European Mistletoe. congerdesign, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

SMH Climate Rant: “Humanity appears to be like a mistletoe on the planet, … smothering the host”

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

The author is hoping that the people she appears to describe as parasitic organisms will settle their differences and work together to create a better future.

We must change to battle climate change

By Nicola Philp
January 28, 2021 — 12.15am

Hoping that it could be classed as doomism to the max (yes, I’ve read the counter-arguments), I then saw the latest report that our planet is continuing to experience temperatures at record levels, putting us in the ballpark of at least a three-degree global temperature increase instead of just the hoped-for one degree.

Why was this not on the front page instead of the tennis? How many of these reports will our governments have to see before they take action with the same urgency and intensity that they did with the coronavirus threat? Because this one has far worse repercussions for all of us and is not something that we can vaccinate against.

Humanity appears to be like a mistletoe on the planet, one that is finally at the stage of smothering the host, but many of us just don’t want to believe it. I know I’d prefer not to as I look at the faces of my children. It is also because of those faces that I can’t afford to ignore it.

Coronavirus has shown us that we can all work together to radically and quickly change our lifestyles for the greater good. We need to consider how we can prepare for a world that will be faced with regular extreme weather, unpredictable water and power supplies, food shortages and the resulting unrest that will come with these.

Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/national/we-must-change-to-battle-climate-change-20210125-p56wpr.html

I’ve got to say I find it difficult to imagine finding common cause and working together with someone who seems to think other people are parasites.

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Bryan A
January 28, 2021 10:09 pm

Hey, anyone who thinks Humans are parasitic or an environmental cancer on the Earth are more than welcome to volunteer to NOT reproduce AND can raise their hands to be first in line for immediate processing at the Soylent Green factory

Reply to  Bryan A
January 29, 2021 12:34 am

I was just thinking: Jeesuz, this thing actually reproduced?

Reply to  Bryan A
January 29, 2021 7:44 am

Funny how most of those screaming about this don’t act in accordance with what they’re saying, right? It’s always everyone else’s responsibility to do something. They’re “doing something” by screaming about it.

Scissor
Reply to  Bryan A
January 29, 2021 5:59 pm

I place my ass under that mistletoe.

January 28, 2021 10:21 pm

we can all work together to radically and quickly change our lifestyles “

I suppose mandates and edicts from Sovereign rulers over us plebes is what she is referring to. Turds like King Cuomo and Governor Nuisance. Or in NZ, Queen Jacinda. Or the UKs BloJo.

I suppose destroying tourism-vacation travel, airlines, hotels for us soon to be peasants (the middle class) whilst the elitist buzz around in private jets and yachts to their ski chalets and oceanside mansions is what she is referring to.

Ron Long
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
January 29, 2021 1:49 am

Joel, the change she wants has to be worse than the year-long economic disaster, produced by quarantines and travel prohibition, due to Covid, because the CO2 at Mauna Loa did not change. Another year like the past one would be a humanity disaster. Can you imagine a face-to-face discussion with this person? Is crazy contagious?

Bandit
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
January 29, 2021 7:13 am

Like year round camping out

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
January 29, 2021 9:51 am

That was the lifestyle in the late lamented German Democratic Republic.

Chalets on Baltic Islands and hunting lodges in the woods for the elite — all of whom ever so deserved those perks because they were working so hard for the people.

The people, meanwhile, lived in grubby apartments. And 10% of them could earn extra income spying on their neighbors for the Stasi.

EOM
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
January 30, 2021 7:48 am

Is she laying a foundation for a world-wide Gulag-style Archipelago? This takes time; one wasn’t fully operational in Eurasia until 15 years or so after the October 1917 Revolution. There are steps, First, moral desensitizing, with essays like this, Second, infrastructure, concentration camps, ovens, guard towers, razor-wire, etc. Third, logistics, cattle-cars, special police, battering rams, rifles, dogs. And fourth, further moral desensitizing.

We need to put a stop to this insidious and atrocious progression, and now, but then how?

January 28, 2021 10:42 pm

voluntary human extinction movement

http://www.vhemt.org/

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is an environmental movement that calls for all people to abstain from reproduction to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of humankind. VHEMT supports human extinction primarily because, in the group’s view, it would prevent environmental degradation. Wikipedia

Reply to  Steve Case
January 29, 2021 12:05 am

Why do these people preach instead of leading by example?

