Chapter Sixteen: The Communism Behind Environmentalism (Part II)
Table of Contents (continued)
2. The Myth of Consensus on Climate Change (continued)
a. Scientists Disagree Regarding ‘Consensus’
b. Why Environmentalist Scientists Push Catastrophe Scenarios
3. Environmentalism: Another Form of Communism
a. Political Infiltration: Building a World Government
b. Blaming Capitalism
c. Media Suppression of Opposing Voices
d. ‘Civil’ Groups Manipulated for Street Revolution
e. A New Religion of Anti-Humanism
Conclusion: To Escape Environmental Crisis, Honor the Divine and Restore Tradition
References
****
2. The Myth of ‘Consensus’ on Climate Change (continued)
c. Scientists Disagree Regarding ‘Consensus’
As mentioned earlier, scientists have differing views on whether human activity is the main factor affecting climate change, as well as how climate change will play out in the future. There are many reasons for the wide range of opinions. First, climate change is a very broad and complex subject, involving many fields, such as astronomy, meteorology, ecology, photochemistry, spectroscopy, oceanography, and more. Climate involves many interacting subsystems, such as the earth’s atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere. There are many physical, chemical, and biological processes that are still far from being well-understood.
Looking at geological history, the earth has never stopped undergoing climate change, including frequent episodes of global warming. More than 3,000 years ago, during China’s Shang Dynasty, the Central Plain (part of the North China Plain) was a subtropical landscape. People hunted elephants, as recorded multiple times in the oracle bone script of the period. The average annual temperature is estimated to have been around 2 degrees Celsius higher than it is now. In the Tang Dynasty (626–907), there was another period of warming. Citrus could be grown on the grounds of the imperial palace of Chang’an in today’s northwestern China. [1] In the West, medieval Europeans undertook the construction of exquisite cathedrals during a time of warming lasting from about 950 to 1250. [2]
According to geological records, the northern hemisphere experienced a rapid warming about 11,270 years ago, when the average temperature rose rapidly by about 4 degrees C within a few years. Another famous warming occurred near the end of the Younger Dryas period about 11,550 years ago, when the temperature soared by about 10 C for decades. [3] The causes of these climate changes are still the subject of debate among scientists.
Naturally, if we are unable to explain the reasons for climate change in history, then we also are hard-pressed to explain the causes of climate change in modern times. Historical causes for climate change in the past may still be at work. Many scientists believe that we should treat the issue with humility and be willing to admit the limits of our knowledge.
Distinguished scientist Freeman Dyson, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the Royal Society, believes that modern science does not understand climate change:
“The most questionable of these beliefs is the notion that the science of climate change is settled and understood. The biggest of all climate changes have been the ice ages, which have covered half of North America and Europe with kilometer-thick sheets of ice. Ice ages happened repeatedly in the past, and we are about due for another one to start. A new ice age would be a disaster far greater than anything we have to fear from climate warming. There are many theories of ice ages, but no real understanding. So long as we do not understand ice ages, we do not understand climate change.” [4]
Due to the complexity of climate issues, it is impossible to conduct experiments and verify theories under controlled laboratory conditions. Scientists doing climatology research now rely on digital climate models.
The key evidence provided by the IPCC report to support the conclusion that humans are the leading cause of global warming comes from climate-change simulations. Speculation about how much the temperature will increase at the end of the twenty-first century is also the result of such simulations. The catastrophic consequences predicted to result from climate change are also based on speculation using the computerized models.
But these models come with their own limitations, and many scientists have reservations about their reliability. Professor Judith Curry believes that natural factors not accounted for in climate-change modeling play a major role. [5] In an article published in the Bulletin of American Meteorology Society, she wrote that the IPCC had largely ignored the uncertainty of model calculations. [6]
Either because of a lack of understanding of the key processes in climate change, or for want of computing power, some of the facts cannot be represented realistically in climate models. Researchers adopt parameterization, which simplifies the model by using incomplete data for processes such as the formation of clouds (including their interaction with water vapor), precipitation, interactions between clouds and solar radiation, the chemical and physical processes of aerosols (the liquid or solid small particles in the atmosphere), and the like. [7] All of this introduces significant uncertainty to the model.
Water vapor is the most abundant and important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, but because it varies greatly by period and location, the corresponding uncertainty is also large. [8] At different altitudes, the greenhouse effect of water vapor varies, and satellite measurements of the vertical distribution of water vapor can be up to 40 percent inaccurate. [9]
Clouds at lower altitudes have a strong cooling effect caused by reflecting sunlight, and semi-transparent cirrus clouds at higher altitudes have a warming effect. Some aerosols, such as those from volcanic eruptions, block sunlight and induce cooling, while others, such as soot particles, absorb radiation and create warming. Meanwhile, aerosols are likely to seed clouds, causing indirect cooling. The spatial and geographical distribution of aerosols and clouds, and their optical properties, vary greatly across the planet. Other factors also affect changes in the albedo (solar reflectivity of the earth), such as the growth and death of terrestrial vegetation.
Either due to lack of sufficient observational data or to insufficient understanding by scientists at present, these important processes lead to a large degree of freedom (that is, arbitrariness) in the parameterization of climate models, which greatly increases their uncertainty. These uncertainties fuel much of the skepticism surrounding the validity of the models. For example, greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide give the earth a direct radiative forcing of about 2.5 watts per square meter, [10] while the earth receives about 1,366 watts [11] of radiant solar energy per square meter. The two one-thousandths in albedo change caused by the uncertainty in modeling cloud or aerosol activity is enough to exceed the claimed role of greenhouse gases.
Harvard University scientist Willie Soon and others believe that climate models are not suitable for speculation about future climate change. [12] Princeton physicist Dyson called the parameterization in the model a “fudge factor” because these parameters can be artificially adjusted. He thinks we can learn from the model, but we can’t use it to predict: “So then you have a formula. … But if you are using it for a different climate, when you have twice as much carbon dioxide, there is no guarantee that that’s right. There is no way to test it.” [13] Dyson also criticized the IPCC for largely ignoring the role of the sun in the climate system. He believes that the sun, not man, is the main determinant of climate change.
