If you want to understand a human being or the human condition, what is the single most important question you should ask?
Most religious people would probably ask, &#8220;Do you believe in God?&#8221;
The most important question most secular people, especially progressives, could imagine asking is probably a policy question. Today it would be &#8220;Do you support Donald Trump?&#8221; Otherwise it might be &#8220;Do you support abortion rights?&#8221; or &#8220;Do you support gay marriage?&#8221;
As important as all of these questions are, in attempting to understand human beings, especially large groups of human beings — i.e., their society — the most important question to ask is &#8220;What in life gives you the most meaning?&#8221;
The answer does not explain everything, of course, but it explains the human condition better than any other question.
The reason is this: After food, the greatest human need and human desire is meaning. Even more so than the ability to reason or even to speak, this is the great divide between human and animal. We share all other needs with the higher animal species and share many needs with some of the lower animal species. Like them, we need food, shelter and companionship. But, while human beings seek and need meaning more than anything except food (and companionship — but for human beings, companionship usually provides some meaning, and sometimes enough), no animal needs or seeks meaning. As an aside, this is one of the reasons I believe in God, the Creator. There is no evolutionary explanation for the need for meaning. Meaning is not a biological need.
Given its unique importance, that is why what gives us meaning must be deemed the most important question.
The problem, however, is that just as the need for food has no inherent moral quality, the need for meaning has no inherent moral quality. Meaning can be found in evil just as it can be found in good. Nazism provided millions of Germans with as much meaning as helping the dying in Calcutta provided Mother Teresa. Slaughtering infidels gives radical Islamic terrorists as much meaning as feeding the poor gives those who work for the Salvation Army. Killing the &#8220;Christ-killer&#8221; Jews gave some medieval Christians as much meaning as saving Jews gave some European Christians during the Holocaust.
For most Americans until the last generation, the need for meaning was filled by family, religion, community and patriotism (i.e., love of America and belief in America as Abraham Lincoln put it: as &#8220;the last best hope of earth.&#8221;)
All, or nearly all, of those sources of meaning are being lost. In fact, the present generation of Americans has few or none of those meaning providers.
As regards family, Americans are marrying at a later age than ever before. Fewer Americans are marrying than ever before. And fewer are having children than ever before.
With regard to religion, more than a third of millennials — by far the largest percentage of any generation in American history — do not identify with any religion.
As for community, a vast number of Americans — of every age — have lost ties to any community. This is a major reason for the epidemic of loneliness that afflicts so many Americans (and so many others) at the present time. For example, The New York Times reported in 2018 that in Britain, &#8220;more than nine million people in the country often or always feel lonely, according to a 2017 report published by the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness.&#8221; Then-Prime Minister Theresa May actually appointed a minister of loneliness.
And regarding America, what is there to believe in? For more than a generation, young Americans have been taught contempt for this country: Its past is essentially racist, genocidal and imperialist. So much for patriotism.
So, then, what is to give meaning to Americans who have lost all or most of the above? Something has to, because the need for meaning is as built in and as universal as the need for food.
The answer is self-evident: Whatever it is, it must provide meaning without being dependent on family, community, religion or patriotism.
And what is that? Leftism.
All of leftism (not liberalism, which affirms all the traditional meaning providers) consists of meaning providers that replace community, religion, America and even family (single women are a major, even dominant, demographic of the left).
For leftists, feminism, environmentalism, socialism and trans rights provide meaning. The life-filling meaning of leftism is most evident in the constant leftist use of the term &#8220;existential threat.&#8221; President Donald Trump &#8220;is posing an existential threat to America,&#8221; wrote leftist Frank Rich in the latest issue of New York Magazine. &#8220;Bloomberg, in Campaign Event, Calls Trump an &#8216;Existential Threat,'&#8221; ABC News headlined two months ago. A Mother Jones headline two weeks ago read, &#8220;Trump Is an &#8216;Existential&#8217; Threat: Ilana Glazer, Eric Holder, and 2020.&#8221; A ThinkProgress headline last July read, &#8220;The Existential Threat Trump Poses to the World Political Order Is a 2020 Campaign Issue.&#8221; The Sioux City Journal headlined last week, &#8220;Biden: Trump Represents &#8216;an Existential Threat to the Future of Our Country.'&#8221;
Fighting President Trump means fighting for the very existence of the world&#8217;s order and for democracy in America. What could possibly give those devoid of meaning more meaning than that?
Well, there is one other thing: fighting for the very existence of the world itself. That is the animating impulse of the left&#8217;s obsession with global warming. &#8220;(T)he world is going to end in 12 years if we don&#8217;t address climate change,&#8221; says Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a recent CNN town hall that the &#8220;climate crisis&#8221; is an &#8220;existential threat to the planet.&#8221; There are as many assertions of fossil fuels posing an existential threat to Earth&#8217;s survival as there are leftists (and the many liberals who fear the left).
The proof that this alleged saving of democracy and the world from extinction are nothing more than left-wing meaning givers is this: The only communities who don&#8217;t believe this continue to possess all the traditional meaning givers. We don&#8217;t need the left&#8217;s substitutes.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; came to theaters fall 2019. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

Street lights.

PRAGER: The Question That Explains Almost Everything

Environmentalism

Leftism

Religion

Socialism

On Wednesday, the Trump administration approved a right-of-way permitting the $8 billion Keystone XL oil sands pipeline to be built across 46 miles of land controlled by the federal government, taking a giant step toward completing the full construction of the pipeline.
As the <a href="https://apnews.com/c43e33814ee71e770fdde0772d9213a9">Associated Press</a> noted, the 1,200 mile pipeline had already garnered the requisite permits from states and localities to be built, but until Wednesday the section in Montana controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had been off-limits.
Casey Hammond, assistant secretary of the Interior Department, confirmed that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had signed off on the agreement.
The Keystone pipeline had already been built in June 2010 traveling over 2,100 miles from Hardisty, Alberta in Canada through Steele City, Nebraska to Wood River Refinery in Roxana, Illinois and Patoka Oil Terminal just north of Patoka, Illinois. In 2011, the Keystone-Cushing extension (Phase II) was completed, running almost 300 miles Steele City to Cushing, Oklahoma. In January 2014, Phase III was completed, running roughly 500 miles from Cushing to  refineries in Port Arthur, Texas. In 2016, a lateral pipeline was added traveling to Houston, Texas.
The Keystone XL pipeline connects Hardisty to Steel City using the shorter route running through Montana and uses a larger diameter pipe, running through Baker, Montana.
The Senate passed a bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline in January 2015; the House followed suit in February 2015. President Obama <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/obama-vetoes-keystone-xl-pipeline-bill-n311671">vetoed the bill</a> on February 24, 2015, stating that it &#8220;attempts to circumvent longstanding and proven processes for determining whether or not building and operating a cross-border pipeline serves the national interest.&#8221;
The Senate was unable to gain the requisite number of votes to override the veto by a two-thirds majority, with a 62–37 vote. In January 2017, President Trump signed a presidential memorandum to revive the Keystone XL pipeline; in March 2017 he signed a presidential permit to allowing it to be built.
But in November 2018, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris vacated the presidential permit. In March 2019 Trump revoked the prior permit and issued a <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/04/03/2019-06654/authorizing-transcanada-keystone-pipeline-lp-to-construct-connect-operate-and-maintain-pipeline">new permit</a> for the pipeline, writing, “I hereby grant permission, subject to the conditions herein set forth, to TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, L.P. … to construct, connect, operate, and maintain pipeline facilities at the international border of the United States and Canada at Phillips County, Montana, for the import of oil from Canada to the United States.”
Project sponsor TC Energy has stated it would like to begin construction on the U.S.-Canada border crossing in Montana in April. Environmentalists and Native Americans have protested the Keystone XL pipeline with a number of lawsuits; Steve Volker, representing the Indigenous Environmental Network, stated, “We have every confidence that the federal courts will set aside these approvals.”
Phillips County, Montana, county commissioner John Carnahan, aware that the pipeline will bring the county tax revenue of $1 million annually, stated, “It’s a no-brainer for us as far as how the community feels. We’d go out there and help them if we could. It’s not only good for the county, it’s good for America.”
&nbsp;

