Posted on May 9, 2008 - by Calvin L. Smith

Environmental Imperialism

Liberal, lefty elites despise imperialism, which is somewhat paradoxical given how they are so good at it. Just consider the imperial outworkings of their obsession with climate change. First, they insist poor countries curb their carbon emissions by slowing down industrial development, thus stifling economic wellbeing for those countries’ poorest people (and this after two centuries of industrialisation enjoyed by Western nations!). Next, the search for reusable fuel sources such as ethanol to salve liberal consciences has contributed directly to soaring grain and food prices, so that again the poorest people in developing nations suffer the most (meanwhile the chattering classes continue to visit swanky restaurants and enjoy the finest food and wine, smug in the knowledge they have done their bit for the environment). Finally, they preach about the now socially-unacceptable running up of food miles because it contributes to climate change (this from people who jet off to their Italian villas all the time). Unfortunately, such selective buying means abject misery for producers and their workers in places like Kenya, who are directly affected by these do-gooders’ lofty declarations. Thus, climate change liberals are nothing less than environmental imperialists who will gladly bully others into submission over something which is, after all, only a theory (albeit a highly politicised one). In their claims to be moral they are, at best, disingenuous, and at worse, utterly immoral, because it is the world’s poorest who are suffering the most as a direct consequence, all so that elites can feel happy with themselves. But you have to say this in their favour: at least these people believe in equality and fairness. After all, as well as insisting on telling the rest of us how to live (and think), at least they have the world’s poorest in their sights too. Good old liberals!