Posted on 03/19/2015 11:51:02 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
".....For decades the National Geographic Society has engaged in serious exploration and scientific inquiry and has earned the confidence of thousands of members/readers. That makes it worrisome that key people there seem to have become followers of the concept of Deep Ecology proclaimed by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess in 1973.
The concept holds that all life, from human to dust mites, should be safe to live and pursue happiness. Although we humans are the only species with the ability to reason, this gives no special privileges; rather, the responsibility for all the others. To do this, we must not exploit the earth’s resources nor overpopulate it. Naess claimed the earth’s population should be reduced from six billion to about 100 million.
This worldview gave early environmentalists something much bigger to worry about than the shrinking habitat of a particular wild animal. It gave them the basis for a secular religion in which the noble cause of biodiversity could only be achieved by reducing industrial production and commerce and, along with these, steady downward pressure on standards of living and population.
“Climate Change” fits the religion neatly. If projections herald natural calamities—sea-level cities underwater; polar ice caps melting—fifty years from now, well, we had better do something right now to prevent it.
It is scientists who are making the projections, so bear in mind these are the computer result of assumptions fed into them. Some of those scientists are living off grants from sources that already believe in the Deep Ecology theory. The insistence that long-range “Climate Change” or “Global Warming” is “settled science” is an ideological/political claim, not a scientific one. To buttress this insistence, however, the proponents treat weather aberrations as evidence of their claims...."
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
John P. Holdren - Obama's Science and Technology Adviser ".......In 1969 Holdren wrote that it was imperative “to convince society and its leaders that there is no alternative but the cessation of our irresponsible, all-demanding, and all-consuming population growth.” That same year, he and professor of population studies Paul Ehrlich jointly predicted: “If … population control measures are not initiated immediately and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come.” In 1971 Holdren and Ehrlich warned that “some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century.”
Viewing capitalism as an economic system that is inherently harmful to the natural environment, Holdren and Ehrlich (in their 1973 book Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions) called for “a massive campaign … to de-develop the United States” and other Western nations in order to conserve energy and facilitate growth in underdeveloped countries. “De-development,” they said, “means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” “By de-development,” they elaborated, “we mean lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets, and the abolition of planned obsolescence.” The authors added:
"The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential if a decent life is to be provided for every human being."
On another occasion, Holdren, when asked whether Americans would "need to reduce their living standards," said:
"I think ultimately that the rate of growth of material consumption is going to have to come down, and there’s going to have to be a degree of redistribution of how much we consume, in terms of energy and material resources, in order to leave room for people who are poor to become more prosperous.".....................
Science or dogma at the National Geographic Society?
Battle brewing over NASA funding [Cruz takes on the "greening" of NASA]
An insult to the National Enquirer, since they were the one to break stories the national leftist media refused to. They have more credibility than the NY Slimes.
NG has been trending this way for a long time - now they’ve jumped the shark and a lot of people will wake up - well, at least those with reasoning skills that haven’t been too numbed and can still remember HOW to think.
The only thing I liked NG for was the nice maps they’d print every other month or so.
Haven’t read it in years. Used to subscribe in the 70’s when it celebrated real science. Won’t even pick it up in the doctor’s office.
1/20/17. It cannot come soon enough
California
Sometimes I like watching shows about nature and such. I watched NatGeo for about 20 minutes and there is was...blah, blah, blah, Climate Change, blah, blah, blah.
Switched channels.
Happy bed bugs, mosquitos and rats. Yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about.
How absurd.
There goes another bed bug, just pursuing happiness.
NatGeo was great when it was about science. It has become nothing more than a travel mag with a global warming agenda.
They need to clean out the board. And I mean everyone gets the axe and replace them with people who love science. There is plenty of science around to keep people entertained.
dumped them at least 15 years ago because of gw rants and generally leftist views.
Ditto. I used to subscribe (well, in laws used to get me a sub every year as BD present). It has been over a decade since I asked them for something else. I don’t miss it. I’ve hit the NG website a few times recently looking for information. They have bought into the liberal agenda feeding global warming scam in a big way. Sad really.
This is to misunderstand deep ecologists. I published this about the philosophy in my first book 2001:
The principles of Deep Ecology (there are 8) fall afoul of several constraints. First, (as they constantly remind us) humans already are an interconnected part of nature, competing for our individual benefit in our own manner as a species. Second, “Richness and diversity” are perceptions of value, important only to humans (near monoculture is a common phenomena in nature). Third, the idea that humans are responsible for maintaining a status quo among populations of existing species as a matter of “rights” is imposing a human set of values onto the results of mortal competition among species. It is a denial of dynamic equilibrium in natural selection and antithetical to the cyclical ebb and flow of populations of predators and prey. If humans are so inherently destructive that they must be separated from nature, how could it be possible for humans to have a biocentric view? There would certainly be no hands-on opportunity to learn one. Although that might save having to expend a lot of physical effort, how would it help?
Further, these same people believe that nature is so robust and so rugged that it is fully capable of recovery without intervention, but that it is too fragile to survive our attempts to help. To decide not to take action because of the view that nature will somehow “know better” what to do, is just as much a projection of human impressions onto nature, as is the conclusion that the situation demands the investment of time and money. There is no mechanism in the process of natural selection that implies volition on the part of nature, much less prospective reversibility.
