Red and green: Czech president compares environmentalism to communism

The merits of global warming where questioned by President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic at the National Press Club where Klaus likened the environmentalist movement to the communism of his youth. According to Klaus both ideologies promote causes that transcend the individual; environmentalism promotes the planet while communism promotes the proletariat. Klaus asserted that climatologists are only motivated to do research in one direction due to large-scale acceptance of environmentalism and government subsidies that encourage the development of green technology.

Klaus said that both communism and environmentalism are motivating forces that cause people to ignore opposition and live in a world of reduced freedoms. Klaus stated that “global warming alarmism” is a greater threat to the world than socialism and that environmentalists, through government subsidies that favor certain industries, take away from a free market’s ability to provide for the welfare of its citizens.

Klaus said that he does not seek to study factors such as changes in temperature, sea levels, and the status of polar ice caps. Instead, Klaus’s view is strictly economic, noting the comparative advantage of green industry. Klaus said that reducing industrial emissions would require a reduction of industry all together and that trying to control the market through “trading schemes” that increase green production is similar to the market controls of the communist era.

Klaus encouraged conserving energy and noted that rational behavior is a part of human nature. Klaus explained that environmentalism, rather, is “a scheme organized from above” that attempts to limit personal freedom through government intervention.