Many environmentalists are watermelons. Green on the outside, inside they are as red as any communist ever was. It is not a coincidence that the environmental movement picked up strength after the Soviet Union collapsed. The propagandists for communism against capitalism had to go somewhere. They went to the environmental movement.

With demands for state subsidy, an agenda hostile to western powers, and a deep antipathy toward free markets and capitalism, the two groups merged. Like Stalinists before them, environmental elite wish to purge society of capitalists, anyone who challenges them, and free market ideas. Like communists before them, they wrap themselves in a moral banner for war — against rising sea levels, against drought, against all sorts of things no right thinking person could be against.

And like the communists of old, the environmentalists also love their five year plans.

The five year plan was an old staple of the Soviet Union. A central planning committee would plan the economy in five year increments toward the glorious utopia of equality. When five year goals were not met, the plans were revised or the outcomes lied about.

Now too, the watermelons of the United Nations Climate Change group, are modeling the Soviets. The new climate accord agreed to in Paris demands five year reports on what countries have done to fix climate change. Developing countries want major cash payments from developed countries, which will not happen, but along the way everyone will report back in glorious detail every five years what they have done to fight global warming.

It is your typical international idea, which they will refer to as “international law.”

It is non-binding, which is why the U.S. will not have to ratify the deal.

It calls for no binding commitments of any kind on any nation.

But it allows leaders to morally preen and feel like they accomplished something. Again, that something is non-binding, but will occur every five years with great fanfare as still nothing happens. But it was enough to make a crowd of journalists cheer, which is all this is really about — making people feel like they are gods capable of changing nature itself.