times likely wouldn’t make the cut of “letters to the editor.” There’s a new environmental orthodoxy that’s pervasive in nearly every field of endeavor or scholarly pursuit, and there’s no room for dissent. One who doesn’t understand that doctrine will encounter scorn, disenfranchisement, with no seat in the public square of discourse, and an atrophied first amendment right.
The secularist and Left hope that the duplicitous language of the green acolytes will be a mellifluous delight to one’s untuned ear. On a quotidian basis, the growing list of 2020 Democrat presidential hopefuls battle to see who can move farther to the Left with their strategies to extricate more tax dollars from the nations wealthiest. Many who were formerly disinclined, have been caught kneeling, giving thanks that 29 year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t 35. She may be more dangerous in Congress. After her recent statement that if we don’t start to address climate change aggressively the world will end in twelve years-no matter the cost. A Washington Post opinion column by Tom Toles said, “She is absolutely right!” Why twelve years? Most think she’s taking cues from UN backed climate report issued last year. This scientific imbroglio will only become murkier.
When Ocasio-Cortez, an economics major, suggests that marginal tax rates have little to do with economic growth, or is unable to correctly identify the three branches of government, her ignorance flashes so fast, many miss it until her next faux pas. She and the Bern didn’t learn from Maryland’s millionaire tax in 2009, that a year later resulted in a 33 per cent decline in the number of resident millionaires. Progressives ignored its predictable outcome. Recently Mona Cheron, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center observed, “The Democratic Party is lurching to the left like a confused driver on a British highway.”
The American Enterprise Institute, in 2017, published “18 spectacularly wrong predictions made since the first Earth Day, circa 1970.” How accurate were their dire predictions? Sounding like Cortez, Harvard biologist George Wald estimated “civilization will end with 15 to 30 years unless action is taken immediately against problems facing mankind.” The day following the first “green holy day” the NYT editorial page warned ominously, “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” Aforementioned Paul Erlich sketched out the most alarmist scenario for the Earth Day issue, The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, nearly 4 billion, including 65 millions Americans would perish in the “Great Die-Off.” Ecologist Kenneth Watt told Time Magazine that, “At the present rate of nitrogen build-up, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be useable.” Watt added in 1979, “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using crude oil at such a rate, there won’t be anymore.” Progressives never run out of scare tactics that never happen, or their vast supply of “experts” warning of impending “ice ages’ and vanishing populations.
What one probably won’t hear from the “greenies” is the amazing “decarbonization” of the US over the last decade, as CO2 emissions drop dramatically, or that by 2030, AEI predicts a much cleaner, more affluent future world, with less hunger and malnutrition, less poverty and longer life expectancy. Conservatives scratch their heads at the Progressives continuing homage to socialism and communism, and why they pay no price for embracing its murderous ideology. It’s then no surprise when they smear President Trump and French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s appeal to patriotism, national identity, and the desire to defend the nation’s culture and interests, are immediately turned into sinister dog-whistles for the crypto-fascists and racist hordes just waiting for the next emergent “Great leader”to begin the gulags and pogroms.
One may agree with the Progressive on one level. Autonomous Man’s at the zenith of such movements and its failures. That’s why it’s doomed to abject failure. Once Man steps on Earth or Mars, the unraveling begins. Our Founders knew legislation alone wouldn’t alter the heart of Fallen Man, absent moral absolutes. Secular humanism has a predictably disastrous future regardless of who launches it.
The false underlying premise’s that with another tweak or twist, or more time, Man can achieve a morally elevated place to reign supreme over God’s creation. One’s inner yearning cannot be gratified by fatuous confidence in human nature. God’s eternal truth transcend Nirvana, Shangri-La, extreme environmentalism or frivolous tautologies. Man is that corruptive agent that is part of the equation which always spells doom no matter whether it’s Casio Cortez, Paul Erlich, Kamala Harris, or Al Gore, on a practical level, such farcical claims won’t alter the truth about His domain, and man’s puny footprint. At any cost; save the whales, polar bears, seals, dogs, cats, and the planet-and kill the unborn. What do you think?
Mike Pyatt’s a Natona County resident. His email’s roderickstj@yahoo.com
