Environmentalists tell us that we need to stop using fossil fuels and submit to draconian regulation to “save the world for our children.” But what right do children have to our natural resources? They’re small, weak and have no money to buy them with. Asking us to conserve now is just redistributing potential wealth now to some future person. And what if I die before then? Smells like socialism to me!

As the eminent scholar and god-forsaken atheist Ayn Rand established, property rights are the core of our society. Accordingly, all potential wealth and resources that could ever be extracted out of the barren lifeless surface of the Earth belong to the small subset of humans alive right at this moment. And we can do whatever we want with it. Chop down every tree in the Amazon and use the wood to build a statue of Reagan that reaches into space? If there’s a market, there’s a way. The market is the one true God, and since children have no way of generating economic value, they have no title to anything.

Not taking every chance to mercilessly exploit oil, natural gas and mineral reserves without any regard to the ecological devastation we wreak would ultimately just be letting some future schmuck do it. That’s socialism my friend. And what does socialism bring? Toilet paper shortages and prison camps. You heard me, the Clean Air Act is putting us on the road to the gulag.

So, the next time some enviro-nut covered in pine needles whines about the “state of the planet we are leaving for our children,” tell them that reducing levels of carbon emissions to meet an acceptable 2 degrees Celsius warming threshold is pretty much the same as forced collectivization. When New York City sinks into the sea, my kids will at least know that the goddamn commies didn’t win.