Other topics below: The fallacy of doomsaying (John Stossel), Stop mollycoddling the climate alarm narrative and its decarbonization scheme; The pathology of panic-mongering; The resurgence of Marxist collectivism, and more…
Site project: Go to the roots of the problem of declinism (i.e. life declining toward something worse- “the world becoming worse”) and replace those old mythical narrative themes with a new evidence-based narrative that shows the true state of the world. Offer people a better narrative that more accurately presents the real state of life.
The true story of life shows that humanity has not been a corrupt destroyer but has been a compassionate creator and that human creativity has resulted in life improving immensely over the long-term. Life is not in decline toward disaster and ending as per the apocalypse fallacy that dominates cultic crusades like climate alarmism. Due to the essential nature of people as compassionate creators, life rises and improves toward an ever-better future.
Tell your children not to worry but to go out and enjoy the unlimited bounty that their world offers. And to do their part in furthering the great improving trajectory of life, making the world better for all. Make sure you “teach your children well” by exposing them to evidence that tells them the true state of life. Again, good researchers have given us volumes of data on the main indicators of the state of the world and it shows us there is no trajectory of decline toward disastrous collapse and ending, but to the contrary, ongoing improvement toward a better future.
See, for example, Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource” and the many following studies that affirmed his basic research on the big picture and long-term trends of life- i.e. Greg Easterbrook’s “A Moment On the Earth”, Bjorn Lomborg’s “Skeptical Environmentalist”, Ronald Bailey’s “The End of Doom”, Desrocher and Szurmak’s “Population Bombed”, Indur Goklany’s “The Improving State of the World”, Matt Ridley’s “Rational Optimist”, Tupy and Bailey’s “Ten Global Trends”, and many more.
Added notes:
Offer young people a “hero’s adventure or quest” that motivates them to fully embrace the larger human quest to create a civilization that provides a better life to all its members. Inspire your children to fully join the great venture of human civilization that, while improving the human condition, also respects and cares properly for the natural world.
Offer them a vision that does not demonize and discredit humanity as destroyers (a “cancer/virus” on Earth) but honors and respects people as essentially creators that are always learning and doing well at using the resources of the natural world while at the same time protecting the natural world. The evidence soundly affirms that we are doing well in caring for our natural world, as we continue to improve life for all.
The evidence on the human venture in this world does not support the dark apocalyptic vision of the environmental or climate alarmists- that too many people consuming too much are destroying the world and the apocalypse is imminent. The evidence overwhelming affirms an entirely different story- that for all our imperfections and mistakes, we humanity, we have done well in improving life over past centuries and caring for this planet. Evidence affirms hope that the future will be even much better. Again- note the sources listed just above.
Brief and brilliant on the fallacy of doomsaying– John Stossel on the endless honoring of Paul Ehrlich who has endlessly been wrong about the “end of the world”.
Good points here- i.e. on how often biologists view humans as just like other animal populations, as just consumers of resources till the population reaches a crash level and then collapses. Entomologist Ehrlich, like other biologists, doesn’t get that humans are profoundly different from insect and animal populations. Humans have creative minds that can solve problems and “have the capacity to innovate” (Marion Tupy of Humanprogress.org). Humanity now has a history of evidence that we are more creators than destroyers (Tupy and Julian Simon).
Also, note Tupy’s comment that more people are good for humanity and for the environment. Yes, evidence affirms this counter-intuitive view, counter-intuitive because the myth of “decline toward apocalypse” has been beaten into humanity for millennia and still dominates human narratives today, both religious and “secular/ideological”. An essential element of this fallacious mythology is the “over-population” or “population bomb” theory- that too many people consuming too much of the world’s “limited resources” is the cause of the looming apocalypse.
Further counter-evidence to over-population fallacies- i.e. that a growing population is not destroying nature but, instead, is improving nature immensely. Look at the evidence such as growing forest cover in developed countries because, due to creative human innovation, more food is grown on less and less land.
Unfortunately, doomsaying is considered deep and caring while rational optimism is considered uncaring and shallow (see also psychologist Martin Seligman’s books ‘Learned Optimism’ and ‘The Optimistic Child’).
