Al Gores An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power just appeared in theatres. Given the prominence of the first film, whose title the sequel evokes, and the subsequent advance of the strength of the environmental movement throughout the globe, it is sure to garner huge attention.

That isnt to say it will change any minds. Whether one ultimately decries it as a reheated version of the fare he first served up or deems it a worthy renewable probably depends less on the films merits than on whether one shares the authors fundamental presuppositions.

I have yet to see the film. But I do admire its brilliant marketing. From the image of an hourglass pouring a technicolour globe into a greyscale urban hell to its use of the Quaker slogan (adopted by the political left as its underdog motto) in the subtitle, no viewer can remain unmoved.

With the latter in mind, it is impossible not to see the sequel as agitprop against a Trump Presidency, with Gore, the Democrat politician and current board member of both Apple and Google representing the globalist elite against whom Trump ran his surprisingly successful campaign.

While it cannot be ignored as agitprop, that is of less of interest to me here than its prophetic call to action to rectify a terrible injustice.

How are we to understand that call?

What standard of justice?

Alex Epstein, who has authored a book making a moral argument for the use of fossil fuels, writes in a recent assessment of Gores sequel: As the most influential figure in the international climate conversation, Gore has a responsibility to give us the whole picture of fossil fuels impacts both their benefits and the risks they pose to humans flourishing. Unfortunately, Gore has given us a deeply biased picture that completely ignores fossil fuels indispensable benefits and wildly exaggerates their impact on climate.

Advances in technology are making fossil fuels cleaner, safer, and more efficient than ever. To reduce their growth let alone to radically restrict their use which is what Gore advocates means forcing energy poverty on billions of people.

Epsteinslittle article summarizes the little-heard moral objections to the environmentalists war on fossil fuels.

What is interesting to note though is that at the forefront of his moral concerns is, like Gore, the question of justice.

Epsteins moral framework, however, is that of a humanist. He determines right and wrong in accordance with the demonstrable benefit fossil fuels have made to ameliorate the human condition, and the demonstrable harm that energy poverty will cause to it. [I leave aside the question of whether the case he makes is sound or not, it is more the perspective Epstein takes that is of interest]

Accordingly, Epstein argues that the environmentalists like Gore ought to have to justify the human misery that must ensue if fossil fuels are abandoned on the scale they demand, and not just ignore it as an inconvenient truth.

What is equally apparent, however, is that he is speaking at cross purposes with Gore. And the reason for that is that Gore speaks on behalf of doing justice for a different constituency: not people, but the earth.

Environmentalism and posthumanism

While influential figures such as Al Gore, David Suzuki, et al. do talk about the effect of climate change on humanity, careful scrutiny reveals that it isnt their primary concern. The effect of climate change on people is more of a rhetorical flourish made to motivate their audience at the injustice done against them.

The reality, however, is that Gore and many in the environmental movement have a spiritual objection to Epsteins humanistic viewpoint. They deny that human interests ought to be the primary consideration in the debate. The survival of the planet is the primary issue.

The catastrophic language and images that the environmental movement deploys is not so much rhetorical as it is an expression of their core religious convictions. They have a different assessment of the value of human beings and where they stand in relation to the created order than Epstein.

They revere life, but only if it is understood impersonally, on the level of the lowest common denominator that a microbe shares with a man.

The environmental movements lack of care and concern for the effect of its policies on people is rooted in its posthumanist convictions.

The ideological basis of the environmental movement, which reaches back to the Romantic eras panentheist view of nature, deserves far more scrutiny than it currently receives.

That is because its detrimental effect upon peoples lives is not accidental, but intentional.

Posthumanism is moreover false because while the environmentalist cause strongly appeals to our sense of injustice, it ignores the fact that aside from human beings, the natural order on whose behalf it speaks knows nothing of it.

Gores sense of injustice depends on an obvious anthropomorphism of nature.

To acknowledge it, and the absurdity of the sense of injustice he evokes, is truly to speak truth to power.

And that is because it happens to contradict the untruth that conveniently serves the globalist elite against the great masses of humanity whose personhood is irrelevant to them.

Photo: http://webmaster.paramountpictures.com/us/m/hplwwz1zf/inconvenient-sequel

Link:

The convenient untruth of Al Gore's posthumanism - Patheos (blog)