Written by Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson

Two years ago, I wrote about the pending global population implosion. Demographers predict that 90 countries will lose population between now and the year 2100. Shrinking populations have portentous implications, including major shifts in geopolitical power and the possible financial collapse of welfare states.

The United States’ population is part of this global trend. In a truly stunning article in The New York Post, journalist Suzy Weiss reported, “Last year, the number of deaths exceeded that of births in 25 states—up from five the year before. The marriage rate is also at an all-time low, at 6.5 marriages per 1,000 people. Millennials are the first generation where a majority are unmarried (about 56%).”

The story gets grimmer: An increasing number of 20-something American women are reportedly undergoing voluntary sterilization. There is a growing anti-natalist movement in America. Once again, the vital question is: Why?

I will offer three explanations that overlap somewhat with what I wrote two years ago: ideological indoctrination, stunted psychological growth, and alienation from God. (Please note: I am not stating that every person, female or male, who chooses to remain childless is doing so for these reasons. What I am saying is that there are sweeping sociological currents in play.)

Ideology

The opening paragraph of Ms. Weiss’ article told of a young woman from a conservative background who went to college and had a “political awakening … toward progressivism.” A key component of progressivism is environmentalism. According to one professor interviewed for the article, many 20-somethings have come to conclude that “humans are the problem” and “a mistake.” This anti-human animus is one of the major tenets of environmentalism I was subjected to myself as an undergraduate a half-century ago. Then, the “green bible” was Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb and its related activist group ZPG (Zero Population Growth). The message then was that there would be mass die-offs of humans as the world’s population swelled. As it turned out, a more populated world became a less poor and less polluted world.

Today’s youth are petrified (needlessly so, see here and here) about global warming. One poll cited by Weiss: “39% of Gen Zers are hesitant to procreate for fear of the climate apocalypse.” The blame for this epidemic of baseless fear lies with the media, an out-of-touch global political elite, and especially with our public school system. The indoctrination of children into environmentalist alarmism under the cynical, self-serving supervision of the EPA is professional malpractice and inhumane. Unfortunately for the women getting sterilized today, by the time they realize today’s scary predictions are as baseless as Ehrlich’s decades ago, it will be impossible for them to have children should they so desire.

Psychology 

Recently, the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) posted an article about John B. Calhoun “mouse utopia” experiments in the 1960s. Briefly, mice were provided with utopian (ideal) conditions—the ultimate in cradle-to-grave security. Eventually, the pampered mice became antisocial. They shunned sex and procreation, and consequently died out. Calhoun concluded from his experiments that “When all sense of necessity is stripped from the life of an individual, life ceases to have purpose. The individual dies in spirit.”

I have commented before about the paradox of prosperity—that the wealthier capitalism has made human societies, the more individuals despise capitalism. Today, the wealthier and easier that life becomes compared to what our ancestors experienced, the more reactions there are like Isabel’s. She states, “I think it’s morally wrong to bring a child into the world. No matter how good someone has it, they will suffer.” In other words, since the perfect life is unattainable, today’s better life becomes a tragedy to be avoided.

Spiritual alienation

Pagan greens disparage human life as a “cancer,” “plague,” “vermin,” “disease,” etc., and openly long for humans to decrease. They reject the Christian belief that life is a gift from God and that we humans should “be fruitful and multiply.” “I don’t want to work my life away,” says Isabel, an avowed anti-natalist. Like the mice in Calhoun’s experiments, when creature comforts abound and life is without challenges to survival, it seems that the zest for life atrophies, and along with it, the desire to procreate and share the joys of life with children. If this attitude becomes dominant—if more and more people view children as a burden instead of a gift, and life as a dreary nuisance rather than a splendid opportunity to enjoy God’s creation—our population will indeed implode. If taken to an extreme, societal suicide becomes a possibility.

We may not be at the point of an existential crisis yet. But it is ominous that an increasing number of young people no longer include child-bearing in their concept of what constitutes a fulfilled life. God help us.

Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson is a retired adjunct faculty member, economist, and fellow for economic and social policy with the Institute for Faith and Freedom at Grove City College.

The world is quickly becoming over-populated. There is not enough water, food, fuel or other natural resources to sustain us all. We will soon be faced with a “survival of the fittest” class struggle, as the “have-nots” contend with the “haves” for land and property rights, in an attempt to stay alive during the coming economic apocalypse that ensues. Billions will starve to death (or worse) as every blade of grass is consumed by the ever-encroaching urban sprawl and demand for limited services.

At least this is the neo-Marxist narrative the socialist / globalist journalist, politicians and educrats want you to believe.

How Did We Get Here?

Whence did all these stories of over-population, limited resources, carbon footprint, etc. originate?

Thomas Malthus (1766-1846), wrote a book in 1798 entitled, An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society. He hypothesized that “… the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”

Charles Darwin (1809-1888) was influenced by Malthusian theory. Darwin’s 1859 book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, created a world where only the physical reality matters. The soul of humans was diminished, and people quickly became reduced to resource-consuming units. Social Darwinism soon developed the concept that only the strongest should be allowed to survive, and that often was the “white race.” Eugenics, a practice of eliminating unwanted elements of the population through whatever pragmatic means was currently culturally accepted (or whatever you could get away with), was a driving worldview behind Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

Eugenics advocate, Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), the founder of Planned Parenthood, invented the term, “birth control,” and raised $150,000 for research leading to the first birth control pill in 1951. Sanger promoted “a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.” —“A Plan for Peace,” Birth Control Review, April 1932, pages 107-108

Radical environmentalism placed the continued survival of the species as a primary virtue (with all of the devotion of a religion). We must save the planet, so we can all survive. If that means killing off large segments of our population (through abortion or other means), so be it.

Margaret Sanger, who intentionally set up abortion clinics in African-American neighborhoods, declared: “The most serious evil of our times is that of encouraging the bringing into the world of large families. The most immoral practice of the day is breeding too many children,” she continued “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” —“Woman and the New Race,” 1920, Chapter 5: The Wickedness of Creating Large Families.

The Over-Population Myth

The real fact is that we have plenty of land and natural resources to accommodate our growing population. Of course, we should be good stewards of the earth, and find renewable resources, but we need to stop seeing children as a pestilence to be exterminated, and view them as they are; emerging innovators who can create a more sustainable future for us all.

The doomsayers with this message have consistently been proven wrong. Fifty years ago, Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, wrote: “The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”

He also predicted the average age of death would be 42 by 1980, and the oceans could rise 250 feet because of melting ice caps (anyone wonder where Al Gore got his nonsense?). Ehrlich was certainly a false prophet. While poverty, hunger, and lack of adequate drinking water are present realities in many parts of the globe, these problems are almost always created by corrupt and oppressive governments, poor infrastructure, inefficiency (wasted food), lack of technology (shortage of water wells), war, and even cultural superstition (like in India where their religious beliefs have created food shortages by not allowing mice and rats to be killed, or cattle to be eaten for food, ceremonial bathing in drinking water, etc.).

False over-population myths have been responsible for many of the over 60 million abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973. The truth is, there is room for every person on this planet to stand shoulder to shoulder within the city limits of Los Angeles, CA. It’s not a space issue, it’s a stewardship issue.

Despising Children

While not self-consciously pro-eugenics, the philosophical descendants of Malthus, Darwin, Sanger and Ehrlich have produces a negative view of children in our culture.

Children are not a negative drain on a society, they are, in the words of the Psalm 127 in the Bible, “a reward.” Population growth through birth rate9 is one of the prerequisites of a healthy economy. What is scary, is not child birth, but rather a massive aging population who have trusted their government to pay for their retirement (with funds long past spent). Our current Social Security system for the immense Baby Boomer generation is being funded by the current labor and taxation of Gen X and Millennials.

