The war on humans
Environmental activist groups are masters in the art of achieving their objectives and then quickly setting new, ever more ambitious targets. The speed at which they are able to shift the climate of public opinion is also particularly destabilizing.
Just look at the campaign against exporting oil from Western Canada. In no time at all, incessant media hype was deployed in order to demonize a natural resource that has greatly contributed to increasing living standards for our fellow Canadians.
In Quebec, just a few years before the Energy East pipeline project was rejected, provincial politicians attempted to save the Shell refinery, in Montreal East. Up until its closure in 2010, the thousands of jobs it was providing still weighed heavily in the balance. All the main political parties were quick to present a plan to save the refinery, rather than allow it to be transformed into an oil terminal.
It is troubling to see just how quickly these same politicians changed their tune in order to oppose a project for the transportation of oil passing through the same territory and having the potential to contribute just as much to prosperity in Quebec and in Canada as a whole.
These days, the same efforts are deployed by these groups in order to prevent the development of critical mineral mines in Canada and around the world, even though these are essential to the manufacture of battery-powered electric vehicles.
This phenomenon recurs in numerous ways. While Quebec will be facing electricity shortages in the coming years, environmental activists oppose the very idea of new hydroelectric dams, and even new wind farmswindfarms. Elsewhere in the Western world, the focus is opposition to nuclear power. And then there’s the entirely logical and impactful idea of replacing coal with cleaner energy sources like natural gas, or technologies for capturing and storing greenhouse gases.
This will seem inconsistent to those who imagine innocently that these activist groups are solely concerned with cleaning up the environment. But this is a serious mistake. As French public intellectual Ferghane Azihari regularly points out, their actual goal is the deconstruction of our society, in which humans must let nature reclaim “its rights.” In other words, it is the legitimacy of the world we have created that is being called into question. It’s not simply about restoring nature, but about a return to primitive wilderness.
In order to know what our local activists will clamour for next, it can be helpful to look to Europe to see the most recent developments there, since the Old Continent too often seems to lead the way when it comes to finding ingenious ways to impede progress. The idea of returning to wilderness has indeed progressed so far that a population of wolves is being allowed to grow rapidly, to the point where it is terrorizing livestock and interfering with the work of farmers, who are incidentally assaulted on all sides by environmentalist claims.
In its simplest and most direct form, it is a rejection of modernity and its comforts which is at the heart of the activist mindset. Indeed, the idea is not just to reduce the number of gas-powered cars on our roads; what is called for is the reduction in the number of cars, period. While the bicycle is today presented as a viable alternative, it will be condemned tomorrow because of its use of steel and rubber.
If environmental activists have so much success, it’s that we have conceded from the start the moral and philosophical high ground that underpins the true question. More than ever, it is necessary to reassert the nobility of civilization and the human organization of society. In order to continue to progress, we will need to rediscover Enlightenment humanism, which fully recognizes the determining role of our species in fashioning its environment with a view to greater flourishing.
It is this vision of a world where we are all free to improve our lot and the quality of life of our loved ones that we must champion if we are to counter alarmist narratives. If human ingenuity has taught us anything over the years, it is that it is an unlimited resource, allowing us to maintain and increase these modern comforts all while adapting ourselves to new circumstances.
The idea is not to deny the contribution of human activity to the global phenomenon of climate change, but rather to determine just how much credibility environmental activists really deserve. After all, the societal project they are pushing is one that will necessarily harm the populations of the poorest countries, in addition to reducing the quality of life in more industrialized nations.
Daniel Dufort is President and CEO of the MEI. The views reflected in this opinion piece are his own.