People and Trees: A Matter of Priorities

These days, some people are willing to sacrifice other humans through world economic collapse in order to preserve trees and natural resources. How many people in this world are starving to death because of the current economic collapse?

One author has written a piece entitled, “Best Way to Cut Pollution? Cut Population”. It is subtitled, “A study argues that human life could be the climate’s worst threat, and birth control one of our best hopes.” Why is it that climate is deemed to be more worthy of attention than human life? The title belies the author’s misguided values: He seems to place climate control above human life.

The dismal article continues: “A new study performed by the London School of Economics suggests that, to fight climate change, governments should focus on another pollutant: us.” People, to the writer of the article, are little more than “pollutants”.  The points about reducing pollution and making contraceptives available are good points, but generally the article reflects a terrible view of humanity.

There is no higher moral ethic than to save a human life. A human life should never be sacrificed in order to spare a tree or preserve the climate.

An economy is like an ecosystem for humans. True, an economy can be modified. But it’s best to modify it gradually so as not to kill people by leaving them jobless on the sidewalk.

Environmentalists have obviously done some good in the world. It was good to clean up drinking water, it was good to require emissions equipment on cars.

But there are some who don’t mind shutting down the world economy in an effort to “Save the Planet”. Such a mentality is truly unwise. “Those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it”, Santayana wrote. The period 1920-1945 shows just how desparate people become in times of economic collapse.

If humans really want to avoid damaging the environment, they will avoid catastrophic war. If the world sinks back into a World War II mentality, the environment will probably suffer irreparably, given the nature of modern weaponry. One of the triumphs of the Cold War was that it was settled diplomatically; mass death and environmental catastrophe were avoided.

Trees can be replaced. Tree farms are commonplace. But obliterating economies rather than modifying them is wrong because people starve to death as a consequence.