The problem is, in western culture, we’ve almost either killed off, or prevented the conception of, an entire generation of scientists, doctors, nurses, farmers, technicians, engineers and inventors. If we weren’t thinking of this in theological terms (considering the sovereignty of God), one might speculate that the scientist who would have discovered the universal cure for cancer may have been murdered in the womb.

A society needs a fertility rate of 2.1 births children per (hopefully married) woman to sustain population levels and maintain a stable economy. What we see happening in many part of Europe is a society driving full speed towards an economic cliff (not to mention a moral one!).

Demographics from the World Bank demonstrate a fall in global fertility rates from about 5.0 in 1960, to under 2.5 today. In 2015 in Europe the 10 worst economies, (with their accompanying birthrates beside it) were (from worst to better): Finland (1.6), Greece (1.3), Estonia (1.6), Portugal (1.3), Austria (1.5), Netherlands (1.7), Italy (1.4), Belgium (1.7), France (2.0), and Germany (1.5). None of these countries are above the 2.1 threshold for sustainability.

Muslims are quickly taking over population centers in Europe through a much higher than average birth rate. Muslims recognize the value of child-birth as a means for cultural domination. America only slightly exceeds a 2.1 growth rate, but that is due to immigration, not birth rate. As our birth rate slows to match that of Europe, we can expect to see our productivity decrease as well.

The Solution

Many nations, including China, Japan, Israel and others are seeking to encourage their citizens to have more children now, not less. The problem is, the anti-child and anti-family worldview is so ingrained in many cultures, people are now avoiding marriage and child-bearing altogether. STD’s are on the rise (so sexual activity is likely on the rise) but marriage and raising children within a committed marriage is despised.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that birth alone solves these complex economic problems. There is far more to a stable society, and robust economy that human bodies taking up land mass. What is needed is for a healthy family culture to emerge. Committed, monogamous, heterosexual marriages provide the best context for raising good citizens. Children need both fathers and mothers to help guide them into life’s complex maze of choices. We do not merely need to give birth to babies; we need to train them well how to become contributing adults. Divorce and parental absenteeism has given us a generation of lost young adults who are struggling to find their way through emotional pain, and subsequent substance abuse. They need the stability only a loving family can provide.

The key is to raise the next generation to understand their responsibility to be producers and nor mere consumers. Entertainment, government subsidies and dumbed-down educational systems have created youth who have a major entitlement complex. They’ve had free daycare, free government schooling, free meals at school, and even in many cases, free college that wasn’t merit-based. The growing acceptance of marijuana and other addictive substances have sapped ambition and is crippling what is left of the American work ethic. Many of them sit back, waiting on the government to take care of them throughout their life. Young adults like this will never successfully lead us into the future.

While information is essential for our global economy, we must also continue to produce goods and services. This is where parents are going to have to work hard to combat the indoctrination towards government dependency being inculcated in our nation’s youth from a very young age.

I’ve never been one to merely preach at others, while not taking my own advice. At the time of this writing, my wife and I are eagerly awaiting the birth of our tenth child in just a few short months. We have never been on government assistance, and we support them all, and teach them a good work ethic (age appropriate of course) from the time they are young. We homeschool them entirely by ourselves and will save taxpayers over a million dollars just between K-12 by not putting them into government schools.

We patiently endure the sarcastic and snarky comments of perfect strangers who ask us, “Do you know what causes that?!” or “Are they all yours?! Surely you aren’t planning to have more?!” Many of those casting shade at us have children who are on drugs or have been in jail for felonies. We don’t take offense at their rudeness and ignorance. We have our eyes set on a higher goal. We are preparing these young ones to be successfully in life: Physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We are teaching them how to love and care for their neighbors, and how to solve problems, rather than create them. It’s not for the faint of heart, but our great country wasn’t built by people who shrank back from challenges. It was built by people of strong moral courage and tenacious convictions.

