The Green Frontier; Environmental Sentimentalism and Reverse Manifest Destiny

The traditional American zeal which accompanied settlement — and the evangelistic crusade to tame and purify it — is being channeled into modern Environmentalism.

America has always been a frontier nation. The first settlers, faced with the daunting task of conquering a hostile continent, embarked on what can only be described as an epic quest, a Biblical venture to "be fruitful and multiply, and subdue the Earth."  Fired with dreams of prosperity, idealism, and religious zeal, the early settlers set the nation on a course of expansion and settlement unprecedented in human history; Thomas Jefferson believed that it would take at least a thousand years to settle the newly-acquired Louisiana Territory, yet the land hunger and missionaristic spirit which inflamed so many of those coming to these shores drove Americans ever onward, filling the land in 1/10th that time.  Many of those who would become settlers were particularly ill-suited to the venture, yet they doggedly pushed forward despite dangerous weather, hostile natives, drought, dust storms, floods, fires, and even locusts. They defiantly stared down the Plagues of Egypt and possessed the land. 

The frontier spirit is indelibly etched in our American souls, and the final closing of that frontier had a profound effect.  Manifest Destiny, the belief that the United States had a Divinely ordained mission to "fill her natural boundaries" from the Atlantic to Pacific guided the actions of this nation to a large degree throughout her history, and provided the psychological underpinnings to the American character. Federick Jackson Turner made this precise argument in his seminal 1893  work "The Significance of the Frontier in American History."  Turner believed that the closing of the frontier would usher in radical changes to the psychology of  the Republic, and that the peoples of the United States would be forced to find some new frontier or the nation would atrophy into Europeanism.

The frontier represented many things to many people; unlimited opportunity, a fresh start to criminals and the destitute, freedom to those chafing at the "bondage" of civil society, a sense of purpose. It was a symbol of what was free and untamed, of a pre-industrial world existing in a state of raw nature.  Even those who would never leave the comfortable confines of eastern cities were drawn to the frontier psychologically.  Consider the popularity of "Buffalo Bill" Cody's Wild West Show, or the success of numerous western novels and periodicals.  All American children have played Cowbows and Indians at some point in their lives, and that goes all the way back to frontier days.  The frontier offered the nation a sense of purpose and a psychological (as well as physical) safety-valve; just knowing that freedom was a train ride away gave comfort to those running on the treadmill of everyday life.  It was a refuge for the restless and promoted civil order in the East as criminals and the combative often fled to the frontier.

America has always been a nation prone to evangelism, and the frontier offered an unique opportunity for the committed Christian preachers to fight Penury and Sin. By its very nature, an unsettled place is a place without law and order, and the desire to save souls from damnation could be well-satisfied amid the iniquity and evil which could be found tucked away in the raw frontier saloons and dance halls. Prostitutes, drunkards, gamblers, thieves and killers were all gathered together for the Lord's work, and the eternal battle against Satan could be waged perhaps not easily, but along a definable front. Bible and Sword were the tools of the trade as farmers replaced trappers and Indians.  The spiritual energy of a very religious nation was channeled into the conquest of Sin at the frontier.

To many, those thrilling days of old represent a lost Eden, a time where people lived by the work of their hands, a time of purpose and destiny and untamed nature at its pristine best. It was a time before lawyers, bankers, politicians, accountants, civil engineers.  It was a time before drivers licenses,  police issuing tickets, before the daily intrusion of hectic modernity into one's everyday life. 

Of course, most people forget the bitterness that accompanied the simple life.

In some regards, the Nation did slide into Europeanism; we had the rise of quasi-socialistic policies during the 20th Century, we tied ourselves into a gordian knot of entangling alliances, built a world-girldling empire, and many of our people lost their spirit to the seductions of the welfare state.  Who can doubt that Richard Nixon's vision of Détente and Realpolitik represented a far more European approach to the world than American?  Who could argue with the proposition that the Democratic Party has much greater kinship with Socialist parties in Europe than with a "don't tread on me" style of Americanism? Who would have believed in 1890 that we would allow Mexico to colonize the United States?

