A Disaster Decades in the Making, by Andrew Joppa

A Disaster Decades in The Making

by Andy Joppa

 

Below(in italics)is a brief outline of the damage resulting from climate change mitigation. It should be noted that it is far from being comprehensive, but it provides enough information for the purpose of this essay. Following this will be a column that I penned in 1991 as a guest writer for the Gannett Westchester, aptly titled, “Environmental Theology Denigrates Human Need.” (BOLD now added)

 

That essay clearly documents how predictable were the destinations of Global Warming/Climate Change radicalism. It might also be noted that that probability of this same essay being printed in a Gannett paper today hovers very close to zero.

 

Make no mistake — climate change mitigation is a juggernaut. . . the world is expending 2% of the value of all its gross products and services on climate change mitigation and that number could easily reach 4 or 5% in just the next few years. With that amount of money in play and operating independent of market forces, there are Gore-like fortunes beyond the imagining to be made, both legally and illegally. And indeed, the political class and academics are uniquely positioned to take advantage of those economic rent-seeking opportunities.

 

Thus, there is an overwhelming economic motivation for many of those now in power, as well as their cronies, to impose climate change mitigation, a motivation wholly independent of actually believing in the science of anthropogenic, carbon-centric, catastrophic climate change.

 

The last four decades in the West have been spent building a fraudulent narrative — one devoid of a basis in actual science — for the claim that human-caused global warming is set to destroy the planet.  And now, governments are acting, forcing climate change mitigation policies.

 

The consequences are already proving catastrophic in several widely separated areas:

 

The Netherlands, in 2020, to mitigate anthropogenic climate change, passed a law imposing draconian reductions on nitrogen in its agricultural sector.  That law is now starting to bite, threatening the livelihood of many farmers. 

The new reduction targets are ambitious. Many farms will need to produce up to 70 percent fewer emissions. However, figures of up to 95 percent are touted.

 

The response of northern Europe’s farmers to this green insanity is becoming increasingly disruptive.

 

While we wait to see the outcome in the Netherlands, on the opposite side of the world, we’ve already seen the people engage in a spontaneous, and successful, coup in Sri Lanka because of green policies that have severely harmed the nation.

 

In the U.S., every aspect of our nation’s economy is under threat from dementia Joe — most particularly fossil fuel production.  But our nation’s progressives are in this for the long-term, and that means not merely choking our nation with green “new deal” laws and regulations but tapping our nation’s wealth as well for climate equity and climate change mitigation.  Such has been the hope and dream of the global warming movement for decades, and their intentions were made crystal clear in the Paris Climate Accords.

 

Environmental Theology Denigrates Human Need

By Andy Joppa (1991)

 

I am environmentally concerned and support environmental progress. I am not unusual in this regard. Most reasoned Americans, including our corporate decision-makers, have for 50 years clearly understood the essential nature of cleaner water, air, and land, and we have made significant progress in these areas. I am, however, totally opposed to the “environmentalists” and “environmentalism.”

 

The difference between a legitimate concern for the environment and the movement called environmentalism lies in the way decisions are made. A healthy, environmentally concerned decision will be based on its impact on the human experience. If an environmental improvement can be made without any cost, then obviously it should be made. As soon as a cost is incurred, however, we must evaluate the benefit to be derived against that cost.

 

Such decisions must recognize that humanity has to eat, work, play, have a future, have hope, progress, create, express curiosity, build, laugh, have leisure and variety. The environmentalists, all too often, view the environment as having a sacred value, independent of man’s experiences and needs. They view man as intrusive on the pristine beauty of the environment and is the enemy, rather than the benefactor, of their activities.

 

Our society, unfortunately, has continued to genuflect at the altar of environmentalism. We have reached the point where it is nearly impossible to resist any position taken by the high priests of environmentalism. They boldly defend their general lack of scientific validation with the assertion that it is better to do what they demand than take the chance of becoming a dead planet if they are right and we do not heed their warning.

 

Let us examine what we do know. If we went back 1,000 years, we would find a world with little environmental damage. Most humans, of course, died before the age of 40, great numbers of children died in infancy, plagues regularly ravaged whole populations, ignorance was the norm, hunger and famine were commonplace, and life in general for the average person was not worth living. A quality environment was a necessary but not sufficient cause for human happiness.

 

We do know that man is not like the genetic animal automatons. We must convert the things of nature from one form to another. We cook our foods, weave our cloth, heat our homes, increase our speed, and investigate the natural process. A necessary part of what we do creates the undesirable byproducts called pollution. Everything that has made life worth living has had this attendant cost. We can, and should, minimize pollution, but we cannot be risk-free environmentally for that would mean the end of the human species.

 

The environmentalist, however, will tell you that any risk is too much to endure and should warrant the end of a particular human practice.  This general position is the prime reason for my opposition to environmentalism. Everything of value has a cost. We must be more complete in our environmental analysis and extend it into a cost/benefit process. If we merely focus on environmental cost, then the entire drive of the human species will have to be subdued and humanity will go out with a whimper and not with a bang.

 

The rub of environmentalism is that “putting humanity in its place” is its actual purpose. Humans must not aspire to reach the stars. Humans must not desire leisure with which to think and plan. Humans must revert to their original niche in nature and become like the beaver, horned owl, or earthworm.

 

Here is an acid question: What if a total cure for cancer were discovered but the manufacturing of that drug required increasing the atmospheric carbon dioxide level? A cost/benefit analysis would probably conclude that the benefit would dramatically outweigh the cost. Our environmentalist friends, with a tear in their eye and a sob in their voice, would tell you that nothing, not even ending the painful death of millions, would warrant violating the intrinsic need to always protect the environment from the excesses of greedy, industrial, capitalist…Western… man.

 

It seems to be a story line I’ve heard before. Once again, man the creator, man the doer, is being attacked by man the whimsical, man the envious, man the resentful. Keep in mind these modern “bad guys” don’t come at you with bloody fangs. They seduce you with words of love and humanness. They will save us from ourselves if we simply give them our political and economic soul. Communism in the old Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are the most immediate parallels.

 

The environmentalists are among these seducers and if their full programs continue to be accepted and acted on it will be far more destructive to humanity than anything that has happened in the history of our species. To paraphrase an old saying, “Their road to our hell is paved with their “good” intentions.”

 

“Man is the measure of all things”—except to the environmentalist.

Now, thirty years later, my deepest concerns from 1991, have become fully manifest in 2022. If anything, I did not fully appreciate the enormity of the problems that would emerge, and the dire circumstances it has created for humanity. However, all of the warnings were there for anyone who penetrated just below the superficialities of the global warming rhetoric.

 

Where are we today as we continue to genuflect at the altar of the new cause celebre of the environmental/political movement…” Climate Change”? Without doubt, if we continue on our current trajectory we will soon look with envy on the abundance of the Dark Ages.