Radical Environmentalism: Moving Us Toward a Eugenic Culture of Death
China's notorious one child policy has led to eugenics, sex selection abortion, female infanticide, and other horrors. Now, we are being pushed in that same direction in the West by radical environmentalists in the name of going Green. From the story:
COUPLES who have more than two children are being "irresponsible" by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government's green adviser has warned. Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government's Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population...The last time I heard Europe was experiencing a terrible birth dearth that is leading to all kinds of demographically caused social problems. But why allow facts to interfere with neo-religion?
A report by the commission, to be published next month, will say that governments must reduce population growth through better family planning. "I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate," Porritt said. "I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don't really hear anyone say the 'p' word."...
Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.
More to the point, "saving the planet" could come to be seen as so urgent as to justify a plethora of pernicious policies--euthanasia, required eugenic infanticide, mandated futile care theory--we wouldn't want the planet burdened with useless carbon dioxide exhalers would we? And we could teach our kids that they should die young to save the planet. Oh, right--the Australian Broadcasting Company already does that.And while we are at it, how about a human extinction movement? Oh, right: That already exists too.
And think about the eugenic possibilities! Brave New Britain is already well into weeding out those with undesirable genetic propensities through IVF and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Perhaps the Greenies will seize on these developments and begin to select out embryos with a genetic propensity to be tall or heavy. Indeed, why not pull out all the stops and redesign our species to be no more than four feet tall? After all, if our population numbers were drastically cut and we were all diminutive, think how much better the earth would feel!
Labels: Radical Environmentalism. Culture of Death. Utilitarianism. Eugenics.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 1:15 PM
21 Comments
21 Comments:
Honestly I don't see the connection between environmentalism, animal rights, and anti-humanism, and I hear Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh saying similar to what SHS says on those topics and it doesn't make sense to me, but with this I can see what you mean. I'm real tired of hearing about global warming, footprints, etc. The problem isn't number of people, it's what those people do. I'm all for fewer people since I'm not exactly a fan of the human race, but this approach is effete; on the other hand, sorry it sounds eugenic in tone, but we'd be better of without anyone who would listen to this pitch and do "family planning" accordingly being reproduced. We're going to end up like China. The thing to do is to cut off trade with them. Having to do more actual work and produce things for ourselves would help straighten out or else marginalize these bretharian latte-drinking neo-hippie liberal morons. But does anyone listen to me? Not that they are wrong to care about the environment and promote its preservation. They're wrong to be fascists.
Ianthe: It is your love for animals that I think gets in the way. Human exceptionalism doesn't exclude the most "radical" forms of animal welfare as a human duty. It certainly doesn't exclude treating the environment correctly. But it holds as the highest ideal the sanctity and equality of human life. Without that, how do we protect the weak and vulnerable among us? How do we have universal human rights? Because if being human isn't enough in and of itself, we have to figure out what atributes ARE the relevant factors that make life protectable and morally valuable. Hence, utilitarian bioethicists say it isn't being human, it is being a "person." You know where that leads. Radical environmentalists say that we are not only not exceptional, but the vermin species. My gosh, just imagine what that could lead to!
Some say human exceptionalism is hubristinc. I think it is the opposite. I think it lays heavy responsibilities upon us and requires us as a duty to pursue the better angels of our nature to the point that we even sacrifice ourselves for others and for the environment. If that weren't true, we would simply kill all the seals so we could have all the salmon they consume. In a truly Darwinian survival of the fittest world, that is precisely what we would do. But we are moral creatures and so we work to coexist even though it means our food prices are higher.
I don't think you believe that animals and humans have equal value. You think humans have an obligation to animals that is almost equal to what we owe ourselves. Hence, your willingness if necessary to forego medical experiments on animals even if it might impede scientific advances. I respect that, but disagree with it. But I really do believe you think that human beings have a greater value than animals. In fact, from all you have written, that seems clear to me. We just differ on where to draw the line as to the extent of human duties.
I don't think it's a question of relative value at all. My views aren't based on a love of animals, either. I do think that humans consider themselves much more important than they have earned the right to do; humans consider themselves important but do not display enough common sense and humanity and intelligence to justify their self-created self-concept. The average animal of another animal species does a better job of being what that species is supposed to be and needs to be to survive than the average human does as an exemplar of the human race, and I don't cotton to the excuses the human race has given itself. Animal research should not be done because it causes suffering, and not just to the animals experimented on, ultimately to use. My position isn't based on a love of animals; it's based on human self-interest. It's very simple; I find that simple works best.
That should have been, "ultimately to US."
Well, my research indicates that you are mistaken on that. As to animals doing a "better job being what that species is supposed to be," I don't think they have a choice. Only humans have free will, or the ability to choose, or the ability to do right or wrong, whatever we want to call it.
But thanks for the clarification.
Wesley: I think you're missing how it's harmful. As for free will, if we've got it, and if we were doing such a good job with it, SHS wouldn't be necessary.
Like you said, why let facts get in the way?
Funny, the ZPG guys were preaching the same thing thirty-odd years ago before anyone had ever heard of global warming. It makes one think perhaps they are going to preach the same thing using whatever excuse comes to hand. Back then the prediction was that we were all going to run out of food and starve to death. When the ice caps don't melt, I don't expect any more retractations than we got from the dire population bomb people from the 70's when they turned out to be wrong. A new excuse will simply be found for pushing population control.
It's just not natural to want there to be fewer of one's own species. Other animals don't do that. Except in the context of war, an institution that has become unfashionable at the same time that having sufficient water is becoming a problem in other parts of the world. I wouldn't be surprised if we have food shortages and worse right in the U.S. not too long from now, but that won't be because we have too many people; it will be because too many of us were idiots and perhaps because of natural disasters, coastal changes, etc. (which I do not believe "global warming" will have caused). I just don't understand these liberal do-gooders at all --- wait --- from what I've seen of do-gooders, now I do.