MarkW
Reply to  Redge
January 29, 2021 8:01 am

In the case of VHEMT, I believe they are following the advise they preach.
In this case they ask people to not have kids. Nothing more.

yirgach
Reply to  MarkW
January 29, 2021 10:02 am

And why can’t they test it with just a teensy bit of Limit Theory?

Walter Sobchak
Reply to  MarkW
January 29, 2021 12:01 pm

Yes, but they could speed up the process by refusing to breath.

Rick C
Reply to  Redge
January 29, 2021 5:21 pm

Having seen an interview with a couple of them, I doubt they have the option to reproduce.

Reply to  Steve Case
January 29, 2021 6:21 pm

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is an environmental movement that calls for all people to abstain from reproduction to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of humankind.”

Yes and after all the hard work getting the planet back to how it was before humans, we can look back and…Oh wait..

n.n
January 28, 2021 10:44 pm

Thus Planned Population schemes, again, and again, and again. Let us bray.

January 28, 2021 11:00 pm

I know I’d prefer not to as I look at the faces of my children.”

Why has she created more parasites?

MarkW
Reply to  Climate believer
January 29, 2021 8:02 am

Because she’s so good at virtue signaling, she’s entitled to ignore the diktats she wants to force on others who are less enlightened.

Chris Hanley
January 28, 2021 11:00 pm

Thanks heaps Eric, reading that article has made me ‘dumber’ and I can’t afford to lose any more brain cells at my age.

January 28, 2021 11:12 pm

Here’s a fine case where we should judge the content of the quoted argument by the character of its author, Nicola Philp.

Here is what she Tweeted on Jan 27: “Anyone else feel like our planet is on a bus being driven towards a cliff by old, mad white men?” (see: https://twitter.com/nicolaphilp4 )

Old and mad and white and men? I see . . . not just parasites, eh?

Well, she does characterize herself partly as a “freelance writer” . . . looks like she’ll be staying as such due to openly bearing such prejudices.

Mariner
Reply to  Gordon A. Dressler
January 28, 2021 11:48 pm

It seems to me that countries run by “old, mad, white men” are actually reducing their populations quite successfully. It is a strange fact that high standards of living will actually do that. Maybe she should go and preach in Africa.

Nick Graves
Reply to  Mariner
January 29, 2021 12:27 am

Good point, well made.

Perhaps if she were a freelance reader instead, she might disabuse herself of such utter nonsense. Someone here reminded me of Hans Rosling the other day.

Reply to  Mariner
January 29, 2021 1:48 am

It’s interesting studying your family tree, go back to the 17th and early 18th and century and there are 2 or 3 children that make it to adulthood to have children. Then in the mid 19th century (in the UK at least) there are 5 or more surviving adult children, in my tree the maximum is 14 and my wife 17. Then mid 20th century it drops back to 3 or 4 and gradually falls to 2 or 3. My mother, had she lived would have had 9 great grandchildren, about right for zero population growth.

The reason for this is modern wealth and health systems. The benefits of health will always come before the benefits of wealth. A population boom and then a slow decline. Once the health genie is out of the bottle then keeping nations in poverty is bound to create problems, wealth is a natural contraceptive.

Philo
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
January 29, 2021 8:55 am

In the US the live birth rate seems to have peaked around 1910+/-. My Dad(dob 1910) had 11 brothers and a sister My Mon(1909) had 4 brothers and 3 sisters. The next generation produced 2-3 children amongst them all, only one had 4. No more farm to take care of and many 0 deaths before producing children.

Cosmic
Reply to  Gordon A. Dressler
January 29, 2021 6:14 am

I wish the absolute worst for this ‘women’. The absolute, because that is what she wishes for me.

MarkW
Reply to  Gordon A. Dressler
January 29, 2021 8:04 am

Bearing such prejudices seems to be a requirement to be a journalist these days.
I see similar sentiments being expressed at major news outlets all over the country.

Philo
Reply to  Gordon A. Dressler
January 29, 2021 8:48 am

“Freelance” comes from the Medieval custom of releasing some of the Baron’s knights at his death, usually for a fee. They were then free to shop themselves around amongst the other Barons in search of jobs terrorizing other peasants.

Much like Democrats and sponsored movements like BLM and ANTIFA are. Go demonstrate and riot for the highest bidder.
Nicola Philp does something similar but with a pen instead of a sword. Much easier to lie and coverup the results!!

Geoff Sherrington
January 28, 2021 11:29 pm

Do we need to create a prize for the person who writes the maximum achievement of stupid each year? Something like a Florence Foster Jenkins Award for trying too hard in the face of obviously insufficient skill.

