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Peter Singer Defends Art Attacks

Now, he is defending the global warming hysterics who have protested climate change by attacking great art — because the cause is so urgent. He even compares the vandalism to Martin Luther King’s famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” What nonsense.

Singer claims that the paintings were protected by glass, so no harm, no foul. But there is no guarantee that glass would protect the paintings adequately. Moreover, not all art targeted was so shielded. Singer conveniently forgot to mention that global warming hysterics also vandalized a car painted by Andy Warhol by having soup and flour poured on it directly.

Singer claims the attacks are worthy because of the supposed righteousness of the cause.

From “In Defense of Art-Targeting Climate Activists:”:

The activists used the Girl with a Pearl Earring to challenge our values, asking the shocked onlookers how they felt when they saw the beautiful painting apparently being ruined. “Do you feel outraged?” they asked – and then answered their own question: “Good. Where is that feeling when you see the planet being destroyed before your very eyes?”

We value art, but what we stand to lose from climate change is incomparably more significant. Everything we value on this planet is at stake, including the continuity of both human and non-human life.

Is “everything we value” really at stake, including “the continuity of both human and non-human life”? That seems overblown. Moreover, the severity of climate change is highly contested, with knowledgeable experts, such as Bjorn Lomborg, acknowledging that the problem is real but not dire.

Besides, what makes Singer think that attacking great art will convince people of the need for drastic action? I submit it actually turns people away from the cause, just as protests blocking freeways don’t convince people of anything but that the protestors are jerks.

Singer also justifies protest vandalism because democracy is supposedly failing the young, whose lives will be most impacted. We don’t let 16-year-olds vote — horrors! — and young adults are underrepresented in democratic legislatures. He even decries the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that members of the House be at least 25, and 30 in the Senate.

Thus:

Eco-activists can properly claim that their non-violent civil disobedience is justified by the failure of our democracies to show sufficient concern for the interests of future generations. Like the suffragettes more than a century ago, today’s young people have no voice.

Please. He just likes the cause. If pro-lifers attacked great art because they believe that tens of thousands of babies’ lives are at stake — and that their future interests are unrepresented in the halls of democracy, so what else is there to do? — Singer unquestionably would be singing a different tune.

WESLEY J. SMITH is an author and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. @thewesleyjsmith

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The climate-change hustle

John Stossel: Through 50 years of reporting on scares, only COVID proved true

I hear that climate change will destroy much of the world.

“There will be irreversible damage to the planet!” warns a CNN anchor.

Joe Biden says he’ll spend $500 billion a year to fight what his website calls an “existential threat to life.”

Really?

I’m a consumer reporter. Over the years, alarmed scientists have passionately warned me about many things they thought were about to kill Americans.

Asbestos in hair dryers, coffee, computer terminals, electric power lines, microwave ovens, cellphones (brain tumors!), electric blankets, herbicides, plastic residue, etc., are causing “America’s cancer epidemic”!

If those things don’t get us, “West Nile Virus will!” Or SARS, Bird Flu, Ebola, flesh-eating bacteria or “killer bees.”

Experts told me millions would die on Jan. 1, 2000, because computers couldn’t handle the switch from 1999. Machines would fail; planes would crash.

The scientists were well-informed specialists in their fields. They were sincerely alarmed. The more knowledge you have about a threat, the more alarmed you get.

Yet, mass death didn’t happen. COVID-19 has been the only time in my 50 years of reporting that a scare proved true.

Maybe you accepted the phrase I used above: “America’s cancer epidemic.” But there is no cancer epidemic. Cancer rates are down. We simply live long enough to get diseases like cancer. But people think there’s a cancer epidemic.

The opposite is true. As we’ve been exposed to more plastics, pesticides, mysterious chemicals, food additives and new technologies, we live longer than ever!

That’s why I’m skeptical when I’m told: Climate change is a crisis!

Climate change is real. It’s a problem, but I doubt that it’s “an existential threat.”

Saying that makes alarmists mad.

When Marc Morano says it, activists try to prevent him from speaking.

“They do not want dissent,” says Morano, founder of ClimateDepot.com, a website that rebuts much of what climate activists teach in schools.

“It’s an indoctrination that’s so complete that by the time (kids) get to high school, they’re not even aware that there’s any scientific dissent.”

Morano’s new movie, “Climate Hustle 2,” presents that dissent. My new video this week features his movie.

Morano argues that politicians use fear of global warming to gain power.

“Climate Hustle 2” features Sen. Chuck Schumer shouting: “If we would do more on climate change, we’d have fewer of these hurricanes and other types of storms! Everyone knows that!”

But everyone doesn’t know that. Many scientists refute it. Congress’ own hearings include testimony about how our warmer climate has not caused increases in the number of hurricanes or tornadoes. “Climate Hustle 2” includes many examples like that.

“Why should we believe you?” I ask Morano. “You’re getting money from the fossil fuel industry.” After all, Daily Kos calls him “Evil Personified” and says ExxonMobil funds him.

“Not at all,” he replies. “I’m paid by about 90% individual contributions from around the country. Why would ExxonMobil give me money (when) they want to appear green?”

Morano’s movie frustrates climate activists by pointing out how hypocritical some are.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio says he lives a “green lifestyle … (using) energy-efficient appliances. I drive a hybrid car.”

Then he flies to Europe to attend a party.

I like watching Morano point out celebrities’ hypocrisy, but think one claim in his movie goes too far.

“Stopping climate change is not about saving the planet,” says narrator Kevin Sorbo. “It’s about climate elites trying to convince us to accept a future where they call all the shots.”

I push back at Morano: “I think they are genuinely concerned, and they want to save us.”

“Their vision of saving us is putting them in charge,” he replies.

And if they’re in charge, he says, they will destroy capitalism.

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State of the Union 2013

Published on Feb 13, 2013

Cato Institute scholars Michael Tanner, Alex Nowrasteh, Julian Sanchez, Simon Lester, John Samples, Pat Michaels, Jagadeesh Gokhale, Michael F. Cannon, Jim Harper, Malou Innocent, Juan Carlos Hidalgo, Ilya Shapiro, Trevor Burrus and Neal McCluskey respond to President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address.

Video produced by Caleb O. Brown, Austin Bragg and Lester Romero.

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In the past I have written the White House on several issues such as abortion, medicare, welfare,  Greece, healthcare, and what the founding fathers had to say about welfare programs,   and have got several responses from the White House concerning issues such as Obamacare, Social Security, welfare,  and excessive government spending.

Today I am taking a look at the response of the scholars of the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute scholars to the 2013 State of the Union Address.

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