I & I Editorial BoardReports of unrest over environmental policies from the Netherlands and Sri Lanka are much more than novelty news. What is happening in both spots is a lesson that has to be learned quickly. If not, there’s deep trouble ahead.
Dutch farmers, whose history of crop yields puts them among the most productive in the world, continue to protest rules that limit their use of nitrogen, a nutrient in commercial fertilizers that converts to nitrous oxide, which is feared as a greenhouse gas. Officials expected them to cut use 50% nationally, which means in some regions, the reductions will be as high as 95%.
The crippled farmers, their survival under attack, are, as they should be, revolting.
“Imagine if you’re a fifth-generation farmer, living on your land, making a living, being part of the local community” and suddenly there is “basically no future, no future for farming, but also no future for the economic, social, cultural fabric of the countryside,” Wytse Sonnema of the Netherlands Agriculture and Horticulture Organization told the Australian media.
“There’s a broad sense of frustration, of anger, even despair amongst farmers at the moment.”
But political officials don’t care about the effects of their tyranny. They’re too dedicated to demonstrating before the world their great green cred.
Don’t think that it can’t happen here. Canada, which exports tens of billions of dollars of agricultural products to the U.S. every year and is, unfortunately, “led” by boy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, plans to force nitrogen cuts that will “decimate Canadian farming.” And also don’t think such a truly rancid idea won’t easily make it across the border to Washington and blue state capitals itching to put more restrictions on an ostensibly free people to carry out their eco-madness.
Meanwhile, a year after announcing the country would become the world’s first 100% organic nation, Sri Lanka is a “nation wrecked by green agricultural policies.” Its agriculture sector is in such ruins that the country is begging Russia and India for fuel, the economy has collapsed, and there’s not enough money to buy food. The Sri Lankan president, whose palace was stormed, will leave office Wednesday, and the outgoing prime minister as well as dozens of other politicians have nowhere to live because hungry and desperate protesters have burned down their houses.
Imagine this country had Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal become law. Its fanatical emissions cuts would have caused energy costs to soar, choked economic growth (it would be worse than it is now), and cost from $51 trillion to $93 trillion over its first decade. The Green New Deal was in fact initially conceived not as an environmental protection policy but rather as a “how-do-you-change-the-entire economy thing,” according to the New York congresswoman’s former chief of staff.
So far, we’ve avoided Ocasio-Cortez’s reign of terror. But in California, the petty environmental tyrannies, centered on the wars on greenhouse gas emissions and plastics, continue to accumulate – and spread. California residents don’t even have the freedom to throw away their food scraps as they see fit. They now must conform to the way government says it has to be done.
Of course, petty tyrannies can quickly and easily grow into totalitarianism. The step from “public servant” to green tyrant is shorter than most of us would think.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
Eco-nuts controlling the food supply and your health care. What could go wrong?
The great Christian apologist, C. S. Lewis said:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Just so.
There is no AGW, anthropogenic global warming. There never has been. To think that we humans can impact this climate ruled by the sun is the height of stupidity. AOC and her traitorous fellow communists are unending in their efforts to destroy our economy. This is part of that agenda.
I am sure that the Greens, starting with Climate Czar Kerry and Canada’s Minister Gilligan, are very sorry for the people doomed to starve to death because farmers will not have access to all the fertilizer they need.
However, no one said building a green utopia would be easy and, as the great Lenin observed, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.
So while we are sorry that you have to die from want of food, do take comfort in the fact that it is for a good cause and remember that we are all climate warriors now!
Public support for green policies is a mile wide and an inch deep. Everyone feels compelled to voice their support for Mother Earth, until they get whacked in the pocketbook. I suspect it will not get quite as bad here as in some other countries, but it will have to sting everyday people a fair bit before they start making politicians pay at the ballot box. I think current fuel prices are accomplishing that.
“Don’t think that it can’t happen here. ”
It’s already happened here.
Visit the Klamath Basin in Southern Oregon and Northern California. What was many years ago a thriving farming area is now in ruins, The farmers are denied enough water to keep their fields green. As farming declined, so did the rest of the economy in the basin. Now the area almost looks like it’s abandoned, with closed businesses and dilapidated buildings. That is the ‘green future’ the left wants for us all.