Estonia’s peaceful outbreak from the former Soviet Union is famously known as the “Singing Revolution”1—but its Green Party is now singing the blues.2
Despite years or energetic activism, fighting industry-blamed “global warming,” the Green Party continues to protest against infrastructure improvements from outside of Estonia’s Parliament.
The Greens’ lack of success is not for lack of effort. Dario Cavegn, a global warming advocate and former managing editor of ERR News, opines as to why this is so.
The Green Party oppose the building of the EU’s Rail Baltica, a high-speed railway to run from Poland’s Warsaw to Estonia’s Tallinn (through Latvia and Lithuania), and from Tallinn across the Baltic Sea to Sweden’s Helsinki. Green Party advocates are frustrated, however, because Estonia’s voters are not currently backing the Green Party movement.
Put more bluntly, Estonia’s Green party is still smarting from a very dramatic and public embarrassment—marking it with a stigma of scientific ignorance.2,3
But the protesters’ defense of Tallinn’s old “mother” willow did not succeed.
Rescue workers placed an inflatable mattress below the tree in case either demonstrator should accidentally fall from the tree. One of the activists who had been tenting on site told ERR's radio news that the police arrived unexpectedly that morning. They had their telephone ready to call more people to the scene, but were unable to grab it. "Sad that things are resolved this way in our country," they commented.3
The confrontational drama, resolved by riot police, removed the Green Party protesters from the threatened “mother tree,” a White Willow.2,3
Oops. Foiled by real-world science, again. It seems that the noise opposing the White Willow’s removal wasn’t actually based on valid botany.2,4
Seems like déjà vu all over again. Global warming activists constantly raise false alarms about the sky falling, such as the now-removed signs that warned of Montana glaciers that were—according to cherry-picked math-modeling—supposed to have melted completely away by this year.5
So, if you have a White Willow tree, maybe you should hug it before it turns 75 years old.6 Or, you can appreciate looking carefully at trees as living exhibits of God’s handiwork, which He made, both to show His glory and to serve the needs of humans and animals.7
References
1. Johnson, J. J. S. 2019. Making a Joyful Noise in Estonia’s Tallinn: Common Swifts [Apus apus] Winging in Acrobatic Murmurations. Nordic Legacy Series (Norwegian Society of Texas, Fort Worth, Texas, April 28, 2019), pages 9-12.
2. Cavegn, D. 2020. Opinion: Trials and tribulations of Estonia's green movement. Eesti Rahvusringhääling News. Posted on ERR.ee, accessed May 5, 2020. [https://news.err.ee/1085822/opinion-tri
als-and-tribulations-of-estonia-s-green-
movement]
3. Vahtla, A. 2017. Police Clear Out Demonstrators Guarding Haabersti Willow. Eesti Rahvusringhääling News. Posted on ERR.ee accessed May 5, 2020.
4. Houston-Durrant, T., D. de Rigo, et al. (n.d.). Salix alba in Europe: Distribution, Habitat, Usage and Threats. European Atlas of Forest Tree Species, Joint Research Centre, European Commission. Posted on forest.jrc.ec.europa.eu, accessed May 5, 2020. See also Tomkins, J. 2010. Extreme Cold Can Be an Inconvenient Truth. Acts & Facts. 39(3): 8-9.
5. Johnson, J. J. S. 2020. Signs of the Times: Glacier Meltdown. Acts & Facts. 49(4):21; Johnson, J. J. S. Hot Fudge Sundaes and Cherry-Picked Statistics. COVID-19 News. Posted on ICR.org April 19, 2020, accessed May 5, 2020; Regarding the global warming “climategate” scandal, see, Radford, B. 2009. The Reality of 'Climategate'. LiveScience. Posted on LiveScience.com December 6, 2009, accessed May 5, 2020.
6. Johnson, J. J. S. 2020. Tree-Hugging Revival. COVID-19 News. Posted on ICR.org May 7, 2020, accessed May 8, 2020.
7. Deuteronomy 20:19-20; Psalm 104:16-17. See also Sherwin, F. 2015. Trees: An Engineering Wonder. Acts & Facts. 44(9):10-12.
*Dr. Johnson is Associate Professor of Apologetics and Chief Academic Officer at the Institute for Creation Research.