President Trump Signs Executive Order In The Oval Office

Trump Administration Approves Big Step Toward Completing Keystone XL Pipeline

Donald Trump

keys

While speaking at a climate change rally on Friday, award-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix targeted the meat and dairy industries for being &#8220;the third leading cause of climate change.&#8221;
Standing alongside controversial activist and actress Jane Fonda, who organized the event, Phoenix took to the mic to blast the industries while nonetheless admitting his role in an expanding carbon footprint. For example, Phoenix had to fly a plane to the rally, something the actor suggested was out of his control.
&#8220;Something, I think, isn&#8217;t often times talked about in the environmental movement, or the conversation about climate change, is that the meat and dairy industry is the third leading cause of climate change,&#8221; started the &#8220;Joker&#8221; actor, fresh off his Golden Globes win.
&#8220;And, um, I think sometimes we think, what can we do in this fight against climate change, and there&#8217;s something that you can do today, right now, and tomorrow by making a choice what you consume,&#8221; he continued.
&#8220;I struggle so much with what I can do at times,&#8221; Phoenix added. &#8220;There are things that I can&#8217;t avoid — I flew a plane out here today, or last night, rather. But one thing that I can do is change my eating habits.&#8221;
&#8220;So I just wanna urge all of you to join me in that,&#8221; closed the actor.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Joaquin Phoenix: &quot;I struggle so much with what I can do [to combat climate change] at times. There are things that I can&#39;t avoid &#8212; I flew a plane out here today, or last night rather. But one thing that I can do is change my eating habits.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/RaZILYq0La">pic.twitter.com/RaZILYq0La</a>
&mdash; The Hill (@thehill) <a href="https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1215685904687300609?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
During his Golden Globes award acceptance speech on Sunday, Phoenix also zeroed in on climate change, taking a jab at Hollywood for its collective hypocrisy on the issue.
“It’s really nice that so many people come up and sent their well wishes, but we have to do more than that, right?” Phoenix said, referring to the fires in Australia. “I have not always been a virtuous man. I’m learning so much — so many of you in this room have given me multiple opportunities to get it right.”
As reported by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/update-dozens-more-arrested-in-australia-for-deliberately-setting-wildfires">The Daily Wire</a> earlier this week, dozens of alleged arsonists have been arrested in connection to the raging fires in Australia, reportedly setting at least 100 fires.
“It’s great to vote but sometimes we have to take that responsibility on ourselves and make changes and sacrifices in our own lives,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I hope that we can do that — we don’t have to take private jets to Palm Springs sometimes or back, please.&#8221;
“I’ll try to do better and I hope you will too,&#8221; he added.
Earlier in the speech, as noted by <a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/news/joaquin-phoenix-golden-globes-speech-joker-1203456066/">Variety</a>, Phoenix &#8220;lauded the Globes for switching to a vegan meal for the ceremony, thanking the Hollywood Foreign Press for &#8216;recognizing and acknowledging the link between animal agriculture and climate change. It’s a very bold move, making tonight plant-based.'&#8221;
Phoenix&#8217;s stand against meat and dairy has long been a cause of <a href="https://www.peta.org/living/food/10-things-wish-everyone-knew-meat-dairy-industries/">PETA</a>. &#8220;If you’re concerned about the creepy marketing, environmental damage, health risks, economic problems, or ethical issues that plague the meat industry, you can take action immediately,&#8221; the extreme animal activist group says on its website. &#8220;Make a choice to buy less meat (including fish) and fewer eggs and dairy products — or better yet, give them up completely. It’s one of the most powerful things that you can do.&#8221;

Joaquin Phoenix

WATCH: Joaquin Phoenix Targets Meat, Dairy Farmers At Climate Rally, Admits He Just Got Off Plane

Climate Change

Global Warming

Golden Globes

Progressivism

The Golden Globes will serve a meatless meal to the A-list celebrities attending the annual gala event this Sunday in order to &#8220;raise awareness&#8221; around &#8220;environmental issues.&#8221;
<a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/476531-golden-globes-meal-to-go-meatless-to-raise-environmental-awareness">The Hill reports</a> that the Hollywood Foreign Press-hosted fete will cut meat from the menu in order to set an example for the average Golden Globes viewer, whose meat-consuming habits, they say, are killing the planet. Don&#8217;t worry, though. Celebrities aren&#8217;t being asked to skimp. Instead of filet mignon and lobster, Hollywood&#8217;s elite will dine on &#8220;king oyster mushroom scallops on top of wild mushroom risotto with roasted Brussels sprouts&#8221; and &#8220;golden beet soup&#8221; &#8212; a meal concocted just for Sunday&#8217;s party by the executive chef of one of the country&#8217;s most expensive and exclusive hotels, The Beverly Hilton.
The Hollywood Foreign Press told the Associated Press in a statement that they believe the meal will set an example to average, everyday Americans, of how to approach the issue of climate change in a practical way.
“If there’s a way we can, not change the world, but save the planet, maybe we can get the Golden Globes to send a signal and draw attention to the issue about climate change,” Hollywood Foreign Press Association President Lorenzo Soria said. “The food we eat, the way we grow the food we eat, the way we dispose of the food is one of the large contributors to the climate crisis.”
“People were basically saying it’s too late, we’re ready with all the orders, the holidays and all that,” Soria he added. “But after we began discussions, meeting for one or two days, [the hotel] accepted the change completely. They started to experiment with how to do plant-based meals that was not just their symbolic steps, but also something that guests will enjoy.”
If the HFPA wants to start pressing environmental awareness, though, it might consider starting with the event attendees and not the event viewers. Many of the celebrities who will be in attendance Sunday night will fly into Hollywood for the event on private jets or on commercial aircraft. Still more will travel to the Beverly Hilton for the gala dinner and awards show in limousines from massive California mansions that emit far more carbon than the average American&#8217;s home.
The world&#8217;s richest 10% &#8212; many of whom are A-list Hollywood celebrities &#8212; produce half of all global climate emissions, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-richest-10-produce-half-of-global-carbon-emissions-says-oxfam">the British global NGO, Oxfam</a>. Although he won&#8217;t be at the event, action film star Tom Cruise is easily among the world&#8217;s worst carbon emitters, for example, owning a small fleet of private jets and several homes, and while he may be a bit ahead of his colleagues, they aren&#8217;t far behind.
Leonardo DiCaprio, a Hollywood environmental activist who is often criticized for his hypocritical approach to saving the planet, was among the first to applaud HFPA&#8217;s decision to go &#8220;plant-based&#8221; for the Globes, tweeting, “Thank you HFPA.”
If the HFPA wants to curb carbon emissions, it could also start with its own industry. <a href="https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/mpisreport.pdf">According to a 2006 UCLA study</a>, Hollywood&#8217;s film and television production creates more carbon emissions than at least five other industries in the greater Los Angeles area, including aerospace manufacturing. Only actual petroleum refining was worse for the environment.
Of course, the vegan meal is unlikely to be the only climate change-related grandstanding expected during the Golden Globes. The broadcast begins Sunday night at 8pm.

Golden Globes Meal Will Be Meatless To ‘Raise Environmental Awareness’

Climate change hysteria has brought people to such lowly depths of despair that they are now refusing to have children in order to protect the environment.
In an op-ed for The Huffington Post, guest writer Mariana Keen declared that she feels a &#8220;responsibility not to have children&#8221; in order to combat the world&#8217;s &#8220;unsustainable population size,&#8221; thus seeming to offer support for something that conservatives have alleged for years: Climate change hysteria can sometimes simply mask an insidious leftist/Malthusian movement for global population control.
&#8220;The world population is growing by approximately 83 million people every year, largely due to a high birth rate and falling death rate, and this is having a devastating impact on the planet,&#8221; argues Keen.
In Keen&#8217;s mind, not to mention <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-05/scientists-call-for-population-control-in-mass-climate-alarm">the scientists who have echoed</a> her sentiments, having children simply translates into &#8220;multiplying my impact on the environment&#8221; — which is further compounded by our &#8220;increased life expectancy.&#8221; The question of having children has weighed on Keen for years and has now reached an apex, given her age of 36. However, after careful consideration, she has decided that children will not be in her future.
&#8220;I don’t want children, and a major deciding factor for me has been the impact this would have on the environment,&#8221; she argues. &#8220;Of course, such a major life decision is multifaceted. I’ve made a lot of choices in response to environmental concerns, but the matter of kids has certainly been one of the more challenging topics to ponder because I’m interested in balancing my duty to our planet with making enriching life choices.&#8221;
Keen says her choice stems from two factors: Seeing that her friends are no more happier after having children and her responsibility to the environment.
&#8220;This, for me, means not adding to my home city’s population density, global population growth, and further destruction of our planet,&#8221; she emphasizes.
Keen then cites a 2009<a href="http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2009/jul/family-planning-major-environmental-emphasis" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:9;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk"> study by statisticians at Oregon State University</a> to support her claim, which argued that &#8220;having one less child in the U.S.&#8221; would dramatically impact the output of greenhouse gas emissions.
&#8220;The study found that under current conditions in the U.S., each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent ― about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for an average person worldwide,&#8221; she says.  &#8220;For me, this impact has been worth considering. Just as I can do my bit by recycling and limiting my waste, I can help to curb the population by limiting the number of children I have.&#8221;
&#8220;So considering the environmental impact I can have in my lifetime, I’ve decided not to have kids,&#8221; she continues. &#8220;There are so many great people in my world with whom I can share love and companionship, so I don’t feel the need to have my own child in order to feel fulfilled.&#8221;
While certain segments of the climate change activist community have called for more population control, other segments have cautioned against it. The feminist <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2019/09/24/population-control-isnt-the-answer-to-our-climate-crisis/">Ms. Magazine</a>, of all places, even argued that population control would not solve the supposed problem.
&#8220;Today, arguments for population control are reemerging in mainstream and even liberal discussions around limiting women’s fertility in the name of environmental sustainability,&#8221; the article stated. &#8220;This isn’t the first time women’s bodies have been treated as a means to a demographic end. Recall such ugly initiatives, all mainstream in their day, to forcibly sterilize Black, Latina, and Indigenous women, to treat Puerto Rican women like lab rats in contraceptive trials to keep the island’s population down and to fund sterilization camps in India.&#8221;

