An interesting essay written by “Zombie” of Zombietime fame has a climate change component worth noting. I don’t agree with all of it, but it does explain some behavior we have seen in the past decade.
“Zombie” writes:
I recently wrote an essay called “Progressive Racism: The Hidden Motive Driving Modern Politics”, and in the essay I had a section about “climate change” with a thesis you might find intriguing.
CLIMATE CHANGE
- Progressive position:
- Institute a variety of penalties, taxes and incentives all designed to discourage production and use of carbon-derived energy by industrialized nations.
- False public rationale offered by progressives to justify their position:
- This is not a political position: it’s simply a scientific fact that if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels then the resulting greenhouse gases will render the planet uninhabitable.
- Conservatives’ inaccurate theory of progressives’ real intent:
- This so-called “crisis” is just the latest in a long series of fabricated environmental pseudo-crises not based on fact but on an irrational Luddite loathing of civilization; your wildly exaggerated hysteria about “global warming” is merely a mechanism to manipulate and control the citizenry and cripple the economy.
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Viewed globally, the real long-term consequence of all the “climate change”-related policy proposals is to transfer massive amounts of wealth from the First World developed nations to the Third World underdeveloped nations, while simultaneously crippling the ability of the developed world to maintain its economic dominance.
What could motivate this seemingly suicidal economic policy by First-World progressives? In a word: Guilt. Specifically, “white guilt” by Europeans (and those descended from Europeans) for having unfairly exploited backward regions and non-white peoples over the last few centuries to establish white economic hegemony over the rest of the world.
This rationale is openly discussed at the annual United Nations Climate Change Conferences, where representatives of Third World nations demand payback and reparations for colonialist exploitation, and where the descendants of those colonialists grovel in abject apology for the wrongdoings of their ancestors.
But deeply embedded in those apologies and guilt is a racism that far surpasses even the naive racism of yesteryear.
If you enter into competition with a rival you deem approximately equal in skill to yourself, and then you win fair and square, then it would never occur to you to apologize for winning nor would you feel guilty about it — because it was a fair fight. On the other hand, if you compete against and then easily defeat an opponent whose very nature you believe makes them inescapably inferior to you — for example, getting in a fistfight with a small child — then afterwards you might very well feel guilty and apologize for taking advantage of a lesser opponent who had no chance against you due to their inherent inadequacy.
So when a modern progressive apologizes for his ancestors’ past colonialist dominance, he is really saying: “I’m so sorry that we smart organized aggressive white people took advantage of you lesser peoples whose inherent cultural and intellectual shortcomings made you incapable of fending us off: it wasn’t a fair fight, and I apologize.”
In other words: Apologizing is an unconscious backhanded way of declaring your innate superiority.
If these modern progressives felt that their ancestors had achieved global dominance by defeating rivals of equal stature, then there’d be nothing to feel guilty about, and thus no need to pay reparations and hence no need to devise the “climate change” crisis and attendant suicidal economic policies.
Full essay here:
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2014/03/10/progressive-racism-the-hidden-motive-driving-modern-politics/
And now, the Harvard Business Review, that bible of Capitalism, in its April issue (e-magazine made available today) has “Global Warming” as their cover-story…
Another slant on this issue is Paul Dreisser’s “Eco-Imperialism”. His documents many of the activities that are designed to hold the third world back, all in the name of saving the planet. However, his view is that it’s the neo-Malthusianism of the wealthy West, with its distrust of those “primitive” people breeding beyond the capacity of the planet to support them. Hence, all of these policies are designed to keep them in poverty, and make sure they don’t overrun the planet. I agree with Zombie that eco-guilt is part of the explanation, but I think there are other valid strands of activities involved, including Dreisser’s. You just have to read Paul Erlich’s response to being exposed to the teeming masses in India.
