BY NOEL YAXLEY

In September, the German branch of PETA hit the headlines when it recommended women go on a sex strike against men who eat meat. The animal rights group wants women to withhold sex in order to “save the world.” If PETA gets their way, women will no longer be interested in catching their man with his pants down, but rather in an infelicitous dalliance with a bacon sandwich in a car park at midnight. Her female friends will tell her he’s been spotted in a takeaway enjoying the company of a chicken shawarma. He’ll arrive home after working yet another late shift in the office. She will challenge him, but he’ll deny it. All the telltale signs are there. She’ll find mayonnaise on his collar and texts from KFC.

Besides supplying an ample amount of comedic relief, can you imagine how long this campaign would last if the genders were swapped? I’ll hazard a guess at thirty minutes. To some extent, I understand. The notion that you can trade one of life’s last vestiges of pure enjoyment for another in theory sounds a lot like the Nietzschean vision of ascetic self-denial.

In 1889, Friedrich Nietzsche supposedly witnessed the beating of a horse on the streets of Turin. Legend has it that he was so incensed by this act, he threw his arms around the horse’s neck and began crying. Nietzsche might have been an animal lover, but not long after this incident, he had a mental breakdown and never wrote again.

Whether “The Turin Horse” story is true is disputed. What it does, however, is serve as a powerful analogy for the lunacy and stupidity that dominate the current animal rights movement. Specifically, Animal Rebellion (A.R), now known as Animal Rising.

They have teamed up with Just Stop Oil to wreak havoc—or in their own words, cause some “plant-based chaotic fun”—across London. Like a shit power ranger, they have joined forces in a coordinated effort to cause even more chaos and disruption. This new social justice supergroup, Just Stop Animals or whatever it is they are calling themselves, declared October to be open season: a month-long campaign to bring the capital to its knees. Protesters superglued themselves to the pavement and blocked roads in and around Westminster. Others took to throwing red and green paint inside hunting and fishing supply stores. The Metropolitan Police made more than 100 arrests. They claimed they’d disrupt the public every day in October until we ended our use of fossil fuels. 

We’re still using fossil fuels many months on.

What causes these spoiled children—and let’s face it, adults who should know better—to throw a 28-day temper tantrum across London? It’s a relatively easy question to answer. These people genuinely believe they are saving the planet from our own selfish and hubristic behaviour. Climate change activists seem less concerned about a practical, sensible solution to pollution and more concerned about punishing mankind. It is yet another example of the misanthropy of modern-day environmental activism. After all, Sir David Attenborough said,

“We are a plague on the earth.”

The climate alarmism that drives these self-righteous activists has its roots in the work of the 18th century English economist, Thomas Malthus. In his 1798 book, An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus argued that food production would not keep up with the growth in the human population. For Malthus, population growth was exponential, but food production was linear. Unless we implement what he called “preventive checks” on growth such as celibacy and birth control, it will lead to overpopulation, triggering a population die off. This became known as the Malthusian catastrophe.

When Extinction Rebellion founder Roger Hallam made the unscientific claim that climate change would mean “billions will die,” he was invoking Thomas Malthus. Hallam’s alarmism is the Malthusian catastrophe dragged into the 21st century.

Animal Rebellion is new to the world of environmental activism. Like their older, more annoying cousin, Extinction Rebellion, and their newborn twin, Just Stop Oil, they have all coalesced around a single, solitary theme: climate change. For A.R., the consumption of meat and dairy is bad. It’s polluting the planet, and we must stop it or the world will end.

Nuance is a concept absent from the vocabulary of the environmental activist. For A.R., this is not about the peaceful transition to a vegan diet; it’s a call for the abolition of farming. The group wants to take farmland out of production and re-appropriate it for re-wilding. This poses serious questions, seeing as self-sufficiency in food production has declined by 15 percent since the 1980’s. Yet property rights and freedom of choice are irrelevant when the planet is about to burn up! That’s the radicalism of the green movement for you!

Arrogance and dogmatism lie at the heart of modern-day environmentalism. With increasing regularity, green activists have convinced themselves that the end of the world is nigh—and only they, the chosen few, the enlightened ones, have the intellectual fortitude and ability to solve it. They believe that anything is justified to achieve their goal of environmental nirvana.

This is a movement that feels like a religious cult. These self-declared saints must save the world from the wicked, sinful behaviour the rest of humanity has brought upon the planet. Including drilling holes in tyres to stop the distribution of dairy products; disrupting oil production; stopping people from getting to work; and, in one case, chucking vegan diarrhoea over a memorial to Sir Captain Tom Moore. Apparently, it all counts when we are facing a so-called existential crisis.

The direct action used by all these groups does not fall under the traditional concept of freedom of assembly. When you take away the freedom of others to peacefully go about their lives, you cede your right to protest. By committing criminal damage in the name of a cause you subjectively declare as morally justified, you can no longer claim your freedom is being violated. But 21st century activists don’t seem to care much about freedom.

I’m off for a bacon sandwich. 

Noel Yaxley is a writer based in Nelson’s county. After graduating in politics, he turned his attention to writing. Noel is primarily interested in covering issues around free speech and the latest lunacy in the culture wars. He writes regularly for The Critic magazine and contributes to a number of other outlets such as Reaction and Areo magazine.

_{Artwork by John Nash Sr.}