Ethan Redekop Quadrant Online January 27, 2025
At present, there is fierce debate in Canadian politics surrounding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s implementation of a carbon tax. Federal opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has made the repeal of Trudeau’s carbon tax the crux of his campaign to become prime minister, citing the rising cost of living and inflation as two indications that the carbon tax is doing more harm than good. Trudeau and the federal Liberals, on the other hand, maintain that a carbon tax is the most effective way to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and that the carbon tax is paid back in rebates, with eight of ten households receiving more than they pay in taxes, mostly for gasoline and home heating. This debate has come to the fore of our political awareness as Canadians, even reflected in everyday life. While driving to Bonnyville from Winnipeg, on Highway 16, I encounter a large group outside Lloydminster protesting the recent hikes in the carbon tax, waving Canadian flags, holding homemade posters, and reciting slogans.
The Canadian carbon tax was implemented in 2018 under Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The program intends to disincentivize behaviour which conduces to carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for individuals and corporations. Corporations in Canada are taxed per tonne of CO2 they emit, and the rate at which they are taxed slowly increases, so as to incentivize gradually switching to carbon-neutral options. Individuals are taxed on gasoline for their cars at the pump and are taxed on home heating from natural gas, so that they are incentivized to transition away from gas-powered cars and unsustainable sources of home energy. However, they are issued rebates to compensate for the tax, which they can use to invest in more sustainable lifestyles. The individual carbon tax, too, increases with time. It is accurately argued by Liberals that eight of ten households receive more in rebates than they pay in taxes. The Conservatives, contrarily, allege that this does not account for indirect costs which accumulate because of industry at every stage of the supply chain being taxed more. So, despite people being paid more in rebates than they are taxed, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party argue that the carbon tax is making life more expensive, using catchy slogans like “axe the tax” and “spike the hike.”
While, doubtless, there are many pertinent questions arising from this debate—whether carbon pricing works, whether it is justified, whether it is politically practicable in a democracy—this has caused me to reflect more generally upon environmentalism as a political movement and philosophical idea. Environmentalism is an omnipresent force in our politics and everyday lives as Canadians. Most especially, environmentalists have singled out our oil and gas industry as a paradigmatic villain, with countless activists violently protesting the development of pipelines and new and existing oil and gas projects. In preparation to work in Cold Lake, we were briefed on the threats posed by possible eco-terrorists. I therefore wish to understand this movement—where it came from and how it arose—to see, then, how it informs our discourse and policies such as the Canadian carbon tax—and then examine it under a critical lens.
Specifically, I am interested in the interaction between environmentalism and the philosophical doctrine of humanism. As I will reveal, there is more inherent strife between them than we may be realize. Before proceeding, I will provide a succinct definition of each.
Environmentalism emphasizes the preservation of the natural world against human pollution and degradation, and has pivoted in recent years to emphasize the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the purportedly disastrous effects of climate change if current trends continue. One intellectual origin of this movement is the field of environmental ethics, which seeks to understand moral relationship between man and nature. If man has a moral obligation to protect nature, either as an inherent or instrumental good, then this legitimizes environmentalism as a political movement, which can achieve its goal through the implementation of policies, lobbying for an overhaul in societal values, advocating for institutional changes so that we can implement policies to reduce environmental degradation and climate change, or even to engage in radical activism to force the hands of our leaders. Environmental groups engage in one or more of these methods to achieve their policy objectives. Between the movement “Just Stop Oil” defacing famous artworks and “Green” parties in democracies advocating carbon-neutral policies, there is a wide spectrum, only united in the sometimes-vague spirit of environmentalism.
Humanism, on the other hand, is a philosophical movement popularized in the Italian Renaissance and Enlightenment eras, with roots in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, which deems the welfare of the human individual as the primary moral consideration. With early articulations in Cicero and then Petrarch, humanism reached its zenith in the moral philosophy of Kant and the political philosophy of Locke, Paine, and Montesquieu. For Kant, each human being has a piece of the divine in them, which is the ability to rationally determine their own ends. As such, because each human has this faculty, they have a fundamental dignity and autonomy which must be respected by the state. Because human beings have the divine-rational spirit within them which allows them to make moral judgements, they are also themselves—each and every one—worthy of being objects of moral consideration. Kant’s supreme moral precept, after all, is that humans ought always to be treated as ends in themselves, never merely as means.
What I will argue here may seem either obvious or ridiculous based on the reader’s persuasion, but it warrants a thorough explanation nonetheless. I argue that environmentalism is anti-humanism in a fundamental way. I note that not every policy which seeks to protect the environment or curb pollution is anti-humanistic—only that environmental policies which come at the cost of human welfare are anti-humanistic. Environmentalism need not always manifest as anti-humanism, but anti-humanism is the logical consequence of environmentalism. As I will show, there is serious evidence that environmentalist agendas have caused serious offences against human welfare and threaten to cause much more. But not only that: anti-humanism, I shall argue further, is the motivating force behind the adoption of environmentalism by the political left today.