It is my hope that conservatives will stop reading from the playbooks of the progressive, leftist, Eugenic, social engineers, and will return to what make America great: Faith, family (including children) and freedom. These universal principles never fail. Join with me in helping to make America great again…by seeing once again that value of our children (our future).

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Overpopulation. From its usage in Thomas Malthus’s notorious 1798 “Essay on the Principle of Population” to its resurgence in Paul Ehrlich’s 1960 “The Population Bomb,” the word invokes images of a bleak, hopeless future. As the story goes, the ever-increasing birth rate triggers rampant food shortages and systemic resource deprivation, culminating with the human race extinguishing itself. Ehrlich went as far to predict an imminent cataclysm: “England will not exist in the year 2000.”

The solution? In an effort to stave off this destruction, population control ensues.

We’ve witnessed it rear its dehumanizing head again and again. The U.S. Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell (famous for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes chilling phrase “three generations of imbeciles are enough”), which legalized eugenics in the United States. China’s former one-child policy, which resulted in coercive abortions and wreaked havoc on the nation’s food supply and labor force. The United Nations Population Fund, which promoted forced abortion and involuntary sterilization.

Now, population control has returned with a vengeance, reincarnated as the antidote to the Left’s favorite existential threat—climate change. According to the narrative, population growth correlates to detrimental environmental impact. As French President Emmanuel Macron said of Africa’s burgeoning population, “When countries still have seven to eight children per woman, you can decide to spend billions of euros, but you will not stabilize anything.” The Center for Biological Diversity launched a “condom campaign” to alert people to the perceived dangers of having children by distributing birth control in “colorful packages depicting endangered animals,” which sport poorly rhyming mantras like, “Wear a condom now, save the spotted owl.” Progressive author Jill Filipovic’s tweet, however, best encapsulates this ideology: “Having children is one of the worst things you can do for the planet. Have one less and conserve resources.”

First, progressives overstate the gravity of overpopulation. As the National Vital Statistics System noted, fertility rates are sharply declining, causing some perturbed scientists to foreshadow the antithesis of previous concerns–a population “implosion.” By implication, the data the Left uses to fuel overpopulation aversion is inconclusive at best. Furthermore, National Geographic points out that the entire world’s population could fit standing shoulder-to-shoulder in Los Angeles, which demonstrates the sheer amount of space in the world for each individual.

Second, population control—and along with it the mantra that discourages procreation to preserve spotted owls—severely devalues human life. As Alexandra Desanctis observes in the National Review: 

Who among us has the right to decide when a child is “extra,” and how many is too many? Or maybe we should get down to business right away and begin by eliminating all of the “extra” people currently milling about the globe, taxing the earth’s precious resources with their costly carbon dioxide emissions. Any volunteers?

She continues:

Of course, there’s a big difference between offing a child standing next to you and saying that people ought to choose not to have that child in the first place. But both presume that human life is valuable only if — and should be brought into the world only if — a certain subset of powerful and wise elites give the okay.

To classify children as a blight because of a tenuous connection with their carbon footprint, to caution parents to avoid children on the basis of preserving endangered species, to contend that procreation is one of the worst things for humanity are affronts to human life and have devastating repercussions for a shared public understanding of the value of human life.

Third, population control exacerbates the fundamental problem: government intervention. By essentially granting to the government the authority to determine who ought or ought not to live, population control legislation vests more power in humanity’s biggest killer.

Walter E. Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University, provides evidence that government interference harms humanity far more than does population growth: 

The greatest threat to mankind’s prosperity is government, not population growth. For example, Zimbabwe was agriculturally rich but, with government interference, was reduced to the brink of mass starvation. Any country faced with massive government interference can be brought to starvation. Blaming poverty on overpopulation not only lets governments off the hook but also encourages the enactment of harmful, inhumane policies.

In other words, population control enthusiasts miss the point. While they’re alleging that increasing population entails mass starvation, they miss the empirical reality that it is government interference, not population growth, that is the real problem for humanity.