Starting in 2002, Israeli scientist Nir J. Shaviv wrote a series of papers arguing that based on the correlation between the extent of cloud cover observed by satellites and the amount of cosmic radiation, the earth’s ice ages were related to cosmic rays. He concluded that the latter has led to climate change. At the same time, he said that changes in solar radiation played a similar (if not a greater) role as human activities did in the rise of average global temperatures in the twentieth century. He believes that man-made greenhouse gases play a smaller role in global warming than is said to be generally believed. [14]
There are some internal changes in the climate itself that are yet to be fully understood and thus defy correct representation in the digital climate models. The existing climate models cannot describe the El Niño phenomenon correctly, let alone predict it. [15] Since the highest temperatures in the Holocene between 7,000 years and 9,000 years ago, the global temperature has dropped by 0.5 C to 1 C, but the calculations of the model show that it has increased by 0.5 to 1 degree in the past 11,000 years. The fact that carbon dioxide content has been rising in the past 6,000 to 7,000 years shows that the model is only sensitive to the warming effects of greenhouse gases. [16] In general, among the various factors affecting change in the climate system, the models can only reflect the effects of warming caused by greenhouse gas, while the cooling caused by other factors is not accurately reflected.
In addition, the observed increase in temperature between 1998 and 2013 was almost stagnant. Hans von Storch, a German climate scientist and professor at the University of Hamburg, said in 2013: “We’re facing a puzzle. Recent CO2 emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared. As a result, according to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn’t happened. In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) — a value very close to zero.” Storch thinks this means that the model has probably overestimated the role of carbon dioxide or underestimated the impact of natural changes in the climate. [17]
There are also differing opinions among scientists about how to look at the internal processes of the climate system. Richard Lindzen, the American Academy of Sciences member previously mentioned, believes that there is a self-regulating mechanism in the climate system that greatly lessens the warming effects of greenhouse gases. He wrote in his 2001 paper that according to observations, tropical high-altitude cirrus clouds (which allow sunlight to pass through, but block the infrared rays emitted from the surface and have a greenhouse effect) are negatively correlated with sea-surface temperature, and when the temperature increases, cloud cover decreases. This allows the surface of the earth to dissipate heat to outer space unimpeded by infrared radiation. This self-regulating mechanism is compared to the pupil of the human eye (which adjusts according to light exposure) and greatly offsets the greenhouse effect. [18] Lindzen’s theory is still a matter of discussion.
Former NASA scientist Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama summarized satellite observations and presented different insights into the role of cloud cover. He pointed out that the existing climate model treats the observed cloud formation and dissipation as a function of temperature changes, but the actual situation is exactly the opposite. It is the change in cloud volume that causes temperature changes, which leads to the conclusion that the effect of greenhouse gas warming is much smaller than what is predicted by the existing climate model. [19]
Scientists hold different views on how the observed meteorological data is interpreted and the reliability of the data. Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth Science Systems Research Center at the University of Alabama, is one of the leading IPCC authors. He analyzed the perturbation of urban surface gas reservoirs (atmospheric boundary layers) near the meteorological observatory by urban expansion and surface development (such as agricultural activities). Increasing human activity is believed to have increased the recorded surface temperature.
In the past one hundred years of records showing the increase of surface temperature, the lowest temperature in the night has increased faster than the highest temperature in the day. Christy believes that expanding human activity on the ground, rather than the increase in greenhouse gases, can explain this phenomenon. [20]
There is also controversy among scientists about the effects of a warming climate. For example, David Russell Legates, director of the Center for Climate Studies at the University of Delaware, testified in 2014 in the U.S. Senate: “My overall conclusion is that droughts in the United States are more frequent and more intense during colder periods. Thus, the historical record does not warrant a claim that global warming is likely to negatively impact agricultural activities.” [21]
William Happer, former Princeton University vice chancellor, testified in the U.S. Senate that the current level of carbon dioxide is at a historic low and that higher carbon dioxide levels will benefit plant life, including agricultural crops — a fact ignored by the IPCC. Happer was the founder of the climate model when he was the head of the Energy Research Office of the Department of Energy in the 1990s. He believes that the temperature increase predicted by existing climate models is much larger than that observed because the model overestimates the volatility of the climate system. [22]
d. Why Environmentalist Scientists Push Catastrophe Scenarios
A principal scientist at the IPCC once said: “If we want a good environmental policy in the future, we’ll have to have a disaster. It’s like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there’s been an accident.” [23] Though he later explained that he wasn’t advocating the fabrication of data, his message was clear: Disaster is the main driver of action and policymaking.
Linking global warming to instances of extreme weather has become a popular method to exaggerate the severity of climate problems. Scientific hypotheses that agree with the popular trend have also been appearing continuously.
In early 2014, North America experienced an extremely cold winter. One theory about the causes of the harsh winter is that global warming resulted in melting in the North Pole, which, in turn, altered the route of the jet stream. As a result, the extreme cold air mass from the North Pole was moved south, creating more frequent cold weather toward the south. Such a counter-intuitive hypothesis was supported by the media and environmentalists: Even extreme coldness is caused by global warming, they claimed. In fact, meteorological records over the long term show that the occurrences of extreme cold weather in North America have been decreasing rather than the other way around.
In 2014, five prominent meteorologists published a joint letter in Science magazine to illustrate this fact. They stated that in the early 1960s, late 1970s (especially 1977), and 1983, when the ice layer in the North Pole was much thicker and wider than it is now, there was much more severe cold weather than in 2014. Within the last fifty to one hundred years, what is certain is that occurrences of extremely cold weather have decreased. [24]
John Wallace, a professor of atmospheric science, said: “Establishing a linkage between extreme weather events and climate change is not as easy as it might seem. The power of statistical inference is limited by sample size. … Even when the linkage is statistically significant, as in the case of heat waves, the more extreme the event, the smaller the relative contribution of global warming to the observed anomaly. … The limitations imposed by sample size would not be such a serious issue if the mechanisms that link extreme weather events to climate change were well understood, but unfortunately, they are not.” [25]
In November 2017, Steve Koonin, the former U.S. Department of Energy’s second Senate-confirmed undersecretary for science, published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled “A Deceptive New Report on Climate.” He criticized the U.S. government’s Climate Science Special Report for reinforcing the disaster mentality with its misrepresentation of rising sea levels. [26]
The Climate Science Special Report stated that since 1993, the sea level has been rising at a rate twice what was recorded throughout the rest of the twentieth century. But the report ignored the fact that the recent speed of rising was comparable to that of the early twentieth century, when human activity had little impact on the environment. This is misleading by omission. The executive summary of the report said that since the middle of the 1960s, heat waves in the United States had become more frequent. However, data buried in the report showed that the frequency of the current heat waves was no more than that in the 1900s.
