Les French Greens and Eco-Tyranny

Have you ever heard of the vert pastèque? This exquisite phrase is used to describe politicians in the green movement l'Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) who are green on the outside but socialist red in the middle. According to one commenter on a Reuters article I found on Yahoo News, they are not real ecologists but reserve socialists. This is supported by the fact that they gained 2.9% of the overall votes in the last legislative elections but were bolstered by the PS votes to obtain 17 députés.

Compare this to the FN who obtained 17.9% of the overall votes in the first round of the presidential elections (EELV 2.3%) and 13.6% in the first round of the legislative elections (EELV 5.5%) but who only have 2 députés. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the FN even an idiot can tell that the views of huge swathes of the population are not being represented, while the views of "des bobos (bourgeois bohemian)
parisiens qui s'empiffrant (stuff themselves) de petits fours dans les salons feutrés parisiens nous refont le monde sans la moindre connaissance réel de ce dernier" are vastly over-represented.

Now that the EELV are in the Government, guess what they've been talking about. Ecology? No, legalisation of cannabis, gay marriage, 32 hour week and making illegal immigrants legal. They have not even been given the Ministry of the Environment which would be, you'd think, automatically handed to them. They have been fighting and arguing about who they are and what their policies are rather than understanding what their voters want from them. Seems the only link they have currently to ecology is in their name. As Pascal Durand probable next sécretaire national of the EELV himself explained:
"Le paradoxe, c'est qu'on existe à l'Assemblée, au Sénat et au gouvernement, mais plus dans la société. Nos succès institutionnels ne sont pas accompagnés, bien au contraire, d'une dynamique citoyenne. Notre image est devenue détestable."
(The paradox is that we exist in the Assembly, Senate and the government, but not any more in society. Our institutional successes are not accompanied by the grassroots success,on the contrary. Our image has become detestable.)

Kind of the opposite of the FN if you like, but hey, that's 'democracy' for you. Well, the flawed French version of it anyway.

During the elections the EELVs did witter on about green policies, but amongst themselves they just can't agree on whether they should be focusing on climate change, the environment, supporting (costly) green energy, the extinction of species, low energy bulbs, polar bears, eliminating (cheap) nuclear energy, opposing (cheap gas) fracking and so on. As a result, no one knows what they stand for either, and they are accused of being authoritarian and detested by the public.

If they'd like some help on global warming, I can point them to this graph which shows that they no longer need to worry.



This graph shows global temperatures since AD0. If there was global warming you'd see a marked 'hockey stick' effect on the left with a rise in the red line. No red line rise equals no increase in temperatures equals no global warming. Sorry. Next.

Biodiversity: the G+20 activists are making a big deal out of the extinction of species mainly because everyone has lost interest in climate change and they need to rebrand it as biodiversity. Lots of panic, lots of hype, lots of false information. Comme d'hab quoi. Lots of data extrapolation too. Unfortunately, there's no scientific basis for the claims that so many species are at risk:

"Of 191 bird and mammal species recorded as having gone extinct since 1500, 95% were on islands, where humans and human-introduced predators and diseases wrought the destruction, notes ecology researcher Dr. Craig Loehle. On continents, only six birds and three mammals were driven to extinction, and no bird or mammal species in recorded history is known to have gone extinct due to climate change."
Sorry. Next.

So what's the real agenda of eco warriors? It's the embodiment of Plato's Republic. Ha, bet you don't believe me. Well read on and hold on to your hats!
"...the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives released a new report to the United Nations Rio+20 Earth Summit on Sustainable Development. The executive summary of No Future Without Justice begins with the heading, “The World Is in Need of Fundamental Change.”...
...The objective, they state, is to build economies that drastically limit carbon emissions, energy consumption, primary resource extraction, waste generation, and air and water pollution. Society must also stop the asserted and computer-modeled loss of species and ruination of ecosystems...
...All this naturally will require mandatory changes in consumption patterns and lifestyles (at least for the common folk), and the recognition that work (unlike capital) is not a production factor. Indeed, says the Group, work is not even a commodity. Moreover, only “decent” work qualifies under the sustainability paradigm...
...In short, “sustainable development” is a system that requires a redefinition of business activity, away from the pursuit of personal profit – and of government activity, away from the pursuit of individual happiness and justice – and toward the pursuit of societal good, as defined by activists and the UN...
...Under Plato’s thesis, an educated, elite, but benevolent and mythical, ruling class acts on the belief that its self-appointed philosopher kings have all the right answers, and do not require the Consent of the Governed. The rest of humanity must fall into lockstep or face the consequences; however the results will be exemplary..."