Ultimately, only “greater personal liberty, private property rights, the rule of law and an economic system closer to capitalism than to communism” comprise a system that solves the harms falsely imputed to overpopulation and ensures the protection of human value.

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Written by Walter E. Williams

In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” He predicted that mankind’s birthrate would outstrip our ability to grow food and would lead to mass starvation.

Malthus’ wrong predictions did not deter Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich from making a similar prediction.

In his 1968 best-seller, “The Population Bomb,” which has sold more than 2 million copies, Ehrlich warned: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

This hoax resulted in billions of dollars being spent to fight overpopulation.

According to the standard understanding of the term, human overpopulation occurs when the ecological footprint of a human population in a specific geographical location exceeds the carrying capacity of the place occupied by that group.

Let’s look at one aspect of that description—namely, population density.

Let’s put you, the reader, to a test. See whether you can tell which country is richer and which is poorer just by knowing two countries’ population density.

North Korea’s population density is 518 people per square mile, whereas South Korea’s is more than double that, at 1,261 people per square mile.

Hong Kong’s population density is 16,444, whereas Somalia’s is 36.

Congo has 75 people per square mile, whereas Singapore has 18,513.

Looking at the gross domestic products of these countries, one would have to be a lunatic to believe that smaller population density leads to greater riches.

Here are some gross domestic product data expressed in millions of U.S. dollars: North Korea ($17,396), South Korea ($1,411,246), Hong Kong ($320,668), Somalia ($5,707), Congo ($41,615), and Singapore ($296,967).

The overpopulation hoax has led to horrible population control programs. The United Nations Population Fund has helped governments deny women the right to choose the number and spacing of their children.

Overpopulation concerns led China to enact a brutal one-child policy. Forced sterilization is a method of population control in some countries. Nearly a quarter-million Peruvian women were sterilized.

Our government, through the U.N. Population Fund, is involved in “population moderation” programs around the world, including in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Colombia.

The entire premise behind population control is based on the faulty logic that humans are not valuable resources.

The fact of business is that humans are what the late Julian L. Simon called the ultimate resource.

That fact becomes apparent by pondering this question: Why is it that Gen. George Washington did not have cellphones to communicate with his troops and rocket launchers to sink British ships anchored in New York Harbor?

Surely, all of the physical resources—such as aluminum alloys, copper, iron ore, and chemical propellants—necessary to build cellphones and rocket launchers were around during Washington’s time. In fact, they were around at the time of the caveman.

There is only one answer for why cellphones, rocket launchers, and millions of other things are around today but were not around yesteryear.

The growth in human knowledge, human ingenuity, job specialization, and trade led to industrialization, which, coupled with personal liberty and private property rights, made it possible.

Human beings are valuable resources, and the more we have of them the better.

The greatest threat to mankind’s prosperity is government, not population growth. For example, Zimbabwe was agriculturally rich but, with government interference, was reduced to the brink of mass starvation.

Any country faced with massive government interference can be brought to starvation. Blaming poverty on overpopulation not only lets governments off the hook but also encourages the enactment of harmful, inhumane policies.

Today’s poverty has little to do with overpopulation. The most commonly held characteristics of non-poor countries are greater personal liberty, private property rights, the rule of law, and an economic system closer to capitalism than to communism.

That’s the recipe for prosperity.

This article was originally posted at DailySignal.com

Written by Chet Richard

I am a Conservationist.  I am not an Environmentalist.  What?  Aren’t the two the same thing?  No, they are not.  In fact the two movements are diametrically opposed.

John Muir was a Conservationist, not an Environmentalist.  He saw the wilderness as a “primary source for understanding God: The Book of Nature.”  Muir did not worship Nature, as modern environmentalists do.  Muir worshiped God, the Judeo-Christian God.  So, here is the difference:  Conservation derives from the Hebrew Bible.  Mankind is to be Stewards of the Land.  We are charged to husband God’s creation.

