If anybody reading this still doesn't understand why Biff Vernon's stance on immigration, population and humanitarianism amounts to a betrayal of the environmental movement based on a pseudo-ethical fantasy, please read the following document. It is a no-nonsense explanation of why self-proclaimed environmentalists who advocate a borderless world with unfettered immigration into Europe and the United States are hypocrites and dreamers. Among other claims it advocates a zero tolerance policy for immigration into the western world from any country that has not got its own population problem under control.
It is written by Philip Cafaro...
I'm a philosophy professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. My main research interests center on environmental ethics, consumption and population issues, and wild lands preservation. I'm the author of How Many Is Too Many? The Progressive Argument for Reducing Immigration into the United States, published by University of Chicago Press, and author of Thoreau's Living Ethics and co-editor of the anthology Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation, both published by University of Georgia Press. I am an affiliated faculty member of CSU’s School of Global Environmental Sustainability and president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics.
...and a wildlife biologist called Winthrop Staples III.
The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian public policy think tank founded in 1984 and based in Arlington Heights, Illinois, in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. The Institute conducts work on issues including education reform, government spending, taxation, healthcare, education, tobacco policy, global warming, hydraulic fracturing, information technology, and free-market environmentalism.
In the 1990s, the Heartland Institute worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question or deny the health risks of secondhand smoke and to lobby against smoking bans, noting that "Heartland's activities...reach back into the 1990s when ... working with Philip Morris.... Philip Morris also used Heartland to distribute reports that they (Philip Morris) had commissioned... In 1997, Philip Morris paid $50,000 to the Heartland Institute to support its activities."[2]:233–34[3]
In the decade after 2000, the Heartland Institute became a leading supporter of climate change denial.[4][5] It rejects the scientific consensus on global warming,[6] disputes that human activity is driving the warming,[7] and says that policies to fight it would be damaging to the economy.[8]
The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian public policy think tank founded in 1984 and based in Arlington Heights, Illinois, in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. The Institute conducts work on issues including education reform, government spending, taxation, healthcare, education, tobacco policy, global warming, hydraulic fracturing, information technology, and free-market environmentalism.
In the 1990s, the Heartland Institute worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question or deny the health risks of secondhand smoke and to lobby against smoking bans, noting that "Heartland's activities...reach back into the 1990s when ... working with Philip Morris.... Philip Morris also used Heartland to distribute reports that they (Philip Morris) had commissioned... In 1997, Philip Morris paid $50,000 to the Heartland Institute to support its activities."[2]:233–34[3]
In the decade after 2000, the Heartland Institute became a leading supporter of climate change denial.[4][5] It rejects the scientific consensus on global warming,[6] disputes that human activity is driving the warming,[7] and says that policies to fight it would be damaging to the economy.[8]
If you check out the publications of the British National Party, you will find extensive mentions of Peak Oil and sustainability. Do you think we should reject talk of Peak Oil and sustainability because the BNP talk about them?
This is absolutely typical of your approach to these debates. You've not even read the argument, let alone made any attempt to respond to it. Instead you've simply dismissed it because it appears on the website of an organisation that has said some other things we both disagree with. It is available elsewhere on the internet.
The paper I linked to is one of collection of papers in the book "Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation", written by a wide selection of over 20 different environmentalists, including feminists and left wingers.
And you wonder why you are the target of sustained personal abuse?
Would you like to have another go at responding to my post?
kenneal - lagger wrote:My heart sank when I saw "heartland.org". Not the best place to go for unencumbered information on anything.
The document was not commissioned by the Heartland Institute. They are merely one of several sources hosting it online, presumably because it suits their own agenda.
Interesting interview with Michael Moore in today's Observer:
Can you explain Donald Trump to a European?
I’m thinking how to put this… I’m sure you’ve noticed Americans are very alpha. Like, we’re number one! We’re number one! We’re the best! Trump is that on steroids. And it’s a tune that Americans like to listen to. Not all Americans, not the majority, but this isn’t going to be an election about the majority. It’s about who’s going to vote. We have a country where we try very hard to get 50% of the people to vote. You have to remember, 80% of this country is either female, people of colour or young adults between the ages of 18 and 35. He has offended all three of these groups to such a large degree there’s no way he could win a majority of women, blacks, Hispanics or young people. That’s off the table. But he can win if the other side stays home, and let me tell you something, nobody is going to be excited to get up that morning and vote for Hillary Clinton, even if you like her. She does not inspire that in people. Trump, on the other hand, inspires his side. It’s like Munich in 1932.
Is it? Is it fascism?