With the rudimentary understanding of environmentalism provided above, it is easy to guess how the argument may proceed. In a simple form, if humanism views the welfare of the human as the ultimate moral goal, whereas environmentalism would posit that environmental preservation must, at times, be sought above the needs of humans, then it follows that environmentalism must sometimes advocate policies which are not humanistic. If the use of coal as an energy source would help power a nation, but the burning of coal contributes to unacceptable greenhouse gas emissions, then humanism might dictate to use the coal for energy, whereas environmentalism would advocate the opposite. However, such a simple argument may not be convincing, and may be too theoretical nonetheless. It must be demonstrated that environmentalism in practice does tend to be anti-humanistic, and that anti-humanism is the logical consequence of much environmental doctrine.
It is often alleged that climate change disproportionately affects the Global South, or the world’s poorest nations, generally. This may or may not be true. Regardless of its truth, however, this claim is central to the concept of “climate justice,” which examines the intersection between global equality and climate change. If it is true that climate change disproportionately affects marginalized and vulnerable people, environmental lobbying to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions is vindicated as a humane plight, since reducing climate change and achieving global justice may both be achieved in one fell swoop.
Environmentalism would thus prove to be humanistic by both assuring human welfare and the protection of the environment. However, this framing of the environmental movement is dishonest and obscures some key facts.
Even if we grant that climate change disproportionately affects the Global South, it is simultaneously true that developed countries’ climate policies do too. What I mean is that developed countries have the luxury to implement restrictions on emissions, reduce fossil fuel use, and expend more money on wilderness preservation, whereas developing countries do not have this luxury. And, indeed, the fact is seldom acknowledged that there are externalities to First World climate agendas which adversely affect the Third World. I will explain with some examples.
Ramachandra Guha, an Indian historian and environmentalist, observes that First World climate agendas often resemble something of an environmental imperialism. He cites the example of wildlife preserves in India, where much land was set aside for tigers, elephants, and rhinos, much to the applause of the international environmental community. However, the establishment of such wildlife preserves was only possible by dispossessing the poor in nearby villages from their lands. The wildlife preserves end up functioning as destinations for wealthy tourists. As such, the establishment of wildlife preserves, propagated and supported by First World interests, only end up benefiting the privileged, to the detriment of the poor. American environmentalists, Guha notes, provide myriad philosophical justifications for blatantly misanthropic endeavours.
Environmental ethicists such as Dave Foreman, who has argued for a significant part of the world’s land to be cordoned off from human interests, or Daniel Janzen, who argues that biologists and ecologists must advance territorial claims over much of the earth, as they alone understand how to preserve them, are cited as examples where environmentalism turns into a type of imperialism which disproportionately affects developing countries.[1]
Furthermore, while climate change is said to disproportionately affect developing countries, it is beyond a doubt that developed countries have the luxury of investing in energy sources such as wind or solar—which have higher up-front costs and higher returns only in the long-run—instead of fossil fuels, whereas developing countries, which do not have the luxury to use alternative energy sources, are left to be censured for their carbon emissions. In China, for instance, as of 2021, 62% of energy is produced from burning coal. In India, coal produces 80% of energy. In Africa, fossil fuels produce 79% of energy. China, perhaps, notwithstanding, these countries and regions do not have the means to switch to “greener” energy sources; their prosperity and industrialization depend upon the energy harnessed from “unclean” sources. If we wish for the Global South to escape poverty, their industrialization and development is the only way, and this is a highly energy and carbon intensive project. A green energy transition forced upon India or Africa would keep their people poor and unindustrialized permanently, for the infrastructure to implement alternative energy sources is simply nonexistent there. This is not to mention that the production of most essential resources, such as steel or cement, is highly energy and carbon intensive, and so reducing the carbon footprint of developing countries would mean to deny them these resources which have benefitted, and continue to benefit, the First World. A latent elitism is revealed in environmentalism by this double standard.
What is more, environmental policies in developed countries do prove hostile to the development and industrialization of developing countries. For instance, developed countries have taken note of the fact that developing countries are much slower to set reduction targets on fossil fuel emissions, and so they attempt to coerce them to do so through tariffs. Australia has been a notable example, imposing carbon tariffs on steel, cement, and other goods produced by countries with lower emissions targets (conveniently, given that they outsource most of their manufactures to China). The European Union has been the most aggressive proponent of this approach. However, the sole result of these policies is to punish poor countries simply for being too poor to adopt environmental regulations by keeping them poor.
