Vincent J. Curtis
31 March 2014
My hometown newspaper is once again on a tear. It is indulging the habit of airing opinions
that are transparently and obviously absurd.
Perhaps, letting some people and some groups bay and the
moon is a good thing. Steam is let off
that would otherwise build in pressure until something exploded violently. However, it is also often useful to review
the argumentation employed by these wackos, if nothing more than to keep our
own mental knives sharp.
The first article was written by D.C. who is a poobah in the
groups “Environment Hamilton” and “Hamilton 350.” The first group “seeks to inspire people to
protect and enhance the environment” while the second is a global warming
doomsday cult.
Briefly, D.C. rehearses the usual arguments that the world
is going to hell in a handbasket, and to prove his case cites one of the usual
suspects: a “NASA sponsored” study (read: Jim Hanson). Apparently, industrial civilization is going
to collapse on the grounds that Rev. Malthus would recognize and, in fact,
first employed himself some two centuries ago, when the earth had fewer than
one billion of human population.
Presently, the earth has over seven billion and that number continues to
grow.
D.C.’s solution to the problem of the imminent collapse of
world civilization as we know it is to collapse the world civilization and the
world economy as we know it. So,
catastrophe awaits human civilization regardless.
Those who are familiar with Gaia and with deep ecology will
recognize the proposed solution: to reduce the size of the human herd to manageable
proportions. But D.C. generously thinks
it should be done in a “graceful” way.
Other things which will prevent global catastrophe are to have a maximum
wage as well as a minimum wage to reduce income inequality. He calls for monetary reform, but fails to
propose anything. He wants economic
measures such as GDP to be abolished because they promote the wrong thing. And, of course, work sharing.
He concludes with “if this seems like idealistic claptrap,
remember that the economy is a sub-set of the environment.” Well, the economy being a “sub-set of the
environment” is claptrap as well, so in an argument full of claptrap, D.C., you may as well end with a resounding example
of it!
The Gaia people believe that a sustainable world human
population is around one billion people.
That means that over the next generation or two, to meet their
expectations, the human herd has to be reduced by six-sevenths, or by 85.7
%. That is a die-off of a species not
seen since the last asteroid hit the earth.
And if we don’t do this, something even worse is going to happen!! What this is I’m not sure, but I think I, my
children, and my grandchildren would rather take their chances with the other
thing.
A human die-off of 85.7 % would certainly do a number on the
world GDP. Now that would be a good
reason not to look at those numbers anymore.
What ought to be most worrisome is that these folks chant
the following incantation: Think Globally, Act Locally. What this means for us is, that it is the
Western economies and the Western populations that are intended to take the
hits. If India, China, and Brazil don’t
cut back on their economic growth and their population growth, there is no
point about Canada, the United States, and Europe cutting back on theirs,
because the world will go to hell simply on the growth of those three
countries.
Getting India, China, and Brazil to go along with
Environment Hamilton and Hamilton 350 is a matter D.C. fails to address.
The second wacko is K.D.
This guy rehearses the usual arguments about the abolishment of Separate
Schools in Ontario. The right of Roman
Catholics to have a fully funded Separate School system in Ontario is a
black-letter right that was put into the original British North America Act of
1867, and remains there in the current Constitution Act, 1982. To abolish Separate Schools in Ontario would
require that the Constitution Act be amended in the teeth of Roman Catholic
opposition. This niggly little problem,
K.D. utterly fails to address.
What he complains about simultaneously are: Public Schools
are failing because of mismanagement by the school boards, while Separate
Schools are doing just fine, thank you.
But not due to the superior management by the Separate Boards, it is
because the playing field is not level!
And it is high time for a little equity, he argues.
To bring about equity, the funding for Separate Boards needs
to be ended entirely! All students need
to be treated equally (equally stupidly, he means.) We need to eliminate duplication of
services. A government duopoly will not
do, we need a government monopoly. K.D.
would not be aware that the public boards were failing without the Separate
Boards to compare them to.
Nevertheless, we need to have one system that would benefit
all students in Ontario. Milk and honey
would flow in abundant quantities, sufficient for all if this came to pass.
K.D. has been a high school teacher for 28 years. He used the statement “there are equally the
same frustrating issues that come from dealing with hundreds of teenagers in
one place.” Equally the same.
Wow.
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