Activists protesting outside IFEMA, where UN Climate Change

HuffPost Op-Ed: I’m Not Having Kids Because I Care About The Environment

Huffington Post

First it was called &#8220;global warming.&#8221; Then there was that inconvenient period in the 1990s and early 2000s when the average global temperature actually fell.
So the alarmists rebranded global warming as &#8220;climate change&#8221; – and the mainstream media quickly picked up the term. Forget that Earth&#8217;s climate has been changing for billions of years.
Now, though, the alarmists think that &#8220;climate change&#8221; is not as alarming as it could be, and one is pushing new terms like “global meltdown” and “climate collapse.”
&#8220;As a professional namer, I create names for companies, products and services,&#8221; Aaron Hall writes in <a href="https://adage.com/article/industry-insights/renaming-climate-change-can-new-name-finally-make-us-take-action/2218821">AdAge</a>. &#8220;After the global climate strike this past September, I found myself thinking about the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming.’ Are these scientific terms too neutral? Do they do enough to grab attention and inspire people to take action?&#8221;
Hall says the terms “Global Meltdown” or “Global Melting,” deliver the right level of alarm. “The names signal that ice caps are melting, but also create a more visceral image in the mind – that real feeling of ‘melting’ when it’s too hot outside. A meltdown is a disastrous event that draws from the ultimate terror of a nuclear meltdown, an apt metaphor for global destruction.”
He also says &#8220;Climate Collapse&#8221; and &#8220;Climate Chaos&#8221; are properly alarming, too.
&#8220;Good brand names instill a clear message or even a direct call to action. Perhaps that&#8217;s why climate change isn’t powerful enough: &#8216;Change&#8217; sounds so neutral. However, there’s nothing neutral about collapse or chaos. Both are states of events that you absolutely want to avoid. They ask each of us to do what it takes to avoid collapsing or descending into chaos.&#8221; Hall also likes the alliteration – &#8220;a naming trick proven to enhance memorability.&#8221;
Then there&#8217;s &#8220;Boiling Point&#8221; and &#8220;Melting Point.&#8221;
&#8220;They refer to a tipping point that we’re catapulting toward and must find a way to avert. Because a boiling point is the point at which liquid vaporizes, it brings forth imagery of rivers, lakes and oceans boiling and disappearing. &#8216;Melting Point&#8217; paints a clear picture of solid matter melting. As glaciers melt and disappear, so does our way of life.&#8221;
And of course there&#8217;s the old favorite, &#8220;Scorched Earth,&#8221; a term that already has a specific meaning but, hey, maybe it can be rebranded.
&#8220;It&#8217;s time to take the gloves off and stop pretending. Sometimes a brand name needs to be hyperbolic to truly capture hearts and minds. If we don’t take massive action now, Earth will be uninhabitable – an irreversible barren wasteland. Plants and animals will die. Humans won’t be able to survive extreme weather like floods, droughts, and fires. If we don’t change, we won’t even be able to spend time outside. &#8216;Scorched Earth&#8217; paints the direst picture of what’s to come and what we must avoid and is likely the edgiest brand name from our exploration,&#8221; Hall writes.
Language is the new tool of climate alarmists. Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, said last week that the climate crisis is caused by &#8220;racist &#8230; systems of oppression.”
&#8220;The climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all. Our political leaders can no longer shirk their responsibilities,&#8221; she wrote with two other far-left climate activists in an op-ed Friday.
&#8220;Politicians and fossil-fuel companies have known about climate change for decades,&#8221; she wrote, adding, &#8220;yet the politicians let the profiteers continue to exploit our planet&#8217;s resources and destroy its ecosystems in a quest for quick cash that threatens our very existence.&#8221;

Dry cracked earth

Alarmists Want To Rebrand ‘Climate Change,’ Call It  ‘Global Meltdown’ Or ‘Climate Collapse’ Or ‘Scorched Earth’

It&#8217;s impossible to be woke enough &#8212; and that&#8217;s a lesson extremist climate activists &#8220;Extinction Rebellion,&#8221; best known for disrupting traffic in major cities with &#8220;climate strikes,&#8221; grinding urban transit to a complete halt, is learning the hard way.
The organization, which aims to prevent the world from collapsing in an firey apocalypse in just over a decade by demonstrating with parades, puppets, and contemporary art installations, has been around for just over a year, but it&#8217;s now fallen afoul of woker critics who contend that &#8220;Extinction Rebellion&#8221; or &#8220;XR&#8221; for short, is just too white, too educated, too middle class, too privileged, and too &#8220;first world&#8221; to be adequate spokespeople for radical environmentalism.
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/24/uk/extinction-rebellion-environment-diversity-gbr-intl/index.html">In a CNN article</a> published Sunday, reporter Aimee Lewis asked the all important question: is Extinction Rebellion just not woke enough?
The criticism stems, most pointedly, from a protest XR held last month in a working class neighborhood of London. Privileged white, upper crust youth and XR&#8217;s established elderly jumped on trains and chained themselves to the public transit cars in London&#8217;s subway, disrupting the morning commute of many people who told organizers that they could hardly afford to miss a day of work. The demonstrators could not have cared less, telling the commuters that saving the planet was more important than getting to work on time, even if that job was the only way those commuters could afford the basic necessities.
&#8220;Their protest &#8212; which disrupted thousands of people&#8217;s journeys to work &#8212; was rapidly criticized as wrongheaded and out of touch by members of the public, across social media and in the press,&#8221; CNN reported. &#8220;While it&#8217;s not clear who made the decision to protest at Canning Town on October 17, the negative response has helped to spark change and self-reflection within one of the world&#8217;s highest-profile environmental movements.&#8221;
CNN points out that XR considers itself &#8220;decentralized,&#8221; meaning that anyone can act in its name. But the organization&#8217;s heirarchy expressed support for the commute disruptors.
&#8220;[T]he disruptive nature of the actions are supported by the overwhelming majority of us,&#8221; XR&#8217;s spokemsan told reporters in a statement at the time. &#8220;This is a rebellion and this an attempt to make people aware of the far worse lethal disruptions that are going to happen when there is societal collapse. We have no apologies to offer for the disruptions, but it is how these disruptions are organized and the lack of local community involvement, because of the gross inadequacies within XR, to doing local community work properly.&#8221;
The lack of empathy for working class people is endemic, apparently, within the entire environmentalist movement.
&#8220;A 2014 <a href="http://vaipl.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ExecutiveSummary-Diverse-Green.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Michigan study</a> that looked into 293 mainstream NGOs, foundations and government agencies found that the &#8216;current state of racial diversity in environmental organizations is troubling,'&#8221; CNN says. &#8220;It concluded that the percentage of minorities employed as staff or on the boards of the organizations studied did not exceed 16%.&#8221;
Worse still, if ethnic minorities work for environmental organizations, they tend not to move up, leaving the upper eschelons of management overwhelmingly white.
XR tries to explain the problem away on its website, adding, in its &#8220;frequently asked questions,&#8221; that it&#8217;s &#8220;made up of people of all ages and backgrounds from all over the world. From under 18 to over 80 year olds &#8212; there are thousands of people willing to put their liberty on the line to fight the climate and ecological emergency and protect biodiversity and atmospheric health.&#8221;
&#8220;We are working to improve diversity in our movement,&#8221; it claims.
It may not get the chance. CNN is far from the only outlet that&#8217;s notice XR&#8217;s wokeness problem. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/19/extinction-rebellion-white-faces-diversity">The Guardian published</a> an account by a young minority environmentalist that critiqued the movement for its lack of diversity, but also for its &#8220;glorification of arrest,&#8221; pointing out that upper-class, educated, white youth can be arrested and jailed and not face long-term consequences, whereas ethnic minorities may end up in jail for the rest of their lives, thanks to inequalities within the criminal justice system.
&#8220;The tactics of Extinction Rebellion are designed by and for middle-class, white Britain. Their central rhetoric about a dystopian future fails to cut through for those of us already faced with a nightmarish present, surrounded by poverty and austerity,&#8221; Athian Akec wrote, adding that &#8220;[t]he tactic of being purposely arrested strikes an uncomfortable note for many people of colour, given the adverse experiences people in my community have had with the police,&#8221; and then blames XR for failing to be as intersectional as possible &#8212; a key element of modern wokeness.
&#8220;The climate movement’s failure to stand in solidarity with our political struggles adds to this sense of disconnect,&#8221; Akec says.
<a href="https://grist.org/justice/critics-call-out-extinction-rebellions-race-problem/">Grist</a>, an environmental outlet at the forefront of anti-climate change activism, recognized the problem, as did the New Statesmen, both of which commented on XR&#8217;s seeming inability to adapt to progressivism.
XR, of course, doesn&#8217;t seem to mind. More protests are planned and it doesn&#8217;t much matter who is in the way.

Extinction Rebellion

Not Woke Enough: Climate Extremists ‘Extinction Rebellion’ Hit For Being Too White, Too Rich

