Surprised by leftist rhetoric? Look closer at the climate movement

Millions of Americans were horrified when Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood. Then came an even bigger shock: large numbers of people celebrated his death and danced on his grave.

Sickening as it is, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. The left has long harbored—or at least tolerated—an anti-human streak, and nowhere is it more visible than in its radical environmental wing.

Leftwing misanthropy rears its ugly head when it comes to issues like abortion, euthanasia, and criticizing the traditional family. But radical environmentalism carries the same core belief: human beings are the problem. If we just had fewer human beings doing less, the idea goes, the world would be a better place.

Radical environmentalists preach the gospel of demographic decline, arguing that having fewer children cuts carbon more than a lifetime of bike riding and composting. Some environmentalists made the not-so-subtle point that thanks to the death and lockdowns of COVID-19, “nature is healing.” One recent study found that environmental activists, consumed by their mission, often tend to “manipulate and deceive others” and demonstrate “callousness” and “lack of empathy.” When saving the planet is the goal, who has time for people’s feelings?

The logic is clear: humans are the problem. Not the behavior of industry or the pace of innovation—but people themselves.

Of course, that doesn’t mean environmental activists have their fingers on a trigger. Thinking the world would be better off with fewer people doesn’t make one a killer. But a movement that treats human beings as the enemy breeds a mindset where life itself can be dismissed, devalued, or even cheered when lost.

How do you get so many people celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk? You get it in a movement that finds an environmental bright side to a deadly pandemic, that sees people as problems to be overcome, and that holds up abortion as a win for the earth. To too many, life becomes unwelcome when, in their opinion, that life starts causing more harm than good.

The result of this line of thinking brought to its logical conclusion is the despicable display recently put on by prominent University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Mann.

Despite being one of the most prominent climate “experts” with a perch in the lofty heights of the Ivy League, Mann callously wrote after Kirk’s assassination that “the white on white violence has gotten out of hand” and retweeted a post calling Kirk “the head of Trump’s Hitler Youth.”

Mann has long blurred the line between science and politics. In fact, his fierce partisanship has actually been a significant obstacle to common-sense bipartisan action. Yet few conservatives noticed his tirades because most ignore the climate issue entirely. It took Mann mocking the murder of a free speech activist for the general public to finally wake up to his radicalism.

Yet Mann isn’t just morally reckless; he’s factually wrong. A review of 1,500 climate policies found that his preferred approach of top-down government regulation fails, while free market solutions actually reduce carbon emissions. President Trump’s pro-energy policies and embrace of cleaner natural gas helped cut carbon emissions to the lowest level in 25 years in his first term. President Trump is also laser-focused on holding China accountable for its economic practices. China is the world’s foremost polluter, yet this appears to be an “inconvenient truth” for environmentalists on the Left.

Sadly, the activists on the environmental left seem immune to the facts. Or, maybe, they just haven’t heard them.

Radical environmentalists like Michael Mann are organizing, teaching, and shaping the next generation in ways that are anti-human, anti-freedom, and anti-Western. Thus far, they’ve done so unopposed. But conservatives can’t continue to cede this battlefield.

If we want to effectively combat leftwing misanthropy, we must engage in the climate debate—and we must offer a hopeful counterpoint to the left’s dark narratives, wherever they take hold.

No matter what many of the left seem to believe, people aren’t the problem. In fact, if Charlie Kirk’s life proved anything, it’s that even one person can change the world for the better.

Chris Johnson is President and Co-Founder of the American Energy Leadership Institute, a conservative energy policy research and advocacy organization working to ensure America leads and dominates the 21st century.