Humanize From Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism
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Climate Change

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Group of modern doctors standing as a team with arms crossed in hospital office. Physicians ready to examine and help patients. Medical help, insurance in health care, best desease treatment and

Say No to ‘Public Health’ Imperialism

COVID-19 mandates and lockdowns opened the door. Now, the medical establishment is redefining our most contentious political controversies as “public health emergencies” so as to circumvent public resistance and impose policies on society unobtainable through normal democratic means. Read More ›
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Group of demonstrators on road, young people from different culture and race fight for climate change - Global warming and enviroment concept - Focus on banners

‘Nature Rights’ Pushed in the Lancet

I have been writing for some time about how establishment medicine and bioethics have become profoundly ideological to the point of crossing into the nihilism of anti-humanism. Now, the world’s oldest and one of the field’s most established medical — not environmental — journals has published an advocacy column in favor of  granting “rights” to “nature.” The author backs the concept of granting humans the right to a clean environment: a plausible proposition that at least maintains the concept of rights that belong exclusively to the human realm. However, according to Hong Kong–based bioethicist and law professor Eric C. Ip, such rights do not go nearly far enough. He wants rights granted to nature, which would thereby reject human exceptionalism. From the piece, “From the Right to a Healthy Planet to the Planetary Right to Health,” (my emphasis): Some interpretations of the right to a healthy planet could still be problematic. The planet’s ecosystems consist of communities of life forms, of which humanity is but one member, that interact with each other and their landscapes. The Rio Declaration’s reference to the positioning of humans “at the centre of concerns for sustainable development” could no longer be defended. It is impossible to protect the well-being of the planet if humans persist in pursuing endless, albeit narrowly defined, growth with an aura of species superiority. In other words, we, flora, fauna, and, indeed, geological features such as rivers and granite outcroppings are equal. Lest you think I jest, at least six rivers and two glaciers have already been granted “rights” as this antihuman movement spreads. Ip claims that human rights and nature rights are mutually reinforcing: In their current form, rights of nature are enforceable rights attributed to natural entities of Earth, such as ecosystems; these rights — mainly the rights to exist, flourish, and restoration — underscore the core planetary health insight that humanity is part of, and not apart from, an interconnected planet. Practically speaking, the right to a healthy environment and the planetary right to health converge on the same obligation on the part of humanity to protect the planetary community. There does not seem to be any irreconcilable conflict between these two mutually reinforcing rights. Humans have an intrinsic right to flourish; however, that is impossible if they treat the natural foundations of life with disrespect. This is simply not true. Nature’s “rights” are typically defined, by environmental organizations, as “the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.” That’s akin to both a right to life and noninterference with natural processes and life cycles. Laws that grant rights to nature do so for the purpose of handcuffing human thriving by inhibiting development, all in the name of saving the planet. They generally allow anyone to bring court action to prevent development activities — meaning that all human endeavors that impact the natural world are at the mercy of the sensibilities of the most radical environmentalist. And that includes essentials such as the generation of electricity with fossil fuels, as well as the mining of minerals such as lithium needed to make renewables functional. At the very least, granting “rights” to “nature” would grant the natural world and human needs equal consideration before the law. Even if related lawsuits on behalf of nature’s “rights” are lost eventually, the chilling effect of their potential alone would be catastrophic. Imagine trying to obtain liability insurance for a new waterfront hotel or a mining operation when the insurance company knows that the most extreme anti-development activist can take the project to court. Radical environmental misanthropy is on the march, now co-opting the medical establishment. Its activists are well funded and ideologically committed. The time has come to stop rolling our eyes at the apparent insanity of these proposals and take the threat posed by them seriously. The future of human prosperity and our self-identification as the special species, uniquely possessed with both rights and responsibilities, depend on defeating this radical agenda.

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Multiple Coal Fossil Fuel Power Plant Smokestacks Emit Carbon Dioxide Pollution

Now, It’s Carbon ‘Net-Zero Healthcare’ to Fight Global Warming

With all of the wokeness and technocratic impositions the medical establishment is eager to impose on health care these days, why would anyone go to medical school or become a hospital administrator? Read More ›
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Tractor cultivating field at spring

Stifling Food Production in the Name of Saving the Planet

Global warming hysteria now has some governments forcing cuts in the use of nitrogen fertilizers to “save the planet.” But that will mean less food for hungry people and collapsing farm economies. Read More ›
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Group of demonstrators on road, young people from different culture and race fight for climate change - Global warming and enviroment concept - Focus on banners

What 1973’s Soylent Green Accurately Predicted about 2022

I have always loved science fiction. So when Soylent Green was first released in 1973, I immediately headed to the theater. I remember clearly being shocked by the depictions presented but assuaging myself with the comforting thought that nothing like any of that would ever actually happen. Read More ›
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Homemade sign at environmental rally. A colorful cardboard placard is viewed close up, saying the climate is changing, why aren't we, in the hands of ecological activists as they protest in the city

Stop ‘Authoritarian Climate Governance’ Before It is Too Late

If COVID has taught us anything, it is that the technocratic class has little compunction about restricting freedom. Moreover, once they grab power, they are very reluctant to give it back. Read More ›
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Nuclear power plant and cooling towers

Austrian Defense Minister Warns of Europe-Wide Blackouts

With the big Glasgow conference ongoing and given the stakes, one would think that this potential catastrophe would be a prime subject of conversation. Read More ›
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Censored keyboard key. Finger

U.N. Secretary-General Wants International Speech Code

This should have received a lot more attention than it did. A couple of weeks ago, U.N. secretary-general António Guterres issued a report that would limit free discourse on issues such as global warming, the pandemic, and other focuses favored by the internationalists. Read More ›
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Operating oil and gas well profiled on sunset sky

The IEA’s Plan to Destroy Freedom and Save the Planet

If you liked gas lines after the Colonial Pipeline was shut down by a hacking—or if the rolling blackouts last summer in California were your idea of fun—you will love what the international global warming warriors at the International Energy Agency have planned for us. Read More ›