Earth Day 2012

Once again we celebrate the short-sighted “we care about the planet” rhetoric that is environmentalism.

Let me say I have no objection to clean air and water, just as most people have no such objection. However, there is clean and then there is clean. A home with reasonable keeping—counters wiped down with hot, soapy water, floors mopped when needed, vacuuming and dusting are all reasonable housekeeping goals. A home where the owners demand all surfaces be disinfected two or three times a day, air filtered to the tiniest micron, radon abatement monitored on a daily basis, water filtered to absolute purity, etc. is not reasonable housekeeping unless you are so immune compromised you need these measures. Living like the “boy in the bubble” is neither necessary nor desirable. Environmentalists want us to live like the boy in the bubble—or more probably accurate, the unvaccinated, purified air-breathing, natural food and fiber boy in the bubble.

It is no longer enough to work on cleaning the air—we have to purify the entire atmosphere above the USA. An interesting caveat is the fact that dirty, even filthy water and air in other countries is okay. China can have gray skies and filthy water if it means the USA has sterile air and water.

This brings us to the selfish ethics of “saving the planet”. It is now acceptable to play Columbus and take land from third world countries, plant tree shrines and declare our goodness, greatness even, for saving everyone from the blight of CO2. Companies note that they pay for the land. So did Columbus, so did the European settlers. Your children are taught that Columbus and Europeans exploited the Indians. Then, they are told that taking farmland away from poor farmers who don't know how to farm in the first place is fine to save the planet and plant more trees. The land is no longer good for farming organically, so Americans and other buy it very cheaply and plant trees. That's somehow moral and Columbus wasn't?

I would note that the farmland is “organic farmland that was exhausted” according to the president of a company who proudly steals farmland from Costa Rica to offset their CO2 emissions. The environmentalists want organic farming, while buying up “exhausted organic farm land”. Either the environmentalists are indeed trying to starve as many people as possible (the fate of the Mayans after combining organic farming and a drought...) OR they are lying about wanting organic farming and are just going for controlling everyone's existence. No one even considered sending fertilizer and advisors to help improve the farming—just snatch the land and plant trees. Sweet.

I read in the paper for Earth Day that one should use a gas grill to cut CO2 while grilling. Nonsense—grill on a windy day with an electric grill and you'll produce no CO2 because we have a lot of those tall white “save the planet” turbines. Electric grilling is the eco-friendly thing to do. Everyone should have an electric grill.

“Make It Right”, Brad Pitt's solar home project has managed to build 75 homes in SIX years. A standard, pre-fab home comes out in less than six months. So to save the planet, you have to be homeless for up to six or eight years waiting for that solar house. You get to mingle with the homeless folks, something you will NEVER see Brad Pitt do on a long-term basis. Most environmentalists care deeply about people and their plight because these people will never experience the consequences of their beliefs. How many homes does Brad Pitt own? More than one and he is part of urban sprawl, over-consumption and outright greed according to most environmentalists.

Environmentalism and Earth Day are not about saving the planet—they are about control and destroying a way of life that most nations envy. They target the poor (both here and abroad) and those unable to fight back. It's about huge subsidies for wind and solar without acknowledging the damage done by the extra mining, construction, and maintenance needed for the shrines to Gaia. It's denial that wind and solar are also not sustainable if one has to strip away billions of tons of earth and reap rare earth metals, refine them with toxic chemicals, use all kinds of toxic chemicals in manufacturing, etc just to build one of the thousands of turbines required to produce a tiny amount of electricity. There is no such thing as a truly sustainable life style without draconian birth control requirements, a small number of people in charge and the entire population lives by the leader's rules. Even that will eventually fail—humans get tired of being controlled. Resources run out due to drought and/or cold. The only sustainable thing we have is our own ingenuity and even that seems to be severely curtailed by controlling politics and education.

So for Earth Day, say thanks for a home, air conditioning, heating, hospitals, farmers who aren't afraid to use fertilizer so millions won't starve when the organic land gives out (and it becomes a tree shrine), and all the other benefits of modern society. Earth Day is about being responsible, scientific and reasonable, not fear, living in terror of the next environmental crisis manufactured by people who very often ignore their own preaching. Enjoy your high standard of living and stop feeling guilty.