Hundreds of far-left activists stormed the field of Saturday&#8217;s college football game between Harvard and Yale, demanding action on climate change and demanding that the U.S. cancel Puerto Rico&#8217;s debt.
&#8220;Dozens of protesters started running on the field about three minutes before halftime ended and delayed the Game by roughly 30 minutes,&#8221; The Harvard Crimson <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/11/24/protesters-interrupt-the-game/">reported</a>. &#8220;They held signs bearing &#8216;Yale and Harvard United for Climate Justice&#8217; and started chanting &#8216;Divest.&#8217; Several dozen police officers took to the field to meet the protesters, and at least 50 people [were] escorted off the field by police officers.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Yale-Harvard is under delay because of a student protest. We’ve hit peak 2019. <a href="https://t.co/Am5e12U2el">pic.twitter.com/Am5e12U2el</a>
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) <a href="https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/1198320965240799232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
A Yale student told The Guardian that students began pushing the two universities to stop investing in energy companies they claim are causing climate change, saying, &#8220;They believe that they can engage with these companies and get them to change their fundamentally extractive business models, which we think comes from a place of naivety amounting to gross negligence.&#8221;
A separate video that appeared to be from the incident showed the far-left protesters demanding that the U.S. cancel Puerto Rico&#8217;s debt.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
It’s unconscionable that Harvard and Yale continue to profit off of fossil fuels, private prisons, and the Puerto Rican debt. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/nobodywins?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#nobodywins</a> <a href="https://t.co/vBm9kaVpC2">pic.twitter.com/vBm9kaVpC2</a>
— Byron Hurlbut (@hurlbut_byron) <a href="https://twitter.com/hurlbut_byron/status/1198324343509585920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
Shortly after the protests began, law enforcement officials began to take people into custody.
ESPN college football studio host Matt Barrie tweeted: &#8220;Harvard-Yale update: The protestors have told police they want to be arrested. So police have tied them together, two at a time, and are taking them off the field. Kickoff in about 10-mins.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Harvard-Yale update: The protestors have told police they want to be arrested. So police have tied them together, two at a time, and are taking them off the field.
Kickoff in about 10-mins.
— Matt Barrie (@MattBarrie) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattBarrie/status/1198325494208438273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Climate protesters at Harvard Yale <a href="https://t.co/AaCE2ACVCk">https://t.co/AaCE2ACVCk</a>
— Ryan (@RyanMaue) <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/1198328250466029568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
Far-left activist David Hogg, who attends Harvard, suggested that protesting at the football game was needed to save everyone on the planet from dying.
&#8220;You know what’s more important than a football game? The survival of the human race,&#8221; Hogg tweeted. &#8220;Complain all you want, but if we don’t do something now, Harvard won’t be able to continue beating Yale 100 years from now because there will be no human race. #HarvardYale&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
You know what’s more important than a football game?
The survival of the human race
Complain all you want but if we don’t do something now Harvard won’t be able to continue beating Yale 100 years from now because there will be no human race. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HarvardYale?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HarvardYale</a>
— David Hogg text VOTE to 954-954 (@davidhogg111) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1198326482155769856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
&#8220;We need some 1960s level activism to save our planet and democracy. In the next couple of years, the protests will become so big that cops wont be able to handle it and the national guard/military will have to be called in. But you can be sure we will persist and win,&#8221; the far-left activist continued. &#8220;Peaceful political revolution is on the horizon, but we need to all get out, take a stand, vote and run for office. Our enemies are much bigger than any politician, our enemies are the sources of evil that perpetuate injustice.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Peaceful political revolution is on the horizon, but we need to all get out, take a stand, vote and run for office.
Our enemies are much bigger than any politician, our enemies are the sources of evil that perpetuate injustice.
— David Hogg text VOTE to 954-954 (@davidhogg111) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1198332770734485509?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
&#8220;We will not act with violence, negativity, and hate because that is what the oppressor wants,&#8221; Hogg continued. &#8220;Instead we will act with love and tolerance to eradicate the hate and intolerance that empowers the oppressor. Together we can create a loving America and a truly free country.&#8221;

Yale Bulldogs Vs Harvard Crimson

Far-Left Activists Storm Harvard-Yale Game, Demand Climate Action. Police Arrest Them.

David Hogg

Puerto Rico

Celebrity testimony is an age-old political stunt on Capitol Hill. If you want the press at your hearing, you lunge at the chance to have a star athlete, or a famous singer or actor, bring some zing to your issue. Democrats do this better because they have a lot more friends in Hollywood and they&#8217;re always more willing to push the envelope with silliness. When you want to push your agenda on agriculture to the left and you need attention, you get Jane Fonda, Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek to testify. Their credentials? They all starred in movies about agriculture.
Another example of this happened on Nov. 19 when the House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on environment, chaired by Rep. Harley Rouda, D-Calif., called upon the Bernie Sanders-backing actor Mark Ruffalo to testify on perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, or &#8220;PFAS.&#8221;
These chemicals are used for many everyday uses. &#8220;(T)hey keep food from sticking to cookware, make clothes and carpets resistant to stains, and create firefighting foam,&#8221; the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences reports. But these chemicals have leached into soil and water and air, and they show up in the bloodstream. So there&#8217;s a real policy debate there.
But Ruffalo doesn&#8217;t have a college degree in chemistry. He doesn&#8217;t have a college degree in anything. He has only played scientist Dr. Bruce Banner (&#8220;The Hulk&#8221;) in the &#8220;Avengers&#8221; movies.
At least those actresses were honored in the &#8217;80s as experts for movies that had already come and gone in theatres. Ruffalo is starring in a movie about evil chemical companies called &#8220;Dark Waters,&#8221; which opens in limited release three days after his star appearance on the Hill. Distributed by NBCUniversal&#8217;s Focus Features brand, it&#8217;s based on the real-life lawsuits against DuPont by an activist lawyer named Rob Bilott.
Rep. Fred Keller of Pennsylvania underlined this stunt. &#8220;The majority has called as their star witness an actor. That&#8217;s right, an actor,&#8221; he said. &#8220;An actor with no medical, no scientific or research expertise except for a few scenes as Dr. Bruce Banner. An actor that has a record of anti-business activism. More importantly to Mr. Ruffalo &#8230; an actor with a movie premiering this week that attacks private-sector job creators with loose facts and hyped-up emotional rhetoric.&#8221;
Loose facts? Emotional rhetoric?
Consider this: In 2016, Virginia Tech professor Dr. Marc Edwards ripped Ruffalo as an &#8220;A-List actor but F-List scientist&#8221; for the &#8220;fear and misinformation&#8221; created by Ruffalo&#8217;s activist group, Water Defense. The subject was the water quality in Flint, Michigan. Dr. Edwards is credited for helping to expose the lead contamination problem in Flint. Then-President Obama reassured Flint residents that the water was safe to drink after they switched back to Detroit-sourced water, but Ruffalo and his leftist group shamelessly continued to claim that the water was unsafe for showering or bathing.
Ruffalo&#8217;s real credential for the House Democrats is his socialist ideology. He has publicly endorsed Jeremy Corbyn, the nut who called Karl Marx a &#8220;great economist,&#8221; for British prime minister. Radical Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib were gushing over Ruffalo in this committee hearing. Tlaib told the movie star: &#8220;I think what you said is exactly what we need to do in Congress. &#8230; Corporate greed is tainting our democracy.&#8221;
This actor has an estimated net worth of $30 million. Corporate greed has been very good to him.
Another supporter of Ruffalo in the hearing was Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former head of the Democratic National Committee. But on Nov. 14, in a different hearing, Schultz decried pro-life activist Allie Beth Stuckey&#8217;s being allowed to testify on the brutality of abortion. &#8220;I just want to clarify that Ms. Stuckey is expressing her own opinion exclusively, and has no scientific or particular expertise in this subject matter whatsoever,&#8221; she said.
Stuckey didn&#8217;t cling to leftist orthodoxy. So she was unqualified to testify.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Mark Ruffalo

BOZELL & GRAHAM: When Actors Play Scientist On Capitol Hill

Hollywood

Could &#8220;ecological sin&#8221; one day be added to the list of sins in the Catechism of the Catholic Church? Pope Francis has proposed such an idea.
Speaking at the 20th World Congress of the International Association of Penal Law in Rome, the Holy Father said Christians have a duty to preserve the environment.
&#8220;We have to introduce – we are thinking about it – to the Catechism of the Catholic Church the sin against ecology, the &#8216;ecological sin&#8217; against our common home, because a duty is at stake,&#8221; Pope Francis said, as reported by <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-proposes-adding-ecological-sin-against-common-home-to-catechism">LifeSiteNews</a>.
So how exactly would a &#8220;sin against ecology&#8221; work on theological scale? According to Catholic author Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, the language would have to be framed in a way that illustrates that the sin would be against God rather than an inanimate object.
“There is no possible sin against planet Earth,” Kwasniewski told the outlet. “All sins are ultimately against God or those who are in God&#8217;s image. As all theologians have explained prior to the post-conciliar decline of theology, when we abuse the natural world or animals or plants, we are sinning against God their creator, who gave them to us to use for the right purposes and in accordance with their nature and ours.&#8221;
“The only ‘targets’ of sin are persons, since they are either divine persons who deserve our total obedience, or angelic or human persons who deserve our reverence as images of God,&#8221; he continued.
If a person were to abuse a tree or an animal, Kwasniewski said that the person would be in grave violation against God due to the natural order, not because an animal or a tree has any basic rights.
“Someone who tortures an animal or burns down a forest for fun is a sinner not because the animal or the forest has rights, but because he offends God, the great king over all the earth, from whom all things come for our benefit and to whom they are ordered,” he said. “Man is obliged in justice to respect God&#8217;s gift and the order He has established; man must also respect the common destination of material goods, i.e., that God has made the earth for the benefit of all, not for the selfish benefit of a few,” he continued.
If Pope Francis were to frame &#8220;ecological sin&#8221; in this light if the Cathechism were to ever be amended, it would stand in line with Catholic tradition, which has always stated human beings have a moral obligation to preserve the environment as a gift sent from God. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI made that very argument in his &#8220;God and the World.&#8221;
&#8220;Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens living so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible,” Benedict wrote. “Animals, too, are God&#8217;s creatures and even if they do not have the same direct relationship to God that human beings have, they are still creatures of God&#8217;s will, creatures we must respect as companions in creation.&#8221;

