The Leftist Love Affair with Extinction Level Events

The left seems to have an inordinate love of pushing the most startling gloom and doom scenarios around. They are always on about how death and destruction are just around the corner, and how the doomsday clock is now just a minute to midnight.

And they have some pretty good company here. Hollywood always loves a great disaster movie. Some of the biggest box-office hits have featured frightening apocalyptic scenarios in which planet earth is about to be wiped out, or at least it gives its inhabitants a really good scare along the way. I actually enjoy seeing these flicks, as they offer a nice, short-term escape from reality.

Films such as After Earth, Pacific Rim, Armageddon, Battle: Los Angeles, War of the Worlds, End of Days, 2012, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and Category 7 come to mind here. These sorts of films are usually very successful indeed.

Consider for example the 1998 film Deep Impact in which an ambitious young female reporter is trying to uncover and expose some earth-shaking story involving the White House. She thinks she is on to something big when she learns of ‘Elle’. ‘Aha, another sex scandal, maybe even involving the President or another high-ranking politician.’

But as she does an internet search, she comes across this: “E.L.E.”. It stands for Extinction Level Event, and she soon finds out at a Presidential press conference that there is no sex scandal, but something a bit worse: there is a huge, seven-mile wide comet heading directly to planet earth. Extinction is the likely result.

It seems the political left has watched a few too many of these end of the world films. Leftists have long been running with Chicken Little narratives, and ELE events associated with environmental catastrophe have always been among their favourite scare tactics. And the current crop of American Democrats are making an art form out of all this.

Recall that the perennial moonbeam Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told us recently – and with a straight face as well – that we just have 12 years to go before we are all toast. As she said nearly two months ago now, the clock is ticking: “Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?’”

Not to be outdone, newly-announced American presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke from Texas just told us that we are all facing extinction. As he said in his opening salvo for a 2020 Presidential bid, global warming “could, at its worst, lead to extinction”

OK, and this from the same guy who assured us that “walls do not save lives. Walls end lives.” Yep, I can see the sense in all that. I guess it is time for me to sell my home, move to a cave somewhere, and await the end of all things. It is Dr Strangelove all over again.

And plenty of Australians can be found on this bandwagon as well. The most recent example comes from Dr Geoff Hinchliffe of the Australian National University who just made this bleak prophecy: “In 30 years’ time the Australian winter as we know it will be non-existent. It ceases to be everywhere apart from a few places in Tasmania.”

There you have it: three more hyper-alarmist claims which – if what has gone before is anything to go by – will turn out to be equally bogus and fraudulent. If we have even a cursory understanding of recent Western history, we will realise that none of this is new.

This is just more grist for the mill of the scare-mongering left. We can simply add these three wild predictions to the never-ending list of failed prophecies about the end of the world that the lunar left has been making for many decades now.

The sad truth is, there have been plenty of these false prophets with their gloom and doom prognostications – especially when it comes to things like overpopulation. In the 1800s British demographer Thomas Malthus got it wrong on this issue, and since then many have followed suit. In the 1960s there were plenty of false prophets, most notably Paul Erhlich. He predicted in his 1968 book The Population Bomb that millions of Americans would die of starvation by the 1980s.

Like Malthus before, he got it wrong big time. Indeed, he was so confident of his gloom and doom scenario that he accepted a wager by economic demographer Julian Simon. Simon asked Ehrlich to select any five metals in 1980, and see if they were more expensive a decade later, being more scarce.

Ehrlich avidly agreed, only to have to pay up ten years later for losing the bet. Simon knew that population was in fact the answer to environmental problems, given the nature of innovation and technological development. If one resource becomes scarce, alternatives are often developed or found. A free market economy, coupled with human ingenuity and creativity, are the best answers to natural resources scarcity.

But the doomsayers continue to make their false prophecies, and they continue to demand draconian solutions to the perceived problem. Many of these are actually coercive utopians, who in the name of saving the planet will propose some pretty inhumane and Big Brother-like solutions.

Indeed, they really are human-hating “humanitarians”. Sticking with the population alarmists, consider just two more of these cases from our recent past. Around a decade ago we had the case of one academic from the University of Western Australia who told the Medical Journal of Australia that in order to save the planet, evil child-producing parents must be slugged with draconian penalties.

He actually said that families should pay a $5000-plus baby levy at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child. He also opined that every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child’s lifetime.

And also at that time we had another “expert” offer us his proposals for saving the planet – by eradicating humans. It involved a talk given in December 2006 by Melbourne neuroscientist Dr John Reid. He was fully convinced that planet earth is grossly overpopulated, and unless we take some radical steps, like culling the human race, we are all doomed.