Brilliant summary comment by Tupy- “If you let people be free, they will create more value for everyone”.
Stop ‘mollycoddling’ the climate alarm narrative. Yes, recognize that the core themes of the climate alarm narrative are not shaped by science but, to the contrary, the climate alarm themes influence, via confirmation bias, what bits of “science” will be used to affirm the alarmist exaggeration of looming “climate crisis” (“bits of ‘science’”- yes, mainly the daily media hysteria over every perturbation in weather as proof of looming “climate emergency”, whether a rainy period, a dry spell, a hot episode, a cold spell, etc.).
The core themes of climate alarmism have more to do with mythical reality (i.e. apocalyptic millennial themes) than factual reality.
Note some of the most basic climate alarm themes: (1) better past- original paradise, (2) corrupt humanity ruining paradise, (3) life now declining toward disaster and ending/apocalypse, (4) the demand for human sacrifice/suffering, (5) the required purging of some great evil threat to life (CO2 demonized as that threat), (6) a heroic engagement of a righteous battle against evil enemies, and (7) salvation found in restoring the lost paradise or installing a new utopia in a post-industrial world.
The climate alarm crusade, fueled by irrational mythology, is ruining societies with Net Zero decarbonization policies. Keep an eye on the disastrous outcomes of decarbonization in Germany and Britain, among other places that are rushing into Net Zero utopia.
The conclusion of this site- The best climate science shows there is no “climate crisis” and, hence, no need to tax carbon, no need to embrace the suicidal policies of decarbonization that are ruining our societies.
This site, among many others, presents the good climate science now available from the research of atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and others. Also, visit “Wattsupwiththat.com”, “co2coalition.org”, “co2science.org”, “netzerowatch.com”, “thegwpf.org”, among other good sites presenting the best science on climate.
More on climate alarmism
I emphasize here the core themes of the dominant public narrative today- the meta-narrative of “Declinism” that historian Arthur Herman said is the single most dominant and influential narrative theme in the world today. And I repeatedly present the mythical nature and roots of the full complex of Declinism themes (the “apocalyptic millennial” or “lost paradise/redemption” complex).
I further recognize that most people live primarily by story and not by scientific fact. Daily media screaming endless alarmism should help anyone see that primary orientation of many people to mythical themes. Add Joseph Campbell’s point that the same primitive mythical themes have been embraced all across history and across all the cultures of the world, whether in religious traditions or in “secular/ideological” systems of belief.
We need to fully liberate human consciousness from ongoing enslavement to the old narratives of life in decline toward disaster. And I would offer- Be aware of the horrific outcomes of those Declinism narrative themes in creating unnecessary fear, anxiety, guilt/shame, fatalism, resignation/depression, nihilism, and even violence among populations.
Good science does not show any evidence to affirm claims of a “climate crisis”. Good climate science does not affirm any of the basic assumptions of the climate alarm crusade. There is no rational scientific reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies. Note especially the evidence below that is presented by atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen and William Happer, among others, on the physics of CO2, the single most fundamental element to the climate change issue.
This quote by historian Richard Landes from his book “The End of Time: Apocalypticism, Messianism, and Utopianism through the Ages”…
https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004462434/BP000014.xml
“Movements that pursue the millennium, the perfect society on earth, that seek to bring heaven to earth, mobilize great and infectious enthusiasms; they inspire visionary social experimentation. And yet, they consistently end in disgrace if not, disaster. Nothing, ironically, is at once more powerful and more ridiculous, than the ‘true believers’ seized with the conviction that they are cosmic agents charged with the task of world transformation.
“Viewed from the present before failure, looking forward into a beckoning future of promise, however, millennial movements look creative, dynamic, energetic: they feed on hope, the more outrageous, the better. They can galvanize cosmic warriors to fight with every fiber of their being for the one True Cause. They can create intimate, immensely intense, communities that ‘live’ in a magical world of intense intimacy. Indeed, millennial promises enthrall their believers so, that despite how many times ‘God has tarried’, true believers find ways of resurrecting the hope, recalculating, reformulating, relaunching it.