Being of German descent, I demand guilt be felt by the Russians for East Germany, the Ottoman Empire for driving my ancestors out, the French for Napoleon, the Huns, the Mongols, the Romans and whoever else enslaved my ancestors. I want my money and I want it NOW.
I was recently reading a new study that says, based on the mathematical models, that civilization will soon destroy itself unless we adopt global socialism. I’m not kidding.
Read about it for yourself.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasafunded-study-warns-of-collapse-of-civilisation-in-coming-decades-9195668.html
The headlines used “NASA” to get attention. NASA didn’t like that, so they issued a statement about it.
http://www.space.com/25160-nasa-statement-civilization-collapse-study.html
So you see, now the models prove that we must have global socialism.
What will the models show next, I wonder.
Fascinating discussion. I too struggle to understand the motivations and mindset of the CC crowd. I am sure the guilt issue is used in many situations but its not enough to explain the whole story. Agenda 21 is much closer to explaining the whole story.
Everyone should be alive to all aspects of this and resist. Like most people here. Its those who don’t come here that worry me…useful idiots.
LamontT says:
March 22, 2014 at 10:52 am
The first thing I searched for once I saw this headline was “Indulgences”. Congratulations! You beat me to it.
Back in 2006, “The Economist” described carbon offsets as indulgences that were sound in theory. Of course they were assuming that the externalities were negative.
http://www.economist.com/node/7252897
Well lets face it besides the ‘South sea bubble’ in the 18th Century, the carbon traders, clean energy and carbon credits have pulled another almost successful stunt. Would this have happened if Al Gore and the UNIPCC had not got the Nobel prize (and Academy Award). Now they are being challenged so we can understand their motives. Dare I say money?
It is amazing the power of the internet. What was in your wallet/back pocket 30 years ago. Ok, 20 years? 10? 100?
We demand much more in an immediate way today, no?
Climate doesn’t work that way.
Yep, the walls are not falling, but the dark clouds cast down upon us are there from the MSM.
When I think about it,,,,, it all seems familiar 》
http://youtu.be/qGYRbFY6QHY
If we choose to live in democratic countries, have supply of health, education, electricity or other energy sources, then we cop the cost. Most is affordable but in third world countries it is a God send if we have clean water and sanitation, let alone a culture that encourages free speech. If we cut out electricity it is the life blood of any country. And advanced countries are not going to let their standards drop. So emigrate Al Gore and Mikie and good riddens.
I think the quote a number of people upthread have been looking for is this one:
“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”
~ Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair, UN/IPCC WG-3
However, while that was the plan at the UN level, it has since been usurped, not by the left, but by capitalists themselves. Industry is adept at intercepting government funds and appropriating them for themselves. Instead of wealth transfers to poor countries so that they could improve their standard of living without industrializing, private enterprise has convinced governments that as much good can be done by spending the money “at home” instead. Hence we have wind farms and solar farms and carbon sequestration projects and electric cars and carbon credit trading. Wonder why the MSM is so pro CAGW? Think about who pays their bills. Advertisers. Capitalist advertisers.
For the record, I’m pretty far to the right politically, so don’t whack me over the head for being a left leaning loon. I’m just pointing out that the beneficiaries of the CAGW memeplex are just as much banks and manufacturing companies as they are lefty socialist research institutions.
Jimbo says:
March 22, 2014 at 5:25 pm
“European politicians are not yet completely mad and want to get elected too. ”
I see that you are not in the EU.
To be “one up,” IOW–which is a manifestation of the will to power.
David, I tend to agree with you and having worked for the tabloid media, 60% of the paper had to be from advertising, or the news element was reduced. It’s a catch 22 situation isn’t it? However, amazingly when the newspapers went on strike years ago, we got our news from the radio and TV. That’s before we had multi digital channels. But when the pilots went on strike in Qantas, the government had full page advertisements condemning them. All they wanted was work contracts, not extra pay. (The Vietnam war would see pilots moving on to commercial airlines, with more hours, so the pilots wanted seniority to protect their jobs) They got it eventually. It seemed that some pilots had other skills from which they could earn money. Others left and got jobs with other airlines. That was when QANTAS was fully owned by the government. So trying to bully intelligent people doesn’t work.
