Tim Ball: Radical Environmentalism Damages Economies and Lives

Going green has failed everywhere. It’s a major factor in European economic collapse as energy costs soar. Stronger economies of the United States and Canada absorbed impacts better but damage is extensive and has been papered over by government spending. Much of the economic decline is due to the activities of environmentalists. They’ve used taxpayer money for a propaganda war that has destroyed the livelihoods and lives of those taxpayers. Citizens are being bullied, defined as the use of “superior strength or influence to intimidate someone, typically to force him or her to do what one wants.” The bullied are unable to fight back. Letter’s to the editor about a front page item, even if published, are obscure in the letters section.

Bullying is not new and takes many forms. Over the last thirty years small groups and individual environmentalists have bullied from the moral pulpit of environmentalism. With false sermons and threats of damnation, they’ve scared people into believing and acting on falsehoods.

Consider the outrageous statement James Lovelock, a hero of environmentalism with his Gaia hypothesis, made in 2007: “Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic.” He now says he was wrong, but the damage is done. It was an outrageous statement for anyone, let alone a well known scientist. It’s akin to shouting fire in a crowded theatre.

It's time to hold the enviro-bullies accountable for the damage they've done, from the distortion of facts to the destruction of the laudable philosophy of environmentalism." They viciously attacked the few, like Patrick Moore co-founder of Greenpeace, who realized what was wrong with the science.

Many in Canada have lost jobs, homes, communities, businesses, even political careers because of the unnecessary policies enviro-bullies forced. Billions of dollars were and are still being wasted on activities triggered by false claims about CO2.

Ontario residents recently learned they’ll pay an average $285 million more every year for the next 20 years for electricity to offset losses on an alternative energy program. Maurice Strong, as head of Ontario Hydro created the green energy program. David Suzuki vigorously advocated the plan. He and his foundation also supported another of Strong’s creations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which created the false CO2 science that triggered most of the unnecessary policies. Environment Canada employees were directly involved and the agency spent over $6 billion in five years on useless climate change programs at the expense of pollution reduction targets.

Fishing was forced into decline, from cod on the east coast to salmon on the west coast. Forestry suffered similar attacks and declines. These are renewable resources in no danger. All that was required to protect these resources were better scientific understanding of population dynamics and proper management.

But it became unlikely because bureaucracies filled with graduates of environmental studies programs from the 1970s on. Aware or not, they are products of the underlying anti-humanity of environmentalism. The Club of Rome’s 1974 comment that “the Earth has a cancer and the cancer is Man” was the underlying philosophy of their education. David Suzuki apparently said that “Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.” He’s correct, but few have done more to suppress skepticism about environmental and climate science.

Over the last 40 years many environmental stories had false but definitive headlines. Conditional words such as, ‘could’ and ‘maybe’ were usually in the story, but it’s the unconditional headlines that stick. Eventually the stories were proved incorrect, but reported without headlines, if at all. Sheep and rabbits going blind in Chile because of thinning ozone was a good example. Later, scientists at Johns Hopkins showed it was due to a local infection.  We were told human pollution was causing frogs to be born deformed, until biologist Stan Sessions showed it was due to a parasite.

Enviro-bullying was exported to the developing world as Paul Driessen explained in Eco-imperialism: Green Power, Black Death. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring falsely blamed DDT for many things including thinner eggshells. By banning DDT we condemned millions to death in Africa from malaria.

Environmentalism was a new and necessary paradigm, but it quickly became a religion and political vehicle for extremists crying wolf. They bullied us from an usurped environmental pulpit claiming only they care about the environment, the children, the planet and the future. How dare they? With blind faith enviro-bullies, deceived, misdirected, threatened, destroyed jobs, careers, opportunities and development. Now those who paid the price are less willing to listen or support efforts to address genuine environmental concerns.

Dr. Timothy Ball is a renowned environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba. This article was first published by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Canada.