Warmed Over Hypocrisy

The hypocrisy of the climate-change-save-the-Earth movement waxes rather warm itself these days, as it has since its incipience under Al Gore in those 90’s yore, when things seemed almost rational by comparison. Rex Murphy’s inimitable ironic prose eviscerates the millionaires and billionaires gathering for a ‘Google Summit’, private jets and private yachts gobbling up fossil fuels, all to preach to the rest of the world to use less, less and ever-less, until – we may assume – our very breath and existence vanish in some Xenonian paradox.

There is Prince Harry, vowing to have no more than two children, so they – in itself a curious paradox of Christ’s own paradox of the meek – may inherit a better Earth. To atone for his ‘sins’, apparently, he gave a speech at said summit barefoot, in true Franciscan fashion.

At least he plans begetting on two royals, just shy of the minimum replacement rate of 2.1, but Britain and the rest of what was once called Christian civilization is so far below that, a return to sustainable population may now be well-nigh impossible. Ponder, if you will, Miley Cyrus, currently married to Australian actor – if one forgives the expression – Liam Helmsworth, famed for a down-under soap opera. The fetching couple plan never to hand on their genetic lineage to any progeny, for, to paraphrase a bit more politely Miley’s own words, the Earth is a pile of excrement. That is not quite what God said, and, from my own personal experience in traveling, much, most, if not almost all, of His good world is rather beautiful, pristine and breathtaking. Miley should get out more; she certainly, by means I don’t understand, has the money for it.

Ah, despair comes in many forms, subtle and not-so.

Then we have Greta the Great – as some pundit anointed her, in jest, I presume – the sixteen-year old oracular Swedish moppet with her shrill apocalyptic message of impending climate disaster, who has begun a world-wide movement for students to skip school on Fridays to ‘fight climate change’. She has now been invited to address the United Nations – to say what, one wonders – but instead of flying there, she will travel on a billionaire’s private sailing vessel – the Malizia II – to ‘save fuel’.

Of course, she will skip a lot more school, and save nothing; the vessel itself, a very rich man’s plaything, costs untold amounts of fossil-fuels to build – how much fiberglass, carbon and plastic? – maintain, and propel when the doldrums descend. Don’t tell me it doesn’t have a motor, and a rather powerful one, methinks. And that’s to say nothing of all the support vehicles on standby, for they cannot allow dear Greta to be lost at sea.

The whole climate change movement is thinly-disguised Manicheism, a simmering hatred of polluting, breathing, heaving, polluting humanity, except, of course, for the elite few who can afford such boats, and planes and automobiles.

What we do need is some anti-Greta, a veritable prophetess of fertility, to preach the value of motherhood, children, families, of investing in the future, not of some depopulated, barren Earth, but a vibrant one, with large families, full of trust in God.

Here is a list of the current children born from woman in various Western nation – including the more child-friendly immigrants -, keeping in mind that bare minimum replacement level – barring some calamity – is 2.1:

Austria: 1.47; Belgium: 1.74; Bulgaria: 1.53; Croatia: 1.46; Cyprus: 1.31; Czech Republic: 1.53; Denmark: 1.69; Finland: 1.71; France: 2.01; Germany: 1.47; Great Britain: 1.81; Greece: 1.30; Hungary: 1.44; Ireland: 1.94; Italy: 1.37; Latvia: 1.54; Lithuania: 1.63; Luxembourg: 1.50; Malta: 1.42; Netherlands: 1.71; Poland: 1.32; Portugal: 1.23; Romania: 1.52; Spain: 1.32; Slovakia: 1.37; Slovenia: 1.58; Sweden: 1.88.

These cannot in any real sense be called ‘replacement’ levels, for each of these nations is on a quick and now perhaps irreversible death spiral. Hungary has just announced a policy of rewarding families – or at least women – who have at least three children with $33,000. But, as Quebec – 1.69 children per women – discovered with a similar policy, just as money can’t buy you love, it also cannot buy a desire to have children, which requires also some sacrifice for the future, not of vague Mother Gaia Earth, but of the future of humanity.

Despair not, dear reader. There is plenty of room and resources for as many people as God so wills, until that eschatological culmination of all things. This Earth, like our lives, is a finite thing, and will one day be wrapped up like a blanket, as will time itself, when time is up. So, while thou havest the time, go forth, those so called to that holy adventure of marriage and parenthood, to begin the begat.

At the very least, those with hope should have children borne of hope, and expose the children of despair as who they really are.

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Payette’s Payout

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Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów

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