In Canada, we are no doubt equally guilty of such arrogant environmental imperialism which only ends up punishing developing countries. Canada has been deliberately attempting to quash its domestic coal industry for years and is less aggressively trying to limit its export of liquid natural gas (LNG). The only result is that we weaken our own natural resource industries, take opportunities away from blue collar workers here, and then limit the export of key goods to countries which desperately need these energy sources to thrive. What is more, since developing countries need these energy sources, regardless of whether Canada does or does not provide them, they will inevitably turn to other countries for coal and LNG, where these resources are produced with far fewer environmental restrictions. So, too, with crude oil. Many developing nations, rather than purchasing sustainably sourced fossil fuels from Canada, are forced to buy those same resources from nations with few or no environmental standards or which throw homosexuals off rooftops. Canadian coal, oil, and LNG are essential for countries like India, China, and the United States, from whom we buy many manufactured goods anyway. Canada has been highly public in attempts to wean itself off domestic coal consumption, yet still produces roughly the same amount as before, instead exporting it elsewhere, where its effects on the environment are the same as, if not worse than, they would be here.
Another problem is carbon offshoring, which results from carbon tax-like policies seen in Canada. Because emission-heavy industries are taxed mercilessly in countries like Canada, they can choose to offshore their industries so that they operate in countries with less stringent regulations. Thus, a manufacturer based in Canada may choose to move their operations to China, India, or the United States. The result is that industries which would pollute no matter where they are, move to Third World countries, where they can, and do, pollute freely. This amounts to using developing nations as dumping grounds. Furthermore, if a country imports a good rather than producing it domestically—especially one such as coal or oil—this technically reduces that country’s carbon footprint; except it does not lower emissions overall—it merely passes the responsibility to emit greenhouse gases to a different country and forces that country to live with the consequences. In fact, with added carbon emissions from transportation, this may increase total emissions. Because we in the West have such strict dumping laws and have far too much garbage for ourselves, we are very happy to sell it to China, Malaysia, and the Philippines, and force those people to deal with garbage dumps and incinerators which reduce air quality.[2]
What this all indicates is that we in developed nations parade ourselves as being environmentally conscious, even though our environmental policies disproportionately hinder the growth of developing countries, starve them of needed resources, and burden them with increased pollution and waste. Thus, it seems doubtful that Western environmentalism does any good for the developing world, no matter whether climate change disproportionately affects them or not. “Climate justice,” therefore, becomes highly questionable. A concern for human welfare, purportedly at the heart of the climate justice movement, is belied by the evidence of Western environmental policies’ disproportionate effects on the world’s poorest regions.
If we return to the Canadian carbon tax, we may see how, even domestically, this environmental policy most affects the least wealthy Canadians with the fewest means at their disposal to transition to a “greener” lifestyle. If it is true, as Conservatives allege, that the carbon tax increases prices and cost of living overall, then those who are most punished by this environmental legislation are the most vulnerable and marginalized members of society.
In the ways outlined, both domestically and internationally, environmentalism often constitutes a luxury belief. It is possible for wealthy countries, and the wealthiest within those countries, to advance an environmentalist agenda because they will suffer the least from it. Rather, it is developing countries and working class people who suffer because of environmental policy. A luxury belief is a symbol of status—it demonstrates someone’s moral superiority—in this case by presenting the guise of empathy and conscientiousness. However, when this belief is put into practice, it has negative consequences to which the holder, because they are more well-off, are not susceptible. Those who have to live with the consequences of such beliefs are most often the downtrodden. Whereas those with wealth erstwhile wore fashionable clothes to display their status, now status is displayed in the degree to which one’s beliefs, when put into practice, disproportionately affect others.
Environmentalism and climate justice do not, in practice, constitute humanistic doctrines. But there is something more disconcerting about environmentalism when examining it and its intellectual sources closely. What is revealed is a persistent thread of misanthropy and anti-humanism which is often inherent, and at times even explicit. This is most evident in environmental theorists and philosophers who understand that, not only are the practical consequences of environmentalism often anti-humanistic, but so are the logical consequences.
Throughout the twentieth century, when environmentalists were witnessing the slow progress implementing environmental policies within Europe and North America, it was often argued that the failure of environmental movements was, and would forever be, endemic in liberal democracies, for the environmental policies needed for their radical ends would be perpetually unpopular among the people. Therefore, the only way for environmentalism to succeed totally was for the fall of liberal democracy and the rise of an environmentally conscious philosopher king. This is commonly referred to as “eco-authoritarianism” in the environmentalist literature. It is a small movement, but reveals something sinister—a fetishism of dictators and planned economies, and, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, a hotbed for communist sympathies.
