Pavel314 wrote:

My impression of the environmentalists is that they don't really care
about saving the environment as much as they want to impose
inconvenience, cost and restrictions on the rest of us. If we don't
suffer, we aren't attoning properly for our sins against the earth. In
case you think you haven't sinned against the earth, to them just
being human is enough. Sort of like original sin.

You're half right. They do not care about saving the environment. But they
don't necessarily want to bother others either. Don't automatically
attribute to malevolence that which can be explained by silliness.

What they WANT is to BELONG. To a movement. It really doesn't matter whether
the movement is saving the environment, banning the bra, or agitating for
voting rights for chestnuts (as a matter of fact, membership in mass
movements is interchangeable).

People mind their own business when it's worth minding. When it's not, they
take their mind off their own meaningless affairs by minding other people's
business. By subsuming their egos in a popular uprising, their own
self-worth is validated. If a popular goal matters to so many, and those
many matter to a new member, that new member's life suddenly has a purpose.
All he has to do to be accepted by the many is support some nebulous, and
preferably unobtainable, goal.

Fortunately, achieving the ten-thousand friends level on Facebook will keep
them out of our hair for some time. Then, one hopes, they'll begin working
toward the 9th Level (Treachery) of Hell, passing through lust, gluttony,
violence, fraud, etc.