The Left’s Gospel: Humans Own the World

by Lorna Salzman (October 2015)

Purdy is a liberal heavy hitter, having blasted his way into public consciousness as a young university student eons ago. Now he teaches law at Duke University, publishes books and in his latest piece in Dissent manifests a plentiful lack of brains. Other writings of his appear to be, at least superficially, better researched and better reasoned, so it probably seemed logical to Dissent editors to choose him to write on that esoteric subject called environmentalism for their special issue of leftist thought.

This is not to say that blacks lack an environmental commitment or ecological awareness, but rather that black community leaders have tended to characterize local environmental battles in their communities  as social or racial justice battles. This black separatism is  why most environmental groups are predominantly white.

Translation: Politics comes first, before nature, and environmentalists have got it backwards.

Not content with damning the past, he then comes up with what is widely accepted as leftist scripture:

Once again the left has thrown down the gauntlet to insist that social justice takes precedence over ecology and over the preservation of planetary systems. Does the left think the human species has a permanently guaranteed spot on earth? An eternal life? Just how does social justice lend itself (apart from a complete geoengineering of our planet with artificial food, among other things) to survival? Not at all.

Politics as if Evolution Mattered,” which addresses the intersection of evolution with socio-political policy. 

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