While Dan Coby Shahar, among others, demonstrates what ought to be readily apparent—that dictatorships from the Soviet Union to modern China indeed have far worse environmental track-records than Western liberal democracies—the persistence of eco-authoritarianism reveals within environmentalism a shocking disregard for human welfare.[3] Gary Snyder, poet and environmentalist, has called for a 90% reduction in the human population to protect biodiversity.[4] Holmes Rolston III, environmental philosopher, compares people on the Earth to a cancer, and argues that feeding people often is a subordinate aim to the preservation of wildlife.[5] Robert Heilbroner and William Ophuls are two often credited with the conception of eco-authoritarianism, advocating for the rule of an eco-tyrant who rules over a planned economy.[6] While such ideas quickly dissipated with the fall of the Soviet Union, they have arisen once more based on the China model, with an authoritarian power and a somewhat free market system instead of a planned economy. Eco-authoritarianism continues to rear its ugly head with authors praising China’s tyrannical government—a hilarious irony, as will be shown.[7]
Environmentalism consistently shows contempt for human worth, and it is no clearer than in the explicit advocacy for tyranny, the most unjust form of government. It was Plato who argued that the tyrannical man is—by a factor of 729—the most unhappy man imaginable, and for good reason. For Plato, tyranny is the unhappiest regime because it is the most servile. The tyrant does not rule legitimately, so he is hated by the people, and his fear leads him to oppress the people, which only augments their hatred. The tyrant in turn, given ultimate license, is ruled by his ever-expanding desires. Tyrants must pacify the people by satisfying their desires also—via bread and circuses—lest they revolt. As such, under a tyranny, both the ruler and the ruled are made slaves to their desire. In this sense, a tyranny is the least humanistic form of government because it eliminates man’s political power and treats him not as an object of moral consideration, but a slave—to the ruler, but also to himself.
Eco-authoritarianism is the least humanistic type of political regime because, as in all tyrannies, the tyrant does not rule in the interest of his citizens. Eco-authoritarianism may be justified only by two premises. Either: the preservation of nature is an instrumental good, in which case, humans do not know what is good for them and are not acknowledged as rational agents capable of determining their own ends. Or: the preservation of nature is an inherent good, in which case, the wellbeing of humans is only a secondary moral concern. In either case, human autonomy is necessarily subverted. Advocates of eco-authoritarianism are quite unashamed to admit that human welfare would be significantly reduced under such a despotic regime, and that since human beings would never consent to such a decrease in their quality of life, such a radical environmentalist program can never be implemented within a liberal democracy.
Some theorists are even more explicitly anti-humanistic, openly rejecting humanism and calling for a restriction of human freedoms. Sheena Wilson, Imre Szeman, and Adam Carlson write, in the introduction to Petrocultures: Oil, Politics, Culture, that “The verities and pieties of liberal political philosophy were imagined against the backdrop of a world with ever-expanding energy resources. In a world in which energy will no longer be so abundant, we now have to revisit and reimagine our energy intensive freedoms.”[8] This is a not-so-subtle indication that, if these thinkers had their way, human freedoms would be drastically curbed in the name of environmentalism. Michael Truscello writes, “the rationalism and humanism that produced the current crisis cannot be the solution to that crisis . . .” and that “anti-humanist thought and behaviour have the potential to benefit humanity . . .”[9] That one can so boldly proclaim anti-humanism to be the solution to the climate crisis should be worrying to all. But more importantly, this claim is utterly wrong.
Actual authoritarian regimes such as China prove to have far worse environmental track records than Western liberal democracies. It is no surprise that, while in North America we are relentlessly trying to destroy our coal industries, China is building new coal power plants all but daily. Furthermore, they prove to have very few reservations about dumping toxic waste into rivers and creating some of the world’s worst rates of air pollution in their major cities. Moreover, China has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by about 80% from 2005 to 2019. Their Three Gorges Dam—a major hydroelectric project on the Yangtze River—has casused frequent landslides and tremors in the region, the decimation and relocation of local species, flooding, reduced water quality, and the displacement of over a million people. Whereas liberal democracies, motivated by public opinion, have at least attempted to reduce pollution and carbon emissions, China has intentionally done the exact opposite. The Soviet Union, another paradigm drawn upon by early advocates of eco-authoritarianism, did hardly better. The Soviet Union haphazardly dumped radioactive waste near population centres and caused irreversible environmental degradation, as in the draining of the Aral Sea for Soviet irrigation projects or the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. These are hardly examples that should be emulated.
That eco-authoritarians reject such striking evidence in favour of theoretical models for how an ecologically enlightened philosopher king may arise demonstrates both a historical ignorance and an underlying current of anti-humanism in the minds of many environmentalists. This sordid fetishism of dictators should concern us all. This current is by no means isolated to a small group of individuals. Anti-humanistic strains of environmentalism have had much practical influence. This is witnessed when we observe “Green” political parties in the democratic world which are always firmly far-left and advocate far greater centralized government control, which is necessary to implement their desired environmental programs.