Pope Francis Celebrates World Day Of The Poor With Special Mass And Lunch

Pope Francis Proposes Adding ‘Ecological Sin’ To Catechism

Catholic Church

Pope Francis

Greta has left the mainland.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old phenom from Sweden, has left the United States en route to Spain for a climate summit. But she doesn&#8217;t fly &#8212; too much pollution from burning a petroleum product.
So instead she&#8217;s on a boat, made of &#8230; petroleum products.
&#8220;So happy to say I&#8217;ll hopefully make it to COP25 in Madrid,&#8221; Greta wrote on Twitter. &#8220;I’ve been offered a ride from Virginia on the 48ft catamaran La Vagabonde. Australians @Sailing_LaVaga ,Elayna Carausu &amp; @_NikkiHenderson from England will take me across the Atlantic. We sail for Europe tomorrow morning!&#8221; she wrote Tuesday.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
So happy to say I&#8217;ll hopefully make it to COP25 in Madrid. 
I’ve been offered a ride from Virginia on the 48ft catamaran La Vagabonde. Australians @Sailing_LaVaga ,Elayna Carausu &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/_NikkiHenderson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@_NikkiH</a>e<a href="https://twitter.com/_NikkiHenderson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">nderson</a> from England will take me across the Atlantic. 
We sail for Europe tomorrow morning! <a href="https://t.co/qJcgREe332">pic.twitter.com/qJcgREe332</a>
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) November 12, 2019</blockquote>
&#8220;Twelve weeks after sailing into New York City, Greta hitched a ride back to Europe Wednesday with celebrity sailors Elayna Carausu and Riley Whitelum on La Vagabonde, a luxury catamaran made of petroleum products like fiberglass,&#8221; The <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/nov/14/greta-thunberg-takes-flak-returning-europe-plastic/">Washington Times</a> reported.
<blockquote>Greta’s father Svante Thunberg and British yachtswoman Nikki Henderson joined the La Vagabonde crew, raising questions about whether they flew across the pond only to sail back.
In addition to solar and hydro power, the craft is equipped with two diesel 30hp engines, according to Multihull Central, a boat-reviewing site, as noted by climate skeptic Tom Nelson.</blockquote>
That last detail brought some criticism on social media sites.
&#8220;Uh oh: Greta&#8217;s planet-destroying luxury yacht has two diesel engines with 672L diesel fuel tank,&#8221; wrote on person on Twitter.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Uh oh: Greta&#8217;s planet-destroying luxury yacht has two diesel engines with 672L diesel fuel tank.<a href="https://t.co/vkQM1bHlls">https://t.co/vkQM1bHlls</a><a href="https://t.co/ga1xg7MiHO">https://t.co/ga1xg7MiHO</a><a href="https://t.co/esHRZ0aJwR">https://t.co/esHRZ0aJwR</a> <a href="https://t.co/0e0vmDoJRF">https://t.co/0e0vmDoJRF</a>
— Tom Nelson (@tan123) November 13, 2019</blockquote>
&#8220;Greta’s return boat, an Outremer 45, weighs 17,400 pounds and is made of fiberglass, or fiber-reinforced plastic. The yacht was pumped out of the ground by oil companies. It draws auxiliary power from twin Volvo Diesel engines,&#8221; wrote another.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Greta’s return boat, an Outremer 45, weighs 17,400 pounds and is made of fiberglass, or fiber-reinforced plastic. The yacht was pumped out of the ground by oil companies. It draws auxiliary power from twin Volvo Diesel engines #Greta <a href="https://t.co/JZJelGiS3O">https://t.co/JZJelGiS3O</a>
— CFACT (@CFACT) November 13, 2019</blockquote>
“The irony of protesting capitalism and oil on board a carbon-fiber (petrochemical) yacht owned by European royals who made billions operating Monaco as a tax haven was rich,” CFACT President Craig Rucker said, The Times reported.
The 16-year-old student  has become an international star and darling of the mainstream media. She has warned world leaders about climate change in a speech at the United Nations, and she&#8217;s been palling around with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who also is a climate activist.
She was set to head down Chile for a U.N. climate summit this month but that was been canceled amid political unrest. “As #COP25 has officially been moved from Santiago to Madrid I’ll need some help,” Greta wrote on Twitter Nov. 1 while in Los Angeles. “It turns out I’ve traveled half around the world, the wrong way. Now I need to find a way to cross the Atlantic in November … If anyone could help me find transport I would be so grateful.”
Twitterers hit her then, too.
&#8220;[F]ly on a private jet with Leo, he flies private all over the world,&#8221; one wag wrote. Another offered an even better solution: &#8220;Video-conference saves energy.&#8221;
But others offered real advice.
&#8220;Dear Greta, Millions of people fly on airplanes every day. Your life doesn&#8217;t need to be so complicated. You are being lied to by the adults around you. You should be in school enjoying yourself, not being tortured by unscrupulous people using you for propaganda.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
Dear Greta,
Millions of people fly on airplanes every day. Your life doesn&#8217;t need to be so complicated. You are being lied to by the adults around you.
You should be in school enjoying yourself, not being tortured by unscrupulous people using you for propaganda.
— Tony Heller (@Tony__Heller) November 3, 2019</blockquote>

Greta Thunberg

Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Heads To Spain On Yacht Made From Petroleum Products

Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) made a series of bizarre statements over the weekend while campaigning in Iowa for fellow socialist and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), saying that when a politician has let her down, &#8220;it feels like I never want to love again.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez made the remarks on Saturday during a “Climate Crisis” summit in Iowa where she spoke to an audience that appeared to consist largely of far-left climate activists.
After Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders both gave their speeches, the two had a question and answer session where Ocasio-Cortez tried to relate to the audience by talking about how she emotionally processes a politician letting her down.
&#8220;And so, when you elect a politician, and then they let you down, it feels like rejection,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez said. &#8220;It feels like heart break. It feels like betrayal. It feels like I never want to love again. That&#8217;s what that feels like.&#8221;
&#8220;And so, I understand how that feels because I felt that way,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez continued. &#8220;But you know what happens when you say, &#8216;I never want to love again&#8217;? Your heart gets black and you turn angry and get very anxious.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Socialist Ocasio-Cortez on politicians falling short: “Feels like rejection. Feels like heartbreak. Feels like betrayal. Feels like I never want to love again. You know what happens when you say, ‘I never want to love again’? Your heart gets black&#8230;angry”
Complete insanity <a href="https://t.co/gSz667PB7D">pic.twitter.com/gSz667PB7D</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1193427045092487168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
During the event, Ocasio-Cortez also appeared to suggest that President Donald Trump was a virus or a disease that people needed to vaccinate themselves against.
“Trump is a symptom, he is a symptom of much deeper problems,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“Here’s the thing, is that we can beat him but we have to vaccinate ourselves against something like this ever happening again,” Ocasio-Cortez said in reference to Trump’s 2016 election victory, adding, “and the way we inoculate ourselves from late-stage hyper capitalistic concentration of wealth among the very, very few is with a labor movement.”
Ocasio-Cortez suggested that the only way that Americans could “get through this moment” was to “guarantee” health care to everyone.
“The way we inoculate ourselves from continuing to burn up our planet at unsustainable level triggering feedback loops that we have not even begun to comprehend is by honoring indigenous wisdom and allowing it to guide our climate policy,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “The way that we preserve our systems is by transitioning to principles of universality, that means I want you clothed, I want you educated, I want you paid a living wage – no ifs, ands, or buts. And what that also means [and] what Naomi talked about as well is directly, consciously, combating white supremacy in the United States of America.”
“When people try to accuse us of going too far left – we’re not pushing the party left,” she said, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/us/politics/bernie-sanders-aoc-iowa.html">The New York Times</a>. “We are bringing the party home.”
&#8220;Yet what remains unclear, even after her positive reception this weekend, is whether Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and the political ideology that she and Mr. Sanders embrace resonates beyond Iowa’s more liberal pockets,&#8221; The Times added. &#8220;Mr. Sanders is still running third in most polls, faces formidable competition from Ms. Warren for progressive voters and is likely to endure nagging doubts about his fitness right up until the first Iowans caucus on Feb. 3.&#8221;

Ocasio-Cortez

Ocasio-Cortez: Politicians Letting Me Down ‘Feels Like I Never Want To Love Again’

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Bernie Sanders

Teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg, who dominated headlines last month after her speech to the U.N. declaring that we are &#8220;in the beginning of a mass extinction,&#8221; was offered an award this week from the Nordic Council for &#8220;breathing new life into the debate surrounding the environment and climate at a critical moment in world history.&#8221;
But on Tuesday, the 16-year-old told the council that they could keep their climate prize and issued an ultimatum: she will not accept an award from them until they move on from &#8220;bragging&#8221; and using &#8220;beautiful words&#8221; to acting &#8220;in accordance with what the science says is needed&#8221; to combat global warming.
Thunberg issued her official rejection of the award and rebuke of the council via an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B4Ns7PQpE5C/">Instagram post</a> Tuesday. The council has since confirmed that she indeed turned down their prize, which is worth a little over $50,000.
&#8220;I have received the Nordic Council’s environmental award 2019. I have decided to decline this prize,&#8221; wrote Thunberg. Noting that she&#8217;s  traveling through California and thus unable to deliver her message in person, the celebrity activist wrote out her rejection speech.
&#8220;I want to thank the Nordic Council for this award. It is a huge honour,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;But the climate movement does not need any more awards. What we need is for our politicians and the people in power start to listen to the current, best available science.&#8221;
Thunberg then specifically called out the Nordic countries for what she characterized as their self-congratulatory hypocrisy.
&#8220;The Nordic countries have a great reputation around the world when it comes to climate and environmental issues,&#8221; she said. &#8220;There is no lack of bragging about this. There is no lack of beautiful words. But when it comes to our actual emissions and our ecological footprints per capita — if we include our consumption, our imports as well as aviation and shipping — then it’s a whole other story.&#8221;
She then got more specific, hitting the Nordic nations for not doing enough to eliminate fossil fuels: &#8220;In Sweden we live as if we had about 4 planets according to WWF and Global Footprint Network. And roughly the same goes for the entire Nordic region. In Norway for instance, the government recently gave a record number of permits to look for new oil and gas. The newly opened oil and natural gas-field, &#8216;Johan Sverdrup&#8217; is expected to produce oil and natural gas for 50 years; oil and gas that would generate global CO2 emissions of 1,3 tonnes.&#8221;
&#8220;The gap between what the science says is needed to limit the increase of global temperature rise to below 1,5 or even 2 degrees — and politics that run the Nordic countries is gigantic. And there are still no signs whatsoever of the changes required,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;The Paris Agreement, which all of the Nordic countries have signed, is based on the aspect of equity, which means that richer countries must lead the way. We belong to the countries that have the possibility to do the most. And yet our countries still basically do nothing.&#8221;
She closed with one of her trademark ultimatums. &#8220;So until you start to act in accordance with what the science says is needed to limit the global temperature rise below 1,5 degrees or even 2 degrees celsius, I — and Fridays For Future in Sweden — choose not to accept the Nordic Councils environmental award nor the prize money of 500 000 Swedish kronor,&#8221; she concluded.
As reported by <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/greta-thunberg-declined-a-climate-award-because-the-world-needs-more-action-fewer-awards/ar-AAJydfk">CNN</a>, the Nordic Council confirmed in a news release Tuesday that Thunberg did indeed reject their award.
Dressing down world leaders has become Thunberg&#8217;s modus operandi. In late September, the climate alarmist issued a similar statement to the United Nations which painted an apocalyptic picture of the world and included digs about the leaders being &#8220;not mature enough&#8221; to be honest about the dire situation.
&#8220;My message is that we’ll be watching you,&#8221; she said in a speech that went viral, in part due to critics pointing to its hyperbolic claims. &#8220;This is all wrong, I shouldn’t be up here, I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet, you all come to us young people for hope, how dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering, people are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/left-wing-activist-groups-attempt-to-shame-conservatives-over-greta-thunberg-meme-backfires">Left-Wing Activist Group’s Attempt To Shame Conservatives Over Greta Thunberg Meme Backfires</a>

