Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Imperialism and tyranny

Then, of course, there is the direct contrast to my call in the preceding post for enlightenment and cultural understanding. And that would be in the form of the omnipresent climate change and its exemplification of contemporary eco-imperialism:
  • The debate over Kyoto made it clear that what was at issue was economic rivalry, masked as climate control. ... Openly expressed, hostility to Chinese and Indian industrial expansion would sound like self-serving hypocrisy. Dressed up as environmental concern it looked like altruism....Climate control seems to make national chauvinism acceptable.
  • The new climate deal struck at Bali seems to be about letting First World countries offset their industrial growth by persuading less developed countries to forego growth, and enlarge their forest reserves instead. In effect the West will use its financial leverage to keep the natives sitting in darkness and its own monopoly on technology intact.
And to accompany ideological tribalism, there is the self-appointed eco-tyrant: "paging Al Gore..."

  • Gore openly expressed hostility towards the democratic process.
  • Once an individual or a campaign group can pose as the mouthpiece for the needs of the planet, there is no limit to their authority. Freed from the shackles of responsibility to an electorate, and from the time and territorial restraints of democratic politics, campaigners can make sweeping declarations about the needs of the human species and about what is good for people now and in time immemorial.]
  • Airing these differences, and arguing over them, is politics itself – or it will be, once we do something about the anti-democratic, debate-phobic Al Gore and his acolytes in the environmentalist lobby.
Sustained globalization requires and reflects individual and cultural freedom.

Globalized sustainability is the hand-maiden of tyranny, globalized bureaucracy and the imposition of dogma on all.

The first explicitly recognizes the tribal nature of global culture and seeks to build communities of common interest and respect that preserve differentiation. The second, masks its disregard for differentiation behind platitudes of altruism and seeks to impose a prescribed state of enmity for all activities that are outside the dictates of its ruling dogma.

Its not about science: it is a clash of ideologies.