Humanism is rooted in the doctrine that there is something of the divine in each human, such that they are uniquely bestowed with the ability to rationally determine their own ends and seek their own good. As such, if we accept this premise, then liberal democracy is the logically consequent political regime, as it is the one which grants a people the freedom to elect its own representatives and determine its own collective ends. Liberal democracy and humanism prove to be concomitant—they rise and fall together. A rejection of one is a rejection of the other. I hope to have demonstrated that the logical consequences of environmentalism constitute both a rejection of liberal democracy and a rejection of humanism, such that, if we value our liberal and democratic institutions, we ought to be concerned about the place environmentalism in its most radical facets has in our political discourse.
But not only this; I hope to demonstrate something even more fundamental in what follows. I have attempted to show that anti-humanism is a logical consequence of environmentalism. What I will proceed to show is that anti-humanism is present in a more essential way in the rise of the environmentalist movement. Anti-humanism, I contest, is actually the animating force behind the rise of environmentalism. Therefore, the two can hardly be separated.
To begin this second strain in my argument, I will make an observation: that the political left has become the faction championing science and, by extension, climate science, whereas the right has become the faction castigated as being anti-science and, by extension, as being deniers of climate change. I here use “left” and “right” as useful but vague generalizations which, rather than representing any specific political ideologies (for these change vastly over time), represent two opposing political tribes. Whether there is any internal consistency or logic to the stances adopted by these tribes can be left for another time. However, it is a universal fact that democracies the world over feature political parties which align either with the left or the right on the political spectrum. There may be consistencies across time and place within the categories of right and left, but there are also many changes observable on short time scales.
Any contemporary observer would agree that, in popular discourse, the modern left is portrayed as the side of science—of “the experts”—while the right is portrayed as deniers of science. I think this has come to the fore most clearest of all in the recent Covid-19 crisis, when leftist political parties trusted “the science” as a guiding force in determining policy reactions to the pandemic, whereas parties on the right which rejected those very draconic Covid-19 policies were said to reject science itself and the views of “the experts.” Similarly on the subject of climate change, we see leftists proudly proclaiming themselves as following science in determining an aggressive climate change policy, while parties on the right which reject aggressive climate change programs are said to reject science.
The truth of these claims is irrelevant, though it is perhaps wrong to take them at face value. What is more pertinent is that things have not always been this way. Indeed, the left adopting a pro-science stance is a new development. A brief historical survey shows that, as short a time ago as the early 21st century, and well through the 20th century, the left had a firmly anti-science stance. This is still visible in some respects today, but is most noticeable if we delve into the intellectual sources of modern leftism—specifically, an examination of postmodern philosophy and its impact on politics.
It is uncontroversial to assert that modern leftism draws heavily from Postmodern philosophy. Critical race theory and multiculturalism are features of leftism that owe to this school of thought. Postmodernism, in the understanding of Jean-François Lyotard, is characterized by a general “incredulity towards metanarratives.” Nietzsche, the forefather of Postmodernism, levelled an unflinching attack against the motives underlying intellectual activity and criticized science and philosophy on that basis, for pretending to be objective ways of knowing, but in reality, being expressions of the will to power. Most, if not all, of the so-called “Postmoderns” followed Nietzsche in this attack on supposedly objective knowledge and methods, instead arguing that knowledge is subjective, and one’s motives or perspective colours even the most seemingly objective subjects like mathematics.
Michel Foucault follows Nietzsche in understanding the Western tradition of philosophy and science being born out of a “will to truth,” which brings into doubt the veracity of everything discovered and accomplished by this tradition. Instead, he sees this as an edifice which was built up with the sole purpose of exerting power over others through institutional hierarchies. In Foucault we see the beginning of the logic of oppressor versus oppressed read into the whole of the Western tradition. For instance, in Madness and Civilization, Foucault views the entirety of the psychiatric field as an expression of the will to truth, where the diagnosis of insanity is not by any means an objective diagnosis, but is merely a tool by which the supposedly sane (as oppressors) may wield power over the insane (as oppressed). Truth proves to be a social construct, as what we have previously assumed to be the “truth” is only another way that a privileged class exerts their power over an unprivileged class. Imposing the relationship of oppressor versus oppressed into every aspect of life and then understanding the inversion of this hierarchy to be the criterion of justice is the result of Foucault’s work, and proves to be his most lasting legacy for leftism today.
Jacques Derrida is a third figure I will highlight, for he also develops this general incredulity toward metanarratives in the same way as Nietzsche and Foucault. Derrida sought to find hierarchies everywhere in society, focusing most upon language and reason. As we read in Of Grammatology, language is structured intentionally to privilege certain concepts above others. Derrida saw and decried rampant “logocentrism” in Western society. Logocentrism, for Derrida, is the idea that reason is privileged above unreason, and that this hierarchy actually obscures, rather than facilitates, justice and the truth. Another dimension of logocentrism, for Derrida, is the notion that we can accurately describe truth in language, a premise which he viewed as fundamentally mistaken. Rather, because language exists to promote hierarchies, language could only perpetuate those hierarchies, rather than seek any objective truth. For Derrida, what we know as objective reason is only arbitrarily determined as part of an oppressive hierarchy.
