The National Park Service — the organization supposedly missioned to preserve “unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations”– will, after the 2024 National Cherry Blossom Festival, cut down 300 trees in Washington, D.C., 158 of which will be cherry trees. Their reason? To “fight” “climate change” — the 300 will be disposed of to make room for a reconstructed seawall around the Tidal Basin and Potomac River so D.C. can “withstand about 100 years of future sea level rise.”

At this point, climate change is like the dishrag punchline of a washed-up comedian — predictable and disappointing. As the bit goes, climate change is exacerbated by CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — except that CO2 levels today are the same as they were 3 million years ago. The oceans are going to cataclysmically rise — except that in the last 122 years, the oceans have risen a grand total of eight inches with, at this rate, another 1,800 years before they reach apocalyptic levels. This must be why climate change activists like the Obamas and Neil DeGrasse Tyson keep buying beachfront properties. 

The Pravda media are no different, insisting the cherry trees reached their earliest peak bloom in 20 years because of “an abnormally warm winter, consistent with climate change trends.” They scream, “Be afraid! The end is nigh!” while failing to mention the just-as-crazy winters from decades ago. For example, in mid-February of 1930, there was an abnormally warm 10-day period with recorded temperatures including 89 degrees Fahrenheit (Jefferson City, MO), 76 degrees (Burlington, IA), and 82 degrees (Richmond, VA).

What’s more, this “unusually warm winter” was not all that unusual when considering the eruption of the underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in January 2022 followed by the arrival of El Nino in 2023. Under the circumstances, the unusual event would have been having a normal winter in the middle of this convergence.

The truth is, the “common knowledge” that 97 percent of scientists agree climate change is man’s fault is about as reliable as Barack Obama’s autobiography. And the cherry on top is that we could very well be heading for an extended period of cooling caused by diminished solar activity.  

The Park Service says it will plant a variety of new trees following the project, but why chop down 300 trees in the first place, just to start over with immature trees and needless walls to the tune of $113 million? Money and power are the surface answers. Climate change is not science, but it is big business, with the federal government doling out billions of dollars a year on the subject and the spending only increasing. The power comes with restrictions on peoples’ travel (in both cars and airplanes), international carbon taxes, attempting to prosecute “ecocide” as an international crime, and shutting up anyone who raises a hand to question “the science.” 

But there may also be a more disturbing and painfully ironic reason, both for the cherry tree demolition and the perpetuation of climate change fearmongering: the love of destruction for the sake of destruction. 

Maintaining order and enforcing justice are the bare-bones requirements for any civilization. But the real, gold-standard civilizations — the Roman Republic, Victorian Britain, and the United States up to 1963 — go above and beyond the basics by promoting the arts and sciences and encouraging what de Tocqueville called the manly passion for equality — encouraging each individual to be the best he can and reach full, 100 percent capacity. 

Look at the feats of architecture or entire artistic movements like Art Deco. Look at the accomplishments of Dickens, Frost, Hemingway, Tennyson, Disney, and Ford in the arts or at the Hoover Dam, the moon landing, and the rebuilding of Europe and Japan after 1945 — a civilization is supposed to create with purpose, and what it creates has to be good and beautiful. It needs to fill and lift the soul. Even dads in their garages were, once upon a time, encouraged to manifest themselves in this way.

Compare that to the regime under which we currently live. Now, works of art are attacked — in some cases completely destroyed — with only a whimper of counter-energy. In fact, when the suggestion is made to make beautiful things again, it’s decried as dangerous and fascist. Our institutions do worse than nothing — they aid and abet this mindset.

Look at the National Endowment on the Arts and Humanities, whose prime job is no longer to inspire and push people to the stars, but to applaud the latest manifestation of the zeitgeist. These include: plays with “Black Lives Matter” themes; Shakespeare performances that showcase an anti-Trump bent; “queer” theatre; mime performances about racism; an art exhibit dedicated to the life of Yuri Kochiyama, who once claimed Osama bin Laden as one of the people she “admired”; and theatre performances that allow people to “commune” with a cactus. The education system does its part by graduating fewer and fewer students who can read and add, meaning fewer students who can differentiate between art and slop. 

Of course, most acts of creation involve some destruction; our own Republic was created by destroying the British Empire circa 1763. And, oftentimes, the destruction that does take place will be a compromise to prevent something even worse. But, destruction for the sake of itself — or for the sake of a fiction — threatens what is good, instills fear, and is a sign that a civilization is in decline. 

Fear is the antithesis of hope — the mind-killer that eventually dissolves our humanity into a spineless glob, eager to hand over the keys to the algorithm. Whether it’s through skewed warnings about the end of “democracy” or the claim that the planet could burst into flames and floods at any moment, the Borg is determined to control our lives through fear. This is why, in the eyes of the elites, beauty itself is too dangerous. It causes people to dream, to push themselves, and, at its highest, imparts hope — it threatens their ability to wield fear. 

Ultimately, beauty — from an Art Deco building to a blossoming cherry tree — makes us human. But that is what the Borg cannot allow, at any cost.