It’s possible that the developing/emerging economies play the guilt-card to ensure that the wealthy CAGW proponent countries either incur the costs themselves or put the nail in the coffin for a climate deal in Paris 2015.
The European commissioner for climate action Connie Hedegaard seems to prefer the latter option http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2308849/cop-19-connie-hedegaard-hails-us-support-for-paris-roadmap. Her mandate is running out and she needs a neat political escape route without angering her CAGW-electorate. The obvious second choice is to surf on the waves of a prominent CAGW leader, whose country hasn’t ratified the Kyoto protocol https://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/status_of_ratification/items/2613.php.
understanding people’s motives (like guilt) is harder than understanding the climate.
I’ve never read anything about other peoples motives (skeptics are oil shills, enviros are
guilt tripping racists) that wasnt utterly retarded.
why even waste time and bandwidth on this crap. It should be flushed like Lewandowsky’s crap
Being of English descent, I have 500-years worth of gripes about the Norman Yoke.
I think that most ordinary supporters of AGW mean well, and that the motivation is a perennial one: the need to identify with something greater than ourselves, to have a cause in which there is good to be supported and evil to be abhorred.
In the past, orthodox religion filled the bill. With its decline, exaggerated environmentalism has become one of the surrogates. All over the place, people are becoming more and more preachy about issues they identify with: this even applies to evangelistic materialism, with people like Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne and Sam Harris: every bit as strident as any old-time revivalist.
So my take is that increasing atheism is a major contributory factor. I don’t say that because I think we should go back to old time religion–far from it because it has much to answer for, and I think it should be superseded–but we’re struggling to fill the ever-strengthening vacuum it has left behind.
It’s primarily a phenomenon of the developed nations: the majority of humanity is still inclined to orthodox forms of religion and not (yet) as easily beguiled by the surrogates. In the end, I think that’s what will stop these modern forms of evangelism (possibly prefigured by Marxism) succeeding, and give us enough time to see them for what they are: just tired old flesh in new clothes. I think we probably have to go through this phase before we transition to values genuinely worth identifying with. I have my own views what those might be, but I’m keeping them to myself. At any rate, I believe things will come out in the wash, and if those of us resisting all the nonsense have a fault, I think it’s being unduly pessimistic.
rogerknight, how about 1000 year yoke. LOL We British are a mixture of genetic homogenous DNA. Celt, Norman, Danish, German,(Anglo Saxon) Dutch, Vikings, Roman, Actually my ancient ancestors on my mother’s side came from France. But also Irish. Dad’s were most probably olde English. Now I am a naturalized Australian. Who cares really but fun to speculate whom your ancestors came from originally. I understand your gripe James the Elder, it was refreshing. If you have a blood group of O you come from a long line of English. B group you’re most probably from Scandinavia or Welsh. I wonder where Mann came from originally. Sounds German.
It’s not guilt. These people lack healthy guilt, but they know exactly how get you to use your compassion to do what they want. It is technique of domination, just plain old Cultural Marxism.
“The New Age will begin when a Net Covers the World!”
Welcome to the New Age.
The educated, connected Elite no longer controls the flow of information.
The U.N. “Agenda 21” use of the Ecoloons to gain control of the world politic is failing because of the Internet.
Free men can rule themselves, is the real “New World Order”.
Men of good will can find and work in concert with one another to thwart the GEBs and their NGOs. pg
p.g.sharrow. I ADMIRE your post. But the action of some countries seems to suggest, that they are supporting a false claim regarding CO2 being responsible for climate change universally.
I remember seeing an isolated Kenyan medical clinic that didn’t have electricity bar through some solar panels, they could not at night time run electricity to their small refrigerator or lighting. They chose the electricity for their refrigerator, a small one, that contained vaccines, etc. This has nothing to do with climate change has it?