Aside from these three, many Postmodernists have parroted the same talking points and have attempted to read hierarchies in myriad aspects of human life. In Richard Rorty’s phrasing, “Truth is what your contemporaries allow you to get away with.” The subjectivity of truth has, at this point, become a hackneyed idea, but one which is deeply embedded into modern leftism. Cultural relativism is, perhaps, the most common instance of this logic.
The consequences of these doctrines for science should be readily apparent. For the Postmoderns, Western science is merely an expression of the will to power, which promotes hierarchies that favour reason over unreason, sanity over insanity, logic over mysticism. With the rise of Postmodern-inspired fields such as critical race theory and gender theory, one might (and many have) argue that science even promotes whiteness over blackness, heterosexuality over homosexuality, or may feature other such hierarchies, even if scientists themselves were unaware of this. The consequences of such doctrines are patently absurd. As Dick Taverne once mused: according to Postmodernists, Gregor Mendel’s discovery about the heritable characteristics of peas might have been different if he had been a “black, handicapped, Spanish-speaking, lesbian atheist.” But of course this is absurd, because one’s place in the world does not determine the course of scientific discovery—nor does it for philosophy, economics, psychology, or any other discipline.
Such ideas are, and have been as long as they have existed, deeply entrenched in the political left. It is worth note that philosophers labeled Postmodern, with the exceptions of Nietzsche and Heidegger, have without exception associated with leftist political causes and parties—and indeed, mostly radical leftist causes at that. Among French Postmodernists: Jacques Derrida supported many moderately leftist causes, and openly supported a socialist political party; Michel Foucault fought for many leftist causes, including penal reform and the abolishment of age of consent laws; Jean-Paul Sartre was an open socialist and an avid supporter of Stalin, as was his lover, Simone de Beauvoir; Jean-François Lyotard was a member of a far-left Trotskyist political faction; Louis Althusser and Guy Debord were both Marxist theorists. The list could go on.
Moreover, key Postmodern ideas, especially those fostering an incredulity towards science, found a home among leftist factions and political parties, which we see most clearly in the latter half of the twentieth century. Examples spring to mind such as opposition to nuclear power, which was spearheaded by leftist political parties and organizations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, and indeed, the Green Party of Canada has always been opposed to nuclear energy, which is sublimely ironic. The Hippie movement too, doubtless borne of the political left, baselessly opposed the development of nuclear power. Opposition to nuclear power, however, largely disregards the longstanding knowledge that nuclear power is safe and efficient, and could be a carbon-neutral alternative to energy generated from fossil fuels.
Perhaps a more blatant example of leftists opposing sound science is the opposition to genetically modified (GM) crops. Based on little except uninformed intuitions, leftist organizations such as, Greenpeace (again), Organic Consumers’ Organization, and Earth Liberation Front, have all categorically opposed the sale of GM crops and foods, while, until 2004, the European Union was engaged in deliberate efforts to indirectly ban GM food, all despite scientific consensus that GM food posed no threats to human health.
It was the hippie movement and leftist intelligentsia where Timothy Leary—the man who advocated psychedelic drugs as a healthy cure to societal malaise—found a home. Animal rights advocates—eternally a mainstay of the political left—have opposed scientists performing necessary trials and experiments on animals which would allow for the creation of medicine for humans. Well into the modern day, leftist universities discourage the study of evolutionary psychology, instead dogmatically clinging to the “blank slate” view of human nature.
What is more, we see leftist political parties beginning to espouse the same Postmodern arguments against science’s objectivity. Dick Taverne cites a British House of Lords report in 2000 which suggested that science, in order to win public approval, must acknowledge the biases and values which influence their work. The report was, unsurprisingly, funded by Tony Blair’s (leftist) New Labour Party.[10]
In The Flight From Science and Reason, leftist intellectuals are called out by a number of renowned scientists on absurd and scientifically irresponsible claims which are merely uncreative variations on the same Postmodern themes. One argument suggests that Boyle’s gas law (P1V1 = P2V2) was inspired by Boyle’s Conservatism and desire to preserve his Irish land holdings.[11] Another suggests that Aristotle stole his knowledge from the Library of Alexandria, and thus Greek philosophy must be stolen from Africa (despite the library being constructed after Aristotle’s death).[12] Yet another suggested that Socrates, because of his snub nose, must obviously have been African, and to question this would be racist.[13] We see, through all of this, the underlying logic of imposing hierarchies into science, and then working to upset these hierarchies. For instance, if Western science privileges European ideas over non-European ideas, we must tip the scales the other way by arguing, with or without evidence, that European ideas are, in fact, subordinate to non-European ideas.
