The Resilience of the Church of Climate
In the aftermath of the UN’s COP30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil, several commentators have claimed that the age of climate alarmism may finally be fraying at the edges. The Wall Street Journal concluded that Europe’s green energy policies slashed emissions but at the cost of crippling the economy. PJ Media’s Rick Moran argues that “the religion of climate alarmism is in decline”. He finds that President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda and the high-profile defection from the climate alarmist priesthood by Bill Gates has begun to alter the debate over climate change.
Peter Savodnik of the Free Press wrote last week that those who questioned the calamity of climate change were treated like pariahs for years but now, “their day of vindication has come”. He cites Bjorn Lomborg, who opined that “I believe we are witnessing a broader, more balanced reassessment of climate change”.
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I suspect the latest warmongering is helping the so called elites to move away to a more profitable means of income and abandon, albeit partially from climate alarmism. It puts the prospect of Armageddon into a more realistic timeframe. After all worrying about the environment is not exactly compatible with the wholesale destruction of people and property. They will win on all counts, they can moralise about the need to protect people against an enemy that they themselves have created, that will satisfy their egos. They can then make money out of arms production and then make even more money out of reconstruction. They are winners in their twisted way on all counts and at the same time secure an income stream from the so called green infrastructure they have made us pay for. They win, win, win, a nice little earner and the poor whom they pretend to care for will pay the price.
The fundamental problem comes near the end of the article. We are living in a profoundly collectivist society and climate policies are just one expression of that.
The task is not to overturn climate religion but rather to discredit collectivism in favour of individualism and the freedom it gives. That’s a gargantuan task and I can”t say I see much hope.
I was listening to David Betz in an interview about the coming collapse of society in Britain and Europe. He is a professor of war studies and reckons the rot started to set in after WWII. In Britain he said that the education system was wrecked by the Attlee government, I think he is correct, and they stopped teaching children how to think and started to teach them what to think. The new policy was becoming entrenched by the mid sixties so anyone entering the education system by then has been subjected to indoctrination. If you couple that with the way the BBC has been systematically talking the country down over the same period it seems that they were successful in manipulating society. We are in a very bad place right now.
The seeds of a collectivist society were sown between WWI and WWII. Socialism took hold in that period and post 1945 it spread to the entire world as the dominant political ideology.
It has been 70 years of relentless socialist advance into every aspect of human society, like an uncontrolled cancer.
Perhaps it is replacing religion. Mutual self-interested voluntary co-operation has existed for a long time – probably since the beginning of our species. What we have now is enforced. People like to feel virtuous – I get that. But I am unclear as to why they feel it’s fine and necessary for everyone else to be forced to be virtuous in the same way.
I think you are totally right that religions are forms of collectivism and socialism is the form of collectivism that appeals atheists.
I’m not religious but from what others have said about the subject the impact of “being religious” varies from person to person enormously. For some it’s a highly personal thing – not that they withdraw from the world but more than it’s about getting their own house in order. For others it seems like an opportunity to try and cajole or coerce other people into going along with whatever it is that you think people ought to be doing. It seems to me that it’s the “feeling part of something virtuous” that the “be kind” fanatics want to recreate.
A real religion is anything but collectivist. You reference the Meccan Moon cult, Judaism and the nonsense of Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism. Don’t mistake communal rites for socialism. Christianity is the only religion to preach the freedom of the individual. It frees the person, it does not subject them to the collective, far from it.
From what I have read recently it appears to be primitive survival imperatives that drive mutual or group interest. Primitive groups, which I believe can be defined as smaller or more tribal organisations demand loyalty, or perhaps group adherence to communal living, this results in trust and mutual security. This has evolved over many, many generations and is part of evolutionary psychology.
Socialists appear to believe that the same dynamics apply today in societies numbering in the millions, I believe they are fundamentally wrong and are just appealing to primitive group instincts to gain power. This is why the twentieth century ideologies such as communism, socialism, national socialism and fascism being all the same side of the coin have failed. I think what Stewart said above is more or less correct, but I would argue that the formalisation of socialism really started to take hold in the mid 19th century due to industrialisation. The fact that industrialisation has resulted in longer life expectancy, more wealth and so on is the result. Socialist groups are now becoming more dangerous due to the fact that if it goes wrong again, which inevitably it will, it will result in an apocalypse.
