Collectivist societies have had some of the worst environental records on Earth, something that seems to elude Greenies, or at least is studiously ignored by them.

SDAI is wrong on his history. Leftists only really started using environmentalism as a wedge point for their politics in the late 1960s, and only in recent years have they pretty much absorbed the leading organizations in the field.

This is almost entirely a home-grown American and European phenomenon, not anything that came out of the U.S.S.R. or China.

Some of this is because environmental leftism is easier than old-style leftism. Unlike "the workers," who are likely to hang you up by your heels when their "paradise" turns out to be hell, pandas and whales will never contradict what you say about them, or give you any grief when you declare yourself to be their representative.

But I think most of it is the same old socialist "sour grapes" I've been talking about. If your economic and political philosophy is unable to deliver nice homes, big cars, rich food, fancy clothes, industry, malls, flush toilets and electric toothbrushes, well then, these things must be "evil," and nobody should have them anyway.

Look at the list of things Greenies would like to ban, and you will find "capitalist West" written all over them.