Best of all, we see leftist intellectuals dispute the objectivity of science in the work of Paul Feyerabend and Thomas Kuhn. Feyerabend was a so-called “epistemological anarchist,” who viewed science as equal in value to mysticism and folk-traditions, as he argues in Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. His goal is to identify the “authoritarian” tendencies inherent in scientific institutions and instead promote a diversity of ways of knowing—the reversal of an embedded hierarchy. For Feyerabend, there are no universally valid methods of reasoning. Kuhn, on the other hand, argues that scientific inquiry always takes place within a “paradigm,” and the approaches that scientists take—their methodology and underlying assumptions—are confined to this paradigm. Natural science is, for Kuhn, merely a “puzzle” to make all available evidence fit the current scientific paradigm. Paradigm shifts can occur, but rather than free science from a repressive dogma, these shifts only usher in a new dogma. While Kuhn distances himself from relativism, it is difficult to ignore that relativism is a logical consequence of his ideas. In “The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research,” Kuhn argues that, while science can seem to be the most openminded discipline, the individual scientist is “very often not,” and that the history of science provides countless examples that “do not bespeak a discipline whose practitioners are notably open-minded.”[14] Indeed, Kuhn asserts that “one need neither make resistance nor dogma a virtue to recognize that no mature science could live without them.”[15] If dogma is inherent in science, then it is doubtful that science can become an objective discipline. Both of these ideas are instances of the same Postmodern incredulity of metanarratives.
I do not mean to launch an invective, but only to provide ample evidence that the political left claiming to be pro-science is a new phenomenon, and is not entirely truthful either. Postmodernism had erstwhile shaped the political left to such a vast extent as to make them question the validity of all scientific research, leading to absurd conclusions, a rejection of objectivity, and a contempt for hierarchy in all its forms. The political left has a longer history of anti-scientific attitude than the right and this anti-scientific attitude has changed only recently (and not wholly). The next questions are why this change has occurred and why I bring this up when discussing humanism.
I argue that the left’s shift in attitude towards science is not mere political caprice, but is due to an underlying consistency in Postmodern logic. The common denominator between the anti- and pro-science left is the Derridean and Foucauldian logic of revealing hierarchies embedded in the framework in society and working to upset them. The shift in attitude towards science occurred both as this logic was taken to its furthest conclusion, and just as scientists began to fully comprehend the effect of fossil fuel emissions on the environment. The final hierarchy to unearth in Western society—after the hierarchies of reason/unreason, male/female, able/disabled, straight/gay had all been brought to the light—was the hierarchy between human and non-human. The damaging effects of fossil fuel emissions on the natural world provided a reason to declare this hierarchy contemptible, and an imperative to reverse it by privileging nature over humanity. In other words, climate change gave the left an excuse to make anti-humanism justifiable in the political mainstream. In this way, not only is anti-humanism a consequence of environmentalism—anti-humanism is the very reason for its rise to prominence. The modern left which embraces environmentalism is, therefore, not anti-human in an accidental, but in an essential way.
A historical sketch will suffice to demonstrate this. It was 1958 when it was first posited that the Earth was warming as a result of carbon dioxide emissions. It was 1969 when rising temperatures were first modeled. Years later, it was discovered that the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) was causing a hole to open in the ozone layer above Antarctica. The world engaged in successful political activism to eliminate the use of CFCs. But the elimination of CFCs was successful because it was a bi-partisan and global effort, as environmental protection was not yet politicized. It was, after all, in the height of Reaganism and Thatcherism when CFCs were outlawed.
Environmentalism only became politicized (i.e. made an object of political polarization) when the political left adopted the fight against climate change as a core tenet. It was the late 1980s and early 1990s, after neo-liberal economic doctrine had fallen out of fashion, when leftist governments—Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, namely—adopted environmentalist programs which put limits on the free market by forcing firms to address their environmental externalities. The first legislation introduced to combat climate change was a result of the 1994 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and soon after, governments agreed to the Kyoto protocol, which committed developed countries to limiting greenhouse gas emissions. This was a watershed moment, as Kyoto was embraced by left-wing governments, whereas reactionary conservatives viewed this as a threat to the free market, and so opposed it. A cursory study of environmental legislation in developed countries in the 21st century will reveal that leftist governments swiftly became the most ardent advocates of protecting the environment, limiting pollution, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, whereas right-wing governments increasingly tended to push back against radical environmentalism, to the point where currently, in the United States, right-wing politicians are repudiating the very existence of climate change.