Well of course we are social animals and some level of cooperation is necessary for life to be as pleasant as possible. I guess it’s how far you take that. If you’re in a village thousands of years ago surrounded by deadly animals, you may decide that every night some people should guard the village. It’s reasonable to expect everyone to take a turn if they want to benefit from the protection this affords, or if unable, to make some other contribution. It works best if the benefits are non-excludable. But with each passing year we seem to be going further and further away from that minimalist approach and into enforcing all sorts of things that should really be left to the individual.
Social interaction is of course something that people engage in, but I was referring to survival instincts or imperatives which are deeply embedded in us and it probably branches into social interaction it is more deeply embedded. It like a baby sucking a teat. Socialists seem to believe that the brain is a blank slate, Jung called it tabula rasa, they think they can shape society at large and are applying manmade social constructs to inherent human traits and then wonder why it goes wrong every time. So they just tweak the name and call it something slightly different, the latest being “progressive”. Even fascism is inherently socialist, the name being derived from fascia or bundle/group. So at its basic level they are appealing to basic instincts, they bypass the reasoning centres in the brain by sloganising or inventing things like rights to stop people using their brains. As I said earlier, they stopped teaching people how to think and taught them what to think. Their slogans become accepted and it’s then difficult to explain that they are talking rubbish because it takes more than three or four words. It’s ironic that following the war the socialists adopted the same… Read more »
I was using the word “social” in the sense of “relating to society and its organization”.
Yes I guess that instinct is “basic” but it also makes sense – if not taken to extremes. It is indeed the “tabula rasa” idea that causes the most problems. We are social animals but we are also individuals.
Woy Jenkins did most damage to our education system.
All socialsts cause damage to education, but I take your point.
I attended secondary school during the ’70s. Whilst I don’t disagree with Betz about the trajectory towards civil conflict, I don’t think it was the Attlee Government which did the real damage to education, it was the Wilson one.
The indoctrination started with the destruction of the Grammar Schools and introduction of Comprehensives.
“One has to free oneself from the illusion that climate policy is environmental policy anymore. We redistribute the worlds wealth by climate policy”.—Edenhoffer UN IPCC Lead Author. ——-Eco Socialism just like what you said.
“Science” has been hijacked by “official science”——No one believes a word that comes from the mouths of politicians and bureaucrats on any issue, but for some reason people in huge numbers fall for the phony planet saving agenda. Mainly because they have been convinced it is all about “science”—–Nope it is “official science” in support of the political agenda called Sustainable Development which is about control the worlds wealth resources and YOU
Scientism. Fraud and money laundering + ignorance, pagan superstition.
Flying dead RNA ‘viruses’.
‘Evolution’
Flying to Mars (try the moon first)
Climate baloney from a rounding error trace chemical necessary for life
Relativity and Big Banging
Fracking embarrassing all of it.
It is based on Marxist-Socialism which has evolved, but at root the Belief is Mankind has been brainwashed by the capitalists to want material things and then value themselves and others according to the extent of their material gains. So the unenlightened masses will toil in their factories in order to produce the goods they desire and thereby provide a never ending supply of factory fodder, and make the capitalists rich.
Trying to persuade the masses of the error of their ways failed, State controlled economies to make everyone materially equal, failed, so Climatism sees the solution in destroying industry-based economic activity abd send us all back to the fields, whilst this self-appointed goon squad lords it over us.
The thirst for power and control is unquenchable. Climatism is a convenient vehicle for the losers, grifters, charlatans in politics and bureaucracies to gain that power and control, so they make convenient bedfellows to the Climatists.
The future of the West depends on Trump being able to carry on his good work for the full term and that requires a good mid terms without the Democrat electoral fraud. We also need JD Vance to continue to grind the Far Left globalist fascist blob into the dirt for another term. Without the US leading the way I think other nations who have seen the light will fall.
In the UK 50% of young women support the Green Party, having switched from Labour. Their policies would result in massive death and destruction. Their leader is a clown. They would be able to ally with the other extreme left green parties to prevent Reform and allies reversing the destruction of the economy. It’s going to be a bitter civil war. Personally, I don’t like bashing young women.
They must all be feeling a bit inadequate in the boobs department and think he has a cheap solution 🙂
As an older woman, I don’t think you should have any issue with verbally and intellectually “bashing” young women any more than anyone else. They aren’t a protected species, although I accept that they will be far more likely to pull the “mental health” card.