“Indeed, despite how painful the disappointment in so many cases- the more intense the faith, the more painful the failure- there will always be another crop of seekers, looking for the apocalyptic memeplex, new prophets, new identity entrepreneurs, to lead new True Believers. ‘Sweet as honey in the mouth and bitter in the stomach’ (Rev. 10:9).”
My added points:
Does this remind you of endlessly failing apocalyptic prophet Paul Ehrlich, recently prophesying- once again- the “end-of-days”? Or the many climate apocalyptics endlessly resetting the end-of-days dates further and further out into the future as the end never arrives, but their hope never dies for some great collapse and ending- i.e. an apocalypse that is a great purging of the “evil threat to life” (in the climate alarm narrative the evil threat is civilization based on fossil fuels), a purging that then leads to the restoration of some lost paradise or the installation of a new millennial utopia (i.e. Net Zero or renewables-based civilization).
An ‘apocalypse’ is basic to the alarmist narrative as it incites the necessary panic in populations, rendering them susceptible to the apocalyptic’s salvation scheme- i.e. salvation schemes with (1) the demand to tribally engage a great battle against some evil enemy (i.e. the common consumers enjoying the good life and using too much energy), (2) the demand to purge some great threat to life (i.e. modern societies based on fossil fuels), and (3) the demand to suffer some sacrifice that is required to appease a threating Force or deity (suffering as redemptive- giving up the good life for a return to “morally superior” primitivism).
With conditions met: Then the wealthy elitists- clearly not embracing the suffering of a return to primitivism- will grant salvation to the masses.
And Oh, those elites. They self-identify as the enlightened vanguard who know what is best for all others. Watch them hypocritically flying their private jets to a gathering (WEF- Davos) where they then scold the rest of us for using abundant energy to survive and enhance our well-being in a still too cold world where 10 times more people die every year from cold than die from warmth.
H. L. Mencken quotes:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” (In Defense of Women)
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos”.
The battle against “creeping totalitarianism” continues throughout Western liberal democracies.
Another example…
As always, with regard to the ideas and narratives that we hold- note carefully these “cause-outcome relationships”. Wendell Krossa
The apocalyptic-scale alarmism of the climate crusade incites the survival impulse in frightened populations. That renders people susceptible to irrational thinking due to their instinctual and natural desperation to live. Alarmed people are susceptible to irrational salvation schemes like decarbonization (Net Zero) to “save the world” that is believed to be under constant threat of collapse and ending.
Past apocalyptic-millennial salvation schemes have destroyed societies and millions of lives. Examples of the irrational response to alarmist scenarios- e.g. the Xhosa cattle slaughter of 1856, and on a much greater scale- Marxism, Nazism…
Yes, Marxism and Nazism were “apocalyptic-millennial” mass-death movements, “profoundly religious movements”. Note again the research of historians Richard Landes, Arthur Herman, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, among others cited in articles and sections below.
People caught up in “madness of crowds” episodes will embrace policies that, to many others still possessed of common sense, are so evidently suicidal. But the alarmed people have been led to believe that such policies are absolutely necessary to save themselves and to save the world (fear-inspired policies that “destroy the world to save the world”). We are living through such an episode now with climate alarmism and its decarbonization salvation scheme.
Point in this comment? Be careful about what you state in public that might alarm people and what might be the outcomes of such panic-mongering. Example: Rachel Carson was no doubt a well-intentioned person but her irresponsible panic-mongering over DDT (i.e. the unscientific anecdotal reasoning in “Silent Spring”) influenced subsequent bans on that life-saving chemical and the result was the needless deaths of many millions of people over following decades, including many children. See “The Excellent Powder: DDT’s Political and Scientific History” by Donald Roberts.
This from Ross Clark of the “Mail on Sunday” Jan. 22, 2023, “The Govt’s fantasy of achieving net zero by 2050 will leave us all poorer, colder, and hungrier”.
Some quotes:
“Bravely challenging the Establishment consensus, ROSS CLARK has written a new book (“Net Zero”) arguing that hysteria and doom-mongering surrounding the climate change debate risk doing more harm than the rise in temperatures itself might ever cause.
