The environmentalist movement and Chinese totalitarianism

Did some of you catch this? From a recent Michael Gerson column in the Washington Post, discussing the whole global warming/environment issue:

"...a disturbing minority of the environmental movement seems to view an excess of human beings, not an excess of carbon emissions, as the world's main problem. In two recent settings, I have heard China's one-child policy praised as an answer to the environmental crisis -- a kind of totalitarianism involving coerced birth control or abortion. I have no objection to responsible family planning. But no movement will succeed with this argument: Because we in the West have emitted so much carbon, there needs to be fewer people who don't look like us."

Conservatives need to know that this is how some think. Be not silent...

A green religion?

So there was a big article yesterday in the Washington Post about how environmentalism is becoming a big thing on college campuses.

Now of course there's nothing wrong with studying the environment, or being "green" when it comes to efficiency or recycling. And the article even gave a few lines to global warming skeptics. But the real problem with environmentalism is that it's becoming an article of faith, a religion almost; and its adherents too easily move towards the notion that key parts of the catechism--that, for example, human action is the main cause behind global warming and that the globe has warmed beyond what could be seen as normal and expected--cannot be questioned.

And we see evidence of this from the article:

"But many school officials say there's a growing consensus about climate change. "Three or four years ago, I would hear that from people, that global warming's a fraud," said Randall Ott, architecture dean at Catholic. "I don't hear that at all now," especially from students. In his view, he said, "the evidence is overwhelming -- and very troubling. We at our university feel a certain ethical mission to be operative on this issue"....At U-Va., where students helped design a barge that will travel the Chesapeake Bay and that they hope will teach children about ecology, architecture dean Karen Van Lengen said environmentalism "is not a course at our school. It's a way of thinking. . . . It's a mind-set."

A "mind-set" not to be challenged? An "ethical mission" not to be questioned? Let's hope not. But one wonders.