Environmentalism Redefined - The Road to Prosperity

Environmentalism Redefined - The Road to Prosperity  

Some thoughts for the way forward. 

To imagine a world of harmony between man and nature may have been beyond the possible just a half-century ago, but now with the world’s knowledge doubling every few months and the world’s people able to speak to one another with such ease, I am hopeful. Beyond human knowledge and ability, lies something stronger, the human spirit. The most heartening thing I witness now is the spirit and strength of will that finds expression in our young people; they are conservationists who know and expect a good life; this fusion of ethnic and expected experience will guide them to take us closer to the harmony we all wish for.

One wishes the environmental movement would define its mandate solely with environmental clarity and pursue it with focus; the extraneous adjunct of social concern is hampering its progress. If climate change isn't an issue but an emergency, as Mr. Gore likes to remind us, then please environmental brain trust seek a solution, a solution that provides abundance within natural systems. The solution posited now – subsistence for all – is as disturbing in its acceptance as it in its misinterpretation of reality; the earth is a generous provider – abundant energy is the reality. There is a “silver bullet”, it is a matter of turning the environmentalist ship from “hyper conservation distorted by social concern” to the clear pursuit of a solution. Imagine if you will the mass of resources spent now on opposing everything, fighting the oil industry and industry at large – now imagine those resources directed at the real solution, a viable replacement for fossil fuels or fossil fuels' agreeable use.    

It is my sincere hope, that a few words on a page can give young people insight into the prosperity we enjoy in the first world, its source being the freedom we have to pursue prosperity through largely unfettered enterprise. Be wary of people who detract from that source of prosperity, the marketplace in concert with natural systems, in the absence of distorting policy will surely bring us closer to harmony with natural systems, than the social engineers who have embedded themselves in the environmental movement. The communitarians whispering promises of social justice through equality have had their chance and failed many in the process. In the presence of abundance, humans become most rational, kind and generous. Prosperity is the best guarantee for a safer and healthier world. Prosperity is a much better offering to the world's needy than the most hideous proposition of subsistence. Trade at its apex of execution will eradicate the prosperity asymmetry that now grips our world. Enterprise linked to the natural world will build an economy prosperous and in harmony with nature.