Earth Day has recently become the apex of a secular person’s year. Women dress up in their hemp skirts, everyone’s eating tofu and bands are playing music about how we should save the planet. It’s a festive time and all, but in terms of “making a difference,” what does it actually do? I used to think that it was a time where people took one day out of the year to self-aggrandize, and that it stayed within the confines of that one day.
Unfortunately, the “Green” mentality is seeping into quotidian life to the point where environmentalism has, quite literally, overtaken America. The Cult of Climate Change has become the most popular secular religion in America. Tithing has been replaced by carbon-offset credits, the Kyoto Treaty is the primary path of redemption for “man-made global warming,” and St. Albertus Gore has become the new Savior.
The reason why this movement has been so detrimental to society is because a prioritization of what is important has been thrown way out of whack. For example, if we enacted the Kyoto Treaty, we would only see reduced temperatures in 2050 by approximately a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit, which is merely a postponement of a temperature rise by less then three years. Considering that Kyoto would be the largest tax hike in American history, I hardly consider that a good way to spend tax dollars. Plus, these are the same people who, at the first Earth Day celebration in 1970, were saying that we have to prepare for the next Ice Age. These people are incapable of realizing that weather comes in cycles in the same way as hurricanes.
The only reason why hurricanes seem worse than they used to be is only because there is a denser population residing in hurricane-prone areas, which have an increased chance of sustaining property damage. Scientists have enough trouble predicting a two-day forecast, let alone one a half-century from now. Again, go back to Earth Day of 1970, environmentalists were singing a different tune back then than they are now.
Rather than giving into this alarmism, what the environmental movement should stop playing G-d and get a grip on more critical issues affecting our world. For instance, if we decided to only invest 12 billion dollars into fighting malnutrition, which kills four million people a year, we could cut that death rate in half. Even ending first-world agricultural subsidies and ensuring free trade throughout the Third World would provide enough economic prosperity to make Third World countries more developed.
Or how about fighting malaria, which debilitates so many people in the Third World? In spite of what environmentalists would like to think, we can’t save the planet. It’s not within our capacity to do so. What is in our capacity, however, is to use the limited resources we have in the most efficient manner and ameliorate whatever we can. Like I previously mentioned, malaria and malnutrition are good places to start. If the Cult of Climate Change continues to lead us towards a prioritization malaise, we will severely compromise our livelihood. So instead of perpetuating self-destruction, let this Earth Day be one where we think about what’s truly important to us!