The Green Cult

We have seen how true ecology preserves, enriches and perfects nature in order to derive a benefit. It stimulates the progress of races and cultures of animal or plant species. Whereas the “green” ecologists, on the contrary, campaign to restrict or even prohibit the legitimate use of God’s creation to feed mankind. The true ecologist really loves creation while the “green” ecologist hates it (one could say he thus hates God indirectly).

This article focuses more on the radical “green” ideology continuing to use the book My Truth on the Planet (2007) by Claude Allègre—a member of the French Academy of Sciences.

If the ecological movement is a “cult”, as Claude Allègre affirms, then it must have its “gurus”. So who are they? Without denying there are several currents, he names three main “gurus”: the son a French farmer, José Bové, former Vice-President Al Gore, and Nicolas Hulot an ecological reporter known for his television program entitled Ushuaia. Since Nicolas Hulot is a rising star—at least in France—Claude Allègre focuses on him.

The “Ecological Pact” and a Return to the Caves

According do Allègre, Nicolas Hulot’s book In favour of an Ecological Pact aspires to be for ecology what The Communist Manifesto was for Soviet ideology. (p.46)

Claude Allègre carefully analyses Hulot’s program in his book. He says it is full of good intentions but “implies a philosophy exactly similar to that of the Club of Rome—a global think tank that deals with a variety of international political issues founded in April 1968—in the 1970’s”. This philosophy consists of an “illuminated catastrophic outlook” in order to engage citizens in a strategy of backward growth and a return to frugality. Such a programme turns its back on progress considering it a risk. If adopted, it would lead France to ruin, Allègre warns.

Allègre insists: “We are not preparing a 21st Century France, but a return to the caves”. And he sums it up by saying that this programme would lead to a fearful, regressive and bureaucratic France with controls on everything under an authoritarian and restrictive regime. “Would the ideal envisioned be an eco-totalitarian regime?,” Allègre asks. (p. 56) He further accuses the “greens” of maintaining a dictatorial climate and permanent intellectual terrorism. (pp. 69, 88)

It beggars belief that such a backward programme could have been presented as even remotely successful to such a lucid and intelligent people as the French. This “ecological pact,” proposed by Hulot, was signed by the main presidential candidates, including Nicolas Sarkozy.

Absurdities That Wither and Absurdities That Thrive

The late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, founder of the Brazilian TFP and inspirer of 20 others on five continents, wrote a far-sighted book in 1977 entitled Indian Tribalism, The Communist Missionary Ideal for Brazil in the 21st Century (Ed. Vera Cruz, São Paulo, 1977). In this book he says:

“While there are absurdities that wither and die in times of serenity, precisely because they are absurdities; there are also absurdities that, especially in times of crisis, thrive, acquire influence, ravage and devastate precisely because they are absurd”. (p. 47)

So this is not only a danger for France, but also for Brazil—indeed the whole world. Have we not already taken on board much of this totalitarian mentality that is paralysing our agriculture, industry, roads and hydroelectric installations?

Allègre points out how the “green cult” considers man to be essentially bad and without scruples. Therefore he should be severely punished. For the ecologist, terrestrial paradise is frugality, i.e. tribal life. Allègre concludes with a meaningful phrase from Marcel Gauchet “Love of nature is a poor disguise for hatred of mankind.” And he asks: “By stifling industry and agriculture, nuclear energy, oil, ethanol, coal, hydroelectric dams, GM crops, growth, etc., how will the world live? Will it go back to tribal life?” (pp. 60 ss.)

Indeed, no matter how absurd it may seem, the ultimate goal is a return to the forests and tribal life.

The Christian Concept as Opposed to the “Progressive” One

Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in the aforementioned work compares the “progressive” concept upon which the ecologists base themselves and the traditional Christian one:

“According to the traditional Christian concept, man has a tendency towards egoism, but he is not all egoism. Egoism is only a moral deformity in him.

“The use that man makes of his intelligence, of his will, and of his sensibility to provide for his own individual good, in conformity with the law of God and the natural order, is not condemnable but virtuous. It is a corollary of the fact that man is intelligent and endowed with a will—therefore a person, not a thing—and has a transcendental end. Man is thus the owner of himself….

“On the contrary, in the new concept studied here, man is not seen as a person who has an immediate finality in himself and a transcendental end in God; rather, he is viewed as part of a whole. The part lives for the whole. Separated from the whole, man is worthless and, so to speak, nothing. Man receives everything from the whole; all inspiration, impulse, and one could almost say, life itself.” (p. 31)

The “green cult” could easily make its own the conclusions of the 1st National Congress for Indian Native Ministry published by the CIMI (Indian Missionary Council, Brazil) in its bulletin Year 4, no. 22, July-August 1975:

“The Indians already live the Beatitudes. They know nothing about private property, profit, competition. They lead an essentially communitarian life in perfect equilibrium with nature. They are not plunderers; they do not disturb the ecology.”

Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira adroitly asks: “But what is a society without private property, without profit and competition but a truly communist one?” (p. 53)

Furthermore the idea of the “Noble Savage” is false (see box below).

Eco-Fundamentalism: Nature Is Above Man Himself

Former French minister of Education Luc Ferry, who studied in detail the foundations of ecology in the 19th century, says the origin of theoretical ideas of this current of opinion are to be found in North America and Germany.

He distinguishes two attitudes. The first is the “environmental” one which is concerned with the harm that man causes to nature since this, in the end, harms man himself. In other words it is concerned with nature in the measure it affects mankind. The second is what Ferry calls “ecological fundamentalism” which considers nature more important than man. So they speak of the “rights” of animals and even of plants.