And this is all compounded by a political right whose raison d’être is purely to be a reactionary anti-leftist political coalition. Whereas the left has an underlying logic of progressivism and the reversal of hierarchies, the right does not have such a strong narrative, and so they survive as reactionaries, knocking whatever leftists boost. If the left adopts environmentalism, then the right must reject this; if the left adopts a pro-science stance, the right must be anti-science. This fact about the modern political right—being inherently reactionary—only further demonstrates that leftists took the initiative in making environmentalism a cornerstone of their politics. The political right has viewed science with incredulity primarily as a response to this.
The political left knew that to justify anti-humanism in the form of environmentalism would be a difficult task. So, in order to make such opinions palatable to the mainstream, it had to be demonstrated that climate change posed an existential threat to humanity. This is why more radical leftists are insistent that an imminent cataclysm faces humanity unless swift and extreme action is taken. Environmental activists and Green politicians alike are intent upon increasing the perceived urgency of the environmental movement so that, in the frenzy, it is not noticed that humanism has been left behind with our rights and freedoms in tow.
This model has much explanatory power for the leftist shift from anti- to pro-science we witness in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and it is consistent with the Postmodern intellectual sources of modern leftism. Therefore, it is reasonable to claim that anti-humanism is part and parcel of environmentalism. Not only is anti-humanism the logical consequence of environmentalism—as we see in the results of current environmental legislation and the philosophical doctrine of eco-authoritarianism—but it is also the animating force—for we see it is merely an extension of the Postmodern ethos of finding and reversing hierarchies embedded in society.
It may seem odd at first to suggest that something like a Carbon tax may be an expression of anti-humanism; perhaps it is and perhaps it is not. I must qualify my argument by saying that not every policy or attitude which seeks to protect nature or limit pollution is an expression of anti-humanism. There are cases where environmentalism and humanism overlap. National parks, for instance, and nature reserves are certainly good things which improve a nation’s quality of life. However, in cases where human interests and nature are not so neatly aligned, to choose to preserve nature to the detriment of human beings constitutes anti-humanism.
There are economists and scientists more able than I to evaluate the efficacy of a carbon tax in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to determine how necessary this policy may be. However, whether the Canadian carbon tax is a necessary step to avert a global catastrophe, or whether it is merely a useless and elitist policy which increases the cost of living domestically and encourages carbon offshoring abroad, it is indisputable that this policy is borne out of a desire to privilege nature above human wellbeing, at least if our utilitarian calculus does not extend into the uncertain future. Indeed, the attitudes of Canadians, turning away from Justin Trudeau and becoming more incensed with the carbon tax, seem to reveal an increased understanding of this fact.
I will add an anecdote to this essay. At the Bonnyville Rodeo, I hear an announcer say, “The way I see it, climate change only means that the weather is always our fault and the only way to fix it is with more socialism.” Whether prescient or puerile, I am unsure.
Ethan Redekop lives and writes in Bonnyville, Alberta
[1] Guha, Ramachandra, “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique” (1989), pp. 71-83.
[2] For evidence that this is a widespread phenomenon, see Dai, Rui, Rui Duan, Hao Liang, and Lillian Ing “Outsourcing in Climate Change” (2024) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3765485.
[3] Shahar, Dan Coby, “Rejecting Eco-Authoritarianism, Again” (2015) https://www.jstor.org/stable/43695234?seq=21.
[4] Quoted in Sale, Kirkpatrick, “The Forest for the Trees: Can Today’s Environmentalists Tell the Difference?” (1986) pp. 32.
[5] Rolston III, Holmes, “Feeding People Versus Saving Nature?” (1996), pp. 259.
[6] Heilbroner, Robert, An Inquiry Into the Human Prospect (1974) and Ophuls, William, Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity: Prologue to a Political Theory of the Steady State (1977).
[7] For examples, see Shearman, David, and Joseph Wayne Smith, The Climate Challenge and the Failure of Democracy (2007); Friedman, Thomas “Our One Party Democracy” (2009) https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html; and Beeson, Mark “The Coming of Environmental Authoritarianism” (2010) https://www.tandfonline.com/…/10.1080/09644010903576918.
[8] Petrocultures: Oil, Politics, Culture (2017), pp. 7.
[9] Truscello, Michael, “Can the Petro-Modern State Form Wither Away? The Implications of Hyper-Objects for Anti-Statist Politics” in Petrocultures: Oil, Politics, Culture (2017), pp. 128.
[10] Taverne, Dick, The March of Unreason (2005), pp. 193-217.
[11] Cole, Stephen “The Allure of the Hybrid : Bruno Latour and the Search for a New Grand Theory” in The Flight from Science and Reason (1996), pp. 275.
[12] James, George G.M. Stolen Legacy (1954).
[13] Lefkowitz, Mary, “Building Bridges to Afrocentrism: A Letter to my Egyptian Colleagues” in The Flight from Science and Reason (1996), pp. 304-6.
[14] Kuhn, Thomas “The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research” (1963), pp. 302.
[15] ibid.
.
Nelle's journey 