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EspañolOn Sunday, thousands gathered around the world to protest climate change. That’s right; people took to the streets to rail against, not a person or any specific action, but a weather phenomenon.
Are these people naive enough to think climate change can be eliminated through this sort of action? Of course not.
What happens is — and this is common within politically correct discussions — these people think their protests will pressure governments around the world to take decisive action on their behalf. However, government action is then only regarded decisive and useful if it is made mandatory for all individuals, or better yet, targets the largest producers.
The protesters feel their concerns should be everyone else’s priority as well. They believe their anxieties should be universal and, and therefore, not only should they be resolved immediately but through coercive force as well.
Poverty? Hunger? Sickness? Other environmental problems? For the protesters, these issues are secondary to finding a solution to the only problem they believe is worth solving.
All they want is to clear their conscience in front of an audience, and appear as if they are magnanimous human beings.
That’s why they use slogans that no one could possibly disagree with, seek the support of celebrities, and present the issue as if it were a matter of life or death.
However, they are wrong. Global warming is not the only priority in the world, nor should it be. Why demand that people attempting to survive hunger or war shift their concerns? What’s more, the path these protesters have chosen is not the appropriate solution to this problem that torments them so much.
Today, the debate over the existence and origins of this global phenomenon is virtually nonexistent. There is almost a universal consensus that global warming is real and that human activity is a significant contributing factor. However, what continues to be the subject of much debate is how to solve it.
Those who took to the streets to shout down this disembodied villain generally believe the only solution is coercion. However, they have chosen to ignore the fact that, instead of shouting slogans in the streets, each one of them can contribute through their own individual actions to help solve the problem.
For many of these people, however, this will never be enough. They believe states are the only entities capable of providing a solution.
These are the same states, represented by ordinary human beings, that do not care about ordinary citizens. They are only concerned with their own interests. These are the same states that, year after year, hold sterile meetings to endlessly discuss issues at inane international summits, hosted by organizations like the United States, and have thoroughly demonstrated their limited ability to resolve anything.
… They are making use of platforms for expression and assembly that only a liberal society can provide, while working to destroy it.
Consequently, in addition to demonstrating the most authoritarian tendencies toward poltically correct discussions, these protests are nothing more than a sign of disinterest that these environmentalists-for-a-day have for a phenomenon that supposedly causes them so much pain.
Those who do something as ineffective as screaming in the streets against an environmental problem are not interested in a solution. All they want is to clear their conscience in front of an audience, and appear as if they are magnanimous human beings.
In truth, however, they hide their authoritarian tendencies. They believe that state intervention, manifested in regulations and prohibitions, is the only means of solving all problems. They hide their rejection of the limited, but diverse nature of human beings: our ability to decide and to act, and our will to survive.
They hide their contempt for others, but also for themselves, and what they are. In truth, in organizing protests calling for greater state action, they are making use of platforms for expression and assembly that only a liberal society can provide, while working to destroy it.
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