Since I wrote about him at the time, let me share what I said then:

Then he starts to let the cat out of the bag: “I believe the problem of overconsumption/overpopulation will not be solved by civil means.” Ah yes, we have heard this before from the coercive utopians. And he tells us how our problems can be overcome, offering the usual list of socialist solutions.

He says we will have to reject the belief in “steady economic growth”. Instead, we “in the affluent world will have to accept substantial reductions in our standard of living. . . . To achieve this, income and wealth distribution within our societies will have to become much more equal. The higher up the tree one is, the greater the sacrifice one will have to make.”

And it is all bad news if you happen to drive a car: the fleet of fossil-fuel-burning motor vehicles “will have to be reduced to no more than about 10% of the present number.” Will this be voluntary, or at the barrel of a gun? And will Reid be the first to give up his car?

But wait, there’s more: “Perhaps water meters that turn off automatically after a household’s daily ration of water has been consumed will be fitted to every house. Meat will be rationed to no more than, say, 200 grams per person per week.”

And just to make sure that we have not missed his socialist and coercive agenda, he tells us, “And private property rights will be severely curtailed to prevent landowners from engaging in environmentally-damaging behaviours. And many, many more such infringements on what we now regard as our rights will have to be accepted.” Nice of him to so glibly suggest how many rights must be stripped away from us. And we trust that he will be leading by example in all of this.

Now for the really totalitarian and barbaric side to Reid’s proposals: “The population of the world must be very quickly reduced to 5 billion (that is, if 6 billions equals 120% of capacity, then 5 billions equals 100%). And then, as the average level of affluence rises, fairly quickly reduced further to, say, 2 to 3 billion.”

Well folks, there you have it. Half of the human race needs to go. And will Reid be the first volunteer? Or will he be pulling the trigger of the machine gun, or flipping the switch to release the poison gas? Funny, but all this somehow sounds strangely – and eerily – familiar.
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2007/01/10/melbourne-atheist-the-exterminator/

Some of these proposals to make us all greener seem to be proposals to make us all dead – or at least most of us dead. In their zeal to save the planet, they are often quite willing to view humans as expendable at best, or a plague at worst. Indeed, some of them really don’t seem to like people at all.

And of course all their doomsdayism is always a great coverup for what the left really wants: total control. What better pretext to extend the power of the state and limit the power of individuals than to convince us that we are all doomed unless the government steps in and takes some radical steps to “fix” things?

But the really scary thing here is how many of these alarmists are now becoming mainstream. Indeed, one of them soon might occupy the Oval Office, or take up residency in the Lodge. It is at that point that I will certainly join in and exclaim, “We are all doomed!”

[1666 words]

10 Replies to “The Leftist Love Affair with Extinction Level Events”

  1. Bill, love the way you combine wit & wisdom with God’s truth. The way you so beautifully describe the left makes me laugh but at the same time they are scary people. Just take a good look at Ocasio Cortez – those eyes – is anyone home? Is demon possession possible in politics?

    I’m believing, and thanking the Lord already for Donald Trump’s victory in our next elections. God bless you for all you do for Him and for us.

  2. Hmm. What about “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”? The Earth is nowhere near full – the whole population of planet earth could stand in Tasmania without anyone being able to touch anyone else without taking a step. Or, the whole population on earth could live in Queensland in a single story family houses with small gardens and still have room to spare.

  3. Bill, this alarmism is far worse and advanced than we think. All the spheres of society has been infiltrated by the Climate Cult. The mainstream churches have all fallen for this scam and worship Gaia.
    Herewith a link to some examples of “christian” organisations supporting all the pagan worshipers agendas (climate action now, stop Adani, shut coal fired power stations, no fracking, etc.).:
    https://www.arrcc.org.au/ and http://www.weacreationcare.org/ and https://catholicclimatemovement.global/ and https://greenfaith.org/. and many more. Scary stuff!
    I have left the church many years ago. Could not find a true biblical congregation to date. All worshiping pagan gods and fallen for cultural marxism. Currently visiting Trinity Church in Adelaide. Seem to be sincere biblical pastors. Haven’t had any in depth discussions with any of them yet regarding Agenda 21 & 2030 of the UN and cultural marxism.
    OT: I have been semi retired now for 3 years and therefore have much more time for reading (some research and in depth studies as well). I am currently reading/studying the book “Christian Ethic’s” by Wayne Grudem. You have recommended the book last year in one of your articles. To date I have not found anything like this. This book should be in every Christians collection. Many thanks for this and your contribution to promote our Savior and encourage us to live the life our Father requires from us.

