The Only Compelling Narrative Supporting Increases in the Power of Rulers
Environmentalism should be regarded on the same level with religion "as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity," according to a paper written two years ago to influence the future strategy of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the world's would-be environmental watchdog.
The purpose of the paper, put together after an unpublicized day-long session in Switzerland by some of the world's top environmental bureaucrats: to argue for a new and unprecedented effort to move environmental concerns to "the center of political and economic decision-making" around the world "” and perhaps not coincidentally, expand the influence and reach of UNEP at the tables of world power, as a rule-maker and potential supervisor of the New Environmental Order.
The positions argued in that paper now appear to be much closer at hand; many of them are embedded in a four-year strategy document for UNEP taking effect next year, in the immediate wake of the much-touted, 11-day Copenhagen conference on "climate change," which starts on Dec. 7, and which is intended to push environmental concerns to a new crescendo.
The major difference is that the four-year UNEP plan expresses its aims in the carefully soporific language that U.N. organizations customarily use to swaddle their objectives. The Swiss document makes its case passionately -- and more important, plainly -- than any U.N. official document ever would.
I would have said that classical liberalism and the protection of human liberty would be a competing such narrative, but its not surprising the UN wouldn't think so.
It is interesting that after years of skeptics being derided for comparing modern environmentalism to a religion, this characterization is starting to be accepted by the environmentalists themselves.
me:
I'd even agree that the only thing worth giving rulers power for would be demonstrable and provable threats to the continued habitability of earth.
That said, I've yet to see any such threats (emphasis on the provable).
I note, though, that our rulers have plenty of power and continue to ursurp more.
November 30, 2009, 1:54 pmMichael:
In a U.K. court case the ruling says global warming is religion, not science. The court has said that protections afforded to a Christian now can be afforded to a global warmer.
November 30, 2009, 4:54 pmrxc:
It is all about control. The leftists/communists burrowed into the environmental movement after the fall of communism and are using it to re-assert control. Environmentalism is a good place to hide, with all of its soft, squishy images and all of its bleeding heart supporters who will not understand what is going on till it is too late. And then, they will buy the argument that it is all "for the children", so not so bad.
And with the UN in charge, it will become a bureau/kleptocracy for the entire world, instead of just for a few non-functional countries.
December 1, 2009, 11:09 am