Gary Pearse says:
March 22, 2014 at 3:16 pm
Sorry, but again, not correct about cake eating. The quotation, as attributed to Marie Antoinette, was claimed to have been uttered during one of the famines that occurred in France during the reign of her husband, Louis XVI. Upon being alerted that the people were suffering due to widespread bread shortages, the Queen is said to have replied, “Then let them eat brioche.”[5] Although this anecdote was never cited by opponents of the monarchy at the time of the French Revolution, it did acquire great symbolic importance in subsequent histories when pro-revolutionary historians sought to demonstrate the obliviousness and selfishness of the French upper-classes at that time.
Zhu Muzhi, president of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, asserts that Rousseau’s version is an alteration of a much older anecdote: “An ancient Chinese emperor who, being told that his subjects didn’t have enough rice to eat, replied, ‘Why don’t they eat meat?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
Cordially,
Perry
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Gary Pearse says:
March 22, 2014 at 3:16 pm
David, UK says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:44 pm
Gary Pearse says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:29 pm
“I believe the UN, is: (something like) “You can give a hungry man a fish a day or you can teach him how to fish so he can feed himself each day.” Teach him how to fish!!! When I first heard that piece of hubris, I was amazed at its blatant racism. Yeah, it’s there.
(from David, UK)
You think that phrase is from the UN? WTF!
It’s actually an ancient Chinese proverb.
Still worked up over its “blatant racism”? Sheesh.”
Thanks David, I stand corrected on the source (an historical Chinese elite) but not the nitty gritty of my comment. If you were to say “Let them eat cake” to starving citizens, it wouldn’t exonerate you from disgrace because Marie Antoinette said it first.
Gary, (I’m amazed this needs explaining) the proverb simply means it is better to teach someone how to be self-sufficient (e.g. to fish) than to dole out charity (e.g. give them a fish) leaving them dependent on hand-outs. What exactly is it about this that you find so blatantly racist? I note you added “Yeah, it’s there” – so where is it? Tell us.
p.g.sharrow says:
March 22, 2014 at 11:22 pm
Smart electricity meters will enable those who would silence us to selectively cut off off electricity & perhaps our broadband connections as well. In the meantime I would draw readers’ attention to a short heart warming message.
History of the low-fat ‘diet-heart’ hypothesis
The vilification of saturated fat by Ancel Keys began two decades before the seven countries study, where Keys showed a curvilinear association between fat calories as a percentage of total calories and death from degenerative heart disease from six countries. However, he excluded data from 16 countries that did not fit his hypothesis. Indeed, data were available at the time from 22 countries, and when all countries were looked at the association was greatly diminished.
Doesn’t that sound familiar? From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys#Seven_Countries_Study
KEYS WAS ALWAYS CONSIDERED AN INTERVENTIONIST.
The moral of the story is that not only has very recent research now shown that Keys was wrong, wrong, wrong, but that his dishonesty elevated mortality rates from heart disease & cancer. It’s all in this BMJ paper published 5th March 2104.
The cardiometabolic consequences of replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates or Ω-6 polyunsaturated fats: Do the dietary guidelines have it wrong?
http://openheart.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000032.full?sid=5e6b0cad-75ea-41a1-85e6-e5461d77846c
Read it.
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
Oh let’s go to bed in the southern hemisphere, I seem to be protecting all over those who corrupt AGM debate. God I I am tired,.good luck to the Northern hemisphere posters. ( am going to bed.
Just in case the significance of the Keys saga is not blatantly obvious, M. Mann pulled the same trick with his hockey stick, although his dishonesty was discovered more quickly.
It took sixty years & countless early deaths to overthrow the Keys memoriam. May we not have to wait so long to reverse the vilification of Carbon Dioxide & we can breathe again without guilt.