If they were honest, the greenies would admit they have precious little to celebrate this Earth Day. More people than ever are on to the scam of global warming, and realize that single-minded pursuit at all costs of an ecotopian vision is simply impractical. Yes, the Central Valley of California is turning into a dust bowl in order to protect the sub-sub-sub species of the Delta smelt, but, to appropriate an old term of the left, we are gong through a period of consciousness-raising about environmentalism, and those who profit from it and seek to impose it on the rest of us.

I have been going through AT contributor and KSFO radio morning drive time host Brian Sussman's new book, Eco-Tyranny, and I am impressed with the scope and depth of his approach to this massive movement -- the story of how it came to hijack politics throughout the western world.  Brian traces the roots all the way back to the metaphysics Marx and Engels (rooted in Hegel), with some fascinating excerpts from their lesser-known writings on the environment, including a startling passage from Engels on the sun becoming warmer. Their worldview needed an environmental crisis as part of the engine of history, you see.

But the book is much more than a dry philosophical tome on intellectual history, it moves through the last century and a half of politics, economics, and society, showing how the greenies grabbed power and influence.