Americans have been in search of something to replace that lost Eden ever since. The frontier mentality has been translated into innumerable causes, some good and some bad.  Woodrow Wilson advanced the concept of spreading Democracy, and America has done that in an on-and-off fashion ever since. (Consider the Neo-Con argument of spreading Democracy in the Middle East as the key to fighting the War on Terror.)  Others have attempted to provide a frontier via science (clearly, the Apollo project was such an attempt) or political activism (witness the '60`s anti-Vietnam War movements; the push against the "tyranny" of our own government was possibly an expression of the desire for a return to a time of frontier life).  The Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Rights Movement, the Homosexual Rights Movement all represented a crusade into the political frontier. The temperance movement, too, and it turned Chicago and other cities into an actual frontier with gunfights, lawlessness, prostitutes and dance hall girls, etc. America's determination to win the Cold War was, I think, driven in part by this American vision of the frontier, and a desire to expand freedom against the nihilistic wilderness of communism. Now the Cold War is won, and the people are searching for yet another frontier to conquer.

Of course, many on the Left did not agree with waging the Cold War, and do not agree with our newest frontier — the War on Terror.  In their own way they were seeking after their own vision of Frontierism via the fight against the dark forces of an Americanism which they find repressive. They seek to re-institute the Frontier, to put the genie back in the bottle and restore those idyllic days.  To them, society and the rule of law have become the frontier that they must conquer.

The Left is, in general, Utopian.  Leftists believe in the perfectibility of Man and the malleability of human nature, and their goal is the "restoration" of a pastoral paradise, of a naturalistic Eden they believe is their birthright.

This dovetails with the uniquely American vision of the Frontier, and the two act to reinforce one another.  It is, I believe, at the root of the religiosity of the Green movement; the fundamental desire for the frontier is being coupled to this Rousseauian Utopianism, and the traditional American zeal which accompanied settlement — and the evangelistic crusade to tame and purify it — is being channeled into modern Environmentalism.

Global Warming is not, and has never been, about science so much as about revolution.  The Greens who promote this theory seek nothing short of the reorganization of Humanity into a post-industrial world with severe limits placed on industry, on wealth, on energy usage.  The purpose of these limits is to dismantle (over time) the industrial civilization we have built so that a return to the primitive state may be attained.  They think that they can reduce the world's population from billions to millions, and return the human race to a simpler, more (sic) peaceful time.  They are devotees of Rousseau, of Thoreau, and not of Hobbes.

If you want to understand the thinking of the more utopian of the Left — especially of the radical environmentalist — a reading of Thoreau is absolutely vital; Thoreau's Walden embodies everything the American Green dreams could be (except they would like to make it compulsory).  Thoreau conducted an experiment where he squatted on land he did not own and built a cabin.  He wanted to see if he could live a much simpler life, and he kept records on his expenditures. The upshot of Walden was that Man does not require the complications of modernity, as Thoreau managed to get by on very little and was completely satisfied.  The American Green dreams of every man building his Walden.

But Thoreau was wrong because his experiment would have failed had there not been a thriving civilization to allow him to drop out.  He built his cabin from materials he purchased, he bought seed for his garden from commercial growers, he resided in relative comfort on property that did not belong to him because others kept watch, protecting him from being assaulted or robbed. The Law protected him through the legal mechanism of Adverse Possession so that the worst the owner of the property could do was evict him.  The Sheriff, the Judge, the Prison awaited any who would molest him in his peaceful seclusion, and the soldier defended him from foreign attack. He had access to food, clothing, tools, weapons, materials, and medicines he would not have been able to acquire elsewhere.  Even the most primitive of peoples have had access to the assistance of the tribe, and few live in a state of nature in isolation.  Thoreau's simplicity was purchased by others in the society at large; he lived off the discarded scraps of civilization.

