green-agenda
July 26th, 2008, 07:05 PM
An increasingly common view being promoted by certain sections of the green movement is that not only are 'humans destroying the earth', but that our population has exceeded the earth's carrying capacity and we have infact become a 'pest species.' This view originates from the Deep Ecology philosopy which considers humans to have "no more intrinsic value than a cockroach, an amoeba, or the smallpox virus."
Certain groups on the wild fringe of the green movement have thaken this concept to the extreme and claim that the only way to save the earth is to exterminate all humans. One such group is the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (http://www.vhemt.org/). This might sound like a bunch of crazies but their leader has appeared on dozens of national news shows and they have dozens of local action groups. On their website they state:
"Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom. When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve, and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature's "experiments" have done throughout the eons. It's going to take all of us going."
An even more radical group is the Church of Euthanasia. I'm not going to link to their website, it is one of the most deplorable, twisted things I have seen. Their site states "Every aspect of the deepening global environmental crisis, including climate change, poisoning of the water and atmosphere, reduction of biodiversity, and topsoil erosion, directly results from the over-abundance of a single species: homo sapiens." and then goes on to state some of the more vile things imaginable.
Yet another group is the Gaia Liberation Front. They state, "Our mission is the total liberation of the Earth, which can be accomplished only through the extinction of the Humans as a species. Every Human now carries the seeds of terracide. If any Humans survive, they may start the whole thing over again. Our policy is to take no chances." and "To complicate the search for a cure or a vaccine, and as insurance against the possibility that some Humans might be immune to a particular virus, several different viruses could be released (with provision being made for the release of a second round after the generals and the politicians had come out of their shelters).''
Now, you are probably thinking these people are just whackos on the extreme fringe, we should just ignore them or laugh at them. Unfortunately, and to my great surprise, various mainstream environmental organizations, scientists, and 'green leaders' also seem to share these views:
"The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many,
doing too well economically and burning too much oil."
– Sir James Lovelock, father of the Gaia Hypothesis
"Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath
the surface of the earth is a willful expansion
of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature."
- Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
"My three main goals would be to reduce human population to
about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure
and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species,
returning throughout the world."
-Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
"Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the
affluent middle class - involving high meat intake,
use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning,
and suburban housing - are not sustainable."
- Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
"All these dangers are caused by human intervention
and it is only through changed attitudes and
behaviour that they can be overcome.
The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."
- Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
"Mankind is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish
and unethical animal on the earth."
- Michael Fox, vice-president of The Humane Society
"Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a
pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor."
- Sir James Lovelock, Healing Gaia
"The Earth has cancer
and the cancer is Man."
- Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells;
the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people.
We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to
the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many
apparently brutal and heartless decisions.''
- Prof Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb
"I don't claim to have any special interest in natural history,
but as a boy I was made aware of the annual fluctuations in
the number of game animals and the need to adjust
the cull to the size of the surplus population."
- Prince Philip, preface of Down to Earth
"A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society
at the present North American material standard of living
would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard
of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible."
- United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment
"A total population of 250-300 million people,
a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."
- Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor
"... the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence
more than 500 million but less than one billion."
- Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
"One America burdens the earth much more than
twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say.
In order to stabilize world population,we must eliminate
350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say,
but it's just as bad not to say it."
- Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier
"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth
as a killer virus to lower human population levels."
- Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,
patron of the World Wildlife Fund
"I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong.
It played an important part in balancing ecosystems."
- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
"The extinction of the human species may not
only be inevitable but a good thing."
- Christopher Manes, Earth First!
"Childbearing should be a punishable crime against
society, unless the parents hold a government license.
All potential parents should be required to use
contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing
antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing."
- David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club
"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill."
- Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
These are well-known quotes and the sources can be easily located via Google, and can also be found here http://green-agenda.com/quoterefs.html
I have seen this extreme view, that humans are a cancer that Gaia will soon destroy unless we change our ways, slowly permeating through the green movement. You only have to go and wade through the Greenpeace forums for a while. I guess the point that I'm trying to convey is that Satan often tries to take something good, like our responsibilty to be wise stewards of the environment, and twist it into something that is anti-God and anti-human.
