Environmentalists against humans: Green is the Color of Misanthropy
I have long noted a virulent strain of rabid misanthropy among the intelligentsia of the environmental movement. From professors longing for the next deadly infectious disease strain to come along to philosophers who peg the ideal human population at 100 million, only 1.4 percent of the present population of 7.1 billion, hatred of humanity is not uncommon.
In a short but insightful article in 1990 Robert James Bidinotto quoted a number of environmental though leaders – and those down in the trenches – who displayed outright contempt for human aspirations, achievements and life. For instance:
““Is it not perverse to prefer the lives of mice and guinea pigs to the lives of men and women?” asks philosopher Patrick Corbett. Not really, because “if we stand back from the scientific and technological rat race for a moment, we realize that, since animals are in many respects superior to ourselves, the argument collapses.”
“Man,” snarls Michael W. Fox in his book, Returning to Eden, “is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish and unethical animal on earth.” David Graber, a biologist for the National Park Service – [yes, he’s on the public payroll, authors observation], expressed his own hopes thusly:
Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn’t true. Somewhere along the line—at about a million years ago, maybe half that—we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth . . . . Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.
Mr. Graber isn’t alone in his death wish for the human race, as Earth First! leader David Foreman makes dear: “We advocate bio-diversity for bio-diversity’s sake. That says man is no more important than any other species . . . . It may well take our extinction to set things straight.” Or how about this: “An ice age is coming, and I welcome it as a much needed cleansing. I see no solution to our ruination of Earth except for a drastic reduction of the human population.”
Foreman therefore finds a silver lining in the horrible Ethiopian famines: they are, he says, Mother Earth’s natural defense against overpopulation. Likewise, his group’s official publication has cheerfully suggested that, from an ecological perspective, the AIDS epidemic might mean the end of industrialism, which is “the main force behind the environmental crisis . . . . [Thus] as radical environmentalists, we can see AIDS not as a problem but a necessary solution.””
All of this came to mind as a read of the more subtle but no less deadly strain of misanthropy detailed in Larry Bell’s review of Robert Zubrin’s book, Merchants of Despair. I haven’t had the pleasure and likely, disgust, of reading Zubrin’s book yet, but based on Bell’s recommendation, I’d guess is serves as a powerful indictment of much of the modern day environmental movement – in which case, it’s a must read.
“[Thus] as radical environmentalists, we can see AIDS not as a problem but a necessary solution”
Wow, that really is vile
Yes, while it might be vile, that do make a pretty convincing logical case for it…until you think about it…then you realize it’s complete and total trash.
“Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”
This is absolutely disgusting.
I am surprised that most of these guys haven’t committed suicide yet, because if humanity is awful and should be diseased and partially die out, why haven’t they taken action on those claims and contracted aids or malaria.
I don’t understand valuing the nature over human life
I don’t understand how you could value human life over nature.
I think they’re not mutually exclusive. But that’s another topic.
“Man,” snarls Michael W. Fox in his book, Returning to Eden, “is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish and unethical animal on earth.”
I wonder if oysters have ethics. If not oysters, do birds?
And then how do you compare their ethics with human ethics?
It’s quite a humorous train of thought, comparing humans to animals…
What is so humorous about that “train of thought”? Are you saying that humans are not also animals?
That whole mindset leads to a whole other set of philosophical dilemma’s including Who should live, and who should die. Most people would solve that problem with the answer of “evolution’s principle, Survival of the fittest” hence disease always coming into the equation with most of the quotations cited above.
It also completely neglects 100’s of years of thought and political philosophy…*cough* the enlightenment *cough*
Well, there is a bit of guilt out there, so I am not surprised by some of these extreme views/statements like humans are a cancer.
Wow…just…wow. And not a good ‘wow’.
It’s funny how the people that spout this nonsense NEVER practice what they preach. The population control demons such as Ted Turner, David Suzuki, Gro Harlem Brundtland all have 3+ kids. But they’re not ‘poor’ so that’s why they think they have the God given right to breed as much as they wish. Same as the Green crew, such as Al Gore and all of the UN. They live in houses with 6+ bedrooms, have 3 cars in the garage, heated pools, fly EVERYWHERE practically every week, to spread their nonsensical and ill thought out tripe. And the masses fall for it. They never question the motives or the hypocrisy. What I would like to ask these people who clearly think they’re above the rest of the world, once all us ‘poor tax paying folks’ have been eradicated, who do they think will generate their millions and keep their government funded empires ticking over? Coz it sure as shit won’t be them.
I’m a lefty. Those guys you are talking about are an affront to common decency.
If they really believed their own BS, suicide would be proscribed since they won’t accomplish the goal of getting me to believe their nonsense.