“Here, in the second extract, he explains the folly of politicians’ rush to net zero . . .
“Jon Snow, anchor on Channel 4 News, was on the train, en route to COP26, the UN climate summit in Glasgow in October 2021, when, lashed by a Halloween storm, a tree fell across the line and blocked it.
“But these days, a storm is no longer simply a storm; it is a portent of global doom. The ever politically correct and self-righteous Snow tweeted: ‘Trees and branches affected by climate change have slowed our rail journey. What an irony! What a message! We MUST change! Dare we hope that we shall?’
“No matter that the data shows that wind speeds in the Northern Hemisphere have been falling in recent decades, as have the number of intense storms in the North Atlantic. Not to mention that the reason branches fall on railway lines more than they used to is that trees have been allowed to grow up beside the track to help with biodiversity.
“Network Rail even promoted the six million trees that line railways in Britain as having a role in ‘much-needed carbon capture’. But details like this contravene the accepted narrative, and so they get lost in the hyperbole and the hysteria about the world heating up.
“There is virtually no ill in the world for which climate change has not been blamed – from ending white Christmases (according to a BBC report, citing the Met Office), to shrinking the human frame (University of Cambridge), to wiping out six billion people (emeritus professor at the University of British Columbia). Even worse, it could mean the end of tomato ketchup, as tomato yields decline in the US, China and Italy (Aarhus University), cause kidney stones (according to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) and increase obesity in children (Israeli research cited in a Guardian article).
“Last summer’s heatwave, which set a new high-temperature record in Britain and sparked wildfires in south-western France, became a ‘heat apocalypse’. A Norfolk garden where a fire broke out became a scene ‘like Armageddon’.
“An eight-year-old climate activist proclaimed that ‘the planet is dying’, and that 320 million people face starvation by 2030.
“COP26 was similarly full of emotive language. To UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, we are all ‘digging our own graves’ by failing to cut carbon emissions. The Archbishop of Canterbury likened the failure to address climate change to ‘genocide’. Alok Sharma, the president of the event, described flooding in the UK as a ‘sober reminder’ of the desperate need to cut carbon emissions.
“The then prime minister, Boris Johnson, told delegates that the world was ‘a minute to midnight’, in his quest to convince the rest of the world to follow Britain’s unilateral example and commit to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. But that deadline and that target are ludicrous, and it is a scandal that there was never a proper national debate in this country before they were imposed. Here was a piece of legislation that would impact each and every one of us – changing our lives catastrophically, making us poorer – but its far-reaching consequences were not even discussed, let alone analysed.”
See Clark’s book for more detail.
Speaking more of irresponsible panic-mongering in public
Media, obsessively oriented to “Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis” (David Altheide), present every weather event- whether heatwaves, cold spells, rainy episodes, dry spells, etc.- as further portents of “human-caused” looming climate apocalypse. Confirmation bias media refuse to present the larger context that would give some sense of the true state of things. Media refuse to present the larger paleoclimate context that shows the big picture and long-term trends of climate.
That paleoclimate context shows that our current era has been exceptionally mild in terms of climate shifts, whether cooling or warming. Note the graph in Professor Ian Plimer’s “Heaven and Earth” that shows the climate shifts over the past 50,000 years. From 50-30,000 years ago, at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation, before our Holocene interglacial began, there were much more severe shifts in climate between cold and warm periods. Climate change then moderated significantly within our interglacial, with comparably mild shifts between cold and warm periods.
Paleoclimate evidence also shows that the much warmer past world, with much higher levels of CO2, was a “paradise” world for all life.
Stop ‘mollycoddling’ the alarmist crusade against fossil fuels. Wendell Krossa
Many on the skeptical side of the climate issue continue to affirm (“mollycoddle”) the climate alarmism narrative, cautioning that while decarbonization is rushed, we should still do something about ending our “addiction to fossil fuels”. Meaning- embrace the great Net Zero shift to renewables.
My response (aside from “Huh” or “WTF”)- While other energy options should be explored as part of human progress, currently, we do not need to “do something to end our fossil fuel dependence”. While humanity will probably engage a shift to some new energy source in the future, for now, there is no sound scientific reason to abandon fossil fuels.
