Watermelons

John Stossel on the cargo-cult environmental holiday of Earth Day:

It's possible climate change may become a problem. But even if industrialization brings warming, we've got more important problems. On my TV show this week, statistician Bjorn Lomborg points out that "air pollution kills 4.3 million people each year ... We need to get a sense of priority." That deadly air pollution happens because, to keep warm, poor people burn dung in their huts. 

Yet, time and again, environmentalists oppose the energy production most likely to make the world cleaner and safer. Instead, they persuade politicians to spend billions of your dollars on symbolism like "renewable" energy.

Do environmentalists even care about measuring costs instead of just assuming benefits?

Well, no.  No they don't.  If they really did care about the environment, they would be supporting the development of nuclear power, instead of slaughtering birds with wind turbines.  If they really did care about global warming, they would be supporting natural gas development in the US instead of opposing it.  If they really did care about people dying of easily avoidable malnutrition, they would be supporting the development of golden rice instead of opposing it.

Instead of doing anything to actually solve these problems, what do they do?  Designate a holy day to spend worshiping mother Gaia.  Drive a coal-powered electric car to show how much they care. Carefully separate paper and plastics into the proper recycling bins as an act of penance.  Nothing they do, say or support has any practical, real-world application to solving a problem.  Their actions are no more than a salve to soothe whatever tattered remnants of conscience still inhabits their shriveled, blackened souls.  

They are not visionaries.  They are your so-called betters, who ache for approval and yearn for authority over others more than anything else.

They are racists, bigots, and nihilists who long for death.