  4. We should not worry about overpopulation. Throughout history there have been some great people such as Mozart, Einstein, Shakespeare and Michelangelo. If a huge number of people are killed or never born then there will be fewer great people such as these. Some of the great people will be able to solve the problems that the world faces. It will possible to increase crop yields so that more food can be grown in the same area of land. Crop yields have already been increased over time. Most people are aware of the environment and they recycle their rubbish voluntarily. Water can be recycled and more dams can be built. Population is not a problem. Human beings should be more important than animals and plants. These doomsday merchants think that animals and plants are more important than humans and that is why they want to kill off most or all humans. We need to decide for ourselves is a human more important than animals or plants? In China they had forced abortions. This is cruel and breaches human rights. Now there are huge social and economic problems with the one-child policy. There are more young men than young women. Human beings are a valuable labour resource. In the West there is a big problem of an ageing society. Some countries are paying couples to have children. These anti-population people have caused enough trouble already. We need to listen to the demographers. Ignore the merchants of doom. Population growth is good for the economy. You can not have a thriving economy without any population growth. Japan’s economy has stagnated for years. There is a wonderful Bible verse in Matthew 6:25. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?

  5. Bill – One reason i don’t trust these people is because notice how they tell us here in the west to not have children because of the things listed above and yet places like africa, the middle east and latin america have much higher birth rates then the west have. Yet none of these same politicians say anything to these countries to stop having less kids. This is why apart of me believes this whole thing is a lie because the left can’t tell us not to have kids due to overpopulation then on the other hand complain about the west’s negative population and argue for mass migration.

  6. There are many Christians who, while not on the loony left, also believe in an Extinction Level Event. This is the ELE taking place at the return of Christ, or soon after. We read in Peter’s second letter this verse: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed (will be burned up) (2Peter 3:10 ESV).” The good news for us is that God is preparing a new heavens and earth to replace the old, corrupted one. It is something all of us should look forward to, because there will be no more death, sickness or sin in this new universe. We also realise the people of the world people need to hear about God’s extinction level event while there is still time for them to repent. We know that God’s ELE is not some Holywood fiction but a dire warning about a real event that is yet to come.

  7. Great article, Bill. This really boils down to many having a reverence for the Earth and giving it the worship, devotion, and glory which belongs only to God. More of rebellious man, “Confessing themselves to be wise, they became as fools.”

  8. Fascinating how the left love to scare. When they succeed it means votes to their agenda. There is a plethora of authors who highlight real warnings to humanity. Dr Devra Davis – on The War on Cancer and Jeffrey M Smith Seeds of Deception. To name but a couple, no time is spent here as big business won’t gain and so money from them flows to the left causes. God is Always good and to worship honour obey and serve Him is our chiefest soul delight. Bill you once again put our focus where it should be, on Our Saviour.
    Love your writings
    Mark Bryant

  9. When I started at Ivy Tech, I made this verse a foundational verse in my studies, although in Accounting, worldviews didn’t play much in GAAP.

    Col 2:8  Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. 
    How many today are a prize for the left?

    It seems as if the left has already been doing a fine job at destroying the planet, not to mention our nation. The destruction is from within, not climate change.

    WILLI MUNZENBERG, JEWISH REVOLUTIONARY OF THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL
    “We must organise the intellectuals and use them TO MAKE WESTERN CIVILIZATION STINK! Only then, after they have CORRUPTED ALL ITS VALUES AND MADE LIFE IMPOSSIBLE, can we impose the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

    “To further the advance of their ‘quiet’ cultural revolution – but giving us no ideas about their plans for the future – the School (The Frankfurt School) recommended (among other things):
    1. The creation of racism offences.
    2. Continual change to create confusion.
    3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children.
    4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority.
    5. Huge immigration to destroy identity.
    6. The promotion of excessive drinking.
    7. Emptying of churches.
    8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime.
    9. Dependency on the state or state benefits.
    10. Control and dumbing down of media.
    11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family.

    I am watching Agenda: Grinding America Down again only this time, taking the time to create more detailed notes for further research. What was new to me and I didn’t catch this before is the mention of the Cloward/Piven Strategy. I never realized how many bought into this nonsense so easily. Glenn Beck had a great show explaining this and was quite easy to follow along. There are quite a few parts to watch, but the first couple were what I needed. The quality is sub-par, but you would get the gist. https://youtu.be/t9dnLgTo6MU

    “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before…”

    In light of the Cloward-Piven Strategy, which is at its very core a method to artificially induce crisis, the otherwise insane policy actions of the Obama Administration and preceding puppet presidents now become perfectly logical. Obama, after all, has been a long time proponent of the methods of Saul Alinsky, the left wing gatekeeper equivalent to Neo-Con godfather Leo Strauss. Cloward and Piven were also both avid followers of Alinsky, who promoted lies, misdirection, subversion, and abandonment of conscience in order to win social power at any cost (special note – Alinsky also dedicated his book ‘Rules For Radicals’ to Lucifer…yeah, to the friggin’ devil). https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-03/cloward-piven-strategy-being-used-destroy-america

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