Tea at Trianon: Covid, Climate Change, and Children

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, September 2, 2021

Covid, Climate Change, and Children

From Crisis:

Exhibit B in the factors related to children is climate change. Perhaps you’ve heard of “Birth Strikers,” who declare their decision not to have kids because of “the severity of the ecological crisis.” Among the more famous people to align themselves with this movement is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, in 2019, asked her 3 million Instagram followers: “There’s a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult…is it still ok to have children?” Singer Miley Cyrus feels similarly: “We’re getting handed a piece-of-s— planet, and I refuse to hand that down to my child.”

Some even blame Christians for over-populating the planet. Author Marlene A. Condon asserted in a recent op-ed: “Humans could have voluntarily limited the size of their families over the past half-century via better family planning, but too many people erringly believed the Bible’s mandate to ‘go forth and multiply’ applied only to mankind.” However, one might explain to Condon, the places where population growth is the highest are not countries with significant fossil fuel emissions but impoverished African countries like South Sudan, Burundi, Niger, Angola, Uganda, Congo, Chad, Mali, Zambia, Tanzania, and Cameroon. Are Ocasio-Cortez, Cyrus, and Condon saying that black Africans are the problem? (Read more.)