IN DEFENSE OF PEOPLE - AT 9:18 A.M. ET:  Anne Applebaum, of the Washington Post, is as miffed as anyone at the kids' stuff in Copenhagen, especially the veddy, veddy chic and fashionable attacks on the human race and its excesses, often delivered by people with limos and private jets waiting outside.  Anne defends we mortals:

It's true that I'm not crazy about the Kyoto climate negotiation process, of which the Copenhagen summit is the latest stage. But I'm even more disturbed by the apocalyptic and the anti-human prejudices of the climate change movement, some of which do indeed filter down to children as young as 9.

Over the years there have been many radical statements of this latter creed. In the infamous words of a National Park Service ecologist, "We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. . . . Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along." A former leader of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals once declared that "humans have grown like a cancer; we're the biggest blight on the face of the earth." But it is a mistake to think that this is the language of only a crazy fringe.

Look, for example, at the Optimum Population Trust, a mainstream organization whose patrons include the naturalist David Attenborough, the scientist Jane Goodall and professors at Cambridge and Stanford -- and that campaigns against, well, human beings. Calling for "fewer emitters, lower emissions," the group offers members the chance to offset the pollution that they generate, merely by existing, through the purchase of family-planning devices in poor countries.

The poor countries must love that.  Talk about imperialism...

The assumption behind this calculation is profoundly negative: that human beings are nothing more than machines for the production of carbon dioxide.

But it's such a wonderful thing to say at a Manhattan dinner party.

Anne to the rescue:

For while it's true that humans are often greedy, stupid and destructive, it's also true that we got to where we are at least partly thanks to human creativity, ingenuity and talent. Electricity is a miracle, an invention that has brought light and life to millions. Modern communication and transportation systems are no less extraordinary, helping to create economic growth in places where poverty and misery were the norm for centuries.

Well, at least someone finally said it. 

All of them depend on fossil fuels, but they don't have to: A profound change in the nature of human energy consumption is possible -- thanks to the entrepreneurship that created the Internet, the compassion that lies behind the advances in modern medicine and the scientific reasoning that sent men into space. As for nihilism and hatred of humankind, it teaches us nothing, except to give up. And we shouldn't be passing that on to our children either.

COMMENT:  And I've never seen a penguin cure an animal disease, either.  But don't get me wrong.  I love penguins.  Great creatures, and so well dressed.

The problem, of course, is that pseudo-intellectuals (not real intellectuals) have created that anti-human mindset.  These are the kind of people who would have, on their gravestones, their College Board scores.  You know, JOHN G. EGGHEAD, VERBAL 780, MATH 740 (but will retake). 

I expect to see that. 

December 15, 2009