Greta Thunberg Rejects Climate Award, Rips Countries That Gave It To Her

Norway

Sweden

Daniel Craig&#8217;s last outing as James Bond may be the boldest one yet, with reports now indicating that the upcoming installment will feature an eco-friendly mastermind as the famed MI6 agent&#8217;s arch-nemesis.
&#8220;His unnamed nemesis – nicknamed Greenfinger by insiders – has a lair powered by an algae farm and with a Zen garden,&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/10214824/james-bond-eco-friendly-villain/">The Sun</a>. &#8220;As the plot is shrouded in secrecy, it is not clear what the villain is plotting to do or how <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/topic/james-bond/">007</a> confronts him.&#8221;
&#8220;Director Cary Joji Fukunaga is so keen to keep the plot under wraps <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10185662/james-bond-no-time-to-die-endings/">he has reportedly filmed three endings</a>. But an eco-friendly villain would be a Bond first,&#8221; continued the report. &#8220;One theory is that algae blooms can produce deadly toxins.&#8221;
A source close to production told The Sun that the film&#8217;s villain, played by the Oscar-winning Rami Malek, will own a sinister algae farm.
“The baddie’s lair apparently has a giant algae farm,&#8221; the source said. “Something like that would look very sinister and green so will look great on the screen. Quite how it will impact Bond only the scriptwriters can know but fans will be keen to find out.”
&#8220;No Time to Die,&#8221; as the film is titled, will solidify Daniel Craig&#8217;s exit from the Bond franchise, which began 13 years ago with &#8220;Casino Royale&#8221; in 2006.
While making the Bond baddie an eco-friendly terrorist this time around is indeed a bold choice, it is hardly the first franchise to do so. In fact, it’s been argued that the character of Thanos in &#8220;The Avengers&#8221; series is an eco-friendly terrorist, given his fixation on population control.
As Maddie Stone of <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/avengers-infinity-war-shows-a-dark-side-of-environment-1825638315">Gizmodo</a> argued:
<blockquote>
As the film unfolds, it becomes clear Thanos’ quest for omnipotence isn’t driven by greed, hunger for power, or lust for revenge. He merely wants the ability to kill half the lifeforms in the galaxy in one fell swoop. Ostensibly, he’s motivated by a desire to allay suffering and ensure there are enough resources for future generations to thrive.
In other words, Thanos embodies the classic fear that unchecked population growth is a march toward destruction.
</blockquote>
As to what led the writers of &#8220;No Time to Die&#8221; to have an eco-friendly mastermind go up against James Bond remains to be seen, but actor Rami Malek may have had an influence, given he demanded that his character not be a standard Middle Eastern caricature or a religious fundamentalist.
“It’s a great character and I’m very excited,” Malek <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rami-malek-demanded-his-bond-villain-not-be-paul-bois">told The Mirror</a> earlier this year. “But that was one thing that I discussed with [director] <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/cary-fukunaga" data-vars-event-id="c6" data-vars-item-name="BL-8985646-/topic/cary-fukunaga">Cary Fukunaga</a>. I said, ‘We cannot identify him with any act of terrorism reflecting an ideology or a religion. That’s not ­something I would entertain, so if that is why I am your choice then you can count me out’. But that was clearly not his vision. So he’s a very different kind of terrorist.”
Malek added that the film has delivered “another extremely clever script from the people who have figured out exactly what people want in those movies.”
“But I feel a substantial weight on my shoulders,” he continued. “I mean, Bond is ­something that we all grow up with.”
Malek specified that his desire to see more positive representations of his ethnicity (Egyptian) motivated him to push the filmmakers away from a stereotypical representation.
“I am Egyptian. I grew up listening to Egyptian music. I loved Omar Sharif,” Malek said. “These are my people. I feel so gorgeously tied to the culture and the human beings that exist there.”

Today &#8211; Season 68

REPORT: James Bond Villain Will Be An ‘Eco-Friendly’ Mastermind

James Bond

Rami Malek

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has published a new paper, &#8220;Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions.&#8221; Keep in mind that many of the grossly wrong environmentalist predictions were made by respected scientists and government officials. My question for you is: If you were around at the time, how many government restrictions and taxes would you have urged to avoid the predicted calamity?
As reported in The New York Times (Aug. 1969) Stanford University biologist Dr. Paul Erhlich warned: &#8220;The trouble with almost all environmental problems is that by the time we have enough evidence to convince people, you&#8217;re dead. We must realize that unless we&#8217;re extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years.&#8221;
In 2000, Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at University of East Anglia&#8217;s climate research unit, predicted that in a few years winter snowfall would become &#8220;a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren&#8217;t going to know what snow is.&#8221; In 2004, the U.S. Pentagon warned President George W. Bush that major European cities would be beneath rising seas. Britain will be plunged into a Siberian climate by 2020. In 2008, Al Gore predicted that the polar ice cap would be gone in a mere 10 years. A U.S. Department of Energy study led by the U.S. Navy predicted the Arctic Ocean would experience an ice-free summer by 2016.
In May 2014, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declared during a joint appearance with Secretary of State John Kerry that &#8220;we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.&#8221;
Peter Gunter, professor at North Texas State University, predicted in the spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness: &#8220;Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. &#8230; By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.&#8221;
Ecologist Kenneth Watt&#8217;s 1970 prediction was, &#8220;If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000.&#8221; He added, &#8220;This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.&#8221;
Mark J. Perry, scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan&#8217;s Flint campus, cites 18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of first Earth Day in 1970. This time it&#8217;s not about weather. Harrison Brown, a scientist at the National Academy of Sciences, published a chart in Scientific American that looked at metal reserves and estimated that humanity would run out of copper shortly after 2000. Lead, zinc, tin, gold and silver would be gone before 1990. Kenneth Watt said, &#8220;By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate &#8230; that there won&#8217;t be any more crude oil.&#8221;
There were grossly wild predictions well before the first Earth Day, too. In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior predicted that American oil supplies would last for only another 13 years. In 1949, the secretary of the interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight. Having learned nothing from its earlier erroneous energy claims, in 1974, the U.S. Geological Survey said that the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. However, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that as of Jan. 1, 2017, there were about 2,459 trillion cubic feet of dry natural gas in the United States. That&#8217;s enough to last us for nearly a century. The United States is the largest producer of natural gas worldwide.
Today&#8217;s wild predictions about climate doom are likely to be just as true as yesteryear&#8217;s. The major difference is today&#8217;s Americans are far more gullible and more likely to spend trillions fighting global warming. And the only result is that we&#8217;ll be much poorer and less free.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Smoking earth.