Claude Allègre distinguishes two attitudes as regards progress and humanism. “The environmentalists are humanists that adhere to progress, but not to productivity. They criticise progress and sometimes even humanism, but all this is done from within. The eco-fundamentalists are hostile to both progress and humanism. Their criticism comes from without. (p. 71)

In the political field, Allègre remarks how the ecologists have had little impact. In the recent French elections, their candidates received less than 2% of the vote. Nonetheless, the incapacity of the Left to convince public opinion leads many of its more astute militants to seek their future in the ecological cause.

Friar Betto—a well-known leftist de-frocked Franciscan—in an interview with the Folha de S. Paulo on 11/6/2007, said: “The issue of the environment is a stickler because it affects all regardless of social class or country. Who knows if the environmental issue, to the surprise of the Old Left, won’t be a tool to make radical changes on the planet?”

“When One Knows Nothing but Foresees Everything”

Claude Allègre believes the impact force of the “green cult” lies in the “principle of precaution” that permits it to propose anything, in any way, at any moment. This principle started in 1976 in a report on protection of the environment authored by Konrad von Moltke. In 1986 the principle was adopted in a directive of the German government, and, in 1992, in the conclusions of the leaders at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).

In the convention on biological diversity, this principle is stated thus: since a threat to the environment has been “identified, the absence of absolute scientific certainty should not be given as a reason to delay measures that will diminish the danger” (p. 74)

This same principle was taken up by other conventions and international agreements. Little by little, even the idea of scientific certainty disappeared from the texts. Hubert Curien—a French physicist and a key figure in European science politics—comments: “Precaution leads one to take into consideration all sorts of things that cannot be demonstrated, but which are emotionally evocative. No matter we do, they want you to create the conditions to prevent an event that is not foreseeable, but which we cannot be sure will not happen”.

In other words, it is the dictatorship of precaution, at any price, that leads governments to spend fortunes to prevent the unforeseeable! As Claude Allègre sarcastically says, “when one knows nothing, we foresee everything”. (p. 75)

The catastrophic intellectual dictatorship of the “green cult” imposes itself equally in regards to climate change, global warming and other issues (pp. 78-105). As we have stated above, the “greens” do not hesitate to have recourse to fraud or intellectual dishonesty. Allègre demonstrates that the recent weather changes, for example, are not unique or exceptional (p. 107). The reality is more complex than certain terrifying interpretations going around. As the philosopher Dominique Lecourt said: “it is technophobic catastrophicism and its by-product is scare tactic journalism!” (pp. 120-167)

Kyoto Protocols: Increase in Unemployment

The protocols of Kyoto were written in the same spirit. Claude Allègre says that “it is one of the most absurd international treaties”. Although having been signed by many countries, it never was implemented and never will be. It will cost 370 billion dollars (£246 billion), entail the unemployment of millions of people, and has an impossible goal, Allègre believes. The United States opted out. But the newspapers nonetheless continue to trumpet the necessity of an agreement that nobody knows what it really consists of.

[ed. note: the more recent Copenhagen Summit was also a useless exercise. Even Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International, called Copenhagen “an abject failure.”]

This book by Claude Allègre not only inveighs against the immense worldwide media machine, but also proposes positive suggestions for an ecology that is not an enemy of progress, but rather a factor for growth. Some of his suggestions are: the development of GM crops that will permit plants to resist the lack of water (extremely useful in arid areas of the planet) and will avoid the use of toxic chemicals for disease control; the reclaiming of biodiversity along the waterways and in the forests; and hybrid or electric cars.

From the above, we can see that the radical ecologists say they love the planet, but in fact ultimately wish to destroy the order and hierarchy that God placed in His creation. God created man in His image and likeness to govern and to be a good steward of His creation. The radical ecologists wish to invert this order by making man, at best, an equal partner, when not placing him at the very bottom of this order.

It is indeed a “green cult” with a radically anti-Christian agenda.

The Noble Savage

The Noble Savage is not a person, but an idea. It is cultural primitivism, the belief of people living in complex and evolved societies that the simple and primitive life is better. The Noble Savage is the myth that man can live in harmony with nature, that technology is destructive and that we would all be happier in a more primitive state.

In 1755, Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that what appeared to be human progress was in fact decay. The best condition for human beings to live in, according to Rousseau, was the “pure state of nature” in which savages existed. When men lived as hunters and gatherers, they were “free, healthy, honest and happy.” The downfall of man occurred when people started to live in cities, acquire private property and practice agriculture and metallurgy. The acquisition of private property resulted in inequality, aroused the vice of envy and led to perpetual conflict and unceasing warfare.

According to Rousseau, civilization itself was the scourge of humanity. Rousseau went so far as to make the astonishing claim that the source of all human misery was what he termed our “faculty of improvement,” or the use of our minds to improve the human condition.

Since Rousseau wrote, more than 250 years of archeological and ethnographic research have shown that most of the imaginative conceptions associated with the Noble Savage are simply wrong. Archeologist Steven A. Leblanc wrote that “warfare in the past was pervasive and deadly.” Conflict between bands of hunter-gatherers was universal and intense, and the practices of cannibalism and infanticide were common.

Before the Industrial Revolution disease and poverty were endemic, even in civilized societies. In 18th century Europe half of all children died before their 10th birthday, and life expectancy at birth was only 25 years.

Neither did pre-industrial civilizations live in a state of ecological harmony with their environment. Their exploitation of nature was often destructive. The Mediterranean islands colonized by the ancient Greeks were transformed into barren rock by overgrazing and deforestation. The Bay of Troy, described in Homer’s Iliad, has been filled in by sediment eroded from surrounding hillsides destabilized by unsustainable agricultural practices.

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