That is where the back-to-nature movement is so wrong; as John Donne put it, "no man is an island," and the enjoyment of the primitive must be purchased by someone.  Dropping out can be done, but others must carry the burden of the droppee.  The Green believes the Frontier can be recreated, that Man could dwell secure in comfort in a simpler world; the Green is frighteningly wrong. The world of nature is a world of fear, of want, of sickness and suffering.  It is true that the problems which plague the civilized man — the need to conform, the need to maintain what one owns, instant communications and access to information which may overwhelm, the pressures of competition — are not ever-present, but the very real presence of death stalks the primitive man.  While there are some tangible benefits, the lower life-expectancy, the poorer health, the discomfort of the simple life make it far less entertaining when practiced in true isolation.  Imagine a world where every cut could kill you because you don't have antibiotics!  Imagine no canned goods, or refrigeration!  What happens if you catch a tapeworm?  A broken leg is a death-sentence.  Something as simple as an inflamed slipped disc means death or permanent disability — which is pretty much the same thing.  In many Indian societies — and in the Inuit society of the far north — the sick and elderly would be abandoned on the trail to die when they could no longer adequately pull their weight; the Greens would have us return to such a world.

Actually what they believe is that they can have their cake and eat it, too; they want just enough industry to allow them to live simply.  Fine, but we live in an interrelated world, and the dismantling of those industries will likely lead to the inability to produce much of anything. We need industry to support industry, and the dismantling of technology will make other technical efforts impossible.  Where will they get those solar cells when nobody is manufacturing them anymore? Trade will be needed more than ever, and the efforts to reduce industry will make that increasingly difficult; where will they find trucks, or planes, when energy usage is so restricted that factories can't build them, or oil can't be refined to run them?  The technological miracles which we take for granted will become increasingly rare, and Man will either have to revive the hated civilization or fall back into the Neolithic, with all of its entertaining aspects — including vicious warfare, disease, famine, cruelty, and privation.

But the Greens appear to be winning, in that they have their propaganda everywhere; in schools, churches, synagogues, civic organizations.  Everywhere they tap into that most primal of American urges, the calling of the frontier.  Schoolchildren, eager to love fuzzy animals and filled with stories about cowboys and pioneers — along with the desire to "save the world" like their favorite superheroes — are easy prey for the indoctrination of environmentalism.  In Churches we are witnessing the rise of Green Christianity advanced by such Evangelical luminaries as Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life. (This with complete disregard for the words of Scripture in which Christ states in John 29, "be of good cheer for I have overcome the World," or the Book of Revelation in which environmental destruction is something sent from God as punishment for sin.  This is a failure of faith in God's ability to control the very thing He created.  Nowhere in Scripture are we commanded to save the Earth, or told that we have any say over such matters whatsoever.  In point of fact, Green Christianity is violating the First Commandment by placing a strange god before the Most High.) We are witnessing the rise of Green Catholicism as well. Even Newt Gingrich and Jim Manzi at the National Review are being taken in by this, and there is a move afoot by conservatives to throw in the towel and concede defeat, ostensibly to have some impact on the direction of the "solution." (Steven Milroy from Junk Science has a rather scrappy rebuttal to Manzi.) The Church of Gaia, using the scientifically dubious proposition of Global Warming and appealing to America's longing for the simplicity of the past, is pulling in converts from across the political spectrum.

Poll numbers would seem to bear that out; According to this March 2006 Time poll, a whopping 85% of respondents said Global Warming was real, with 60% saying it is a dire threat to future generations.  In a December 2006 poll by Rassmussen, 46% of respondents attributed Global Warming to Anthropogenic (human) causes, and 45% considered it a "serious problem."  This 2007 poll by Gallup shows 63% of respondents believed Global Warming has begun changing the climate.

