Environmentalism is often a Trojan horse for socialism, but socialism, it turns out, isn’t great for the environment.
Command economies often harm the planet. Consider the legacy of the Soviet Union or Pol Pot. And look at modern-day China. Why this pattern? For one thing, when the political elite get control of the economy, they will use it for selfish purposes rather than for the altruistic purposes they promise.
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If you give politicians control of the economy, they will make themselves rich and entrench their own power. Anything “green” they do will be incidental.
Check out these two recent updates on Green China:
In short, China is massively increasing its emissions (while its population shrinks!), but using a bogus formula to claim that it is getting more energy per CO2.
This might surprise you if you read the American media, which are constantly telling us that China is greening the planet (while Americans are destroying it). Here are three (of about a hundred) such stories in recent months:
- “The United States lags far behind China in the race for clean energy technologies.”
- “How China, not the U.S., became the main climate solution story in 2025”
- “China’s Accelerating Green Transition”
This assertion — China good, U.S.A. bad — survives amid all the contrary evidence, which is enough to make one wonder if the Americans peddling it are really interested in green energy or in other parts of China’s governance structure.
As I wrote, “For some of those singing Xi’s praises, the real virtue of China is not how green its people are, but how red.” That is, a lot of U.S. environmentalists use the “climate crisis” as a lever to abolish capitalism and change the whole nature of American society.
Maybe the green stuff was just an excuse to increase state control of the economy. This isn’t a new insight. Folks have long called environmentalists watermelons: green on the inside, red in the middle.
But when you consider China is leading the world in building new coal-fired power plants and is leading in emissions and emissions growth, you might get even more cynical about supposed redness for the sake of green. The green seems never to appear.
The bigger lesson here, though, is not about deception or dishonesty, but about the nature of power.
Imagine that every environmental activist and politician pushing to ban coal and take over the energy industry really is motivated by saving the planet. Posit that any socialism in the green world is merely instrumental to getting cleaner air and water and less global warming.
Now consider what the Chinese Communists do and don’t do with their control over the economy: They don’t reduce coal usage, and they do fudge their emissions ratios. They also do increase their military spending, subsidize politically connected companies, and reinforce their own personal grip on power.
Power corrupts. That’s just as true for the tree huggers. If the greenies get their way here, we’ll become a little more like China.