Similar scare tactics also appeared in the U.S. government’s 2014 National Climate Assessment report, which emphasized the increased intensity of hurricanes after 1980, but ignored records kept over longer periods of time. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently stated that it could not find evidence for any impact on the severity of hurricanes resulting from human activity. [27]
In fact, the heat waves occurred most frequently in the 1930s, not in the twenty-first century. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s heat wave index shows that four years in the 1930s had an annual heat wave index of 0.45, while the hottest year in the twenty-first century so far has an index of around 0.3. [28] Greenhouse gas emissions in the 1930s were only 10 percent that of the twenty-first century. [29]
Professor Mike Hulme, director of the United Kingdom’s TyndallCentre for Climate Change Research, said: “Over the last few years a new environmental phenomenon has been constructed in this country — the phenomenon of ‘catastrophic’ climate change. It seems that mere ‘climate change’ was not going to be bad enough, and so now it must be ‘catastrophic’ to be worthy of attention. … Why is it not just campaigners, but politicians and scientists too, who are openly confusing the language of fear, terror and disaster with the observable physical reality of climate change, actively ignoring the careful hedging which surrounds science’s predictions?” [30]
The late Stephen H. Schneider was an advocate of climate theory “consensus” and the coordinating lead author in Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report. In addressing Hulme’s concerns, he admitted: “We need to get some broad-based support to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” He believed that scientists must choose between “being effective and being honest,” though he added that he wished to have both. [31]
The climate crisis has received much hype. Behind it are sinister forces that intend not only to pave the way for a global government, but also to destroy research ethics in the scientific community. Climatology is a young subject with only a few decades of history. Yet the hypotheses surrounding global warming have been prematurely taken as fact. The media has been keeping global warming in the headlines to cover up the inaccuracies in the underlying science. Governments pour funds into researching the global warming hypothesis while marginalizing other findings. In the process of establishing and reinforcing the “consensus” and strengthening it, communism’s nature of struggle and hatred are exposed.
While scientists are building “consensus,” the media and politicians label the “consensus” of catastrophic climate change as “scientifically proven” and spread it worldwide as unassailable doctrine. Thinking on the matter has been largely unified and has planted convoluted notions of good and bad in people’s minds.
The aforementioned dismissal of eco-terrorism crimes committed by Greenpeace in Britain was based exactly on the supposed consensus that greenhouse gases are causing a climate catastrophe. The multitude of regulations and policies based on this doctrine stand to throw the world into chaos. Destroying the old world by any means is a basic strategy of communism. These measures are all to pave the road to a false solution — a global government — to a fabricated crisis for the ostensible purpose of saving the earth and mankind.
3. Environmentalism: Another Form of Communism
In the past decades, with the communist forces in retreat, and the political and economic problems of communist regimes exposed, communism has latched onto environmentalism to further its agenda.
a. Political Infiltration: Building a World Government
One important method communism uses to establish control is to use government to deprive people of their property and freedom and to infinitely expand state power. It is very hard to put such a method into practice in the democratic Western world. Environmentalism, however, offers communism a magic weapon. People are deprived of their rights in the name of “environmental protection.”
First, environmentalist ideologies are used for redistribution of wealth. Traditionally, communist states reallocated wealth through revolution. Over the years, however, this approach became increasingly difficult. Therefore, environmentalistsadopted indirect strategies, forcing people to quietly give up their freedom and property in the name of preventing environmental tragedy. A campaign organizer for the group Friends of the Earth once stated at a U.N. conference, “A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.” [32] A leading green thinker at the University of Westminster once told a reporter that carbon rationing “has got to be imposed on people whether they like it or not” and that “democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life, the end of life on it.” [33]
In the “battle” against climate change, Great Britain was the first to float the concept of individual carbon-ration coupons. One British scientist regarded this as “the introduction of a second currency with everyone having the same allowance — wealth redistribution by having to buy carbon credits from someone less well off.” [34]
Those who have lived in the Soviet Union or communist China can easily see this kind of carbon rationing as another method to construct a totalitarian system. In China, food coupons were once used for buying essentials such as cooking oil, grain, and cloth. Through food rationing, on the one hand, wealth was redistributed; on the other, the central government was given supreme control over wealth and freedom.
Environmentalist ideologies are also used to curtail individual freedom. In the countries of the West, which pride themselves on a tradition of personal liberty, it is extremely hard to have people automatically give up their rights and accept numerous limitations in private life. Imagining an environmental catastrophe became a convenient means of forcing people to give up their freedom and rights. “Global warming’’ and “last days on Earth” became the best slogans for environmentalists. The Australia-based Carbon Sense Coalition compiled a list of proposals that had been aimed at using the country’s laws to force people to modify their behavior in the name of solving global warming:
- Ban open fires and pot-bellied stoves
- Ban incandescent light bulbs
- Ban bottled water
- Ban private cars from some areas
- Ban plasma TVs
- Ban new airports
- Ban extensions to existing airports
- Ban standby mode on appliances
- Ban coal-fired power generation
- Ban electric hot water systems
- Ban vacationing by car
- Ban three-day weekends
- Tax babies
- Tax big cars
- Tax supermarket parking areas
- Tax garbage
- Tax second homes
- Tax second cars
- Tax holiday plane flights
- Tax electricity to subsidize solar power
- Tax showrooms for big cars
- Eco-tax cars entering cities
- Require permits to drive your car beyond your city limits
- Limit choices in appliances
- Issue carbon credits to every person
- Dictate fuel efficiency standards
- Investigate how to reduce production of methane by Norway’s moose
- Remove white lines on roads to make motorists drive more carefully. [35]
Third, environmentalism can be used and is used to expand the size and authority of big government. Various Western countries not only have huge environmental protection agencies, but also use the environment as an excuse to establish new government agencies and expand the authority of existing agencies. All agencies have the bureaucratic tendency for self-preservation and expansion, and environmental agencies are no exception. They abuse the power in their hands to spread the narrative of environmental catastrophe to the general public in order to obtain more funding and to secure their positions within the government structure. Eventually, it is taxpayers who foot the bill.