Chaswarnertoo
January 28, 2021 11:33 pm

Can I have her house when she tops herself and all her family?

Kenji
January 28, 2021 11:37 pm

If she were hanging above the door … at Christmas … I would not kiss her

Cosmic
Reply to  Kenji
January 29, 2021 6:16 am

I’d beat ‘her-it’ like a pinata.

Garland Lowe
January 28, 2021 11:37 pm

These folks are a dime a dozen. It’s not on the front page because people like you have been preaching this BS for over 30 years. This was just after preaching for years, we were going to freeze to death before the year 2000.
Go away already.

High Treason
January 29, 2021 12:04 am

They should put their money where their mouths are. If there are too many humans, as the “Sustainable Development” crowd call for, shouldn’t they lead by example. Do note, “Sustainable Development” entails a stable world population of 500 million. This requires that 95% of us must perish. Who will be that high and mighty body that shall decide who may (so graciously) be permitted to live and who must die. What will be the criteria that get you in to that lucky 5%. I will bet that I am definitely not in the “shall be so graciously permitted to live” group- white, straight, male, sceptic, educated, conservative activist, interesting ethnic and ancestral background that will definitely be on the kill list, love ridiculing lefties etc.
The Georgia Guidestones have it laid out. The UN would love to do it too.
I suspect that being a compliant dung beetle able to swallow mases of bovine excrement will be the major criterion to be allowed to live. Alas, I am no vegan and certainly no dung beetle. Another reason I will be on the chopping block.

Philo
Reply to  High Treason
January 29, 2021 9:00 am

The coming 9-10 billion is probably too large. Simply waiting for capitalism to take hold in most areas will drop the population to some sustainable( love the vagueness of that term) to 4-5 billion which would be enough to maintain a lively population, including significant out-migration to space if needed or desired.

MarkW
Reply to  Philo
January 29, 2021 10:26 am

I see no reason to assume that the 10 or even 15 billion would be more than the planet can handle.

fretslider
January 29, 2021 12:13 am

For the greater good?

I don’t think so, but then I like humanly

Vincent Causey
January 29, 2021 12:37 am

Firstly, tennis IS more interesting than climate change (to normal people anyway). Secondly, coronavirus response proved the opposite of what she claims – massive action on an unprecedented scale did nothing – nothing at all – to slow the rise of CO2.

rhoda klapp
January 29, 2021 12:39 am

And when we are all gone, wtf were we saving the planet FOR? Damn planet is lucky to have us, look what a mess it was before.

Roger
January 29, 2021 1:23 am

Life, not just humanity. Earth was much cleaner and elegant in its stark beauty before.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  Roger
January 29, 2021 3:03 pm

Earth was much cleaner and elegant in its stark beauty before.

You know this because … ? All of life is messy and filled with and affected by other life trying to make its own way towards reproduction. Te moon has elegant, stark beauty but good luck living there.

Surely you must understand that 99.9% of all species on this planet are now extinct. Something killed them. Clearly they didn’t fit in and there was something they weren’t doing right. If humans follow that path, so what? In no time at all our presence here will also disappear.

January 29, 2021 1:31 am

Even Mistletoe has a place, it spreads by sticking its seeds on the beaks of birds who eat the white berries in winter and then wipe their beaks on branches.

tty
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
January 29, 2021 3:22 am

Particularly the Mistletrush which is largely dependent on the berries in winter.

And in Australia where there are lots of mistletoes of many species there are several animal species dependent on them.

M__ S__
January 29, 2021 1:40 am

SMH?

Bunyip
Reply to  M__ S__
January 29, 2021 2:51 am

Sydney Morning Herald, commonly known amongst those with the brains not to read it as the Silly Moaning Hemorhoid. Familiar story: it used to be a sane, centre-left rag. Then they fired everyone over 40 to save money, hired a bunch of J-school grads for peanuts and the paper’s perception of the world shrank to that of a perpetually aggrieved twentysomething who has discovered his favourite safe space has lost his teddy bear.

Clarky of Oz
Reply to  M__ S__
January 29, 2021 3:00 am

Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian newspaper that is hidden behind a paywall. Some people actually must pay to read this tripe.

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  Clarky of Oz
January 29, 2021 5:21 am

No,no, no – it stands for “shaking my head”.

January 29, 2021 1:55 am

Sacrifice yourself to new God Gaia. Die to save your planet, and the oligarchs will destroy both.

