"You cannot solve a problem when you start with a faulty premise. If you believe the earth is flat, your attempts at navigation will fail. If you believe government should solve your problems, you will always be disappointed when it doesn't."  - Bob Breidenstein

Technological advances, not "live more simply" environmentalism, will deliver a greener planet, argues Madsen Pirie. Lord Stern, whose 2006 report set out the consequences and costs of various levels of global warming, has now called for humans to stop eating meat.

His reasoning is that our farm animals, especially cows and pigs, expel methane, which is 23 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, making meat-production account for 18 percent of all carbon emissions. He says that it will become as socially unacceptable to eat meat as it is to drink and drive. The proposal is not surprising, since it is but the latest in a series of proposed behavioural changes which are claimed to be essential to the planet's survival. People have been told they must eat locally-sourced food, abandon their cars for public transport, and drastically cut their air travel, among many other 'essential' changes. Giving up meat is only another step on the 'live more simply' road. At the heart of the environmental lobby lies an unease at progress and change, and a veneration of a calmer, slower lifestyle. It goes hand in hand with a disregard for the material goods which extend choices in the rich nations, and even for the economic growth which offers the poorer ones a ladder out of subsistence. Although 'saving the planet' is advanced as the reason why these lifestyle changes must be implemented, it sometimes seems as if the simpler life is an end in itself, and that global warming is a convenient excuse to force acceptance of it. - Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: Global warming - deal with it!

Free-Market Analysis: It is very hard to deal with the idea that a powerful group of men create dominant social themes (memes) designed for the consumption of the rest of the world. It is even harder to wrap one's mind around these memes being marketed the control and profit of those who generate them. But how else to explain many of the memes currently circulating?

These dominant social themes include the deadly swine flu, the ticking time bomb of overpopulation, the flooding of the world from global warming, the freezing of the world from peak oil - and on and on. We are even supposed to be scared of a meteor hitting earth. In all these instances - every one - a government solution is proposed that will ameliorate the difficulty. And all the solutions, we note, are increasingly international and involve the United Nations and other global bodies.

This can all be construed as coincidence - luck, etc. - but when one looks at the actual mechanism it is evident, in our opinion, that many of these dominant social themes are created and marketed by only a few highly placed, powerful, (often-titled) and wealthy people. A recent article that we wrote about in the Telegraph pointed out that the entire global warming fantasy was supposedly signed on to by thousands of scientists but on closer examination this just wasn't true. The actual number of scientists propelling global warming to the forefront of the news turned out to be just a handful. And we would propose that this is true of almost every meme launched by the monetary elite. It is a thin group at the top, though millions of individuals are influenced beneath.

In the case we are examining now, we see a highly educated and titled gentleman has proposed that the entire world be deprived of meat, belts, handbags and anything else made from animals. He is not serious of course (we do not believe he is), but he is part of what for lack of a better terminology may be construed as a Hegelian dialectic. It is not enough to propose dominant social themes, or even to provide solutions for them, the elite instinctively understands. One must also provide an argument that engages the opposition in order to bring a meme to fruition.

By bringing up the idea that people ought not to eat meat or use animal products, Lord Stern is creating a goal post on one side of the field. The other side of the field - the "eat meat" crowd - starts with its own goal post and gradually, thanks to government intervention, the two sides will converge on the middle of the field in a government-brokered, democratically-backed "compromise." Thus it is that those who always eat meat will somehow find themselves involved in a discussion about not eating SOME kinds of meat, or not using some sorts of animal products. The unthinkable becomes thinkable, the unimaginable gradually becomes reality through discourse.

Lord Stern is doubtless a highly intelligent man. Does he really discount ten years of weather reports that show the global climate may be growing COLDER. Does he really believe that six billion people will cease to eat meat - when literally millions of years of evolution insist otherwise. There is plenty of scientific evidence, in fact, that the size of the human brain grew in a ratio to the ability to scavenge, capture or kill animals from meat eating.

So ... Lord Stern does not know that human intelligence is linked to the ingestion of protein? He does not know that global warming is an entirely controversial and, in fact, likely untrue assertion? He is unaware of the difficulty in challenging evolutionary behavior? On and on. Either Lord Stern is a fairly stupid Peer, one who has not taken advantage of his educational opportunities, or he is involved in the promotion of a version of the Hegelian dialectic as mentioned above.

And from our point of view Lord Stern is not stupid. And of course he is creating a dialectic. We have chosen to point him out because his statement is outrageous, but if one examines the behavior of certain British and American individuals who obviously belong to what we call the monetary elite in these modest pages, one will detect evidence of such patterns of behavior over and over. The Anglo-American monetary elite is not merely a passive entity. It is not reactive. It actively creates and markets memes and then sets the terms of the debate.

That is what Lord Stern is doing. He is moving the goalposts on behalf of the global warming meme. Having created the meme, the monetary elite - in our opinion -- is now busy engaging those who don't believe it. It is part and parcel of the business of creating dominant social themes. By engaging the "antis," the monetary elite can actually begin a process of implementation. Doesn't matter whether the meme is believable or not. The process is what counts. The ability to engage in discussion, come to a conclusion and create a regulation. The latter is most important.

Enmeshing memes within the regulatory process gives them nearly unimpeachable authority. The police enforce the supporting regs. The courts create a judicial process regardless of whether the memes are true or not. The mainstream media then deals with the memes as if they were established fact. A nation's education system retells them with certainty and even quizzes students on them. Businesses are built around the demand generated by a given dominant social theme.

Conclusion: The biggest meme of all is the central bank one. The idea that a handful of influential men can predict the behavior of money is a surprising one. In fact, it is impossible. Only the free-market can determine the real rate and supply of money at any given time. That's why a private gold and silver standard is far preferable to the current fiat-money (mandated) standard that is currently the world's preferred monetary situation. But things are changing, thanks to the Internet, and we expect the current monetary meme to change as well.

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Environmentalism is one of many good reasons to give up meat
written by EconomicTactics, October 29, 2009

I concur with your article and would like to add that meat consumption is not necessary in societies where alternatives are so abundant. And, in my own mind anyway, it's inhumane.

That is my .02. Thanks for allowing me to share it.

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