Just finished reading this and it is an incredible read. The author -- Robert Zubrin -- has written an impeccably researched and documented (49 pages of citations for 248 pages of text) work on the pseudo-scientific 'theory' that the key to solving the worlds problems is to cap or reduce population growth despite boots-on-the-ground solid evidence that the more people living, the better off everyone is. Yes, there will still be people living in abject poverty as long as there are corrupt governments but even these people are enjoying better medical care, access to technology, better food, better opportunities for education, a longer lifespan and much lower infant mortality rates. Thomas Malthus was the first person to voice this toxin back in 1798. There is a nice interview of Dr. Zubrin at Frontpage Magazine:
Merchants of Despair
Frontpage Interview's guest today is Dr. Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics and a Senior Fellow with the Center for Security Policy. A well-known innovator in the fields of aerospace and energy, he has a PhD in Nuclear Engineering, 10 patents, numerous publications, and 8 books, including The Case for Mars and Energy Victory. His latest book is Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism.
FP: Dr. Robert Zubrin, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Let's begin by you telling us what you mean by 'the cult of antihumanism.'
Zubrin: Thanks Jamie.
Antihumanism is a belief system which holds that humans are destroyers, essentially vermin whose activities, aspirations, and numbers must be severely constrained, and that therefore someone must be empowered to do the constraining. Essentially it is an argument for tyranny, oppression, and ultimately genocide.
FP: Why would anyone choose to embrace such beliefs?
Zubrin: Well, you must understand that such arguments have always been gratifying to those seeking to enhance their power or justify their oppression of others. Therefore they use their positions of influence in society to make them fashionable, or 'politically correct,' to use an originally Stalinist term that is now all the rage.
FP: It appears that much of modern-day environmentalism is antihumanist, as you've defined it, but antihumanism has been around for some time, right?
Zubrin: Yes. In the book I trace it back 200 years, starting with Malthus, the seminal founding father of the theory of limited resources, and then trace it forward through its subsequent development through numerous interrelated forms, including Darwinism, eugenics, German militarism, Nazism, xenophobia, the population control movement, environmentalism, technophobia, and most recently, the incredibly demented climatophobic movement, which seeks to justify mass human sacrifice for the purpose of weather control.
There was a time when humanity looked in the mirror and saw something precious, worth protecting and fighting for - indeed, worth liberating. But now, we are beset on all sides by propaganda promoting a radically different viewpoint. According to this idea, human beings are a cancer upon the Earth, a horde of vermin whose aspirations and appetites are endangering the natural order. This is the core of antihumanism.
FP: Tell us about Al Gore's antihumanism.
Zubrin: Al Gore is trying to turn antihumanism into a global cult. Just have a look at this quote from his book An Inconvenient Truth:In short, the purpose of the global warming crusade is not to change the weather, it's to organize a mob in support of totalitarian policies."The climate crisis also offers us the chance to experience what very few generations in history have had the privilege of knowing: a generational mission; the exhilaration of a compelling moral purpose; a shared and unifying cause; the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the restless human need for transcendence; the opportunity to rise - When we rise, we will experience an epiphany as we discover that this crisis is not really about politics at all. It is a moral and spiritual challenge."
It is revealing that Gore chose the words "An Inconvenient Truth" as the title of his book. That phrase could be the virtual chorus line for all the antihuman movements for the past 200 years who used pseudoscientific arguments to demand that people harden their hearts to the human misery the purported to be necessary. I.e.Thomas Malthus: It is an inconvenient truth that "the Irish must be swept from the land."
Charles Darwin: It is an inconvenient truth that "the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world."
General Friedrich von Bernhardi (German General Staff, author, Germany and the Next War, 1912): It is an inconvenient truth that "war is necessary because it eliminates the weak."
Madison Grant (Author, The Passing of the Great Race, 1916): It is an inconvenient truth that "indiscriminate efforts to preserve babies among the lower classes often results in serious injury to the race... It is an inconvenient truth that "the laws of nature require the obliteration of the unfit and human life is valuable only when it is of use to the community or race."
Henry Fairfield Osborn (1932): It is an inconvenient truth that "overpopulation and underemployment mat be regarded as twin sisters" the United States [with 112 million people in 1932] is overpopulated at the present time."
Rudolf Hess (1933): It is an inconvenient truth that "National Socialism is simply applied biology."
Adolf Hitler (1941): It is an inconvenient truth that "the law of existence prescribes uninterrupted killing, so that the better may live."
Fairfield Osborn (author, Our Plundered Planet, 1948): It is an inconvenient truth that "the problem of the pressure of increasing populations - cannot be solved in a way that is consistent with the ideals of humanity."
Paul Ehrlich, (author, The Population Bomb, 1968): It is an inconvenient truth that "the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment to the cutting out of the cancer."
John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich, (authors Global Ecology, 1971): It is an inconvenient truth that "when a population of organisms grows in a finite environment, sooner or later it will encounter a resource limit. This phenomenon, described by ecologists as reaching the 'carrying capacity' of the environment, applies to bacteria on a culture dish, to fruit flies in a jar of agar, and to buffalo on a prairie. It must also apply to man on this finite planet."
The Club of Rome (authors Mankind at a Turning Point, 1974): It is an inconvenient truth that "the world has cancer, and the cancer is Man."
Alexander King, (founder, The Club of Rome, 1990): It is an inconvenient truth that "DDT - has greatly added to the population problem."
Quite a bit more at the website and the book is an incredible read. I knew fragments of the story but Dr. Zubrin has pulled them together. Check your local library if you don't want to spend the money for the book but read it. You will have your eyes opened...
