Michael Coren Journalist for Life
I do so enjoy it. Every March 23 it comes round, and it always makes me feel so excited, so special, so spiritual. We have four children, but they’re grown now. I miss the old days, when they would be unable to sleep as soon as March came around, asking when it was coming, and would they see him? The excitement was thick and wide and roaring in its glamour and beauty. Ah, how I miss it.
Yes, of course I refer to Earth Hour. That special time, after global warming advent and before climate change New Year. I know it’s deeply religious and that sometimes we ignore the real meaning of it all – it can’t be denied that we’re all terrible sinners, our carbon footprint is worse than the Holocaust, North Americans are scum, and so on. Yes, yes, I know all of that, but surely we are also allowed some of the flummery, the sweet, silly, but quite charmingly childish and child-like belief in Father David, Santa Suzuki, the funny-looking fellow with the false beard and the jolly laugh, who comes down our chimney to take huge amounts of our money for giving the same speech over and over again, being rude to people he doesn’t regard as being important, making awful television shows with taxpayers’ money, and generally being contemptuous to anyone who disagree with him, and even to those who do if he feels like it.
Obviously it’s difficult for adults to believe in such a figure; I mean, how could it be true, how could such a ludicrous character function (or tolerated) in the real world? But you know what, for many Canadians believing in him makes their lives a little easier, and if it does then what can be wrong with the fantasy?
Does, for example, the tooth fairy cause harm, does the Easter bunny hurt people? Not really. So what’s wrong with a naïve, foolish but fulfilling belief in Santa Suzuki. And I’m not sure if he really is a fictional character you know. Our youngest, when she was four-years-old, was convinced that she saw him flying through the air in a beautiful sleigh, being pulled by eight CBC executives, one of them with a very shiny red nose. Mind you, he was also holding a bottle of cheap blended whiskey, so the nose may have been a non-Rudolph characteristic.
So what, she believed it, and her teachers at school supported her in this because they even attend to a Suzukiist church every Sunday. I know, it surprised me too, but apparently there are churches where people kneel down and pray to Santa Suzuki, and also to St. Jack Layton, Stephen Lewis the Messiah, and a whole litany of angels.
So, while this year’s Earth Hour may have come and gone, remember next year to form a circle, hold hands, say a little prayer to the great government grant in the sky, and thank Santa Suzuki that there is still hope in the world. Then, in imitation of him, be incredibly rude to someone, and call yourself doctor even though most people with doctorates would never be so arrogant and absurd.
Pause. Ah yes, mocking what is so worthy of mockery. But while it’s important to laugh at the social engineers, the environmentalist fanatics, and the anti-life zealots who support them, know that there is also something deeply and deadly serious about all thus. While protecting nature, respecting animals, and making sure that God’s legacy is preserved, the motives for this must be, has to be, love for humanity and not worship of the Earth. Paganism informs and infects the so-called climate change movement, and the leaders of this cause care far more for the dirt than they do for the people who live on it.
It may seem harmless when children are told about Earth Hour and Earth Day and how we need to re-cycle. Mostly it is. But at the heart of all this is something profoundly anti-life: the obsessive belief that as humans we harm the planet, that we are mere units without souls who inhabit and exploit, and that there is an equal worth to people and animals. This is dangerous stuff, and vehemently anti-life. It is based on a premise of strict population control, it regards procreation as a threat and large families as a curse, and has little to do with feeding thepoor and caring for the needy.
Leave a glass of sherry and a cookie out for Santa Suzuki, but knock it on the floor before you go to bed, and thank God that Christmas and Easter still make Earth House look like the absurdity it really is.
Michael Coren’s website is www.michaelcoren.com, where he can be booked for speeches and his books purchased.
