I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you meant the Apocalypse. Entertaining article anyway...
On Jul 12, 1:32 pm, Travis <[email protected]> wrote: > From: *Travis* > Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 > Subject: The Ecopalypse, 96 Months Away? > > http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/07/10/top_stories/doc4a576b0ec9ca... > 158.txt > > The Ecopalypse, 96 Months Away? > > By Mark Steyn, For The Bulletin > > Published: > Friday, July 10, 2009 > > According to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, we only have 96 > months left to save the planet. > > I'm impressed. 96 months. Not 95. Not 97. July 2017. Put it in your > diary. Usually the warm-mongers stick to the same old drone that we > only have ten years left to save the planet. Nice round number. > > Al Gore said we only have ten years left three-and-a-half years ago, > which makes him technically more of a pessimist than the Prince of > Wales. Al's betting Armageddon kicks in January 2016 - unless he's > just peddling glib generalities. And, alas, even a prophet of the > ecopalypse as precise as His Royal Highness is sometimes prone to this > airy-fairy ten-year shtick: in April, Prince Charles predicted that > the red squirrel would be extinct "within ten years", which suggests > that, while it may be curtains for man and all his wretched works come > summer of 2017, the poor doomed red squirrel will have the best part > of two years to frolic and gambol on a ruined landscape. > > So, unless you're a squirrel, don't start any long books in 95 months' > time, because /time is running out!/ "Time is running out to deal with > climate change," said Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace in 2006. "Ten > years ago, we thought we had a lot of time." > > Really? Ten years ago, we had a lot of time? Funny, that's not the way > I remember it. ("Time is running out for the climate," said Chris Rose > of Greenpeace in 1997.) So what's to blame for this eternally looming > rendezvous with the iceberg of apocalypse? As the British newspaper > The Independent reported; > > "Capitalism and consumerism have brought the world to the brink of > economic and environmental collapse, the Prince of Wales has warned. > And in a searing indictment on capitalist society, Charles said we can > no longer afford consumerism and that the 'age of convenience' was > over." > > He then got in his limo and was driven to his other palace. > > It takes a prince, heir to the thrones of Britain and Canada and > Australia, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea and a bunch of other places, to > tell it like it is: You pampered consumerists are ruining the joint. > In the old days, we didn't have these kinds of problems. > > But then Mr and Mrs Peasant start remodeling the hovel, adding a rec > room and indoor plumbing, replacing the emaciated old nag with a Honda > Civic and driving to the mall in it, and next thing you know instead > of just having an extra yard of mead every Boxing Day at the local > tavern and adding a couple more pustules to the escutcheon with the > local trollop they begin taking vacations in Florida. > > When it was just medieval dukes swanking about like that, the planet > worked fine: That was "sustainable" consumerism. But now the masses > want in. And, once you do that, there goes the global neighborhood. > > By contrast, as an example of an exemplary environmentalist, the > Prince hailed his forebear, King Henry VIII. True, he had a lot of > wives, but he did dramatically reduce Anne Boleyn's carbon footprint. > > I always enjoy it when the masks slips and the warm-mongers explicitly > demand we adopt a massive Poverty Expansion Program to save the > planet. "I don't think a lot of electricity is a good thing," said Gar > Smith of San Francisco's Earth Island Institute a few years back. > > "I have seen villages in Africa that had vibrant culture and great > communities that were disrupted and destroyed by the introduction of > electricity," he continued, regretting that African peasants "who used > to spend their days and evenings in the streets playing music on their > own instruments and sewing clothing for their neighbors on foot-pedal > powered sewing machines" are now slumped in front of "Desperate > Housewives" reruns all day long. > > One assumes Gar Smith is sincere in his fetishization of bucolic > African poverty,with its vibrantly rampant disease and charmingly > unspoilt life expectancy in the mid-forties. But when an hereditary > prince starts attacking capitalism and pining for the days when a > benign sovereign knew what was best for the masses he gives the real > game away. > > Capitalism is liberating: You're born a peasant but you don't have to > die one. You can work hard and get a nice place in the suburbs. If you > were a 19th century Russian peasant and you got to Ellis Island, you'd > be living in a tenement on the Lower East Side, but your kids would > get an education and move uptown, and your grandkids would be doctors > and accountants in Westchester County. > > And your great-grandchild would be a Harvard-educated environmental > activist demanding an end to all this electricity and indoor toilets. > > Environmentalism opposes that kind of mobility. It seeks to return us > to the age of kings when the masses are restrained by a privileged > elite. Sometimes they will be hereditary monarchs, such as the Prince > of Wales. Sometimes they will be merely the gilded princelings of the > government apparatus - Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi. In > the old days, they were endowed with absolute authority by God. > > Today, they're endowed by Mother Nature, empowered by Gaia to act on > her behalf. But the object remains control - to constrain you in a > million ways, most of which would never have occurred to Henry VIII, > who, unlike the new cap-&-trade bill, was entirely indifferent as to > whether your hovel was "energy efficient". The old rationale for > absolute monarchy - Divine Right - is a tough sell in a democratic > age. But the new rationale - Gaia's Right - has proved surprisingly > plausible. > > Beginning with FDR, wily statists justified the massive expansion of > federal power under ever more elastic definitions of the commerce > clause. For Obama-era control freaks, the environment and health care > are the commerce clause supersized. They establish the pretext for the > regulation of /everything/: If the government is obligated to cure you > of illness, it has an interest in preventing you getting ill in the > first place - by regulating what you eat, how you live, the choices > you make from the moment you get up in the morning. > > Likewise, if everything you do impacts "the environment", then the > environment is an all-purpose umbrella for regulating everything you > do. It's the most convenient and romantic justification for what the > title of Paul Rahe's new book rightly identifies as "Soft Despotism". > > The good news is that, at this week's G8 summit, America's allies > would commit only to the fuzziest and most meaningless of > environmental goals. Europe has been hit far harder by the economic > downturn. When your unemployment rate is 17 per cent (as in Spain), > "unsustainable growth" is no longer your most pressing problem. > > The environmental cult is itself a product of what the Prince calls > the "Age of Convenience": it's what you worry about it when you don't > have to worry about jobs or falling house prices or collapsed > retirement accounts. Today, as European prime ministers are beginning > to figure out, a strategic goal of making things worse when they're > already worse is a much tougher sell. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
