Ghost of a flea: Eco-puritans

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August 13, 2005

Eco-puritans

President Bush's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% has been agreed to by the governments of China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia. But the green lobby is still disgruntled because the plan calls for a technological solution saying such an approach is like "a peace plan that allows guns to be fired."* For greens, the answer is not to do things better or more efficiently but not to do them in the first place.

That is what they say; what they mean, of course, is that we shouldn�t just cut down on these things but stop doing them altogether. Sell the car, take the bus. Better still, walk. Stop going on holiday to easyJetland, stay in a tent. In Wales. In the rain. Forget our civilisation and all the benefits it has brought us, forget any idea of progress and go back to keeping goats.

Because greenhouse gas emissions, the phantom of "global warming" and all the rest has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with puritanism in rationalist clothing. For too many environmentalists, human interaction with the environment is not an economic or technological challenge but a moral one.

*Peace plans often require that guns be fired, btw.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at August 13, 2005 12:07 PM

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