Certain groups on the wild fringe of the green movement have thaken this concept to the extreme and claim that the only way to save the earth is to exterminate all humans. One such group is the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (http://www.vhemt.org/). This might sound like a bunch of crazies but their leader has appeared on dozens of national news shows and they have dozens of local action groups. On their website they state:
"Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom. When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve, and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature's "experiments" have done throughout the eons. It's going to take all of us going."
An even more radical group is the Church of Euthanasia. I'm not going to link to their website, it is one of the most deplorable, twisted things I have seen. Their site states "Every aspect of the deepening global environmental crisis, including climate change, poisoning of the water and atmosphere, reduction of biodiversity, and topsoil erosion, directly results from the over-abundance of a single species: homo sapiens." and then goes on to state some of the more vile things imaginable.
Yet another group is the Gaia Liberation Front. They state, "Our mission is the total liberation of the Earth, which can be accomplished only through the extinction of the Humans as a species. Every Human now carries the seeds of terracide. If any Humans survive, they may start the whole thing over again. Our policy is to take no chances." and "To complicate the search for a cure or a vaccine, and as insurance against the possibility that some Humans might be immune to a particular virus, several different viruses could be released (with provision being made for the release of a second round after the generals and the politicians had come out of their shelters).''
Now, you are probably thinking these people are just whackos on the extreme fringe, we should just ignore them or laugh at them. Unfortunately, and to my great surprise, various mainstream environmental organizations, scientists, and 'green leaders' also seem to share these views:
"The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many,
doing too well economically and burning too much oil."
– Sir James Lovelock, father of the Gaia Hypothesis
"Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath
the surface of the earth is a willful expansion
of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature."
- Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
"My three main goals would be to reduce human population to
about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure
and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species,
returning throughout the world."
-Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
"Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the
affluent middle class - involving high meat intake,
use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning,
and suburban housing - are not sustainable."
- Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
"All these dangers are caused by human intervention
and it is only through changed attitudes and
behaviour that they can be overcome.
The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."
- Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
"Mankind is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish
and unethical animal on the earth."
- Michael Fox, vice-president of The Humane Society
"Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a
pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor."
- Sir James Lovelock, Healing Gaia
"The Earth has cancer
and the cancer is Man."
- Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells;
the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people.
We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to
the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many
apparently brutal and heartless decisions.''
- Prof Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb
"I don't claim to have any special interest in natural history,
but as a boy I was made aware of the annual fluctuations in
the number of game animals and the need to adjust
the cull to the size of the surplus population."
- Prince Philip, preface of Down to Earth
"A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society
at the present North American material standard of living
would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard
of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible."
- United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment
"A total population of 250-300 million people,
a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."
- Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor
"... the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence
more than 500 million but less than one billion."
- Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
"One America burdens the earth much more than
twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say.
In order to stabilize world population,we must eliminate
350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say,
but it's just as bad not to say it."
- Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier
"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth
as a killer virus to lower human population levels."
- Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,
patron of the World Wildlife Fund
"I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong.
It played an important part in balancing ecosystems."
- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
"The extinction of the human species may not
only be inevitable but a good thing."
- Christopher Manes, Earth First!
"Childbearing should be a punishable crime against
society, unless the parents hold a government license.
All potential parents should be required to use
contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing
antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing."
- David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club
"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill."
- Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
These are well-known quotes and the sources can be easily located via Google, and can also be found here http://green-agenda.com/quoterefs.html
I have seen this extreme view, that humans are a cancer that Gaia will soon destroy unless we change our ways, slowly permeating through the green movement. You only have to go and wade through the Greenpeace forums for a while. I guess the point that I'm trying to convey is that Satan often tries to take something good, like our responsibilty to be wise stewards of the environment, and twist it into something that is anti-God and anti-human.