James Delingpole has a nice posting about a recent excellent performance by Peter Lilley, the Tory MP who seems, unlike many of them, to have retained a large measure of common sense. This is what Mr Lilley said recently about the constant run of conferences held to discuss environmental issues:
“Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. One of the early signs of madness is an indulgence in compulsive displacement activity, which could not be a better description of the whole COP process. Tens of thousands of people are displaced across the globe to an environment where they are cut off from reality and the rest of the world, where they can indulge themselves in demonstrating their lack of realism and reality, and where the original objective of obtaining a legally binding agreement between nations to reduce worldwide emissions has itself been displaced by the alternative objective of reaching an agreement to meet again—and to agree to reach an agreement at some distant future time. That is displacement activity on a massive scale, and it involves a massive degree of hypocrisy, given the huge emissions incurred by these eco-warriors as they swan across the globe in jets and hire fleets of limousines, so emitting more CO2 than a small African country.”
It is Earth Day today, by the way.
Regarding Earth Day, it has been around rather longer than most people are aware.
“Earth day 1970;
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University.”
Reams and reams of this stuff were turned out back then, not a single doom-laden prediction came true. But here we are, 43 years later, with far too many people still believing this kind of crap.
Speaking of grim.
These activities are completely covered by the tranzi elites doctrine of plenary indulgences.
If someone says the correct things, bows to the correct demi-gods, and espouses all the correct policies, then nothing they ever do can be wrong, or wasteful, or unsound.
It doesn’t matter how lavishly they live, how frequently they travel across the globe, how much money and perks they acquire, or whether they actually accomplish anything or not.
All that matters is that they clearly intend the correct intentions, believe and profess the correct ideas, belong to all the correct institutions and committees, and are friends with all the correct people.
You’re thinking about these issues is hopelessly old-fashioned and pre-modern if you don’t understand these things.
This made me think of the SF conventions of my youth. For some world science fiction convention attendees (or lesser recurring conventions), quite a lot of the time, and quite a lot of the fun, was making your bid for your chosen venue to hold the next convention but two. There was, and presumably still is, a subset of fandom that was much more into running science fiction conventions than science fiction.
I am sure that what veryretired and Lilley himself said as to motives is also true – but quite a lot of this activity may be purely social.
Alisa – Good grief. I had to suppress an impulse to laugh. That’s a human life we are talking about, but you can’t accuse the man of failing to live his principles.
Alisa,
Look on the bright side – at least she was biodegradable ….
Alisa–thank you for giving me a way to celebrate Earth Day…by appropriately remembering its founder. I forwarded your link! A lot.
Phil B, I appreciate your humor (if only the perp was biodegraded sooner). But I also have a daughter who is 21 and living in the middle of one of the more leftist, nutty cities in America (Seattle), so I cringe when I read about creeps like Einhorn. God forbid she hooks up with some inspired nutjob.
I’d like to suggest that in addition to your humor, we also remember Earth Day’s founding by saying a prayer for the soul, friends, and family of Ms. Maddux.
Dunno, Natalie – I guess it would depend on which of the several (conflicting?) principles he apparently held. FWIW, ‘He also claimed to have helped found Earth Day’. Which is to say – rather ironically – that in addition to failing to live up to his ‘advoca[cy for] flower power, peace and free love’, he may have been an outright liar.
Greg: yes, it’s always the inspired ones, innit.