Modern Environmentalism: A Longer Term Threat to Western Civilization

Modern environmentalists and particularly their academic supporters are attempting to change a number of economic and scientific ideas and principles fundamental to Western Civilization that have helped humans to achieve much of our dramatic progress in living standards in recent centuries, and, as a result, in environmental protection more recently. In the longer run this may well do more damage than even the wasted investments in inefficient and soon-to-be abandoned solar and wind farms. Even limited application of their ideology on energy would result in decreased consumer choice, economic growth, and living standards. Without an economic and scientific basis, modern environmentalism cannot rationally claim that its proposed climate policies would make the world better off. It is just another ideology trying to pretend that it has a scientific and economic basis; these pretensions lead to many of the problems discussed here. Objective scientific and economic analysis is needed of past and present policy proposals by modern environmentalists to correct errors and avoid future ones.