Cultish eco-nuts are letting down environmentalism
When I was a child watching Dad’s Army, I used to look at the characters and evaluate what it might be like to be married to each of them. (I was a precocious only child – don’t judge.) Spivvy Private Walker was obviously the most exciting, but Sergeant Wilson was so suave. In the second division, Private Pike was cute but wet and Lance Corporal Jones could give out extra rations. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, Private Godfrey reminded me of the grandad I’d never had.
It was Private Frazer, though, who always came very last on my list of lust. The dour Scottish undertaker with his cries of “we’re doomed!” and “a terrible way to die!” disturbed me in a way my childish mind couldn’t quite define.
Who would have thought that the creepy private would one day become the role model for environmentalists – a group which once seemed so fresh and funky?
When I was a teenager, Greenpeace activists were always up to something lively, whether pestering the French and getting blown up for their troubles, or, hilariously, being put on trial for “sailor mongering”. (A 19th-century charge, whereby prostitutes laden with booze lured sea dogs from their ships, thus leaving the vessels open to piracy while drumming up business for harbourside taverns.) They were extreme those Greens, yes, but there was something sexy about them: as a 17-year-old, I felt moved to join the Greenpeace anti-whaling picket of the Japanese Embassy.
I wouldn’t waste a precious afternoon on the environmental activists of today, for the simple reason that they appear to be away with the fairies. Worse, their fairy ring is fast turning into a sinister death cult.
First, we saw the rise of the “birth strikers” – neurotic youths who “won’t procreate until the world gets its act together on climate”. Now, a paper from the Royal College of Psychiatrists has defined “eco-distress” as a phenomenon, warning that climate change is “exacerbating mental health problems”.
We used to think people cheered up when the sun came out; but now psychiatrists report mental health worsening during hot spells: “The knock-on effects of climate change and biodiversity loss will be felt on people’s mental health” claims one Dr Lisa Page. “Many patients with mental illness experience worse symptoms on hotter days.”
How long till they put a trigger warning on songs about summer? Until Summer Nights becomes Summer Frights?
Can we really have changed so much as a people since the war years – when we kept calm and carried on while the Nazi bombs rained down on us – that we now we hide from sunlight like a bunch of wussy undeads, fearful that our snowflakey selves may melt?
In 2019 ecologist James Lovelock celebrated his 100th birthday. A trailblazing scientist, he was willing to change his mind when faced with new facts: at the start of World War Two he was a conscientious objector, then tried to enlist after hearing of Nazi atrocities. Decades later, in 2012, he acknowledged that
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he had been “alarmist” about climate change, saying of the XR mob: “The Green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion – it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty.” A far cry from Greta Thunberg; Veruca Salt meets Dracula.
But perhaps the transformation of the Green movement should come as no surprise; like so many other political issues, environmentalism has become the plaything of an over-privileged, under-employed, woke brigade, contemptuous of the masses.
It should be a doddle to make the climate change movement something life-affirming and universally appealing . At its heart, it’s about appreciating and conserving our beautiful world. And no one likes to see a sea turtle trussed up like a gimp in plastic beer rings.
But even as I write, there’s an e eco-nut on the radio saying that t trees should have the same rights as h human beings.
The death cult, it seems, really d does have a death wish.