From FoxNews' "Junk Science" columnist Steven Milloy: Environmentalists Surf Tsunami Tragedy.
Environmental activists are shamelessly trying to exploit last week's earthquake-tsunami catastrophe in hopes of advancing their global warming and anti-development agendas.Two days after the tragedy, the executive director of Greenpeace UK told the British newspaper The Independent, "No one can ignore the relentless increase in extreme weather events and so-called natural disasters, which in reality are no more natural than a plastic Christmas tree." [Emphasis added]
Friends of the Earth Director Tony Juniper told the same British newspaper, "Here again are yet more events in the real world that are consistent with climate change predictions." ...
Efforts to invoke supposed global warming as the culprit for this week's death and destruction are patently absurd as the multiple tsunamis were not a "weather event" in the slightest. The tsunamis were caused by an earthquake, which, by the way, is a real, not a "so-called," natural disaster. ...
It's bad enough that environmentalists continually try to advance their agendas based on what can only be described as comically wrong information. But what's really troubling is that they seem hell-bent on denying poor nations the opportunity to develop economically so as to pull themselves out of their abject poverty.
But just how anti-human can environmentalism get? Vanity Fair contributing editor James Wolcott gave us a peek behind the mask in September: An Ignoble Confession.
I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong -- Mother Nature's fist of fury, Gaia's stern rebuke. Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own.
UPDATE -- January 7: Well, they're not going to "keep it down" after all. Peter Mork at Economics With A Face sent this news item that illustrates the anti-human sentiment in the cartoon: Tsunami Reverts Beaches to Natural State.
Many believe the tsunami that devastated this tourist hotspot and killed thousands had one positive side: By washing away rampant development, it returned the beaches to nature.Greg Ferrando glistened with sweat and sea water as he went for a barefoot jog up the immaculate white sand beach, where the tsunami has wiped away almost all signs of humanity.
"This whole area was littered with commercialism," said the 43-year-old from Maui, Hawaii. "There were hundreds of beach chairs out here. I prefer the sand." ...
"They were just building and building and building. It was too much. You couldn't even walk around," said Moriel Avital, a 24-year-old Israeli who lived on the island for four months.
"It was all gone in one wave -- it's telling people not to mess with nature," she said. "Paradise should be paradise and should not become this civilized."
Unfortunately, Wolcott is not alone.
Posted by Forkum at January 5, 2005 10:34 PM
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