Environmentalists, for the most part, believe that the Earth’s biosphere is God.  And, that human beings are destructive parasites, eating away at the life of their deity. In effect, most environmentalists are atheists searching for something larger than themselves to worship.  But environmentalists see themselves as not being the riff-raff parasites that the rest of mankind are.  Environmentalists believe they are the elect, the knowing, the superior beings, the priests, the Gnostics.

This notion that people are parasites really got started in the 1960’s.  A couple of highly promoted bad actors started this environmental heresy.  The first was Rachel Carson with her hysterical polemic about DDT and its purported harm to birds and other wild life.  Her ideas proved to be, at best, problematic, but millions of people have died as a consequence of the resulting international banning of DDT.  The second, and even more dangerous, problem child was Paul Ehrlich.  This curmudgeon has even greater responsibility by amplifying environmental hysteria.  Ehrlich should have known better.  After all, he is a biology professional.  But his mistakes suggest that he may not be all that professionally gifted.

Ehrlich predicted the death of the oceans due to insecticides and other chemicals washing into the sea.  He did not account, as he ought to have, for the rapid evolution of plankton to adapt to these foreign substances.  (The smaller the organism the faster its evolution – witness antibiotic resistance.)  It was a bonehead mistake that no competent evolutionary biologist should make.  More famously, Ehrlich predicted mass famine and hundreds of millions of deaths within a few years because of the so-called “population bomb.”  He completely ignored the 1960’s technological “Green Revolution” which today has China and India exporting food.  And, he completely missed the natural reduction in birth rates, and the consequent leveling of population, as the standard of living of Third World countries increased.  Again, that process was something that population experts already knew and understood.

And then came James Lovelock with his “Gaia Hypothesis.”  This is the notion that the biosphere is an environment-regulating ensemble of living organisms.  In the large, the biosphere, together with its non-organic matrix, could be considered an organism, itself.  The idea is interesting.  Indeed, it has proven to be scientifically fruitful.

But other people latched onto the biosphere and made Gaia a god.  And, with it, made environmentalism a religion.  A religion, which Lovelock himself rejects as misinformed – if not dangerous.  Lovelock went through his hysteric period in the early years of the ecology mania, but he has since moderated his outlook now that his predictions of imminent environmental doom have proved unfounded.

Why do people do it?  Why do they fall into these overblown quasi-religious enthusiasms?  I speculate that there are three complementary reasons:  Ignorance, Insecurity and Hubris.

Ignorance:  Back in the ‘60’s I was a graduate student in physics at one of the University of California campuses.  One day I had the opportunity to sit and chat, at length, with one of our leading ecologists.  Naturally, I was curious about some aspects of the so-called ecology movement that Rachel Carson had engendered.  Much to my surprise, in response I received a long rant about this movement.  This eminent scientist was scathing in his comments — particularly about the sheer ignorance of the movement’s devoted followers.  “Not one of them,” he said, “has even heard of a logistic equation, much less predator-prey relationships.”  He concluded that harangue by dismissing the movement as nothing but political manipulation of less than astute people.  Nothing much has changed since then.  The true believers still believe without understanding.  Environmentalism is a religion after all.

Insecurity:  Most everyone is insecure about something – about many things, perhaps.  Long established religions have traditionally provided a framework for ordering one’s life and for reducing this natural sense of insecurity.  As we have discovered, there is something about the post World War Two world that has, at least in the West, broken these traditional religious frameworks.  Something happened during the war to cause people to no longer trust religious authority.  Perhaps it was the sheer evil that was manifest and undeniable during those years of horror.  The Cold War amplified that developing sense of insecurity.  People started looking for something new to believe in – something that, once again, would provide spiritual tranquility.

The environmental movement seemed to provide the needed solace.  Emotional peace may be given through participation in something larger than oneself.  But, I note that few of the true believers, being mostly city dwellers, have any real experience of the wilderness.