The city of San Francisco established a position for a city climate chief with an annual salary of $160,000. One of the poorest boroughs in London, Tower Hamlets, has fifty-eight official positions related to climate change. [36] The logic is the same as that used by universities and companies for hiring “diversity” officers.
Environmentalism can be used to suggest that democracy is outdated and to push for the establishment of a multinational or even a global totalitarian government. Environmentalists claim that democracies cannot handle the coming environmental crisis. Instead, to overcome the challenges ahead, we must adopt totalitarian or authoritarian forms of government, or at least some aspects thereof. [37]
Author Janet Biehl accurately summarized this mindset as holding that “the ecological crisis is resolvable only through totalitarian means” and “an ‘ecodictatorship’ is needed,” [38] with the obvious reason being that no free society would do to itself what the green agenda requires.
Paul Ehrlich, one of the founders of environmentalism, wrote in the book How to Be a Survivor: A Plan to Save Spaceship Earth:
“1. Population control must be introduced to both overdeveloped countries as well as underdeveloped countries;
2. The overdeveloped countries must be de-developed;
3. The underdeveloped countries must be semi-developed;
4. Procedures must be established to monitor and regulate the world system in a continuous effort to maintain an optimum balance between the population, resources, and the environment.” [39]
In practice, except for a global totalitarian government, no government or organization could possibly accumulate this much authority. In effect, this amounts to using environmentalism to advocate for the creation of a global totalitarian government.
Ultimately, the environmentalist program suggests that the communist system is superior and glorifies communist totalitarianism. Since population growth leads to more resource consumption, more carbon emissions, and more waste products, environmentalists advocate for population control or even population reduction. This has led many Western environmentalists to promote the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) population control.
Reuters estimated in one report that because of the one-child policy implemented in the 1980s, the CCP regime was able to cap its population at 1.3 billion; without the cap, the Chinese population would have reached 1.6 billion. The author of the report noted that the CCP’s policy had the side effect of contributing to a reduction of global carbon emissions. What it ignored was the erasure of the hundreds of millions of young lives and the great suffering visited upon the affected families.
One of the biggest issues affecting the environment is pollution, including that of the air and water. The CCP’s economic model consumes energy at a prodigious rate, making China the world’s biggest polluter, with the worst big-city air pollution and severe water pollution. The majority of rivers in China are no longer safe to drink. Dust storms from China blow across the sea to Korea and Japan, even crossing the Pacific Ocean to reach the American West Coast.
Logically, genuine environmentalists should make communist China the main target of their criticisms, but curiously, many environmentalists praise the CCP, even viewing it as the hope for environmental protection. The Communist Party USA news website, People’s World, has reported extensively on environmental news. The main theme of its reports is the claim that the Trump administration’s environmental policies will destroy the country and even the world, while the CCP is the force for its salvation. [40]
Former president of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus, an economist, wrote in the book Blue Planet in Green Shackles: What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?: “Environmentalism is a movement that intends to radically change the world regardless of the consequences (at the cost of human lives and severe restrictions on individual freedom). It intends to change humankind, human behavior, the structure of society, the system of values — simply everything!” [41]
Klaus believes the environmentalists’ attitude toward nature is analogous to the Marxist approach to economics: “The aim in both cases is to replace the free, spontaneous evolution of the world (and humankind) by the would-be optimal, central, or — using today’s fashionable adjective — global planning of world development. Much as in the case of communism, this approach is utopian and would lead to results completely different from the intended ones. Like other utopias, this one can never materialize, and efforts to make it materialize can only be carried out through restrictions of freedom, through the dictates of a small, elitist minority over the overwhelming majority.” [42]
“This ideology preaches Earth and nature, and under the slogans of their protection — similarly to the old Marxists — wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning of the whole world.” [43]
For these reasons, Klaus strongly opposes attempts to use the cause of environmental protection in order to build a national or a global government to subjugate the general public.
b. Blaming Capitalism
One of the objectives of communism is to overthrow capitalism. Environmentalism treats capitalism as the enemy of the environment, so it shares a common foe with communism. When communism suffered setbacks in the workers’ movements in developed Western countries, it shifted gears and hijacked the environmentalist cause. Normal activism for environmental protection morphed into activism aimed at vanquishing capitalism.
Communist doctrine originally described a utopia, a “heaven on earth,” in order to incite revolt and overthrow the existing social system. Under the cover of environmentalism, communism adopted a similar approach, but the vision it described is the exact opposite: In place of the wonderful workers’ utopia is instead a frightening dystopia, a vision of a “hell on earth.” According to this scenario, in a hundred years’ time, humanity’s very survival will be at risk due to global warming, landslides, tsunamis, droughts, floods, and heat waves.
The target recruits of this movement are not the poor, but rather the wealthy, who are expected to abandon their current lifestyles. But government intervention is required to force people to give up their lives of comfort and convenience. One government is obviously not enough, so an empowered United Nations, or some other global government is in order. If the movement is unable to take off, the vision of an imminent ecological crisis can be played up further, whipping up the panic and fear necessary to influence the public and governments to accept the forceful implementation of environmental policies, and in so doing, achieve the goal of destroying capitalism and imposing communism.
By the original doctrines of communism, after acquiring power, the first step is to strip the affluent of their wealth with the supposed purpose of redistributing it to the poor. In reality, the poor remain poor while all the wealth ends up in the hands of the corrupt officialdom. The second step entails the establishment of a state-controlled economy and the abolition of private property. This destroys the national economy and reduces everyone to a life of hardship.
Let’s look at the objectives of environmentalism. First, it calls for wealthy countries to give aid to poorer countries—that is, to redistribute wealth on a global scale. In reality, poor countries remain poor, as the money that was intended for their development usually ends up in the hands of the corrupt officials of those countries.
Second, environmentalism advocates expanding government and replacing market mechanisms with command economics, using all sorts of draconian environmental policies to obstruct the normal functioning of capitalism, forcing businesses to close down or relocate overseas, thus tanking the country’s economy. Through these market-focused methods, the environmentalist movement seeks to cripple capitalism. In this sense, environmentalism shares a distinct similarity with the doctrines of classical communism. To put it plainly, environmentalism is but communism by another name and would wreak havoc in the world.
The focus of environmentalism is to spread fear of future disasters and to hold the public and governments hostage to this fear. But among those who actively promote this doomsday panic, many live luxurious lifestyles, using lots of energy and leaving a big carbon footprint. Clearly, they don’t think disaster is imminent.