On the other hand, humans DO exhibit prospective volition. However, if we adhere to this perspective of doing nothing, what good is preventive intervention? How would we learn to exercise it effectively and benevolently? How would we learn to reduce the impact of urban technology if we did not interact? Such a process bias toward inaction precludes even the significant probability of constructive errors.
A biocentric perspective also presumes that humans are capable of anything other than human perception. If one is busily experiencing a totality, from what perspective does one notice that?
If humans cannot assume this pan-perspective, and are operating under the belief that they are inherently destructive, then why would they consider the effort to learn it of any redeeming value? Would that choice not also be corrupted by human desire? Why, then, act to prevent action?
Any humans action in a competitive system results in harm to something. Deep ecologists would feel distraught at the loss and guilty of the failure to prevent it. Thus, to actively seek collective dominance over people they disdain, politically forcing others into mandated inaction in order to protect themselves from risk to their personal feelings, is not only anthropocentric; it is an egocentric view.
Perhaps that is why it seems to be so popular!
Finally, the projection of persona, spirit, or rights upon anything other than citizens is little more than a twisted democratic power play. It is a claim of an exclusive franchise to represent an artifi-cial constituency. Maybe those plants do need protection; but who gets to decide by what means, and to what end?
A biocentric perspective projects the spirituality of being into everything. To a deep ecologist, a rock would have a rock’s spirit, a rock’s consciousness, and thus deserves civil rights equivalent to human beings, which they alone purport to represent.
This is a debilitating thing to do to one’s own mind, much less to a republic. To claim to represent the rights of rocks is to project a subjective human impression of a rock’s preferences onto rocks. What if they were wrong? Perhaps the rocks might feel more appreciated by a mineral geologist who would want to make aluminum cans out of them?
Did anybody ask the rocks? You guess.
When deep ecologists demand rights for rocks and plants, what they are really doing is demanding disproportionate representation of their interests as the self-appointed advocates for the rights of rocks and plants.
Unfortunately, to enforce a right requires the police power of government, the only agent so capable. Government acquires this role because it is assumed to be a disinterested arbiter of competing claims.
History suggests quite the opposite.
When government gains the power to confer rights to any constituency, it acquires the means to confer power upon itself as an enforcing agent. There is then no limit to the power to dilute the rights of citizens. Civic respect for unalienable rights of citizens then exists not at all.
This is why I spent 25 years proving that human management is superior to "nature" left alone. That philosophy has produced results now available for all to see.
I gave up on National Geographic in the ‘60s when I realized that Playboy was far more consistent in printing pictures of topless women than they were (and, the topless women in Playboy were a whole lot prettier). I discarded National Geographic to the dust bin of history in the ‘70s when I realized that liberalism was a scam that the bulk of the press including they were overtly promoting while pretending to be unbiased. Since then, it seems that the only difference is that they have stopped pretending.
Soon to join the Christian Science Monitor as a non published magazine.
Yep - the TV channel has gone to adding opinions outside the topic. There is a mulatto "scientists" guy who talks a lot about the universe/gravity/etc., and he periodically tells the audience how bad global warming is and how those who blame the Sun are barking up the wrong tree - it's all the fault of Men. I had to stop watching PIVT because of all the pro-homosexual commercials and now NG because of the added hokum. Ere long I may be able to go to a cheaper package and not lose any of the channels I do watch....
Waitaminutehere. Are you saying they had some programming attempting to show science?
Every time I've seen that channel the show was another episode of Alaska State Troopers.
Know this about these leftist freaks in the so-called “Deep Ecology” cult. Patriots infiltrated Deep Ecology back in the 1980s and 90s. They found that when these cultists are out of public view, they openly talk about murdering billions of people. The cultish philosophy of Deep Ecology is directly traceable to the Third Reich’s Blut and Boden (Blood and Soil) cult, started by Heinrich Himmler, the head of the murderous Nazi SS.
One of the spiritual leaders of the Deep Ecology cult is the Satanic occultist Maurice Strong. Here’s the public face of Strong’s Fourth Reich training compound.
http://www.transition-dynamics.com/crestone/9crestonecolorado.html
When you hear the words “Deep Ecology,” you are facing the nascent Fourth Reich neo-Nazi movement.
As a young boy I eagerly looked forward to the delivery each month of the National Geographic back in the early 70s. I would devour each issue from the spectacular cover photos to the Beechcraft ads on the back inside cover. I wanted to buy a KingAir and fly to Costa Rica! Some of the photos and articles are a permanent memory as clear today as the day I first read them. Feeling nostalgic last year I subscribed. It didn’t take but a couple issues for me to realize that the old National Geographic was dead and the new National Geographic was merely a religious publication dedicated to the Cult of the Warming Globe. The latest issue I received went straight in the trash; I didn’t even bother to open it. Thomas Wolfe was right, you can’t go home again.
Not only that...I went shopping the other day and saw...I’m not kidding...’National Geographic’-brand freeze-dried foods.
Talk about “jumping the shark”...
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