January 29, 2021 2:10 am

A parasite feeds on nutrients that the host generates. The left and greens thrive on and distribute money generated by others… more or less the same thing…

fred250
January 29, 2021 2:18 am

The fact is that these people ARE parasites…

to both the planet AND the human race.

That is what marxists/socialists ARE.

nppundit
January 29, 2021 2:18 am

Have any of these people offed themselves. They have been hangers on since the 1970s.

Lrp
January 29, 2021 2:34 am

She’s an idiot

oebele bruinsma
January 29, 2021 2:40 am

Here we go again: John Kerry, whom President Joe Biden appointed as the United States special presidential envoy for climate, said in an interview with the BBC on Wednesday that only nine years remain to save the planet from so-called man made climate change.Kerry was asked about the United Nation’s COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, scheduled for November 2021.

Cosmic
Reply to  oebele bruinsma
January 29, 2021 6:17 am

Gawd do I detest this lurch of a peon.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Cosmic
January 29, 2021 9:29 am

Ted Cassidy’s Lurch was the coolest one on the show. Kerry, is the un-coolest.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Cosmic
January 29, 2021 5:10 pm

You are insulting peons, Cosmic. 🙂

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  oebele bruinsma
January 29, 2021 9:28 am

Is Kerry every going to have a conference with Mr or Mrs Climate, to see if it actually needs fighting?

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
January 29, 2021 5:12 pm

Kerry doesn’t need any questions answered, he already thinks he knows all the answers.

Kerry said he couldn’t understand why anyone would oppose Biden’s climate change plan.

Clarky of Oz
January 29, 2021 2:58 am

So this good lady is inferring that her children are parasites and by extension she also is a parasite, and the male entity who assisted in the creation of these children is a parasite too.

What a cheerful household this must be.

Cosmic
Reply to  Clarky of Oz
January 29, 2021 6:17 am

No sheet mon. Good God.

Rod Evans
January 29, 2021 3:31 am

In just fifty years, the biggest worry facing the human race will be declining population.
Despite that clear and obvious fact, well documented by Prof Hans Rosling https://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling , still there are people too ridiculously narrow minded and lacking in even basic mathematic skills, that present rubbish such as this piece by Nicola Philip.
Unbelievable.

January 29, 2021 4:02 am

Wow. Imaginary looks on imaginary children’s faces when they’re told there’s an imaginary monster under their beds.

These people walk among us.

Phaedo
January 29, 2021 4:19 am

The article linked to in Nicola Philp’s piece begins with a simple question:
“Was 2020 the record hottest year on earth or did it tie with 2016?”
Not much need to go beyond that really.

Reply to  Phaedo
January 29, 2021 5:50 am

What was the score in the tennis though ?

Reply to  Phaedo
January 29, 2021 6:26 am

Much of the problem with these people is they have no concept of either the science or the HISTORY of Earth, and take “hottest year on Earth” literally, being ignorant of the fact that we’re actually in one of the coldest periods on Earth.

Things like Medieval Warm Period and Roman Warm Period (or Optimum) don’t ring any bells, except to us, so we should take a cue from the “tricks of the trade” and personalize it, and refer to the “hottest year on Earth since King Arthur” or “since Julius Caesar”, or whatever commonly understood reference will resonate.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Phaedo
January 29, 2021 5:22 pm

1934 was warmer than both 2016, and 2020, and 1998 is statistically tied with 2016 and 2020, so no, neither 2016, nor 2020, are the hottest years on record.

And then you can go back further in history where you find it was even warmer than 1934.

We are not experiencing unprecedented warming today as the Alarmists claim, including the alarmist that wrote this article.

Today, we are currently about 0.5C cooler than the highpoint of 2020, and that makes us about 0.9C cooler than 1934. So when you say the world is warming, what are you talking about? Answer: A shortterm temperature profile. If you look at the Big Picture, the warmth of today pales in comparison to the past, even the recent past is just as warm as today.

comment image

There is no unprecedented warming today, which means there is no need to worry about CO2.

January 29, 2021 4:39 am

What a perfectly vacant woman
<Wonders, is this where all the babies went>

Quote#1:””Mistletoe (Viscum album) is an evergreen plant that is smothered in white berries from winter to spring“”

Thus Fail #1
The Mistletoe, if smothering anything, is smothering itself

Quote#2:””Mistletoe is a parasitic plant that lives off the nutrients and water from a host tree. Although it is parasitic, it will not ki11 the host tree but can weaken it.””

