Maggie's Farm

“. . . environmental concerns especially among the elite are rising to panic bordering on despair.

. . . A gizzard churning fear has gripped climate activists. Johnathan Franzen writing in the New Yorker says it’s already too late for most people. “During the Protestant Reformation … ‘end times’ was merely an idea, not the horribly concrete thing it is today.”

. . . They are convinced not even modern civilization itself will survive the pyre of climate change. Nor are these ideas confined to fringe activists. Elizabeth Warren, a leading Democratic Party candidate for president, tweeted that "on my first day as president, I will sign an executive order that puts a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases for drilling offshore and on public lands. And I will ban fracking—everywhere."

Some are willing to sacrifice their children to the planet. Damian Carrington, environmental editor of the Guardian, writes: "The greatest impact individuals can have in fighting climate change is to have one fewer child ... Having one fewer child will save 58.6 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year." And to sacrifice the children of others. Bernie Sanders has promised to fund abortions in the Third World to combat global warming.

Yet if the premises of climate catastrophe are accepted -- and no divine injunction against taking human life is admissible -- why exactly are the actions of a hypothetical Horizon Corporation not the logical response? After all, each person eliminated will save 58.6 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year. Squeamishness may act as a temporary restraint, but squeamishness can be overcome. As Camus pointed out, there is little defense in purely secular thought against "rational terror" against murder in a good cause.”