Merchants of Despair

There was a time when humanity looked in the mirror and saw something precious, worth protecting and fighting for — indeed, worth liberating. But now we are beset on all sides by propaganda promoting a radically different viewpoint. According to this idea, human beings are a cancer upon the Earth, a species whose aspirations and appetites are endangering the natural order. This is the core of antihumanism.

Merchants of Despair traces the pedigree of this ideology and exposes its deadly consequences in startling and horrifying detail. The book names the chief prophets and promoters of antihumanism over the last two centuries, from Thomas Malthus through Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore. It exposes the worst crimes perpetrated by the antihumanist movement, including eugenics campaigns in the United States and genocidal anti-development and population-control programs around the world.

My Guest on the first half of the program today will be Robert Zubrine - a New Atlantis contributing editor, a fellow at the Center for Security Policy, and the president of Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace engineering R&D firm. He also leads the Mars Society, an international organization dedicated to furthering space exploration. For many years, he worked as a senior engineer for Lockheed Martin. He holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering.

On the second half of the program, my guest will be Dr. James Wanliss. We will talk about the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives - which is an organization connected to the UN. The initiatives are already being adopted by over 500 American cities. And those cities pay dues to this organization. ICLEI creates policy to strictly re