The vile views of Chandran Nair

Following a link on Twitter, I ended up listening to a talk at the Royal Society of Arts by Chandran Nair who claims to be some sort of environmentalist. I had not come across Mr Nair before but he has written a book called Consumptionomics, is fond of Chinese Communism, thinks we need "massive carbon taxes" and wants governments to be "draconian" so you can probably guess what kind of environmentalist he is.

Rarely have I come across a speech that makes the case for anti-human, anti-progress, anti-liberty politics as explicitly and shamelessly as this, with not a word of dissent from the audience. With people like this around, is it any wonder greens get labelled watermelons?

Here are a few choice, but entirely representative, quotes:


On the joys of collectivism:

"In Japan, the individual doesn't matter. I have a home in a small village in Japan and everything has a rule and I love it—because it's about the collective. You can't do anything without having the permission of the collective."

On whether technology has a role to play (ie. in feeding people and reducing pollution):

"The Chinese tell you how many gallons of petrol you can have a week, how many miles you can drive and when your car will stop. And it will be recorded somewhere and you'll get a huge bill for what you do. I've talked to my friends at Cisco and they say they have the technology. So technology does have a role to play."

On government:

"We will need strong governments. We will need draconian measures to stop and restrain people."

On population:

"The Chinese model [one child per family] might work better in these issues than anything else."

On car ownership:

"The Chinese have intervened in car markets and two months ago imposed restrictions on car ownership. And I've always said that if they can mess with your reproductive system, they can certainly mess with your car."

On being green:

"I refuse to go to conferences any more that talk about 'greening'. I prefer to go to conferences that talk about constraining, restricting, imposing rules."

On liberty:

"Asian governments need to reject the Western model. They need to move beyond the rhetoric of liberal democratic capitalist systems which say that individual rights are sacrosanct."

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