For those who have experienced it, the gift of wild nature can induce spiritual grace.  John Muir felt it.  I have felt it.  I have felt it in many lonely places around the world.  I have been changed by it.  I have felt this spiritual tranquility on remote white water rivers, on mountain glaciers, while hiking across Muir’s Sierras, when diving to narcosis depths of the sea, while surfing imposing waves.  But Nature didn’t care what I was experiencing, what I was feeling.  Nature is utterly indifferent.  Nature is dangerous.  A momentary lapse in the wilderness and Nature will likely kill you.  There is no empathy in Nature.  No intelligence.  No awareness.  Nature is not a caring god.  Nature is not even a god.  Nature just is.  Gaia just is.  My companions on these many excursions were savvy, alert, and extremely cautious.  Despite some very close calls, we survived.  That said, we always sacrificed to the River God before putting in!

Hubris:  In the early years of Christianity there were Gnostics.  These were Christians who claimed special knowledge about Jesus and what he really taught.  Gnosticism eventually was suppressed.  Its followers were rejected from the Christian community, in part because of their smug, arrogant, airs of intellectual superiority.  While Christian Gnosticism may have died out, the type of people who adopt Gnostic superciliousness remain all too common.  In the first half of the twentieth century Marxism was their fashion, and still remains so with a Globalist twist.  In the second half, the Gnostics adopted Environmentalism.  Doing so made them into superior beings, don’t you know.

Unfortunately, Gnostics are easy marks for the con.  A skilled confidence man knows that the best way to hook a victim is through the victim’s vanity.  The environmental movement is a con.  Its leadership preys on the ignorance, insecurity, and hubris of its followers.

The environmental con takes many forms.  In recent decades man-caused global warming is the con game.  That scare was deliberately manufactured in the 1980’s.  Its purpose was, and is, to cripple the U.S. economy, foremost, and the economy of Western Europe secondarily.  This program has had considerable success.  Many have bought into the con and the economy is hurting.  In particular, some who have knowingly promoted the con are politicians who seek to accumulate power and wealth.  Using the scare tactic of climate runaway, stupendous resources have been wasted on misguided attempts to reduce carbon dioxide:  solar power, wind power, alcohol fuels, suppression of coal, gas, oil and nuclear energy production.  Millions of jobs have been lost through unneeded environmental regulations.  Fortunately, Nature did not cooperate with the conmen and politicians.  The world did not heat up, as predicted.  Belief in global warming is rapidly diminishing, as it should.

But there is always another con, and each new con means further loss of freedom.  For half a century the environmental movement has been the primary tool of those leaders who wish to suppress individual freedom and individual initiative.  The erosion has been slow, but it has been steady.  Most adults, today, have never experienced the freedom that I, and others of my cohort, once enjoyed.  Not having that experience they simply don’t know what they are missing.  Consequently, they are easily preyed upon by those who would impose further restrictions – for the benefit of mankind, of course.  It’s a con:  Trade your freedom for a better environment. Trade your freedom for a sense of security.  Trade your freedom for a belief that you are doing good by protecting the environment.  Trade your freedom for a sense of moral superiority.  Trade your freedom and then live in poverty.  That’s all right, say the Gnostics, people are parasites, they get what they deserve.

Poverty:  There is the source of real irony.  True care for the environment, true care for nature, is a rich man’s game.  Only the prosperous have the resources to protect the natural world.  Only those living in comfort believe that it matters.  Only those with wealth – the middle class and more – can be stewards of the land.  Impoverish America and the land will be despoiled.

Poor people care little for Nature.  Poor people struggle just to live. They don’t have time for environmental diversions.  The environmentalist con takes away freedom and replaces it with diminished prosperity.  Carried far enough, political environmentalism ultimately will drive people into impoverished serfdom and, with the greatest irony of all, it will wreck the environment.

This article was originally posted at AmericanThinker.com