Ianthe: And the lady scores! Too true.
Lydia: Yes, it is really anti-humanism and nihilsm hung from the most convenient branch.
Do they have any idea how BIG Earth is? Can they figure out that nothing we've made here didn't come from its own material? That it made us, too, unless we got here from outer space?
Do they have any idea how many more people there are on Earth than right here where we are? Do they really think that "recycling" and all the other "environmentally friendly" stuff is going to make THAT much difference? It's good to recycle and not use stuff that takes forever to degrade and all of that, of course, but what makes me refuse to recycle is the draconian insistence on it and the earnest conviction of these latte enthusiasts that spending the time it takes to do it is making the difference re whether the "environment" survives or not. I'm keeping my old Chevy with the 350/ 8 engine, too; of course they've ruined cars as well as the educational system and people's reasoning ability; these new cars are made of plastic (well they seem to be), which is more of a problem than steel. But then according to George Carlin the Earth made people because it wanted plastic. And maybe it did.
What do you have against latte?
Wesley, you are right about the population of Europe. It's in free fall. It's in free fall in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and many other Asian countries. Last I read the Mexican birth rate has turned below replacement level. It's very serious and the demographers know it. It's going to be a catastrophe-economic and more.
I'm surprised and not surprised by the comments about having more than two kids be irresponsible. I don't have the quote on hand, but there are those in the abortion and population control movement who have said let's make abortion voluntary until it needs to be compulsory. I think this article that you comment upon, which tars large families, would lead to compulsory abortion and BC. The elderly and we baby boomers who bought into this nonsense are going to reap the consequences. There will not be enough young payers into the system to handle our health care and other services. Even if we have the money, there will not be enough labor, unless of course we want to have robots caring for us like the Japanese are trying to do. I guess they could program them to care and have materials that feels like human skin. Even Japan gets the problems now. One of the most bizarre pages of the Drudge Report showed a big headline the other day saying that Congress wanted $300+ million more for contraception and etc and that it was necessary for economic growth. Right beneath that headline was a story that the Japanese government is encouraging workers to take time off from work to go home and try to make babies in the national interest of Japan. Then there's Russia's population which is decreasing by a million people a year. They are desperately trying to get young Russian women to reproduce, but without much success. I suspect in some quarters this is celebrated, but it's a disaster for the rest of us. I feel compelled to believe that it's the anti-humanism of many of these people which makes them want to stay the course in the face of the nightmare approaching us and the poverty and suffering it will bring. Maybe it's a committment to the sex revolution and consequence free sex. But more and more I wonder if it's anti-humanism.
Wesley, the ZPG idea has been around since forever; a good early example is the thirteenth century manifestation of Gnostic ideas in the Cathars, or Albigensians. Their rejection of the evils of the material (human) world led them to hold up the refusal to procreate, and ultimate self-annihilation, as the ideal.
(Which in turn caused the Catholic Church to launch a crusade against them, of course.)
I just see this as a new manifestation of the same old sorry solution to the problems of human suffering, and ethical decision-making in the face of our free existence: a radical stance like this is held out a the solution because it *requires very little real effort or humane relationships*.
Also, I posted this same article on my Facebook page over the weekend. My main comment: I would pit my carbon footprint, added together with two other large families I know, against the carbon footprint of a family living in the planned community down the road, with their multiple cars including the SUVs, their processed food, their excessive square footage in their homes, their multiple types of frequently-thrown-away-and-replaced-with-a-better-model electronics...and their 2 (or one, or NONE) children.
Bring it.
What I never read is any kind of alternative. I mean, you present a relatively extreme position, and make it more extreme by linking to some fringe groups. So let's say I accept the case you make. I'm left with no alternative beyond the operating assumption I find among many conservatives, which seems to be "let our grandchildren figure it out".
Do you see any intersection between 1) Human Exceptionalism and 2) not wanting my grandchildren to live on a landfill, drink acid rain, and think that "tigers" and "pandas" are mythical creatures like unicorns?
If you can't, I can certainly suggest some, but I'd rather read what you think is the answer suggested by your position.
Or, to put it another way, if you are unable to see any value in environmentalism, I can't take your position seriously.
Right. I want your children to live in a landfill and drink acid rain.
In fact, I have written often that human exceptionalism requires proper care of the environment. But conservtionism and environmentalism is being pushed into ever more radical and hysterical directions to the point that it is moving toward anti humanism, and not just at the fringe.
The guy in the story is a major advisor on the environment to the UK government. Hardly fringe. The ABC is Australia's BBC, and it teaches children they are pigs if they use too much energy and the implied message is that their lives hurt the earth. That's not fringe. Ecuador as now given equal rights to nature with humans.
The chances are that if this trend continues, your children will be poorer and worse off. And the chances of harming the poor and destitute are even more alarming.
WJS
I think what's going on here is all I'm seeing is your polemical side. As I noted in another comment, I think I've misinterpreted the purpose of this blog, which seems to be to continue a conversation with people who are already very familiar with your writings. So, as I said, I'm fine with opting out.
Peace (again and moreso).
No, please do not opt out. My only point is that I can't repeat the same things all the time. It is good to recall that some people are new and don't know what I have written in the past.
Besides, if you leave, how will you become familiar with my writings? : )
Doug: Don't leave!
Doug: I think that I read here that you are a chaplain. If you are, in what hospital, and where were you trained? I ask because a chaplain with your first name and a last name which if I remember right sounded like yours tended wonderfully to my mother.
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