“No sound, scientific reason”? Yes. Because the physics of CO2 shows that CO2 is not the “control knob” for climate change (i.e. the “main influence on climate”). And climate change has not become and will not become “a crisis/emergency” if it rises a few more degrees C.
The best evidence affirms that climate change is not “mainly human-caused” but is due more to other natural factors that have a more prominent influence on climate. And that means “adaptation” is our more reasonable response to natural climate change, not “mitigation” as in decarbonization.
Added notes: Futurist Arthur C. Clarke predicted that we would, in this century, discover what dark energy is and every home would then have a black box connected to this truly infinite supply of energy. And if dark matter is something to do with anti-gravity (i.e. the universe expanding within this matter) then maybe those 1950s “Popular Mechanics” dreams of every family having a “flying car” that zips to work above traffic may finally come true.
Now some basic homework…
Before agreeing with the climate alarm narrative that we must do something about ending our addiction to fossil fuels, answer with evidence-based certainty some of the central issues related to climate. These questions/issues are central to the climate debate, even though there has been no real public “debate” as only the alarmist narrative is allowed public exposure in mainstream media.
Tell us how to accurately detect the human contribution to CO2 levels, among the many other much larger sources that contribute to Earth’s carbon/CO2 cycles (e.g. land biomass- absorption/emission, ocean absorption and expulsion, submarine volcanic eruptions, etc.). And give evidence for your answer.
Explain how you detect the small human input among the perturbations in the carbon cycle (exchange fluxes) that are larger than the human contribution. Tell us how the human contribution can be accurately detected with certainty among those larger perturbations (And no, the ocean and land mass carbon exchanges are not in “perfect equilibrium”).
Note the comments at the bottom of this linked article on Earth’s carbon cycles and exchange fluxes: The author challenges the IPCC report conclusions that states, “With a very high level of confidence, the increase in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and those arising from land use change are the dominant cause of the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.”
And explain the disconnect between human emissions and atmospheric CO2 levels during Covid lockdowns when human emissions declined some 7% worldwide but CO2 levels continued to rise as before. A rise that began before industrialization.
Further on the major disconnect of CO2 with climate change, note the Vostok ice core research that shows this series of causal relationships- i.e. climate warmed first, and warming climate then warmed the oceans which then outgassed CO2, which then rose in the atmosphere centuries later. The evidence points to the fact that rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere followed climate warming and did not cause the warming of climate.
The temperature–CO2 climate connection: an epistemological reappraisal of ice-core messages
Add the paleoclimate evidence showing that when paleoclimate CO2 levels were very high (multiple thousands of ppm) temperatures were cold. And vice versa, when temperatures were very high, CO2 levels were very low.
Also tell us how the atmospheric physicists are wrong in claiming that CO2 has reached “saturation” in terms of its warming influence. Again, provide the evidence of where they are wrong. “Saturation” in physics terms describes CO2’s ability to absorb and instantly re-emit infrared radiation that constitutes the CO2 contribution to warming.
The warming effect of each molecule of CO2 declines as its concentration increases
And tell us how it is a bad thing that the increasing levels of more basic plant food in the atmosphere, an increase that has greened the planet some 15% since 1980 (15% more green vegetation across the Earth)- How is that a threat to life? How is that a “climate crisis”?
Tell us how a mild 1 degree C of warming in the coldest period of our Holocene interglacial is a “climate emergency”. Especially when 10 times more people still die every year from cold than die from warmth. We have not yet fully recovered from the dangerous cold of the Little Ice Age of 1645-1715. We have not yet regained the more optimal warmth of the Holocene Optimum of some 10,000-6,000 years ago (3 degrees C warmer than today) when the great civilizations emerged and agriculture was developed across the world.
These and other questions must be answered by climate alarmists with evidence-based certainty if their narrative is to have any credibility at all. The climate models that are the basis of the climate alamism narrative have been soundly discredited by good evidence to the contrary.