In order to make use of a crisis mentality, especially using the “common enemy” of “global warming” to unite different forces to oppose capitalism, it has become imperative for environmentalists to emphasize and exaggerate the nature of the alleged crisis.
The simplest way is to create a huge, mass fear of using the cheapest sources of energy, that is, fossil fuels — coal, oil, natural gas — and also nuclear energy. Environmentalists succeeded in making people fearful of nuclear energy decades ago, and now, they are trying to make people afraid of using fossil fuels by claiming that fossil fuels lead to catastrophic global warming.
Draconian environmental regulations have become important tools of combating capitalism, especially capitalist economies, and have become known as job killers. Green stimulus programs, clean energy programs, new power-plant regulations, stricter vehicle regulations, the Paris Agreement, and so on, all are promoted under the name of preventing global warming.
However, in reality, climate science hasn’t concluded that global warming is caused by human activity, or that global warming will definitely lead to disaster. If natural causes are behind climate change, then all these government policies only serve to impede economic development while bringing no benefit to humanity.
Under the influence of environmentalism, people blindly raise the bars of emission standards for cars and ban various substances and chemicals without any scientific basis. This naturally means higher manufacturing costs and less profit, followed by greater unemployment and outsourcing industry to developing countries where costs are lower. Even the supporters of environmental protection have to admit that increasing the fuel efficiency of all cars to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 would at most cut the magnitude of global warming by 0.02 C by 2100. [44] This would do virtually nothing to help reduce global warming. Various restrictions of dubious effectiveness have cost millions of workers their jobs and dealt a heavy blow to the manufacturing industries, research faculties, innovative energy, and international competitiveness in Western countries.
Industries that stem from the needs of environmental protection are basically driven by government subsidies and do not follow market demand. To bring products into mass production before making real research breakthroughs is very impractical. These “green” companies can barely stay in business, let alone stimulate the job market. With globalization, many companies move abroad, causing losses for their countries of origin.
Proponents of environmental protection enthusiastically promote green energy and jump-started solar energy and wind-power generation. Unfortunately the pollution that comes with the generation of green energy is either underestimated or simply hidden from view. In the process of producing solar panels, the deadly poison silicon tetrachloride is created as a byproduct. A report by the Washington Post quotes Ren Bingyan, a professor at the School of Material Sciences at Hebei Industrial University: “The land where you dump or bury it will be infertile. No grass or trees will grow in the place. … It is like dynamite — it is poisonous, it is polluting. Human beings can never touch it.”[45]
The production of solar panels consumes enormous amount of conventional energy, including coal and petroleum. It’s fair to say that green energy in such cases leaves the earth not green but polluted.
According to the Paris Agreement, by 2025, the developed countries have to provide US$100 billion each year to help the developing countries improve their energy structure and industrial technology. The United States alone has to come up with 75 percent of the funding among the one hundred-plus signatory countries. At the same time, by the year 2025, the United States is required to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to between 26 and 28 percent less than the 2005 levels. This means that every year, the United States should cut 1.6 billion tons of emissions.
As for China, the country that has surpassed the United States to become the world’s biggest polluter, the Paris Agreement allows it to reach a peak in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. [46]
In a statement on the Paris Climate Accord, President Trump said: Compliance with the terms of the Paris Accord and the onerous energy restrictions it has placed on the United States could cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025 according to the National Economic Research Associates. …
According to this same study, by 2040, compliance with the commitments put into place by the previous administration would cut production for the following sectors: paper down 12 percent; cement down 23 percent; iron and steel down 38 percent; coal … down 86 percent; natural gas down 31 percent. The cost to the economy at this time would be close to $3 trillion in lost GDP and 6.5 million industrial jobs, while households would have $7,000 less income and, in many cases, much worse than that.[47]
With the rise of the environmentalist movement, communist countries caught a break in their struggle against the West. Unreasonable regulations and agreements choke industries, economies, and technology in the Western capitalist countries. This hampered America in its roles as world police and the bastion of the West in the fight against communism.
We do not deny that the environment needs protection. However the goal of environmental protection should serve mankind, the highest form of life. The need to protect the environment should be balanced with the needs of mankind. Environmental protection for its own sake is excessive and makes a sacrifice of humanity, while being co-opted by communism. Today’s environmentalism doesn’t care about balance and has become an extremist ideology. Doubtless, many environmentalists harbor good intentions. But in their quest to mobilize and concentrate the resources of the state for the sake of their cause, they are aligning themselves with communism.
c. Media Suppression of Opposing Voices
In June 2008, ABC’s “Good Morning America” (GMA) aired a special episode imagining the future and making predictions about the impact of global warming on the earth and humanity over the next century. In the program, an “expert” claimed that in 2015, the sea level would rise rapidly, causing New York to be inundated by the sea. One interviewee said that by that time, there would be “fire extending hundreds of miles,” a gallon of milk would cost $12.90, and a gallon of gasoline would cost $9. The viewpoints presented in the show were so exaggerated that a host of the show couldn’t help but question if all of this was really possible.
In actuality, this is not the main question that the media has to consider. Environmentalism uses “crisis awareness” to drive the public, yet crisis awareness and uncertainty are two different concepts. How can things not yet confirmed by science warrant a sense of crisis? Therefore, environmentalism uses the banner of protecting mankind’s future to suppress different voices and arrive at a public consensus under the pretense of a scientific consensus.
Danish economist Bjørn Lomborg wrote that climate warming was caused by human activity in his book The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. However, he believed that human adaptability and technological advancement would ward off the occurrence of a cataclysmic disaster. As this did not conform to the environmentalist dogma of man-made climate change, he was subsequently criticized by people of many different professions.
The chairman of the U.N. Climate Change Panel compared Lomborg to Hitler. The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty announced after an investigation that Lomborg had committed “scientific dishonesty” (but subsequent government investigations proved that Lomborg was innocent). His opponents attempted to use the decision of the Committee on Scientific Dishonesty to revoke his position as director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute. At a train station, people were not even willing to stand on the same platform as Lomborg. One environmentalist threw a pie at him. [48]
In the book The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists, Roy Spencer, a climatologist and former NASA satellite expert, gave a list of fourteen propaganda techniques used by environmentalists, including causing panic, appealing to authority, promoting a herd mentality, making assurances of victory, using personal attacks, and creating rumors. [49]
In 2006, British journalist Brendan O’Neill wrote an article describing the suppression of opinion and derisive rhetoric faced by people in many countries if they dare doubt the theory of climate change. [50] For example, one British diplomat said in a public speech that those who doubt climate change should be treated by the media no differently than terrorists, and that they should not be given a platform to speak.
