For more than 40 years, the environmentalist movement has been warning that global warming is the result of mankind's burning of fossil fuels and poses an "existential threat" to human and other biological life.
This is one of the many grandiose lies the Left uses to reshape, if not destroy, Western civilization. Other grandiose lies used to achieve that result include America being systemically racist; that violent crime is the result of racism and poverty; men give birth; sex and gender are "nonbinary"; and that former President Donald Trump was a Russian asset.
It should now be obvious that the "Greens," the environmentalist movement -- not global warming -- poses an existential threat to humanity. For the first time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the world faces the possibility of a nuclear war. Russia is explicitly threatening use of nuclear weapons should the West come to the defense of Ukraine and has put its military on nuclear alert. Given the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin is deranged, the threat is far more real than it was in 1962 when Nikita Khrushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union. Putin believes he embodies Russia (just as Hitler believed he embodied Germany). Khrushchev did not believe he embodied Russia.
Were it not for the green movement, Putin would not have been confident that he could get away with invading Ukraine. During Trump's presidency, and due to his policies, the United States became independent of foreign oil for the first time. Within months of assuming power, the Democratic Party, an extension of the environmentalist movement, forced America to revert to dependence on foreign oil, including Russian oil. Beholden to the environmentalists, candidate Joe Biden made promise after promise to curtail oil and gas production: no new fracking on government land, no drilling in the Alaskan Arctic, and shutting down the Keystone pipeline.
Putin got the message.
So, thanks to environmentalists, not only is America once again dependent on foreign oil, Germany is dependent on Russian oil. Angela Merkel, another in a long line of foolish Germans, even shut down Germany's nuclear reactors -- which the greens in Germany applauded. They applauded it -- despite the fact that nuclear energy is the only viable non-carbon energy that can sustain a country -- because the environmentalist movement is not nearly as interested in the environment as it is in restructuring society. The environmentalist movement is as interested in protecting the environment as the communist movement was in protecting workers or the defund-the-police movement is in protecting blacks.
The Democrats came into power in 2021. The average closing price of oil in 2020 was $39.68 a barrel; the closing price of oil in 2019 was $56.99 a barrel. As of this writing it is $138.00 a barrel. The extremely high price of energy -- a direct result of the environmentalist policies of the Democratic Party and the liberal and Left parties in Europe -- is one of the two primary reasons for the ever-increasing rate of inflation. (The other reason is the result of another Democrat policy: the printing of trillions of dollars.)
Serious inflation leads to very bad things. The Nazis did not come to power because of their antisemitism or even because of the Versailles Treaty as much as they did because of the terrible inflation under the Weimar Republic.
And any day now, the Biden administration will announce an agreement with Iran that will enable Iran to take in billions of dollars for its oil. Yet another victory for Biden, the Democrats and the environmentalists. This agreement, brokered -- incredibly -- by Russian diplomats, will enable Iran to sponsor worldwide terror, resuscitate Iran's economy and continue its quest for nuclear bombs.
But none of this matters to Biden, the Democratic Party, The New York Times or any other left-wing institution -- so strong is the grip of the environmentalist cult and so influential are the uber-wealthy environmentalists who support the Left. They would rather see Ukraine destroyed, the potential for a nuclear war and the decimation of the world economy than allow fracking, drilling or even an oil pipeline between Canada and the United States.
Concern for the environment is a good thing, but the environmentalist movement is not.
Environmentalists use the environment to create a social revolution just as communists used workers to create a social revolution.
Its activists are fanatics.
Its consequences are nihilism.
Environmentalists are, intentionally or not, in collusion with Putin to undermine America and the West.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is "The Rational Bible," a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, "No Safe Spaces," was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
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