No, it like or not it belongs on the 'left.'

The difference between 'left wing' and 'right wing' ideologies isn't the presence of a religious nature, secular or otherwise, nor does it have anything to do with any specific policy. The difference is this: 'right wing' ideologies take for their inspiration an idealized past, 'left wing' ideologies take for their inspiration an imagined future.

Green ideology is rooted in the idea of absolute limits to human progress and a related idea that attempts to exceed these (often relatively arbitrary) limits are somehow sinful. I consider that more right-wing than left-wing. It says "know your place and stay there" not "try to make something better."

'Conservativism' is different than 'right wing,' and 'liberalism' is different than 'left wing.'

The standard polisci definition is that (small 'c') 'conservatives' seek slow organic change in society while (small 'l') 'liberals' seek deliberate and intentional change. In addiction we have 'radicals,' who seek total change and an overthrow of the current system, and 'reactionaries' who either want no change, or to reverse the flow. ('Radical conservative,' is an oxymoron') Big 'C' Conservatives and big 'L' Liberals are different still, (and both are different than 'Progressives.')

Greenpeace is radical, left-wing movement. They are such in the same way that both the French Revolution and Bolshevism were radical left-wing movements.

Western notions of "human progress" during the last few centuries or so happen to correlate well with resource depletion. Green ideology presents a challenge to these notions of progress, and tantalizes us with the possibility of alternative notions of progress (e.g., sustainable development, permaculture, green technology, etc.)

I've joked for years about how nature has replaced god for some people, but it was always too vague without the connection to atonement and suffering.

I've often wondered if the failure of green ideology to take off is Asia is due to the absence of the Judeo-Christian hole for it to plug into.

My take on this is that most Asian countries are newly industrialised - chances are that a young persons parents or grandparents were once dirt poor. They aren't interested in sacrificing their newly-obtained living standards for an ideology that looks mostly self-serving to any disinterested outside observer. Greenpeace et al trades on guilt, just as the Catholic church does. Asians just want to build exciting cities of the future and become rich. Something the rest of us used to want to do but have now lost the stomach for. It's the classic case of third-generational squandering of wealth, on a very large scale.

The thing about cults is that everything social is a social construct requiring shared belief to exist, I think John Searle calls it assent or something like that.

While a healthy society must critique institutions for their failures and problems, I'm not sure if it's defensible to say that Greenpeace has nothing to do with saving the planet and as much as it pains me to admit, Focus on Family may even help families too. Does Greenpeace hurt more than help, or Focus on Family? And if so, what realistic ways to achieve the intended affects. After all, the environment is in danger, and social conservatism isn't going away. The organizations of social conservatives will be conservative whether we like it or not, we just need to keep teaching them not to fcku with everyone who is not.

In effect your hyperbole here is similar to theirs, yours has the characteristics of a mass generalization which simply won't have any affect except on the already despairing, the true believers any of a number of causes which you aren't necessarily thinking of, and of course the trolls or whatever we want to describe non-constructive criticizers as. I'm trying to break out of that particular cult, it's a long road, but similar to what you're getting at I think this type of cynicism is a destructive force, thus my rant ;)

Actually, maybe I'm being a little bit too hard on the greens. The thing is: human beings respond to hygiene problems by creating religions with moralistic prohibitions.

By the 50s, pollution had started to get bad. It's basically a hygiene problem. So we made up a religion. We did the same thing when we figured out that having sex with too many people made it hurt when you pee.

For some reason, we need this. Rational arguments are not good enough. Arguments from basic self-interest are not good enough. Having the air smell like burning tires and having rising cancer rates is not good enough. We can't change group behaviors without cults.

To the upvotters, please read Graham's How to Disagree http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

Actually, I'd say this comment, with its name calling like "quasi-religious ideology" and "fundemantalist cults", should be classified as DH0 under Graham's hierarchy. Even if you believe that environmentalists are the cause of California's problems you must agree there are just no facts argued here.

Wow. Well said.

I thought I was the only one who felt that way.

I want that on a t-shirt.

They try to be non-political and are very informative, IMO.

It seems to me that complexity itself is the cause of collapse. The problem with human societies is that there's no mechanism for reducing complexity. Each feature of a complex society has a stakeholder, someone who would lose out if that feature were reduced or abandoned. So societies grow in complexity without bound until the complexity collapses under its own weight.

A similar effect is very familiar to every engineer, especially in software. Systems grow in complexity until they are unmaintainable. Then you have to trash them and start over. Removing complexity is difficult, because there is a "reason" for every piece of complexity you have.

I don't think inventing Mr. Fusion would stop this cycle.

A key here is that we don't have an ethic of just buying these people out.

New York City taxicabs operate on a medallion system where there are always a limited number of licenses to operate a cab and the right, once granted, is permanent. If the city could buy out every medallion holder and charge a fee set every year, it could control the number of cabs and gain more revenue in the long run. But it is politically impossible to persuade the public to pay a million dollars each to buy a medallion back that was given away for free. So the insane permanent-medallion system continues.

The same sort of thing happens with local municipal monopoly franchises, subsidies, agricultural supports in unsustainable regions, water rights, and some public employee deals.

Eventually accumulated special privileges can strangle a state.