O’Neill points out that those skeptical of the theory of climate change have been labeled “deniers.” This includes various groups of people ranging from those who acknowledge climate warming but feel we are able to cope with it, to those who completely deny warming as a scientific phenomenon. The potency of the “denier” label is considerable. Charles Jones, a retired English professor at the University of Edinburgh, said that the term is designed to place skeptics on the same level of moral depravity as Holocaust deniers. According to O’Neill, some people even claim that skeptics of climate change theory are accomplices in a coming eco-Holocaust and may face Nuremberg-style trials in the future. A well-known environmentalist writer once wrote, “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards—some sort of climate Nuremberg.”
O’Neill, in his article, commented: “It is usually only in authoritarian states that thoughts or words are equated with crimes, where dictators talk about ‘thought crimes’ and their threat to the fabric of society. … It’s a short step from demonising a group of people, and describing their arguments as toxic and dangerous, to demanding more and harsher censorship.” [51] This judgment is correct. Restricting the right to think is one of the ways communism divorces people from a concept of good and evil that is based on universal values.
A professor of astronomy at Harvard published a paper discussing the role of the sun in climate change based on historical temperature records in the earth’s past. Because this challenged the dogma of humanity being the culprit of climate change, an environmentalist website labeled him an “attempted mass murderer” and all other dissenters as “felons.” [52]
Such examples are too numerous to count. A senior official of a large environmental group warned that the media should think twice before broadcasting the views of climate-change skeptics because “allowing such misinformation to spread would cause harm.” [53]
The British foreign secretary said in a speech that just as terrorists are not allowed to appear in the media, skeptics of global warming should not have the right to air their ideas. [54] Mainstream columnists in Australia are beginning to promote the idea of prosecuting deniers of climate change on charges of “crimes against humanity.” At a summit attended by important politicians in Australia, including the prime minister, a proposal was made to deprive violators of their citizenship. One idea was to re-examine Australian citizens and reissue citizenship only to those who have verified they are “friendly to the climate environment.” [55]
Some have even tried to use legal force to extinguish the voices of opponents of the climate-warming hypothesis. In 2015, twenty academics sent a letter to the U.S. president and the attorney general requesting that the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act be used to investigate companies and organizations with nonstandard views on climate change. This amounts to attempting to use the law to inhibit freedom of speech. [56]
In 2016, the attorneys general of several states formed a coalition to investigate whether traditional energy industries were misleading investors and the public on “the impact of climate change,” and if so, to prosecute. As pointed out by The Heritage Foundation, such allegations and investigations of those who hold different opinions violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and stifle the debate on important public policies. [57]
d. ‘Civil’ Groups Manipulated for Street Revolution
Starting mass movements is one of communism’s strategies to spread its influence across nations and the world. Many environmentalist organizations mobilize large numbers of people to wage environmental protection campaigns. They have lobbied and hijacked government institutions and U.N. organizations to formulate and enforce unreasonable agreements and regulations. They have also created violent incidents in order to silence the general public.
As the radical leftist Saul Alinsky stated, it is necessary to hide the true purposes of a movement and mobilize people on a large scale to act in support of local, temporary, plausible, or benign goals. When people become accustomed to these relatively moderate forms of activism, it is relatively easy to get them to act for more radical aims. “Remember: once you organize people around something as commonly agreed upon as pollution, then an organized people is on the move. From there it’s a short and natural step to political pollution, to Pentagon pollution,” Alinsky said. [58]
On the first Earth Day in 1970, more than 20 million Americans participated in Earth Day-themed street protests. Population control has become the method of choice to deal with environmental degradation. At that time, many leftist organizations in the United States decided to go where the people were. They took part in the environmental movement and advocated socialism as a means of restricting population growth.
A variety of leftist groups use environmentalism as ideological packaging to carry out street actions advocating revolution. For example, if a country has a “people’s climate movement,” you can infer that it is a product of communist parties. In the United States, the organizations involved are the Communist Party USA, Socialism in Action, the Maoist American Revolutionary Communist Party, Ecological Society, Socialist Workers, Alternative Socialism, American Democratic Socialism, Free Socialism, and so on. They hosted the People’s Climate Rally and the People’s Climate Parade. Slogans at these rallies have included “System change, not climate change,” “Capitalism is killing us,” “Capitalism is destroying the environment,” “Capitalism is killing the planet,” and “Fight for a socialist future.” [59]
These groups, with a sea of red flags, have marched in many major cities in the United States, including Washington. [60] With more and more communist and socialist elements to strengthen environmentalism, “green peace” has made a full transition to red revolution.
e. A New Religion of Antihumanism
In addition to hijacking environmentalism as a political movement, communist influences have turned environmentalism into an antihumanism cult.