The pathology of panic-mongering, Wendell Krossa
What kind of pathological mentality would endlessly terrorize populations with end-of-life scenarios? Look at the outcome from panic-mongering, notably, in a generation of children now fearful of growing up in a world that, they believe, will end soon. This is what Congresswoman AOC’s prophesy has contributed to- i.e. that the world would end by 2030. Apocalyptic prophet Al Gore similarly makes repeated prophecies of the end of days. The pathology of apocalyptic prophesying is arguably the most dangerous pandemic humanity is now experiencing and the destructive outcomes of this mental/emotional virus will exceed any physical virus.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/al-gore-history-climate-predictions-statements-proven-false.amp
What kind of mindset irresponsibly terrorizes populations? I would suggest that the alarmist has embraced a story that terrifies himself also, and he then projects his irrational fears out to others.
There is a cultic element to alarmism eruptions in societies. The alarmist has embraced a “profoundly religious” story, essentially primitive mythology in terms of its central themes/ideas.
The alarmist denies that his story is fallacious mythology and tries to sanctify it- pedestalling his story beyond question, challenge, dissent- by claiming that it is “science”. And the alarmist narrative does embrace a smattering of science, with even some great scientific minds affirming it. Stephen Hawking affirmed environmental apocalypse over the last two years of his life. But not Freeman Dyson or James Lovelock, or the almost 32,000 scientists that signed the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine “Protest Petition”.
Those tens of thousands of skeptical scientists stated well:
“We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
What kind of science do alarmists embrace to buttress their narrative on climate? It is science that is shaped by confirmation bias- where people carefully select only the anecdotes that support the apocalyptic theme in the alarmist story. Note how media illustrate this anecdotal science on a daily basis with every hiccup in weather- i.e. claiming that any perturbation in some weather pattern (warmer, cooler, dryer, wetter) is the “worst on record”, and therefore more evidence of looming disaster, a worsening world, and the imminent apocalypse.
Alarmists do this while ignoring entirely the larger paleoclimate context of climate that shows our modern climate era to be notably quiescent- i.e. our Holocene interglacial that has experienced only mild shifts in climate compared to the major climate swings and weather events of previous history.
The alarmist climate narrative is “profoundly anti-science” in its dogmatic denial of an ever-growing body of evidence showing that varied natural factors are the main influences on the climate change that we are observing today. See, for example, “Sun-Climate Effect: Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis” reports below. Also, reports from atmospheric physicists Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and others.
Further contributing to the alarmist mindset, the alarmist, undoubtedly subconsciously, also vents the Hero’s impulse to fight a righteous battle against evil enemies. Those evil enemies are the unbelievers and deniers that do not join his salvation crusade- i.e. the great battle to “save the world” from the evil of fossil fuels, and from industrial civilization in general. How can the skeptics be so thick-skulled as to not believe the alarmist’s story of looming apocalypse? I mean, look at Hollywood pumping out an ever-increasing flood of apocalyptic movies. Apocalypse must be true because news media and Hollywood tell us so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films
Insert note: In the early 90s I took all of Bill Rees’ courses in a Masters program at the University of British Columbia’s “School of Community and Regional Planning”. Bill Rees is the father of the “Ecological Footprint” model, a modern update on Malthusian fallacies that there are too many people consuming too much of Earth’s very limited resources and hence the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Years later, having come to my senses after reading Julian Simon’s Ultimate Resource, I engaged Rees in an online discussion. I told Rees that his ideas were not science but were more apocalyptic mythology. He replied, “Well, apocalyptic is true, isn’t it”. And he claims to be a scientist. But many other so-called scientists also similarly promote the apocalyptic themes of “paradise lost/redemption” mythologies.
Environmentalists have also taken up last century’s Marxist crusade against industrial capitalist society, revealing that today’s alarmists have also embraced ideological elements to support their religious terror crusade.
If the climate alarmist would take a look at the growing body of evidence amassed by physicists like Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and others, then he might be able to calm his agitated spirit with evidence that, far from portending apocalypse, shows the immense benefits of more CO2 and warming temperatures. Notably, the paleoclimate evidence that shows, with CO2 at multiple-thousands of ppm and temperatures averaging 3-6 degrees C warmer than today (and even up to 10 degrees C higher than today), with that much higher CO2 and much warmer temperatures, Earth was a paradise for all life (a “golden age for mammals”, Paul MacRae).