But the internals suggest that America is not willing to walk the Kyoto plank, and this issue is hardly set in cement in the American mind. For example, a plurality of respondents to the Gallup poll say GW has begun but its primary effects won't be felt in their lifetime. Gallup had this to say:

The American public does not have a sense of urgency about the environmental issue at this time. It is not a hot political issue and does not appear in any meaningful way on any of Gallup's open-ended probes of the public's concerns.

There is underlying concern about the environment that could, in theory, be activated by politicians, particularly if the environment as an issue is connected to tangible aspects of day-to-day living for average Americans.

An ABC news poll concurs with this. 

The question that must be asked is, why haven't the Greens carried the day?  They have been the engine driving this discussion since the '80's, and a generation of children have grown up being told that Ragnarok is coming. Why don't even more Americans believe in this fable?

Well, partly it is the chicken little phenomenon; they have given us 10 years for the last 30, and things are pretty much the same. Their predictions of worldwide disaster keep coming to nothing.  Partly, too, is the growing body of science which suggests that the Lilliputian warming we have witnessed is natural, resulting from increased solar activity and certain mechanisms on Earth.

Many scientists have disagreed with this notion from the beginning; we had the Statement by Atmospheric Scientists, The Oregon Petition, the Leipzig Petiton, and the Heidelberg Appeal.  The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has a long list of scientists who have changed from believers into skeptics.  In fact, the consensus we are told exists among scientists appears to be largely hot air. Even Roger Revelle, one of the fathers of Global Warming theory and the man much touted by Al Gore in his mockumentary, came to, well, not disavow his theory, but to dismiss it as not any sort of credible threat to Mankind before he passed away.

The reality is that a large body of science supports a different interpretation of the amazing 1* rise in temperature; mainly, that normal cycles are at work.  The Sun has been more active in the 20th century, with extraordinary sunspot activity.  A more active sun suggests a warmer sun, and a more active sun means a stronger solar wind to broom away cosmic rays, which means fewer clouds to reflect sunlight.  Since the solar cycle has peaked the Earth's albedo has increased, suggesting that Svensmark's theory about cosmic rays is correct. 

Scientists have also learned that atmospheric CO2 follows a warming trend, not proceeds it, and that current CO2 levels are far from unusual.  They have been as much as 10 times current levels in past eras.  We know the oceans have started cooling.  There is evidence that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cherry-picked its data.  We know that Mars, Pluto, Jupiter, and Neptune’s moon Triton are warming as well, strongly suggesting that the Sun is the culprit. 

Mars is an interesting case in point; Al Gore touts Venus as an example of CO2-driven warming run amok (while ignoring the differences between Earth and Venus) but he completely disregards frozen, desiccated Mars, which has more CO2 than does Earth and should be much warmer. In fact, Mars was once much warmer, with a much denser atmosphere which has largely frozen into the permafrost and polar ice caps.  Now the Martian atmosphere is too thin to trap much heat, but why did it get that way, when it was denser and composed of CO2?

Recently, however, there is evidence of a major cooldown, with sunspot cycle #24 failing to start, the slowing of the solar conveyor belt and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) changing from a warm to a cool pattern may spell a cold period — possibly another Little Ice Age.  The LIA began with a skipped solar cycle coinciding with the Dalton Minimum.

All of this has come to light in recent years, and it has become obvious we don't understand enough to make any kind of pronouncement on why the Earth has warmed 1*.  We don't understand the effects of water vapor, of cosmic rays, of micrometeor bombardments.  We know little about the effects of Milankovitch Cycles in the Earth's orbit. We don't fully understand the numerous solar cycles; the 200-500-year Suess Cycles, or 75-90-year Gleissberg Cycles, or 1,100-1,500-year Bond Cycles. How do lunar tides, solar tides, etc. affect our climate? How about volcanism? Fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field? It seems to be fading and that has to have an impact on the planet’s climate. Where are the carbon sinks, and how do they work?  We don't understand them at all. How much Global Warming is caused by these natural phenomena, and how much is caused by Man?  .1*? .01*? What difference does a change from 270/1,000,000 to 383/1,000,000 in CO2 levels really make in such a complex system as the Earth's atmosphere? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

