In recent issues of the Clarion, there appears to be a consensus of the willing who favor filling the pages of the online and print editions with pejorative harangues against greed and sermons on the efficacy of being green.
The author of the recent opinion piece, “Greed threatens the earth,” discourteously implies that selfishness and an affirmative focus on development have caused the disappearance of beautiful land and forests, as well as the approaching demise of certain animals and plants due to the impending effects of global warming. Clearly, this must demonstrate that development and even the creation of the combustion engine has been a completely void endeavor with no constructive characteristics. No, the author has missed the point.
It doesn’t take an Ayn Rand enthusiast to quote the tired phrase regarding the virtue of selfishness, which is so mundane and self-evident that it need not be explained further, to make this point. Nor does it necessitate the Richard Dawkins treatise on the inherently selfish nature of genes to assert that it is a testament to the continued struggle against the natural order in which the world has been retrofitted with the machines of globalization that have raised the standard of living across continents and nations.
Painting development as the constant destroyer, though it should be readily admitted that it has been on occasion, is bankrupted by the distinct impression that the author, much like many who share her sentiments, haven’t read anything contrary to their opinion.
No intellectually or morally serious person could say that the earth isn’t warming or that there isn’t an evil and cruel undercarriage to the machinations of the world economy. However it would be a much worse crime for those who argue, much like the author of the piece on greed, that because of the loss of unadulterated land and forests due to development, it becomes necessary to severely curtail the world economic order and in consequence, destroy the welfare and quality of life for countless fellow beings.
This manifests itself as a complete lack of sympathy for those extricating themselves from the burdens of systemic poverty, effectively keeping the developing world in shackles. It becomes easy to grasp how the environmental left violently disseminates their draconian ideas because they suffer a continual feedback loop, a persistent sanctuary of false security and consolation of like-minded peers who find it easier to marginalize any intellectual opposition than to confront any serious counter perspective.
Finding solace in the platitudes surrounding this movement is self-defeating, and the self-prescribed remedy by the left is masochistic in nature and would devastate welfare and quite possibly be an egregious human rights issue.
Despite the viciousness on both sides of the argument and lines having been drawn, a respectable solution can be reached so long as there is a fair weighing of the social, economic, and environmental issues by level headed people that remember that human well-being and utility should be held in highest regard. The earth has continually been altering, and, as such, it becomes the incessant duty of civilization to continually adapt to it. This is change that I can believe in.