Michael Crichton, the author of Jurassic Park, once said that environmentalism is one of the most powerful religions in the Western world today. He believes that it possesses the typical characteristics of a religion: “There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature; there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions, there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment.” [61]
Crichton believes that all the creeds of environmentalism are a matter of faith. “It’s about whether you are going to be a sinner, or [be] saved; whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom; whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them,” he said. [62]
This view has been recognized by a number of scholars. William Cronon, an influential environmental historian in the United States, believes that environmentalism is a new religion because it proposes a complex set of ethical requirements with which to judge human behavior. [63]
Dyson, the renowned scientist and quantum mechanist quoted earlier, said in a 2008 article in the New York Review of Booksthat “a worldwide secular religion” of environmentalism has “replaced socialism as the leading secular religion.” This religion holds “that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible.” The ethics of this new religion, he elaborated, “are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.” [64]
Many environmentalists do not shy away from this subject. Rajendra Pachauri, former head of the IPCC who resigned following a sexual harassment scandal, said in his resignation letter that environmentalism “is my religion.” [65]
As environmentalism becomes more ideological and religious in nature, it has become increasingly intolerant of different views. Former Czech president Klaus believes that the environmental movement is now more driven by ideology than science, becoming a quasi-religion aimed at destroying the existing society. This new religion, like communism, describes a wonderful picture of utopia, one reached by using human wisdom to plan the natural environment and rescue the world. This “salvation” is based on opposition to existing civilization. For example, the chairman of the council of the U.N.-affiliated University for Peace and the architect of the Kyoto Protocol said, “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse?” [66]
Klaus summarized his views: “If we take the reasoning of the environmentalists seriously, we find that theirs is an anti-human ideology.” He agreed with biologist Ivan Brezina that environmentalism is not a rational, scientific answer to ecological crises, but rather boils down to an overall denial of civilization. [67]
Environmentalism foments hatred between people by attacking people of different opinions — all in the name of protecting the environment. Evident in this hatred and extremism is a radical anti-humanism. Canadian political critic Mark Steyn says that according to the environmentalists, “We are the pollution, and sterilization is the solution. The best way to bequeath a more sustainable environment to our children is not to have any.” He gives the example of Toni Vernelli, a British woman who had an abortion and was sterilized because she believed having children is bad for the environment. [68]
This thinking regards man as the chief culprit in destroying nature. It places the natural environment as a supreme priority, far beyond the sacred position of human beings, even by means of controlling human fertility and depriving people of their very right to existence. This view is no different from that of communism, and is anti-human at its core. This new religion replaces the traditional belief that man is master of the earth. This combination of religiosity, totalitarianism, the coercive unity of ideas, and the anti-capitalist revolution, cannot guarantee the protection of nature by human beings. On the contrary, it will destroy existing civilization, freedoms, and order, and create unprecedented panic and chaos, leading humanity down a wrong path. This is the true design of the communist influences behind environmentalism.
Conclusion: To Escape Environmental Crisis, Honor the Divine and Restore Tradition
God created humanity and the beautiful and prosperous earth. This is an environment in which human beings live and multiply. People have the right to use the resources of nature, and at the same time, have the obligation to cherish natural resources and care for the environment. For thousands of years, human beings have heeded the warnings left by the gods in ancient times and have lived in harmony with nature.
The environmental problems that have emerged in modern times are ultimately the result of the deterioration of the human heart. This moral decay has been further amplified by the power of science and technology. The polluted natural environment is but an external manifestation of humanity’s inner moral pollution. To purify the environment, one must start by purifying the heart.
The rise of environmental awareness stems from the human instinct of self-preservation. While this is natural and understandable, it has also become a loophole to be exploited by the communist specter. Communism has mobilized to create large-scale panic, advocate a warped set of values, deprive people of their freedom, attempt to expand government, and even impose a world government. Embracing this alternative form of communism in a bid to save the environment threatens the enslavement of humanity and facilitates its destruction.
A compulsory political program is not the answer to the environmental problems we face, nor is reliance on modern technology a way out. To resolve the crisis, we must gain a deeper understanding of the universe and nature, as well as the relationship between man and nature, while maintaining an upright moral state. Humanity must restore its traditions, improve morality, and find its way back to the path set by gods. In doing so, people will naturally receive divine wisdom and blessing. A beautiful natural world full of life will be restored. The brightness and prosperity of heaven and earth will accompany man forever.
Chapter Sixteen (Part I) | Chapter Seventeen |
References
[1] Zhu Kezhen, Preliminary Research on Climate Change Throughout Five Thousand Years of Chinese History(Kaoguxuebao, First Issue, 1972), 168–189. [In Chinese].
[2] Martin Durkin, The Great Global Warming Swindle (documentary film, 2007), Channel 4 (U.K.), March 8, 2007.
[3] Takuro Kobashi, et. al., “4 ± 1.5° C Abrupt Warming 11,270 Years Ago Identified From Trapped Air in Greenland Ice,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 268 (2008): 397–407.
[4] Freeman Dyson, “Misunderstandings, Questionable Beliefs Mar Paris Climate Talks,” The Boston Globe, December 3, 2015. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/12/03/freeman-dyson-misunderstandings-questionable-beliefs-mar-paris-climate-talks/vG3oBrbmcZlv2m22DTNjMP/story.html.
[5] Scott Waldman, “Judith Curry Retires, Citing ‘Craziness’ of Climate Science,” E&E News, January 4, 2017, https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060047798.
[6] J. A. Curry and P. J. Webster, “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster,” Bulletin of American Meteorology Society92, no. 12:1667–1682. https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011BAMS3139.1.
[7] IPCC, “Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis,” IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007. https://archive.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-2-1-3.html.
[8] Ibid, https://archive.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-2-1.html.
[9] Mark W. Shephard et al., “Comparison of Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer Nadir Water Vapor Retrievals with in situ measurements,” Journal of Geophysical Research 113, no D15S24, doi:10.1029/2007JD008822.
[10] “Climate Change,” APS Physics, American Physical Society Web Page. https://www.aps.org/policy/reports/popa-reports/energy/climate.cfm.
[11] “Solar Constant,” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/solar-constant.
[12] Willie Soon, et al., “Modeling Climatic Effects of Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Unknowns and Uncertainties,” Climate Research 18 (2001): 259–275.
[13] Michael Lemonick, “Freeman Dyson Takes on the Climate Establishment,” Yale Environment 360, June 4, 2009. https://e360.yale.edu/features/freeman_dyson_takes_on_the_climate_establishment.
[14] Nir J. Shaviv, “Celestial Driver of Phanerozoic Climate?”Geological Society of America Today 13, no. 7: 4–10, July 2003. https://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/13/7/pdf/i1052-5173-13-7-4.pdf.
[15] J. Emile-Geay et al., “Links between Tropical Pacific Seasonal, Interannual and Orbital Variability during the Holocene,” Nature Geoscience 9 (2) (2016): 168–173.
[16] Zhengyu Liu et al., “The Holocene Temperature Conundrum,” PNAS 111, no. 34 (August 26, 2014).
[17] Hans von Storch, “Why Is Global Warming Stagnating?” Der Spiegel, June 20, 2013. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-hans-von-storch-on-problems-with-climate-change-models-a-906721.html.
[18] Richard S. Lindzen et. al., “Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris?,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society82 (2001): 417–432, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(2001)082%3C0417:DTEHAA%3E2.3.CO;2.
[19] Roy Spencer and William D. Braswell, “Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Demonstration,” Journal of Climate, 21 (21): 5624–5628, November 1, 2008.
[20] John R. Christy, Written Report to Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, November 14, 2007. https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/users/john.christy/christy/ChristyJR_CST_071114_written.pdf.
