Listen up, "Nicky LOW"...

here comes Eddy!

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness.  The other, to total extinction.  Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. (Woody Allen).

People will quickly change their tune about climate change when we really start seeing the effects.  We'll get through it.  No one ever said it would be easy.  I have actually worked on real-life environmental regulation in my career and read the trumpeted "peer-reviewed" literature on a serious environmental issue.  Many of these claims are simply not supported.  The proponents have ulterior political motives that go way beyond the issues at hand.   They cannot be trusted.  It needs objective study.  Look, I am not going to say that it's all a hoax, but you simply cannot trust these sources in these cases.  You cannot trust the deniers either, no doubt.   I think it's pretty obvious that the planet is warming and it is very likely caused by man.  It will eventually cause problems.   People put their money where their mouths are, though, and the people in Manhattan and Florida are not believers, you can see that reflected in the property values there near the coast.  People are not lying when they are rightly skeptical of this whole thing.  I am a born skeptic too, so I cannot help it.

Think about what you are saying with your Club of Rome argument.  It is logically spurious.  The problem you say is that people are (or will be) suffering, and that this can only be alleviated by eliminating those people.  I could be more generous and say that the proposed solution is to discourage reproduction.  Either way, the message is clear:  people are bad, or a nuisance, or something.   Whenever I hear this utter rubbish I want to use the snarky comeback:  Take up Michael Jackson's advice and start with the man in the mirror.  You are free to remove yourself from our midst.  Put your theory into practice and off yourself to help the world's population problem.  Insane, I know.  I say that to point out the insanity of the Club of Rome proposition. 

Yes, people are prospering.  If not, how is it that they are reproducing so much and living so long?  Your argument seems to say that because there are poor people, and income gaps, then the solution is less people.  What?  I guess therefore you are going to ask poor people to simply not exist, or not reproduce, just because they have less income than the rich?  For real?  You point out valid issues of social justice and then link it to over-population.  It's like saying:  Because you will not live as well as another, it is better that you not exist at all.  Most population growth is among the less developed (economically) nations.

As for the USA statements you make.  The easy retort is that, like always, people around the world want to come here, and in fact in droves they risk their lives to come here.  That has not changed in over 200 years and won't change soon.   You see a practically non-existent emigration rate from the US and the USA consistently enjoys the world's highest rates in patriotism surveys.  Meaning, US citizens love the US more than any other country's citizens love their own.  We have a very difficult time uprooting our military bases from foreign countries.  Despite what they say, they really do want our protection.  Don't be fooled by what you read from Leftist propaganda.  It's all bluster what they say, and not worthy of serious consideration. 

Last, material goods and wealth are largely illusory (so far as being a true good).  Most people on the planet know this instinctively to some degree or other.  They are happy.  You cannot say on the one hand that materialism is bad (which is true, we agree), but then social justice requires more material goods for the poor.   Again, you are prescribing something you admit is bad as a solution to right a wrong. I don't want to sound callous here, because as I said earlier, there is plenty to discuss regarding social justice and meaning in life.  This song is a good starting point.  I am sure we'd agree on a lot.

It worries me that environmentalists do not see this. Environmentalism obfuscates the truly pressing issue facing mankind - the end of liberal democracy (think of 9/11).  It seems rather obvious to me that science will address the issues that concern environmentalists. It does not seem at all obvious to me that environmentalists understand more serious threats to humanity.

To me, it's a peculiar logic that presupposes the existence of more human beings as a bad thing.  More people are living and prospering than ever.  This is called progress, this is good, unequivocally. 

I don't think this song is about environmentalism at all though.  Materialism is not fulfilling. It leads to an empty existence and there is plenty to talk about there.  As in, how can we make our lives more meaningful?  Pursuing more and more material things is not the way.  That is what this song is saying.

"Luxury, so far as it reaches the people, will do good to the race of people; it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury; for, as I said before; it can reach but a very few. - Samuel Johnson