WILLIAMS: Idiotic Environmental Predictions

Al Gore

“Save the Planet, Eat the Children,” reads a T-shirt at a congresswoman’s townhall. Meanwhile, a teenager skipping school and in obvious emotional distress makes the Nobel Peace Prize shortlist for berating world leaders about a supposedly looming mass extinction.
The most privileged generation in human history — enjoying the longest, healthiest, wealthiest, and most comfortable lives men and women have ever lived — thinks the world is collapsing around us.
What a time to be alive — literally.
By nearly every measurement, from <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1570639679393000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFV-qmLZ0NuudYAuYJ2Rzm28twpLw">child mortality</a> and <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1570639679393000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHePsamAKl6ekYQcrrY5TLm1R0Pug">life expectancy</a> to <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1570639679393000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGENUK1bk7Q4MhL78k-Xp4EtpShNQ">poverty</a> and <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/global-rise-of-education" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ourworldindata.org/global-rise-of-education&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1570639679393000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEGEd-ZWikheMRExDu_5hxw3pe3mQ">education</a>, quality of life around the globe is better than it’s ever been. In much of the world, subsistence living is a thing of the past and humanity is flourishing — especially those with ready access to electricity.
The Industrial Revolution, when an unprecedented boom of technological innovation transformed agrarian America into the nation we know today, wasn’t just a time of economic change and scientific progress. It propelled humanity to the most prosperous time in our history.
Once a rare treasure, electricity now powers everything we touch. It provides the essentials like clean running water and warmth in the winter and the luxuries like Instagram and Amazon Prime. It powers the institutions we depend on: Our banks, law enforcement agencies, doctor’s offices, farms, plants, stores, and schools. Similarly, affordable and dependable cars allow us to travel freely, farther, and more often than our ancestors could have fathomed, giving us the ability to do business over long distances and travel for mere pleasure.
Not everyone in the world enjoys these benefits. <a href="https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2018/october/population-without-access-to-electricity-falls-below-1-billion.html" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2018/october/population-without-access-to-electricity-falls-below-1-billion.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1570639679393000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGkBVWKl3QRg9HP7wmzsfImII-E4Q">Nearly a billion people</a> still don’t have access to electricity or any of the benefits that come along with it. These are communities where medieval-sounding diseases like cholera and dysentery still reign — where life expectancies lag 20 to 30 years behind those of the developed West.
Lest we think this fate is reserved for the third world, Venezuela represents a cautionary tale on the consequences of losing the precious resource that is electricity. In March, a week-long blackout in Venezuela <a href="https://www.univision.com/noticias/america-latina/denuncian-ongs-apagon-deja-al-menos-43-pacientes-muertos-en-venezuela" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.univision.com/noticias/america-latina/denuncian-ongs-apagon-deja-al-menos-43-pacientes-muertos-en-venezuela&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1570639679393000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGcSsuVM7gANRn37W58N2RuVZdTQg">left more than 40 people dead</a> because hospitals couldn’t provide basic medical care, including routine procedures like dialysis. Even now, electricity and critical healthcare infrastructure are spotty at Venezuelan hospitals, leading one doctor to <a href="https://www.voanews.com/americas/venezuelas-health-system-crumbles-pregnant-women-flee-colombia" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.voanews.com/americas/venezuelas-health-system-crumbles-pregnant-women-flee-colombia&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1570639679393000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFTereS0PNjj9eddTaMm_sysA3llA">turn pregnant patients away</a> and send them instead to neighboring Colombia.
These are the dangers we should be worried about — real threats to human health and safety — not the overblown dangers of slightly warmer weather.
For all the environmentalist movement’s hand-wringing, you’d think our extinction was scheduled to commence tomorrow. But despite the wildly popular and equally wildly misinterpreted trope that all scientists agree the world is ending, there is no concrete evidence right now to suggest climate change will be anything but mild and manageable, or that we won’t be able to handle it.
Humans are becoming more resilient to mild changes in average temperature. Migration trends show Americans are readily moving to warmer states. Even more crucially, deaths due to climate-related natural disasters have <a href="https://www.facebook.com/bjornlomborg/photos/a.221758208967/10157523426118968/?type=3&amp;theater" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.facebook.com/bjornlomborg/photos/a.221758208967/10157523426118968/?type%3D3%26theater&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1570639679393000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHYbbVUXNuE7QAthyq61foEpYcXIw">declined by a providential 98.9%</a>. That is thanks to our modern-day technology, which allows meteorologists to more accurately predict storm patterns and near-instant communication keeping the public better informed and prepared. It’s the reason the Great Galveston Storm of 1900 claimed more 8,000 lives, but a recent storm of similar magnitude on the Texas coast — Hurricane Harvey — killed <a href="https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL092017_Harvey.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL092017_Harvey.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1570639679393000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGAP7yUHs6AskA77v_va6sZyGkWdQ">just 68</a>. We can and should work to improve disaster readiness, but we should do so without the fear-mongering.
Given how much society has transformed since the Industrial Revolution, the potential of future generations to spread the health and prosperity we enjoy around the world should be limitless.
Yet climate change hysteria is plaguing an entire generation with a crippling fear of the future. Not only is foisting this burden on today’s children and young adults <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11776098/climate-change-despair-is-real-this-is-how-you-fight-it" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.kqed.org/news/11776098/climate-change-despair-is-real-this-is-how-you-fight-it&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1570639679393000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGiBAxEYtUOfmSaYQxv_1-VnmeYtg">unhealthy</a> — it’s simply unfair to limit the younger generation’s potential to contribute to the innovations that will drive the future. Young leaders should be empowered to pursue their passions and encouraged to experiment with new solutions, just as the greatest innovators of the past have done.
We live in the healthiest, most prosperous, most resilient time in human history. It is unfortunate that climate alarmists can&#8217;t see how far we’ve come — or how bright humanity’s future can be.
&nbsp;
Katie Tahuahua is Communications Manager for Life:Powered, a national initiative of the <a href="https://www.texaspolicy.com">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a> to inform policymakers and the public about the value of abundant, reliable and affordable energy to the human condition.

barren desert landscape

TAHUAHUA: The Debilitating Pessimism Of Climate Change Alarmists

On Thursday morning, President Donald Trump cheered on a Twitter user who posted a critical message of teen climate change alarmist Greta Thunberg. 
Captioning a video clip of Thunberg&#8217;s recently delivery of her grim doomsday-type message about the environment at the United Nations, the Twitter user posted: “What an actress! &#8216;I should be in school.&#8217; She’s getting the best education socialism can steal. I won’t be held hostage by someone who just got a learner’s permit. Sorry kiddo! Tell Al to try again.”
“This is all wrong. I shouldn&#8217;t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean,” Thunberg says in the CNN clip posted by the Twitter user. “Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
What an actress! “I should be in school.” She’s getting the best education socialism can steal. I won’t be held hostage by someone who just got a learner’s permit. Sorry kiddo! Tell Al to try again. <a href="https://t.co/1VIaJoIyBA">pic.twitter.com/1VIaJoIyBA</a>
&mdash; Kellie (@Opinion8dKellie) <a href="https://twitter.com/Opinion8dKellie/status/1176182239954186240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Trump quote-tweeted the post and added, “Keep up the great work Kellie!”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Keep up the great work Kellie! <a href="https://t.co/PcAnK009EW">https://t.co/PcAnK009EW</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1179710734030249984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Thunberg’s extreme U.N. speech claimed that “people are dying” and “entire ecosystems are collapsing” due to mass inaction on climate change. 
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” she said. “And yet I&#8217;m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
“How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight,” Thunberg continued. “You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency but no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe.”
“You are failing us but the young people are starting to understand your betrayal,” she added. “The eyes of all future generations are upon you and if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now, is where we draw the line the world is waking up and change is coming whether you like it or not.”
Trump remarked on Thunberg’s alarmist speech, sarcastically tweeting about how cheerful and happy the teenager seems. 
“She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” the president posted. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see! <a href="https://t.co/1tQG6QcVKO">https://t.co/1tQG6QcVKO</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1176339522113679360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 24, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Thunberg reasoned with a change to her Twitter bio, which now reads: “A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.”
As noted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-trolls-greta-greta-swipes-back-james-barrett">The Daily Wire</a>, Thunberg’s radical U.N. speech was praised by the Left and, to a large extent, their allies in the mainstream media. But critics in the middle and on the Right took issue with the use of Thunberg as a “<a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/09/23/tucker-carlson-greta-thunberg-leftists-power/">human shield</a>” for their extremist political agenda. Others, highlighting Thunberg’s obvious irrational anxiety over the climate, likened her use in the movement to a form of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/52151/walsh-greta-thunberg-child-abuse-victim-matt-walsh">child abuse</a>.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/52150/backlash-critics-lambast-melodramatic-greta-ryan-saavedra">BACKLASH: Critics Lambast Melodramatic Greta Thunberg Speech As ‘Child Abuse’</a>

Trump Cheers On Post Critical Of Greta Thunberg

Twitter

The entire American left — the mainstream media, the environmentalist movement and Democratic politicians in particular — are celebrating the involvement of teenagers and even younger children in protesting the world&#8217;s &#8220;inaction&#8221; with regard to global warming.
And not just the American left, of course. The left throughout the world is celebrating. A 16-year-old Swedish girl whose contempt for adults is breathtaking is an international hero. Congressional Democrats invited her to testify in Congress, and the United Nations has likewise invited her.
The mayor and city council of New York City further politicized their city&#8217;s public schools by allowing students to skip school to actively participate in a global warming protest.
The message of young climate change activists is: &#8220;You adults aren&#8217;t doing your job. As a result, we have no future.&#8221; As a sympathetic reporter — are there any non-sympathetic reporters? — for the Los Angeles Times put it, &#8220;(T)eens are still waiting for a sign that their elders get it.&#8221;
The Times&#8217; coverage is typical. It reported: &#8220;Underneath the activism lies a simple truth: Young people are incredibly scared about climate change. They see it as a profound injustice and an existential threat to their generation and those that will follow. &#8230;
&#8220;&#8216;They do worry, and they worry kind of a lot,&#8217; said Maria Ojala, an environmental psychologist at Orebro University in Sweden. &#8230;
&#8220;Arielle Martinez Cohen&#8221; — an 18-year-old Los Angeles activist with the youth climate group Zero Hour — &#8220;remembers reading a report from an Australian think tank that warned the human species could face extinction by 2050 if society doesn&#8217;t get its act together.
&#8220;&#8216;I almost imagine, like, an apocalypse-type thing happening,&#8217; Arielle said.
&#8220;Many young people say they can&#8217;t fathom bringing kids of their own into the world. &#8230;
&#8220;&#8216;It&#8217;s not ethical. It&#8217;s literally a burning house,&#8217; Lana said.
&#8220;&#8216;That&#8217;s something that&#8217;s not realistic,&#8217; agreed her twin sister, Yena.
&#8220;And how can they even think about college or contemplate their careers when faced with so much uncertainty?
&#8220;&#8216;It&#8217;s something I feel every single day,&#8217; Yena said. &#8216;I work really hard at school and I do all these things, and I&#8217;m like, &#8220;What am I working for? Do I have a future?&#8221;&#8216;&#8221;
It is critical to remember that hysterias — such as Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, &#8220;endemic and systemic racism in America,&#8221; the heterosexual AIDS &#8220;crisis&#8221; in America and the &#8220;rape culture&#8221; on American college campuses — are to the left what oxygen is to biological life. No oxygen, no life; no hysteria, no left.
Apparently, however, the left-wing hysteria about global warming leading to the virtual extinction of life on Earth has not moved enough adults. Many adults who do not deny that the Earth is getting warmer — such as Danish writer and environmentalist thinker Bjorn Lomborg — do deny that the threat is &#8220;existential&#8221; and do believe that the left&#8217;s solutions, such as the Green New Deal, will damage the world far more than will carbon emissions. Proof that the left is hysterical is its unwillingness to promote nuclear power — a completely clean, non-fossil fuel-based source of power. It provides France with 70 percent of its energy. Anyone who really believes life on Earth is endangered would grasp at the nuclear power lifeboat. That they do not proves what many of us have believed from the beginning: The &#8220;existential threat&#8221; scenario is another left-wing falsehood used to whip up hysteria that will lead to the left&#8217;s control of the economy and society.
And that takes us back to the children: If you can&#8217;t sell your hysteria to adults, try kids. And that is what the left has done. After all, no one is as malleable or as easily indoctrinated as children.
Consider this: If the left didn&#8217;t tell them the world is going to end, they wouldn&#8217;t worry about it. They&#8217;d be enjoying their young lives, maybe even learning to appreciate that they live in the freest country at the most prosperous time in human history. Instead, thanks to leftists (who are children in adult bodies), they live in their grip of &#8220;existential eco-anxiety.&#8221;
This is but one more way in which the left abuses children (along with telling them they are neither boys nor girls but whatever they later choose to be; teaching them contempt for their country; and depriving them of the greatest source of morality, meaning, community and happiness — any of the Judeo-Christian religions).
It&#8217;s depressing, and it&#8217;s frightening.
The scariest movies are those featuring brainwashed children. This horror show is happening in real life.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in April 2018, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Exodus. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