[21] David Russell Legates, “Statement to the Environment and Public Works Committee
of the United States Senate,” U.S. Senate, July 3, 2014. https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/a/a/aa8f25be-f093-47b1-bb26-1eb4c4a23de2/01AFD79733D77F24A71FEF9DAFCCB056.6314witnesstestimonylegates.pdf.
[22] William Happer, “Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate Over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Earth’s Climate,” Hearing of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness (U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation), December 8, 2015. https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/c8c53b68-253b-4234-a7cb-e4355a6edfa2/FA9830F15064FED0A5B28BA737D9985D.dr.-william-happer-testimony.pdf.
[23] Sir John Houghton, “Moral Outlook: Earthquake, Wind and Fire,” Sunday Telegraph, October 9, 1995.
[24] Jason Samenow, “Scientists: Don’t Make ‘Extreme Cold’ Centerpiece of Global Warming Argument,” The Washington Post, February 20, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/02/20/scientists-dont-make-extreme-cold-centerpiece-of-global-warming-discussions/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3600e477f052.
[25] John Michael Wallace, “The Misplaced Emphasis on Extreme Weather in Environmental Threat Communication,” The Washington Post, March 14, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/03/14/the-misplaced-emphasis-on-extreme-weather-in-environmental-threat-communication/?utm_term=.bf84802d4613.
[26] Steven E. Koonin, “A Deceptive New Report on Climate,” The Wall Street Journal, November 2, 2017. https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-deceptive-new-report-on-climate-1509660882.
[27] Ibid.
[28] “Climate Change Indicators: High and Low Temperatures,” United States Environmental Protection Agency. https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-high-and-low-temperatures.
[29] Judith A. Curry, “Statement to the Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness of the United States Senate,” Hearing on “Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate Over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Climate Change,” December 8, 2015. https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/curry-senate-testimony-2015.pdf.
[30] Mike Hulme, “Chaotic World of Climate Truth,” BBC, November 4, 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6115644.stm.
[31] Roy W. Spencer, Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor (New York: Encounter Books, 2008), Chapter 5.
[32] Christopher C. Horner, Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed (Washington. D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2008), 214.
[33] Horner, Red Hot Lies, 215.
[34] Horner, Red Hot Lies, 211.
[35] Horner, Red Hot Lies, 212–213.
[36] Horner, Red Hot Lies, 227.
[37] David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith, The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2007).
[38] Horner, Red Hot Lies, 219–220.
[39] Paul Ehrlich, as quoted in Václav Klaus, Blue Planet in Green Shackles: What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? (Washington, D.C.: Competitive Enterprise Institute, 2008), 14.
[40] John Bachtell, “China Builds an ‘Ecological Civilization’ While the World Burns,” People’s World, August 21, 2018. https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/china-builds-an-ecological-civilization-while-the-world-burns/.
[41] Klaus, Blue Planet in Green Shackles, 4.
[42] Klaus, Blue Planet in Green Shackles, 7–8.
[43] Klaus, Blue Planet in Green Shackles, 100.
[44] John Fund, “Rollback Obama’s CAFE Power Grab, Give Car Consumers Freedom,” National Review, May 23, 2018. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/fuel-standards-cafe-epa-rolls-back/.
[45] Ariana Eunjung Cha, “Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China,” The Washington Post, March 9, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802595.html?referrer=emailarticle&noredirect=on.
[46] The Paris Agreement on Climate Change, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), December 2015, IB: 15-11-Y. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/paris-climate-agreement-IB.pdf.
[47] Donald J. Trump, “Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord,” The White House, June 1, 2017. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-trump-paris-climate-accord/.
[48] Horner, Red Hot Lies, 117.
[49] Roy W. Spencer, The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists (New York: Encounter Books, 2010), 31.
[50] Brendan O’Neill, “A Climate of Censorship,” The Guardian, November 22, 2006. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/nov/22/aclimateofcensorship.
[51] O’Neill, “A Climate of Censorship.”
[52] Horner, Red Hot Lies, 64.
[53] O’Neill, “A Climate of Censorship.”
[54] Ibid.
[55] Horner, Red Hot Lies, 107.
[56] “Letter to President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, and OSTP Director Holdren,” September 1, 2015. http://web.archive.org/web/20150920110942/http:/www.iges.org/letter/LetterPresidentAG.pdf
[57] Hans von Spakovsky and Nicolas Loris, “The Climate Change Inquisition: An Abuse of Power that Offends the First Amendment and Threatens Informed Debate,” The Heritage Foundation, October 24, 2016. https://www.heritage.org/report/the-climate-change-inquisition-abuse-power-offends-the-first-amendment-and-threatens.
[58] Saul Alinsky, “Tactics,” Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (New York: Vintage Books, 1971).
[59] “Climate Movement Drops Mask, Admits Communist Agenda,” PJ Media, September 23, 2014. https://pjmedia.com/zombie/2014/9/23/climate-movement-drops-mask-admits-communist-agenda/.
[60] “People’s Climate March: Thousands Rally to Denounce Trump’s Environmental Agenda,” The Guardian, April 29, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/30/peoples-climate-march-thousands-rally-to-denounce-trumps-environmental-agenda.
[61] Michael Crichton, “Crichton: Environmentalism Is a Religion,” Hawaii Free Press, April 22, 2018. http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/2818/Crichton-Environmentalism-is-a-religion.aspx.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Robert H. Nelson, “New Religion of Environmentalism,” Independent Institute, April 22, 2010. http://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=5081.
[64] Joel Garreau, “Environmentalism as Religion,” The New Atlantis, Summer 2010. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/20100914_TNA28Garreau.pdf.
[65] Damian Carrington, “IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri Resigns,” The Guardian, February 24, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/24/ipcc-chair-rajendra-pachauri-resigns.
[66] Michael Whitcraft, “A Lot of Hot Air: A Review of Václav Klaus’ Recent Book: Blue Planet in Green Shackles,” Free Republic, June 13, 2008. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2030948/posts.
[67] Vaclav Klaus. “An anti-human ideology.” Financial Post, October 20, 2010. https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/vaclav-klaus-an-anti-human-ideology.
[68] Mark Steyn. “Children? Not if you love the planet.” The Orange County Register, December 14, 2007. https://www.ocregister.com/2007/12/14/mark-steyn-children-not-if-you-love-the-planet.