Mark Lynas has converted from being an eco-alarmist to a pro-growth rationalist. But he still doesn’t get the problem with green thinking.

by Ben Pile - Friday 29 July 2011

Since becoming an advocate of genetic modification (GM) and nuclear power, Mark Lynas has drawn increasingly hostile criticism from his erstwhile comrades in the green movement. In turn, he has sharpened his criticism of environmentalists for their hostility to technological and economic development. In his new book, The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans, he attempts to reformulate environmentalism to overcome the excesses that have so far prevented it from saving the planet. This book will no doubt provoke debate, but what is this transformation really about, and is it really based on new ideas or merely the revision of old ones?

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Joel Garreau - Summer Issue of the New Atlantis

Traditional religion is having a tough time in parts of the world. Majorities in most European countries have told Gallup pollsters in the last few years that religion does not “occupy an important place” in their lives. Across Europe, Judeo-Christian church attendance is down, as is adherence to religious prohibitions such as those against out-of-wedlock births. And while Americans remain, on average, much more devout than Europeans, there are demographic and regional pockets in this country that resemble Europe in their religious beliefs and practices.

The rejection of traditional religion in these quarters has created a vacuum unlikely to go unfilled; human nature seems to demand a search for order and meaning, and nowadays there is no shortage of options on the menu of belief. Some searchers syncretize Judeo-Christian theology with Eastern or New Age spiritualism. Others seek through science the ultimate answers of our origins, or dream of high-tech transcendence by merging with machines — either approach depending not on rationalism alone but on a faith in the goodness of what rationalism can offer.

For some individuals and societies, the role of religion seems increasingly to be filled by environmentalism.

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William N. Grigg - Oct 3, 2010

Suetonious records that while attending the Circensian Games the Emperor Caligula was so offended by a public display of support for one of his critics that he exclaimed: “I wish the Roman people had but one neck!”

It’s possible that “Little Boots” intended that outburst as a joke. If so, the depraved tyrant had a sense of humor quite similar to the one displayed by the 10:10 Campaign, an English environmentalist group that seeks to hector the public into reducing its collective “carbon footprint.”

On October 1, 10:10 rolled out a four-minute film — written by the immensely talented Richard Curtis — entitled “No Pressure.” The film is a series of vignettes involving an updated riff on Caligula’s depraved daydream. Each of the short scenes features an environmentally enlightened authority figure — a teacher, a middle manager at a corporation, and a soccer coach — extolling the virtues of those who are willing to take part in the grand campaign of collective self-sacrifice on behalf of Gaia.

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Finnish philosopher says oppressive and brutal government should exert “tireless control of citizens” in shocking insight into threat of eco-fascism movement – Linkola openly calls for Nazi-style mass extermination policies to “kill defectives”

Paul Joseph Watson - September 20, 2010

A Finnish environmentalist guru has gone further than any other global warming alarmist in openly calling for fascism as a necessary step to save the planet from ecological destruction, demanding that climate change deniers be “re-educated” in eco-gulags and that the vast majority of humans be killed with the rest enslaved and controlled by a green police state, with people forcibly sterilized, cars confiscated and travel restricted to members of the elite.

Philosopher Pentti Linkola has built an enthusiastic following of self-described “eco-fascists” receptive to his message that the state should enact draconian measures of “discipline, prohibition, enforcement and oppression” in order to make people comply with environmental dictates.

Linkola’s barbaric and dictatorial philosophy has remained relatively obscure but is now gaining traction as the mask of environmentalism is lifted to unveil its true nature – a justification for 21st century tyranny on a grand scale, characterized by eugenics, sterilization, gulags, police states, and total government control over every aspect of our existence.

Linkola’s doctrine is more extreme, repulsive, and threatening to liberty than anything carried out by history’s worst dictators, Hitler, Stalin and Mao – combined. Indeed, Linkola laments that such monsters didn’t go far enough in wiping out many more millions of people.

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See also: THIS is the Alternative to “Eco-Fascism”? and pentti linkola at Disinfo

Terry Melanson (4/12/2009)

According to Mr. Henderson, the great psycho-wave of the past 35 years is “global salvationism.” This quasi-religious belief has two ill-fitting articles of faith: environmental alarmism, and the assertion that Third World poverty is in some way due to the West taking more than its fair share of global resources. Both problems are alleged to require top-down global political solutions, including giant corporations accepting more “social responsibility.”

The focus of this global master-plan is the bland but subversive notion of “sustainable development,” that without extensive UN-administered government controls the world is going to Hades in a handbasket …

- Peter Foster, “The Prince of Power [Maurice Strong],” Financial Post (May 19, 2005)

I can’t think of a better way to put Climategate into proper perspective than to revisit a 1998 Financial Post editorial titled “Global Warming: The Real Agenda.” Its author, Terence Corcoran, quoted from statements given to the Calgary Herald by the former Environment Minister, Christine Stewart.

As “minister of the environment, I am very worried about global warming,” Stewart said, “no matter if the science is phony, there are collateral environmental benefits.”

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Wesley Smith - Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Deep Ecology is a neo earth religion, the ideology of which holds that nature should be given equal consideration with people–a concept sometimes called ecological egalitarianism. The explicit rejection of human exceptionalism led adherents into a profound nihilism and anti-humanism in which deep ecologists yearn for a radical human depopulation to under 1 billion.

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