Say what you will about rock music, but the progressive rock band Rush can make some claims to brilliance. Not only is Neil Peart arguably the best drummer on the planet, but the band has done its share to reflect upon issues of liberty and oppression in their vast catalogue of songs.
In probably the most haunting song ever written on the subject of the destruction of freedom at the hands of absolute tyranny, in "Red Sector A" the band explored the terror of a family's imprisonment in a Nazi death camp. The lyrics to the song were written by Peart based on stories told to Rush singer Geddy Lee by his mother who had been imprisoned by the Nazis in Bergen-Belsen. "I once asked my mother her first thoughts upon being liberated," Lee told the Canadian Jewish News. "She didn't believe [liberation] was possible. She didn't believe that if there was a society outside the camp how they could allow this to exist."
That story became the inspiration for Peart's haunting lyrics. "Neil took that sentiment and wrote ‘Red Sector A,’ Lee recalled. Capturing the profound abandonment and devastation visited upon the victims of the Holocaust by the Nazis' brutal tyranny, the lyrics, taking the point of view of the imprisoned, ask: "Are we the last ones left alive? Are we the only human beings to survive?…"
"Red Sector A" wasn't the first time Rush took on themes of political oppression and its consequences. In 1978 the band released the album Hemispheres that contained the single "The Trees," a song that allegorically describes oppression and tyranny in a forest. Peart again wrote the lyrics: "There is unrest in the forest, there is trouble with the trees, for the maples want more sunlight and the oaks ignore their pleas."
Silly to be sure, but now there really is trouble with the trees, at least if the ever-changing opinions of environmentalists are to be believed. According to Scientific American, a new study based on a "three dimensional climate model" has found that trees contribute to global warming. Instead of absorbing carbon dioxide and offsetting the accumulation of greenhouse gases, at northern latitudes the dark green leaves of trees absorb heat from the sun and their relatively inefficient transpiration of water compared to trees in equatorial rain forests results in less low-level cloud cover, letting more light and heat from the sun reach the ground. In short, trees are causing global warming and if they were cut down, global temperatures would drop. "In fact, according to this model, by the year 2100, if all the forests were cut and left to rot, the annual global mean temperature would decrease by more than 0.5 degree Fahrenheit," Scientific American reported.
That's ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is that, at the international level, environmentalism, in the form of global-warming activism, continues to be used as a screen to hide the fact that the real objective is international wealth transfer from wealthy nations to poor nations. In fact, the UN has always tied the fate of the poor to global warming, a trend that has continued. The real issue with global warming, according to the world body is that it will, supposedly, disproportionately effect the poor. "The projections contained in the latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tell us yet again that all countries will feel the adverse impacts," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on February 5. "But it is the poor – in Africa, small island developing states and elsewhere – who will suffer most, even though they are the least responsible for global warming."
The UN reinforced that sentiment with the release of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body operating under UN auspices. In the Working Group II contribution to the Fourth Assessment of global warming released by the IPCC earlier this month, the authors pointed to the effects of global warming on poor nations. "Poor communities can be especially vulnerable, in particular those concentrated in high-risk areas. They tend to have more limited adaptive capacities, and are more dependent on climate-sensitive resources such as local water and food supplies," says the latest report's Summary for Policymakers.
In fact, for the radical environmental movement, global warming is all about what we used to call socialism. Christopher Horner, in his wonderful new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism, quotes Canadian environment minister Christine Stewart to that effect: "u2018No matter if the science is all phony, there are still collateral environmental benefits' to global warming policies…. u2018Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.'"
And that brings us back to Rush and "The Trees." In Peart's allegorical lyrics, the maples decide its time for a little socialism to ensure that they get their fair share of sunlight. The lyrics describe the result:
So the maples formed a union And demanded equal rights. "The oaks are just too greedy; We will make them give us light."
Now there’s no more oak oppression, For they passed a noble law, And the trees are all kept equal By hatchet, axe, and saw.
April 16, 2007