Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Anthropology professor Wade Davis wants to declare war on global warming, comparing the battle against CO2 to military conflict in WW2.
Writing in The Globe and Mail, based in Toronto, Canada;
… Why have we not fully mobilized and declared war on global warming?
According to Rajendra Pachauri, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the climate crisis could be fully mitigated and the world’s economy transformed with an investment equivalent to 3 per cent of global GDP. By way of comparison, the United States devoted 40 per cent of its GDP to achieve military victory in the Second World War. Shipyards in Long Beach and Sausalito, Calif., spat out Liberty ships at a rate of one a day for four years. Ford Motor Co. alone produced more industrial output than the entire country of Italy. Farm boys of 17, after seven months of training, were flying B-17 bombers over Germany. The U.S. and its allies recognized a mortal danger, reached an inescapable conclusion, and went to work. If climate change is the threat we now know it to be, why has the international response been so fundamentally tepid?
On my last day in Copenhagen, I put this question to Carter Roberts, head of the World Wildlife Fund. The situation, he suggested, comes down to four basic possibilities. If the scientists are wrong, and we do nothing, little changes. If they are wrong and we act, the worst that will happen will be an economic stimulus that will result in a cleaner environment, a more technologically integrated world and a healthier planet. If they are right, and we do nothing, the potential consequences are at best bad, at worst catastrophic, with scenarios so bleak as to defy the darkest imaginings of science fiction. If the scientific consensus holds, and we aggressively marshal our financial resources and technological brilliance to confront the challenge, we will be able to, for a relatively small investment, head off potential disaster and make for a better world. It was difficult to conjure a losing scenario, save that of inaction. …
Read: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-not-a-war-on-global-warming/article27550301/
Davis is wrong about wartime benefits to the economy. War stimulates the economy, in the same way that breaking all the windows in town stimulates business for glaziers. Some sectors of the economy do really well – at the expense of everyone else.
In a real war, defence is the overwhelming priority, so people don’t mind foregoing luxuries to keep their children safe. This is how alarmists want us all to think about global warming.
But wars are also the time of parasites and profiteers. Wars are when criminals who arrange corrupt deals with politicians wielding extraordinary wartime powers grow rich. Nobody has time to scrutinise government expenditure when the enemy is at the gates. An endless war against global warming would be, and in my opinion is, an unprecedented opportunity for the unscrupulous to plunder the wealth of ordinary people.
The truth is the world, or at least the Western world, is already pretty much on a wartime footing against global warming. People are getting fed up with the cost of it all, with the blazing hypocrisy of our jetset planetary saviours. They are also fed up with the fact the problems of global warming are largely imaginary, invented by fools and profiteers.
The “Moral Equivalent of War” (MEOW) is one of those tropes with which liberals always approach policy.
Jonah Goldberg explains it all:
“Ever since philosopher William James coined the phrase “moral equivalent of war,” self-described progressives have sought to galvanize the masses for collective purposes. They have loved the idea of war-without-war precisely because they want a public that follows in lockstep and individuals who will sacrifice their personal ambitions for the “greater good.” This is what John Dewey, James’s disciple, called the “social benefits of war.” Dewey, later a famous pacifist, supported WWI because he believed it would usher in an age of collectivism and crush laissez-faire capitalism.
“The yearning for a moral equivalent of war is an understandable desire, perhaps even noble in its intent. But it is not democratic. It is fundamentally authoritarian, which might explain why so many environmentalists envy China’s ability to ban plastic bags without reference to a vote or a court or anything other than the will of the China’s technocratic rulers. Indeed, the authors of “The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy” openly question whether the crisis of climate change should render liberal democracy obsolete. For some it seems the moral equivalent of war requires the moral equivalent of a police state.”
“Green is the New Red, White & Blue?” By Jonah Goldberg • April 25, 2008
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/green_is_the_new_red_white_blu.html
Walter Sobchak,
‘The moral equivalent of war’ is nothing but a deceptive remapping of the ‘Noble Cause Corruption’ fallacy that motivates ethics-challenged fellow travelers who need a convenient excuse to plan out the lives of others, as they attempt to re-engineer society.
Their main obstacle is that people in general like the way things are under a free market. That system provides a wealth of goods and services at the lowest possible cost. But eco-corruption causes the cost of basics like energy to skyrocket. When that happens we’re told it’s ‘for the greater good’, but if it was ever put to a vote, people would vote for 6¢/kwh electricity over 30¢/kwh windmill power every time.
DB. I have noticed that most people that try to plan out the lives of others, do a poor job with their own. I have noticed that there are a lot of these people.
James F,
Yes, we see them comment here on occasion…
Both ‘wars’ can be summarised as follows: ‘Wall Street, the big banks and billionaires benefit from both war and global warming’. This is the few at the expense of the many.
For America, with its indoctrinated hatred of ‘socialism’, you need to invent a new term for ‘the many overcoming the few’. It’s not this time about imposing marxism on the world after you overthrow the corrupt. It’s about restoring the principles of markets regulated only as necessary for the benefit of society (i.e. you try and regulate as little as possible but understand that human nature and the real world mean that some regulation is actually best for the most people).