Scary, no?

Would you trust these people with your vote? If you still had one, that is...


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The problem is that Brignell has been at odds with environmentalists for too long, certainly before he retired two decades back. Whilst I agree, and have already said with Johnny saying the same, that being a green is a cover for other political aspirations they are rarely anything to do with Marxism and the socialist movement in any form. Whatever has any of what they have to say or aspire to politically to do with Trotskyite entryism? His 'French turn' was simply a proposal that French Trotskyists dissolve their Communist League to join the French SFIO in order to raise the number of activists, which it did a bit. That was nothing to do with the way people are using the Green parties to further their ambitions. It is a confused interpretation of Trotskyism. Furthermore, those of us who remain true to the socialist ideal, eschew the red label having seen red banners, red stars and so on disappear some time ago. It simply reveals that person's own political stance rhetorically and does not help their cause.

James Delingpole is a journalist and who is right about everything and whoever challenges him is simply put down in the Torygraph, Times or whichever right leaning paper publishes him. When on the one occasion he was torn apart for his bellicose stance and unwillingness to accept anybody's argument but his own, he complained to the BBC that he had been 'intellectually raped' by Sir Paul Nurse on their Horizon programme. Remember, he is the one who called the people running London Zoo eco-fascists. Really trustworthy he is not.

Sarah, in common with Johnny I do not agree with some of the things you say. You have clearly chosen your side of the fence but you are not so wisely choosing your sources of 'inspiration' to argue clearly. On green issues I am fence sitting to an extent, most certainly wish to see and end to nuclear energy with its waste disposal problems and potential for accidents, pollution is a concern. As somebody who has studied children and been an 'activist' for their rights for several decades, I find arguments about stealing their future sensationalist when by any analyst's conclusions, whether right or left, the only stealing seems to be done by capitalism and its increasingly selfish traits. So what you say is interesting and I do not dismiss any of it out of hand, but I find your sources totally untrustworthy.

His famous outburst is:

'...the Warmist faith so fervently held and promulgated by the Met Office is exactly the same faith so passionately, unswervingly followed by David Cameron, Chris Huhne, Greg Barker, the Coalition's energy spokesman in the Lords Lord Marland, and all but five members of the last parliament. And also by the BBC, the Prince of Wales, almost every national newspaper, the European Union, the Royal Society, the New York Times, CNBC, the Obama administration, the Australian and New Zealand governments, your children's schools, our major universities, our minor universities, the University of East Anglia, your local council… Truly there just aren't enough bullets!'

So let us forget those two. Do we believe scientists in major universities worldwide or do we march with the angry brigade like Brignell. Yes, I am certain too that some environmental arguments are spurious but not all of them. There are climate changes, they are noteworthy and of course this planet has undergone many measurable changes. However, many of the pollution arguments are dismissed by the same people although many of them are irrefutable. Bear in mind the same critics of environmental change are also amongst those who challenge ideas about HIV/AIDS although medical science itself does not know where it came from, but they know and will tell us. Indeed I would go so far as to say that the rather right wing leaning critics of green ideas are conspiracy theorists of the first order. Why also are the majority of them right leaning and where are the socialist opponents of green arguments? That seems peculiar to me as

Funnily enough, James Delingpole has just published a book called 'Watermelons, How environmentalists are killing the planet, destroying the economy and stealing your children’s future'. It's been reviewed by John Brignell here and makes very interesting reading:

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/watermelons.htm

Here's the first para:

They are green on the outside, but under the skin the deepest of reds. Their methods are neo-Marxist, especially in the adoption of a form of Trotskyite entryism. The green veneer derives from their first successful coup in achieving control of the environmentalist group Greenpeace, resulting in the departure of original members such as Patrick Moore, the co-founder. Their subsequent success in infiltrating and taking control of leading institutions of politics, science and the media has been nothing less than extraordinary. The organisation is diffuse, largely invisible and contains members who are highly various, ranging from violent revolutionaries to failed politicians who have turned their attention to personal wealth creation. In an age of specious conspiracy theories they have created the greatest and most lucrative conspiracy in the history of human civilisation.