It is fascism, of course it is. Absolutely. Yes. He wants to combine the power of capital with the power of the state and to use the “other” to drive a huge amount of fear into people’s hearts. That’s working well with the 19%, that’s all that’s left of white men in America over the age of 35. The country’s changing but they are not going to go quietly and that’s why you see how big and how angry the whole thing is. I have told people to take it very seriously. Look, of course, he’s a clown. He’s a performance artist. He’s a buffoon. He’s all these things.
Trump represents and is benefiting from a backlash from globalization, the hollowing out of the middle class, off-shoring of well paid jobs to China, a gearing of the political system by the 1% and a series of failed wars since 9/11.
The status quo is failing the majority of Americans. Hilary Clinton personifies that status quo establishment.
Trump is the beneficiary of that desperate need for change.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
Whether he will make a real difference to working and middle class Americans is another matter. However, to many, a punt of the Donald is worth a chance considering the alternative.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
Lord Beria3 wrote:Micheal Moore does not make much sense.
Trump represents and is benefiting from a backlash from globalization, the hollowing out of the middle class, off-shoring of well paid jobs to China, a gearing of the political system by the 1% and a series of failed wars since 9/11.
The status quo is failing the majority of Americans. Hilary Clinton personifies that status quo establishment.
Trump is the beneficiary of that desperate need for change.
You are right about the backlash but Trump is proving to be inept to say the least. He is managing to offend a different group of voters almost every day for no good reason. Between now and November the voters will decide he is all hair and no substance. People want a change but they want it to be actually delivered in a way they can actually benefit from it.
So Trump has won the "I'm against the way it is" battle, but is going to lose the war about what to do about it.
I wouldn't write him off at all and Trump certainly uses blunt language. However, Middle America is responding to him according to polls.
People are sick of political correctness and this growing climate that you can't criticize ethnic or religious minorities without being accused of racism.
Being opposed to illegal immigration doesn't make you racist.
Being concerned about the lack of border security does not make you a racist.
Being concerned about the threat of a illiberal, homophobic, misogynistic and extremist version of Islam which significant minorities of Muslim support (according to respected polls throughout the Muslim world) does not make you a racist.
Wanting to limit immigration due to the above radical version of Islam to your own country does not make you a racist.
Anyway, you get my point. Trump is not a racist.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
I wouldn't write him off at all and Trump certainly uses blunt language. However, Middle America is responding to him according to polls.
People are sick of political correctness and this growing climate that you can't criticize ethnic or religious minorities without being accused of racism.
Being opposed to illegal immigration doesn't make you racist.
Being concerned about the lack of border security does not make you a racist.
Being concerned about the threat of a illiberal, homophobic, misogynistic and extremist version of Islam which significant minorities of Muslim support (according to respected polls throughout the Muslim world) does not make you a racist.
Wanting to limit immigration due to the above radical version of Islam to your own country does not make you a racist.
Anyway, you get my point. Trump is not a racist.
I get your point but completely disagree with you. He is both racist and foolish enough to offend voter blocks for no good reason. 333,000,000 Americans and we get to choose between these Bozos?
biffvernon wrote:Interesting interview with Michael Moore in today's Observer:
Can you explain Donald Trump to a European?
I’m thinking how to put this… I’m sure you’ve noticed Americans are very alpha. Like, we’re number one! We’re number one! We’re the best! Trump is that on steroids. And it’s a tune that Americans like to listen to. Not all Americans, not the majority, but this isn’t going to be an election about the majority. It’s about who’s going to vote. We have a country where we try very hard to get 50% of the people to vote. You have to remember, 80% of this country is either female, people of colour or young adults between the ages of 18 and 35. He has offended all three of these groups to such a large degree there’s no way he could win a majority of women, blacks, Hispanics or young people. That’s off the table. But he can win if the other side stays home, and let me tell you something, nobody is going to be excited to get up that morning and vote for Hillary Clinton, even if you like her. She does not inspire that in people. Trump, on the other hand, inspires his side. It’s like Munich in 1932.
Is it? Is it fascism?
It is fascism, of course it is. Absolutely. Yes. He wants to combine the power of capital with the power of the state and to use the “other” to drive a huge amount of fear into people’s hearts. That’s working well with the 19%, that’s all that’s left of white men in America over the age of 35. The country’s changing but they are not going to go quietly and that’s why you see how big and how angry the whole thing is. I have told people to take it very seriously. Look, of course, he’s a clown. He’s a performance artist. He’s a buffoon. He’s all these things.
Michael Moore, talking about the UK, wrote:It’s sad how like us you are becoming.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
Agree with that Trumps tone and comments are unacceptable at times and he has unnecessarily pissed of major voting blocs.
His policies are much sounder than people give him credit for. I have always thought that a more sober and reasonable tone could deliver him the White House. The question is whether he has the self discipline to achieve that.
His trump card is Hilary Clinton. She is despised by the majority of Americans but he still needs to do the work and take the advice of the very smart operators around him.
Wouldn't write him off at all though.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