Great Thunberg.

PRAGER: If You Can’t Sell Your Hysteria To Adults, Try Kids

Teenaged climate icon Greta Thunberg has been converting thousands to the environmental cause, but not every anti-climate change activist is thrilled with her sudden rise to fame.
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nobel-prize-peace/a-nobel-for-swedens-greta-thunberg-a-tough-decision-for-prize-committee-idUSKBN1WA18Z?utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_source=twitter">Reuters reports</a> that Thunberg has made enemies among the old school eco-agitators with her &#8220;confrontational&#8221; style, largely because Thunberg calls out climate &#8220;hypocrites,&#8221; including those activists, like Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio and former Vice President Al Gore, for taking carbon-spewing private flights to major environmental conferences — and, really, using airplanes at all.
The new &#8220;green generation&#8221; has commercial and private air travel in its sights, not simply because airplanes consume fossil fuels and emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which they claim is slowly warming the planet, but because they oppose widespread industrialization altogether and view saving the environment as a side benefit of instituting major economic change across the globe.
As committed as they are to battling climate change, some are even more committed to battling &#8220;capitalism,&#8221; which they seem to believe is the only reason we have &#8220;man made climate change&#8221; (even though Communist states often are forced to embrace inefficient industry). The authors of the Green New Deal, for example, propose that the United States eliminate domestic air travel by fiat, replacing it with coast-to-coast, government-run train travel.
Thunberg has been aggressive in her opposition to air travel, pushing the hashtag #flightshame to name and shame those eco-lecturers who still rely on modern technology. Her colleagues were among those, for example, who called out Britain&#8217;s Prince Harry for claiming to be at the forefront of climate activism in an interview — even going so far a to encourage people to limit their procreation in the name of preserving the planet — right before he and his family boarded a private jet to Elton John&#8217;s European villa.
Late last year, Thunberg, who even took a ship to the United Nations General Assembly (she may take a shared commercial flight home), tweeted that she was dedicated to seeing that her generation used airplanes only for emergency travel.
&#8220;My generation won’t be able to fly other than for emergencies, in a foreseeable future if we are to be the least bit serious about the 1,5° warming limit,&#8221; she said on social media. &#8220;I will try to make it to as many places as possible without flying. And also participate via video link.<a class="PrettyLink hashtag customisable" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/istayontheground?src=hash" rel="tag" data-query-source="hashtag_click" data-scribe="element:hashtag">#istayontheground.&#8221;</a>
&#8220;Flight shaming&#8221; doesn&#8217;t sit well with old school climate activists, who, as conservative news organizations have often pointed out, don&#8217;t live quite the stripped-down existence of their more modern brethren. And, Reuters reports, a number of those activists have ties to the Nobel committee and may take the opportunity to block Thunberg, generally considered to be a frontrunner for the Peace Prize, from taking the medal and the substantial financial reward for her work.
“The problem is that the principle of ‘flight shame’ brings her chances … down. Shame is not a constructive feeling to bring about change,&#8221; one insider told the media company.
Conservatives have criticized Thunberg for pushing an environmental agenda that masks major economic change at the behest of socialists and for parroting dire warnings of an environmental apocalypse that likely isn&#8217;t in the cards. But conservatives aren&#8217;t able to restrict Thunberg in any way. This criticism from the Left, on the other hand, might have serious consequences.
The Nobel prizes are awarded next week and Thunberg is oddsmakers favorite for the Peace Prize so far.

Greta Thunberg Shames Climate Hypocrites. It May Cost Her The Nobel Peace Prize.

Sixteen-year-old Swedish climate &#8220;activist&#8221; alarmist Greta Thunberg is all the rage right now. Thunberg, who has indubitably benefited from no shortage of formal public communication training, <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1176149492698992641">speaks</a> with the moral certitude and dripping condescension so characteristic of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51556/hammer-bernies-pagan-support-child-sacrifice-josh-hammer">broader pagan cult</a> that is &#8220;climate change&#8221; alarmism. Oppose the proposed totalitarian, socialist &#8220;remedies&#8221; for such a purported pandemic and one is called a &#8220;climate denier&#8221; at best — or a depraved madman at worst. While evidence is thus far lacking, the <a href="https://www.tellerreport.com/tech/greta-thunberg--how-big-is-the-influence-of-your-mentor-.S1bXoGcuV.html">circumstantial totality</a> suggests the real possibility that, much like the well-organized Left during the Kavanaugh confirmation imbroglio, there may be a <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2019/09/24/not-to-put-too-fine-a-point-on-it-but/">&#8220;well-orchestrated and well-funded P.R. campaign&#8221;</a> here whose over-arching goal is the shaming of free market-oriented dissenters into submission at the pagan altar of enviro-statism.
The notion that policymakers ought to consider proposing policy due to the fraught and hysterical pleas of a 16-year-old is, naturally, <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2019/09/24/we-should-not-set-global-policy-based-on-a-16-year-old-with-a-developmental-disorder/">insane</a>. And the use of Thunberg herself — who <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/this-greta-thunberg-thing-is-child-abuse">apparently began suffering</a> from depression as a child — as the leading global enviro-statist prop is, as Amanda Prestigiacomo put it, downright unethical.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">What Greta Thunberg&#8217;s stage parents are doing to her is unethical. <a href="https://t.co/3gluUhS8LN">https://t.co/3gluUhS8LN</a> <a href="https://t.co/GRvqvsZ9Ad">pic.twitter.com/GRvqvsZ9Ad</a>
— Amanda Prestigiacomo (@AmandaPresto) <a href="https://twitter.com/AmandaPresto/status/1176536341187878913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 24, 2019</a></blockquote>
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My Daily Wire colleague Matt Walsh is correct that the deification of Thunberg amounts to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/52151/walsh-greta-thunberg-child-abuse-victim-matt-walsh">child abuse</a>. Indeed, the use of Thunberg as an emotionally compelling prop for zealous socialists foaming at the mouth for any excuse to enact anti-capitalistic policy ought to harken us all back to the last time leftists glommed onto malleable teenagers for use as political props: The aftermath of the school shooting in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/27443/watch-dana-loesch-called-murderer-cnn-gun-control-james-barrett">Parkland, Florida</a>. Then, as now, the Left cynically decided that the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/17662/stop-alinskyization-american-right-josh-hammer">easiest means</a> by which to accomplish its ends was via the public trotting out of minors as spokespersons to emotionally manipulate a gullible public.
But such a tendentious use of minors for the promotion and advancement of a political agenda is not just wrong. It is affirmatively evil.
One can tell a lot about a society by how it treats children. In the United States, the eradication of mass legalized child labor via the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act represents that rare FDR/New Deal-era policy achievement about which even conservatives can be proud. Contrast that with the <a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/worst-countries-for-child-labor.html">ubiquitous child labor</a> that still exists in much of the Third World, and one sees a paradigmatic example of what sets apart the more advanced from the more barbaric civilizations. The darker <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-live-to-tell-inside-the-world-of-child-sex-trafficking-and-ashton-kutchers-high-tech-approach-to-saving-victims/">world of child sex trafficking</a> is, of course, far more harrowing still.
The <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791231/obo-9780199791231-0161.xml">innocence of children</a> is something that every proper society ought to cherish and nourish. Tim Lott <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/may/10/what-is-childhood-innocence">described</a> well this sort of innocence for The Guardian in 2013: &#8220;Innocence goes deeper than ignorance. It is some mysterious operation of the imagination, the part that can enter into mental universes from which one is soon to be forever excluded.&#8221; Societies that aim to maintain the pristine nature of childhood — with its lack of adult responsibility, simplicity, carefree nature, and purity all remaining intact — are societies that ought to be lauded. Societies that disabuse children of their innocence and foist upon children the responsibilities and sundry pitfalls of adulthood are societies that ought to be chastised. Even Hollywood, with its longstanding lionization of the child actor, is worthy of no small amount of scorn.
By all means, teenagers ought to be encouraged to think deeply about issues of global importance. They ought to be encouraged to educate themselves on current events and begin the slow, lifelong process of discovering the nature of truth. But to cynically prop up a teenager as an avatar for a political movement so as to better emotionally manipulate the masses as to the correctness of your political position is no act of valiance. It is an act of cowardice, an act of innocence deprival, an act of evil.

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