Thus Fail #2
The use of evocative words/language to describe A. Complete. Non. Event.
Quotes from here

You want evocative language?
you know you do 😀
Try this. Meet the now paranoid, self-important and power-crazed British Plod

Might one take that as a reflection of our ‘Elders & Betters’ – otherwise – where did they get that sort of attitude from?

Or this
Note how the fine there was £200 – yet in Leeds, the hapless citizens were hit by a £10K fine, for getting outdoors, fresh air, exercise, social interaction and Vitamin D
All the very things needed to fend off Covid
:-((

John Bell
January 29, 2021 5:09 am

Her children…plural? If she hates humanity so much then why is she having so many kids? Greens get a free pass? SURE!

Cosmic
January 29, 2021 5:24 am

I appreciate NONE of the change we have had to endure because of covid-biden. Every one of the edicts pisses me off to no end. I detest the left.

Bruce Cobb
January 29, 2021 5:35 am

Climate Alarmism is like a particularly nasty virus which threatens to destroy humanity. It thrives on lies; the bigger the better, and the only cure is Truth.

Jyrkoff
January 29, 2021 5:40 am

We aren’t parasites, we’re epiphytes. That means we use the host as a place to live, to gain foothold, and use as a springboard to get what we need to survive, but do not actually kill the host by living off of its own energy.

Ivy is an epiphyte, but like humans if left unchecked it will take over and become the dominant life form. It can even take out redwood trees, merely by outcompeting the host for the available resources of water and sunlight. They’ll cover an entire 150-foot tree, robbing it from sun, snapping off branches with heavy ivy boughs. The National Park Service has been fighting English ivy in Redwood National Park for decades.

We are the epiphytes, the ones who aren’t actually killing the host by draining it dry, but rather outcompeting it for resources. We’re basically crowding out nature with our development and pollutants.

Those of us who spend time in the wilds know that nature perseveres and basically the earth doesn’t care that we exist. Just as the massive redwood can survive even with masses of ivy wrapping its trunk and limbs, so can the earth survive our pressures.

Only if we go too far like the ivy and simply become too large for the host to coexist, will the human survival-enabling aspects of earth be “under threat”.

We are far, far from that point today, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t going Mach 4 in that direction.

Philo
Reply to  Jyrkoff
January 29, 2021 9:29 am

Several populationists-understand how population dynamics work, have demonstrated as soundly as possible, that the human population growth RATE has peaked and is starting to decline, and it is likely to level off and start to drop within the century. After that, who knows because they acknowledge there are limits to the forecast.
“htthttps://bigthink.com/robby-berman/hans-rosling-had-a-way-of-showing-the-meaning-of-data-well-miss-him”

Hans Rosling seems to have the least biased, factual outlook. Many, many websites and commentators have largely pessimistic times due excessive dependence on the UN( which is constitutionally biased on these types of issues for its own increase in budget).

ResourceGuy
January 29, 2021 5:52 am

That is an apt description of nonprofit advocacy groups and their ever widening expansion.

fretslider
January 29, 2021 5:52 am

Mistletoe?

Makes a change from being called planetary herpes.

ColMosby
January 29, 2021 6:08 am

I can also ask why these climate spooks never seem to know about future power technologies which everyone can agree on : small modular molten salt nuclear reactors. We know electric cars will prevail,and much faster than formerly believed, thanks to the lowering prices for batteries, fast recharge times, and driving ranges that can exceed 400 and even 500 miles. Automakers have announced the virtual end of gas powered vehicles in just a few years, no govt subsidies required. If the global warming fanatics would look at the solutions that make sense, they would garner far greater support, as molten salt reactors can produce power at 4 cents per kilowatt hour and can be manufactured and deployed very quickly.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  ColMosby
January 29, 2021 9:33 am

I know you won’t answer, you’re basically a troll. But where is there a functioning MSR producing usable power right now?

MarkW
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
January 29, 2021 10:35 am

50 years ago, someone got one working for a few minutes on a lab bench somewhere.

MarkW
Reply to  ColMosby
January 29, 2021 10:34 am

Once again with the fantasy that all automakers have committed to making only electrics over the next couple of years.

You really do believe everything you want to believe.
As to these magic batteries, they will no doubt be available shortly after this mythical MSR finally starts being built.

David Longfellow
January 29, 2021 6:09 am

I think it would be in the best interests of all involved if this self-hating guy changes, i.e. subsists purely on what he can produce himself. Unfortunately, all it appears he is able to produce is pure virtue signaling. I doubt he has ever produced anything else that is tangible.