The public instinctively knows that something is amiss with this debate, and, while they may not want to sound foolish and disagree with the supposed "scientific consensus" they aren't ready to dive headlong into the abyss, either. Many still remember the Global Cooling scare of the '70`s. They are bothered by the Glitterati flying all over the Earth in private jets, burning huge amounts of fuel and belching enormous quantities of greenhouse gases, so they can watch other celebrities tell Americans they need to live a more Spartan life. Still, the desire for a simpler world abounds, and Americans are ever called by the siren song of the lost frontier.  The Greens have managed to keep ANWAR "pristine" and they fight against private property ownership of back country land continuously, with mud puddles being declared "wetlands" and thus robbing farmers or retirees of the use of their property.  Wilderness lands are the symbols of the wild, untamed spirit, and they need them to maintain their movement.  The Greens have to tweak these pastoral images, must make people believe in what I would call Reverse Manifest Destiny — the belief that we can restore the lost Frontier. An honest, open discussion of the facts is a loser for them; they need the imagery of the wilderness.

Many, including myself, have called Environmentalism a religion, and in a great many ways that is correct; it involves an anthropomorphizing of the Earth as a pagan nature goddess, and includes a high priesthood (Al Gore), a creation myth (Darwinian Evolution), and an apocalypse (Global Warming).  It also has a heaven, a promise of a pastoral paradise, and this promise is wedded to the American vision of the Frontier.  Americans went into the frontier for reasons of religious zeal, for the spreading of the Gospel and the subduing of the Earth as much as for land and profit, and the Church of Gaia seeks the same, only this time with a reversal of the Frontier to spread the Environmentalist faith and to "liberate" the Earth, to wipe away the work of the settlers. Paradise was stolen by our forefathers; it must be restored by our children.

For that no effort must be spared, and we have been treated to such ridiculous claims as that Global Warming is responsible for a rise in rapes in Sweden, that the genocide in Darfur is caused by Global Warming, that kidneystones are a result of Climate Change, that every odd weather pattern, every hail storm, every time frogs rain from the sky Global Warming is somehow to blame. It has become ridiculous; read this list to see how ridiculous the claims have become!

But the Greens know that victory will not be won by reason but by imagery, emotionalism, by appealing to the desire for paradise.  Theirs is a belief system based on wishful thinking and dreams, and as such they spread their green gospel through an appeal to the emotions.  It is at this point that the lost-frontier mentality in America comes into play, and it is there that the battle — at least here in the United States — will be fought to a final conclusion.

But there is competition for the new frontier, and the logical successor is the Global War on Terror; we are, after all, fighting for the survival of our civilization.  The wasteland of Jihadist Islam stretches before us, cold and barren and awaiting our righteous crusade.  As conservatives, we should be leading the way into the dark valley, into the frontier of decency from which savages threaten.  This could easily be turned into the path of frontiership were we to handle it properly, and the zeal for "saving the planet" could be turned from a neo-pagan goddess worship into a crusade for the survival of Western Civilization.  That is the direction we should take, that is the Natchez Trace into destiny for America. 

Our challenge is right here, right now, and the enemies we face are flesh and blood, and are fully prepared to eliminate our flesh and blood.  We do not need fanciful end-of-the-world sagas about melting glaciers (which aren't really melting — witness the Himalayas) and hurricanes because we have real dangers such as melting cities and atomic blasts.  This is real, folks!  We should be able to convince Americans that waging a war on a real enemy is more important than chasing after a fluffy green dream of a lost paradise. If Americans need a frontier, let's give them a real one and not some Hollywood  Waterworld fantasy.

The war against Fascism and the Cold War are two concrete examples of American Frontierism channeled in a constructive direction.  They both led this land to new heights, and gave a sense of pride and purpose to the American People.  History is asking us to step forward again, to fight the savages of Jihad.  Will we accept our calling, or continue to play Daniel Boone in a fantasy game of pioneer?