See article (also posted below) “Back to the Future: Paradise Lost, or Paradise Regained?”, by Paul MacRae at…
Our current “ice-age era” is abnormal and sub-optimal for life and has existed for less than 10% of the 500 million-year Phanerozoic history of life.
Conclusion: An alarmist who terrorizes populations with apocalyptic scenarios is a true believer in a mythically-based cult, a “profoundly religious” belief system. The alarmist exhibits a religious-like fanaticism regarding his “save the world” crusade. This becomes especially evident when the alarmist tries to silence dissenters as “deniers/unbelievers” with calls to censor, ban, and even criminalize skeptics, just as Pres. Obama’s AG, Loretta Lynch, tried to do in 2016. Others have tried the same.
https://www.safs.ca/newsletters/article.php?article=959
Attorney General Lynch Looks Into Prosecuting ‘Climate Change Deniers’
When you add the elements of ideological dogmatism and fanaticism to the mix, then alarmism becomes a dangerous crusade. Climate alarmism has incited the survival impulse in populations and that has rendered people susceptible to irrational salvation schemes like decarbonization. We are watching the outcomes of that panic-mongering in the energy crisis mess that has been ruining countries like Germany and Britain (See the regular Net Zero Watch newsletters from Global Warming Policy Forum).
Added notes on the uncertainty regarding basic alarmist claims on climate (repeat from above comments):
We don’t know that the rise in CO2 over the past two centuries is “mainly from human industrialization” and how much is natural. Note that during the Covid lockdowns, with a roughly 7% reduction in human emissions worldwide, CO2 continued to rise at the same rate as before. That disconnect raises legitimate doubt as to the human impact on rising CO2 levels across time.
Earth’s carbon/CO2 cycles, and the natural fluctuations within those cycles (exchange fluxes), are significant and the human contribution to the mix is smaller in comparison.
Further, CO2 levels today are still dangerously low (we are still in a “CO2 starvation era”) compared to the more healthy and optimal levels of paleoclimate history. Plants prefer levels in the 1000-1500 ppm range. See evidence at sites like “co2science.org” or “co2coalition.org”, among others.
Current CO2 levels are near record lows. We are CO2 impoverished.
Understanding the resurgence today of Marxist collectivism. Also known as extreme leftist “Woke Progressivism”. Wendell Krossa
One explanation for the resurgence of Marxist collectivism today is that those committed to collectivist ideology sincerely believe that their collectivist approach is “morally superior” to any other approach for organizing human society. Collectivists believe that their socialist approach better honors the great human ideal of love because it emphasizes the “greater or common good” of humanity. Remember the “love” of early Christians in Acts chapter 2 who “were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to everyone who had need”. How can real love be anything other than a collectivist-type existence? The Bible tells us so. And WEF adds that “You will own nothing, and you will be happy”. Because the collectivist elites tell us so.
Collectivism, according to true believers, also better does justice to irrefutably basic human ideals such as equality.
And to heighten the sense of moral superiority, collectivists contrast their views on such things with a distorted presentation of the Classic Liberal approach that protects the rights and freedoms of individuals. Collectivists focus on the aberrational excesses in free markets to push a narrative that the market system is about “selfish, greedy individualism”. How can anyone not see this stark difference? The collectivist ideal as real love, contrasted with obviously evil individualism.
Add to the current resurgence of Marxist collectivism, the sense of apocalyptic emergency that is affirmed by the contemporary collectivist embrace of the climate alarmism crusade. The climate alarm crusade further affirms the collectivist narrative and urgency to overturn industrial capitalist society that is based on the fossil fuels that many are claiming is now destroying life. The apocalypse is again imminent, and action must be taken now to end the capitalist industrial society that is purportedly threatening the world.
Again, I find it helpful to understand the issues involved in the collectivism/individualism discussion by framing the debate in terms of basic Classic Liberal principles as contrasted with basic collectivist principles. Go to the root ideas and principles behind the creation of both approaches.