MarkW
January 29, 2021 7:58 am

Every where I look, I see nature doing just fine. In fact it’s doing better than it was doing 3 to 5 decades ago, when the number of humans on the planet was a lot lower.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  MarkW
January 29, 2021 9:35 am

The places where it doesn’t do well is mostly in Third World countries, who don’t seem to give a crap if they dump all their waste in their rivers.

Philo
January 29, 2021 8:30 am

Such short-sightedness! Every year the usual suspects find another 0.01degC of temperature rise!!!! Panic!!! Panic!!! Panic!!!

It isn’t even enough that it can be compared to anything- the range of measurement error is something like 1deg C.

Attempts at panic over nothing…….

January 29, 2021 9:46 am

I’ve got to say I find it difficult to imagine finding common cause and working together with someone who seems to think other people are parasites.

Not to say someone who’s so mindless as to think that,Coronavirus has shown us that we can all work together…”

Abolition Man
January 29, 2021 12:01 pm

What is blindingly ironic when I read articles by indoctrinated morons like Ms. Philip is that they have absolutely no idea that without human intervention most of life on Earth will die from, wait for it, lack of CO2!
Anyone with a functioning cerebral cortex (thus excluding most leftists) who looks at atmospheric CO2 levels since the Carboniferous can see that they have been dropping for the last 160 Mya or so! During the last period of glaciation levels were so low that most plants were nearly suffocating from lack of their essential nutrient; CO2! I don’t think that the physical deposition of carbonates as well as the formation of carbonate armor by foraminifera and coccolithophores is going to stop any time soon, so the next time our planet goes into a cool phase with increasing glaciation and dissolving of CO2 in seawater we could easily reach the threshold of death for many plants!
It is so sad to see idiots with little knowledge and less wisdom worry about imaginary problems instead of helping to deal with real issues like human health, freedom and prosperity! But like all Marxists subjects they blunder about bringing us disasters like Chernobyl and the Aral Sea!

January 29, 2021 12:54 pm

“…. I then saw the latest report that our planet is continuing to experience temperatures at record levels,…”
So she did nearly zero fact finding about AMO, PDO, Little Ice Age or Roman Warm Period, doesn’t understand that if 30 year averages called “climate” are averaged every year for a whole century that had a one degree increase..it is very probable that last year is going calculate out to be 1/100 of a degree hotter….even though RSS, UAH, and HadCrut show ups and downs. Why an editor would allow such junk to be published can be summed up as “click bait”.

MarkH
January 29, 2021 1:21 pm

People who view humans, either a specific group or the entirety, as some sort of parasite or vermin are particularly dangerous. These are the people who would happily exterminate tens or hundreds of millions of people.

That these kind of people are allowed any where near any sort of power is deeply troubling.

Reply to  MarkH
January 31, 2021 10:02 am

Yes, these people exist everywhere in all societies.
In the 60s she would have been a red guard
In the 70s she would be a kmer rouge
She would follow Jim Jones

These people will always be there, we need the education system to identify and teach how to recognize, control and marginalize them

January 29, 2021 1:38 pm

Parasites don’t collectively and intentionally work to reduce their impact on the environment, reduce their resource use intensity, or expend energy working for the success of other species. They don’t make art, music, science, or literature. Parasites don’t have empathy, logic, imagination or affection. I think the author was confusing humans in general with journalists and radical environmental academics.

Greg
January 29, 2021 8:57 pm

I’ve got to say I find it difficult to imagine finding common cause and working together with someone who seems to think other people are parasites.

You don’t seem to understand that the left’s idea of “common cause” or “unity” is that everyone adopts their ideology !

Now if you would just get on board and stop denying that climate changes we finally get in control and ensure that climate never changes again.

January 30, 2021 9:13 pm

The analogy to parasitic organisms like mistletoe are appropriate for socialist or otherwise tyrannical government.

Reply to  Hoser
January 30, 2021 9:39 pm

Wouldn’t let me finish my edit. Here it is.

Developed countries are reproducing at or below replacement levels of about 2.1 children per couple. To maintain failing social programs akin to Ponzi schemes, is it any wonder many in government are in favor of heavy immigration of people from undeveloped countries with high birth rates? Of course, they won’t admit that.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/total-fertility-rate

Note the SARS-CoV-2 by a huge margin impacts the older population. China has a large demographic imbalance of older people with relatively few younger workers to support them (after a very long period of one-child policy).