It's the dishonesty that gets me. The wilful manipulation of data, the exaggeration of claims, the suppression of facts. It means that whatever problem there might be is impossible to identify correctly and deal with accordingly. Greens talk about the evils of Big Oil, big business in general but the green energy business has itself become so huge now that accepting it's not the answer they believed it was means that real problems and solutions are not being addressed.

Sarah lets forget the academic bit, it proves very little both of my theses were in the social sciences and although I am ostensibly a social anthropologist, I would describe my second thesis as philosophy myself. None of which makes me more or less able to judge these things that a psychologist. Delusion is a subjective response to the stance of greens, in my opinion, whereas I think it is a reaction and that there are too many people who thoroughly believe in environmentalism for them to restructure and drop some of the irritating polemic. There are evidential environmental problems, one of which is the potential for overcrowding as a result of increasing child survival and increasing longevity both of which verge on taboo at times. It is a matter, is it not, of taking things that are evidenced and throwing out those that are totally speculative or invented and then looking again at Rio and so on. Scientists are themselves terribly divided on these questions so that how a bunch of enthusiasts can be cleverer eludes me. Murgatroyd (Heavens to ...) appears to have put himself on one side of the fence rather than sit on it, but it does not make him right. That is our ultimate dilemma or not?

Here's an excellent article on delusion within the green crowd by Stephen Murgatroyd (former dean at Athabasca University and a consultant in innovative business and education practices with a PhD in psychology).

http://www.theprovince.com/technology/Delusion+problem+with+green+crowd/6823927/story.html#ixzz1ybT3w6Sz

and discussed here

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/22/finally-an-explanation-for-the-mindsets-of-our-favorite-green-doomsayers-al-gore-prince-charles-jim-hansen-bill-mckibben-david-roberts-and-joe-romm/

Sarah, I forgot to add something from a great favourite of mine Emanuel Cant, grandson of a Scot, better known as Immanuel Kant in whose moral philosophy we can read that:

Everything has either a price or a dignity. Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity. But that which constitutes the condition under which alone something can be an end in itself does not have mere relative worth, i.e., price, but an intrinsic worth, i.e., a dignity.

EELV is a party with no dignity whatsoever, it claims to be what is colour coded green, yet walks the parallel route to all other parties from palest pink to blackest black at the price, in its near future, of the price being high, namely desertion by members and possibly the foundation of a new and truly environmentalist thinking party. Lacking dignity, they cannot see this high price before them. Here endeth the moral philosophy.

Oh Sarah, I certainly did say that that the cabbage patch hippies are the least ecological of all green parties I know but as for the red interior I think a pale pink but big political aspirations is the case. As I said before and shall repeat now, these are the people with political ambitions nobody else wants (or needs). Now, I am certain, that not being required to be part of a coalition to prop up PS they will become so shockingly GREEN that to scrutinise them will requite strong political sunglasses. Pascal Durand has thrown the politically correct card around in his more than obvious lobbying to become sécretaire national of his party. What is, of course, disparate is that the genuinely environmentalist supporters of EELV hearing what you correctly describe as wittering about environmental issues but then see the gay marriage, eventual two hour working week by gradual reductions over the next two presidencies and all the other distractions are going to go elsewhere and the 2.9% vote will evaporate.

Their mistake is that they are not able, or have not proven to be capable yet, of making the kind of objective contribution to politics die Grünen have whichever party was in office in Germany, they are fanatical environmentalists as I know having been an early member of die Alternative Liste in Berlin in the good old East/West days when they were still very amateurish but already fanatical about saving the world. There is no sustainable development discourse here in France, which they simply need to translate from German to French (I would even help them being acquainted with German green terminology) and adopt it. There are major environmental problems and global warming is the easy one to latch on to because we are on a warm spell, which in line with the graph you used, is likely to end in a few decades and stymie that argument. Nuclear power in the second largest generator of nuclear energy in the world, with the largest changing direction after their Fukushima accident and construction of new plants here continuing.

But there we go, enthusiastic amateurs in one place, overambitious would-be politicians in another but, as you correctly describe using Plato, no would-be philosopher-kings in their midst here. That remains in the hands of the established parties.