Classic Liberalism liberated humanity from servitude and enslavement to powerholding elites by creating institutions that operated to protect equally the rights and freedoms of all individuals- whether kings or commoners. All would be treated equally under the same institutions and systems of law. Classic Liberalism did this with the creation of a more truly representative parliament and Common Law, where power was dispersed among the individuals and institutions of society.
The basic principles of Classic Liberalism/liberal democracy have to do with the protection of the equal freedoms and rights of all individuals in a society, whether kings or commoners. This protected freedom then unleashes human motivation to improve oneself and one’s family by creatively solving problems or human needs with products and services that bring reward to the creators and benefits to many others.
Is this selfish? I would argue that the motivation to improve one’s life and family is the most basic of human responsibilities and hence the most basic form of love. And it is not up to busybody types to set limits for others on how much improvement they can engage. As long as the creators of wealth are following the same laws that all others are subject to, then the inevitable inequality of outcomes is not a wrong for envious others to rectify through coercive state redistribution policies.
It should mainly be up to the creators of wealth as to how they may choose to redistribute their fairly gained wealth. And of course, add to the mix, the “social contract” policies that most of us agree to where we let states tax some of our income as our contribution to shared infrastructure and to meet the needs of others who, for a wide variety of reasons, cannot survive on their own in our societies.
And in this comment I am not defending the aberrations in free markets where people lie, cheat, and find ways around the common laws that most others responsibly follow. I would argue that such pathologies are aberrations to the basic principles of Classic Liberalism.
This is contrasted with collectivist approaches that have repeatedly and inevitably resulted in the subjection and enslavement of populations to collectivist elites. The eruption of totalitarian control of populations is the natural outcome of centralizing power in collectivist elites, based on the principle that someone has to run the collective for all others. And collectivist elites have repeatedly insisted that they know what is best for all others and will busy-bodily intervene to control others, in all the details of their lives. Add here the collectivist impulse to stifle all dissent to their “morally superior” system.
Add the failure of collectivists to understand human motivation to better oneself and that reward for such endeavor is not “evil greed and selfishness” but rather a creative force that generates outcomes that benefit others. Note in this regard, Steve Jobs’ gaining immense wealth from creating products that all of us freely paid for and appreciate.
Further to understanding the resurgence of Marxist collectivism is to note the Marxist embrace of the larger complex of “paradise lost/redemption” mythology. This mythology prevents awareness and understanding of real-world evidence. The themes of paradise lost/redemption mythology produce an irrationality that has repeatedly infected the consciousness and worldviews of populations resulting in “madness of crowds” outbreaks. It works like this- panic mongering over the purported decline of life and a looming apocalypse incites fear and the survival response and that results in mass irrationality as people become desperate to survive, to live- i.e. to save themselves from the looming end of all things.
Alarmed people are then rendered susceptible to irrational salvation schemes, even if such “save the world” schemes operate to destroy their societies. We saw this in the Xhosa cattle movement of 1856. I witnessed this personally in Manobo tribal movements in Mindanao in the 1970s/80s (“pagano”) where villagers would abandon their crops and slaughter their domestic animals while they waited in villages for the end of the world.
We are observing this today as entire nations commit to decarbonization (purge the great threat of industrial capitalist society) to “save the world”, even as it destroys their societies, as in Germany and Britain.
Note: Kristian Niemietz in “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies” provides an interesting take on the endless revival and then repeated failure of socialist approaches to organizing society.
Amazon blurb on this book,
“Socialism is strangely impervious to refutation by real-world experience.
“Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society, from the Soviet Union to Maoist China to Venezuela. All of them have ended in varying degrees of failure.
“But, according to socialism’s adherents, that is only because none of these experiments were “real socialism”.
“This book documents the history of this, by now, standard response.
“It shows how the claim of fake socialism is only ever made after the event. As long as a socialist project is in its prime, almost nobody claims that it is not real socialism.
“On the contrary, virtually every socialist project in history has gone through a honeymoon period, during which it was enthusiastically praised by prominent Western intellectuals.
“It was only when their failures became too obvious to deny that they got retroactively reclassified as “not real socialism”.”