I don’t expect a medal, but I changed all the light bulbs in my house to energy efficient ones. I also recycle occasionally, and I repeatedly remind my kids to turn off the lights when they leave a room. I’m also seriously considering buying reusable grocery bags. I’ve paused to look at a couple different styles and everything. But all of this hoopla about “going green” has me feeling a little bullied.
So I stumbled upon this article by Charles Krauthammer when I was stirring my compost heap out back. In it he talks about how environmentalism is the new socialism. It’s really interesting. You should read the entire thing, but if you don’t have time because you’re too busy charging your electric car, let me give you some highlights:
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” ‘The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity,” warns Czech President Vaclav Klaus, “is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism.’ ”
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“If you doubt the arrogance, you haven’t seen that Newsweek cover story that declared the global warming debate over. Consider: If Newton’s laws of motion could, after 200 years of unfailing experimental and experiential confirmation, be overthrown, it requires religious fervor to believe that global warming — infinitely more untested, complex and speculative — is a closed issue.”
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“Only Monday, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe.
There’s no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.”
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Again, you should really read the entire article. It leads you through the socialism/environmental connection and offers real suggestions to the environmental issue based on a “global warming agnostic’s” point of view which directly questions The Church of Environmentalism dogma.
What is annoying to me is how environmentalism is everywhere and preaches to you like you’re some kind of idiot. Do you remember when NBC “went green” for a week? What, you don’t watch a lot of TV? Let me fill you in. For one entire week, the Thursday night line-up (from My Name is Earl to the Office, 30 Rock, Scrubs, and ER) talked about ways we can save the environment. Even the peacock at the bottom of the screen was all green. (Hmmm, not the color of the rainbow, but one singular color. I’m sure there’s some symbolism there). The writers wrote little sub-plots that incorporated tips for all of us common-folk to use in our daily lives. Our favorite characters talked about how much energy was saved by changing a simple light-bulb or how riding a bike or taking the bus to work saves both money and the WORLD. The entire world. It was pathetic and so heavy-handed that its infomercial script took me out of the story. (Only 30 Rock really pulled it off effortlessly, but that’s because Tina Fey’s a genius). It made me want to litter. I didn’t, but I totally thought about it.
Regardless of what you believe, it is frightening to consider how no one wants to really discuss all the possibilities of global warming–you’re made to feel like an idiot if you bring up any questions about it. Not to mention the “celebrity pressure” that has reached epic proportions. There is no debate, and that’s frightening. Are we so quick to let ourselves be regulated on how much we can travel, what we should eat, what kind of light we should read by, how cool or warm our house should be and what kind of story lines we watch on our favorite television programs?
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