If you don’t invent that term and imbue in it positive connotations, then I’m afraid you have a problem. Unless you can find another small group of rich people to beat up the current group of rich people who happen to have the same principles that you have.
How many really rich people have you met who, once they win a battle with other rich people, don’t want to take advantage and get even richer themselves?
I’ve met zero.
Who was it that said “the first thing in war to go is the truth”? Looks to me that we are pretty deep into the war on global warming. Does anyone have an exit strategy? Let us demand one.
Why won’t we declare war on global warming?
Because CO2 is not a dangerous enemy. We all breathe it out, and plants breathe it in.
Article V Convention of the States. Demand it from your local govt.
Want a war on “global warming”? Fine. Start with putting out all of the coal seam fires that are burning in just four countries: China, Indonesia, India and US. It would be expensive, require international cooperation, would require development of new engineering technologies and techniques but it would eliminate the daily equivalent CO2 emissions as removing ALL North American automotive traffic and require no change in lifestyle or onerous regulations.
crosspatch,
Maybe they could use all that sequestered CO2 to put out them coal seam fars!
Win-win!…
…oh, wait… What was I thinking??
Well. It would definetly be one of those very long slow wars… one where the enemy has the element of surprise (which coastal town that has developed to close to the water shall I hit with my mighty typhoon today? Which government body has blocked natural wild fires and is overdue for a bolt of well-placed lightening followed by a puff of wind to blow the flames towards the houses that shoudl never have been built? Shall I make it happen in California? Or New South Wales??? Ah… its a canny enemy! ), It is also no doubt, a war where the media will be flagging in its attempt to keep hysteria going… “We now enter our 3rd decade where temperatures increases have yet to exceed one degree this century and the sea levels have only risen a sluggish 15cm, but there is now only 50 years until the polar ice caps collapse instantly into running oceans of water- we must attack NOW!”
Another social scientist! You would think the climate scientist proponents would start to worry about social scientists taking over operations of the clime syndicate. I guess there is little to choose between them these days – it’s really a political movement now.
The war on global warming would involve a lot of stealth fighting equipment. The enemy itself is invisible. I guess we can identify it in greening of the planet and could strafe it with agent orange.
” If they are wrong and we act, the worst that will happen will be an economic stimulus that will result in a cleaner environment, a more technologically integrated world and a healthier planet.”
Actually, no. We would have dug huge mines to smelt copper for thousands of miles of copper transmission and distribution lines, burned mega-tons of coal in steel mills and concrete kilns, pultruded tons of glass fibers, converted mega-barrels of oil into lubricants, electrical insulation and epoxy, cut thousands of miles of access roads and covered them with excavated and crushed stone, transported many thousands of multi-ton assemblies many thousands of miles and erected them so as to disturb both natural and inhabited areas, all to build windmills. Repeat for PV installations, etc.
If we are wrong we will have made the planet dirtier, noisier, and uglier for nothing. We would have consumed resources and wealth for nothing. We would have destroyed industries with high productivity and replace them with industries of lesser productivity for nothing.
There are consequences for being wrong. Just saying “sorry” at a later date will not recover the losses.
I hope they leave the windmills in place as monuments to the stupidity of man. So we won’t get fooled again.
As a child I would look at photos of the pyramids and wonder how a society put so much of its wealth into these “wonders”. How it was that the best minds of the era devoted their lives to perfecting every nuance of these worthless edifices.
Today I watch the unfolding of this “climate” tragedy and I understand why those workers followed the money and toiled away their entire lives shaping stone for no purpose. I see how educated and “sophisticated” leaders can fool themselves into believing that any work which keeps people busy is acceptable, even if fantastic quantities of hard-earned wealth are consumed in the process of building objects of little or no value.
Sadly, this seems to be a pattern. It has happened before. There is no reason to believe that “modern” man is any less susceptible to this irrational behavior.
The problem is that without regular maintenance, they will fall over and hurt people and property. The good news is that the scrap values will be considerable.
I would anticipate that a cottage industry will emerge to “reclaim” copper power lines feeding the most remote windmills, even as they are spinning. Just another hidden cost of renewable power.
Walter, you are correct. Barring societal collapse, any decommissioned equipment will be recycled so as to remove toxic substances and eliminate the liability tail of an attractive nuisance. The foundations will likely remain in the ground. Perhaps one day their existence will puzzle inquisitive minds.
Sciguy54. I’m with you on the pyrimids. The most amazing thing to me about them is the huge effort to build them was for no good reason. I wondered how many good solid homes could have been built instead.
“sciguy54
December 3, 2015 at 6:44 pm
…workers followed the money and toiled away their entire lives shaping stone for no purpose.”
Workers? The people who actually built them were slaves. It was either shape stone, or die!
“But wars are also the time of parasites and profiteers.”
I submit we already have a war on global warming.
I fully support a “War on Global Warming”. Remember the “War on Drugs” – more drugs. Remember the “War on Poverty” – more Poverty. Remember the “War on Illiteracy” – more Illiteracy. Remember the “War on Terrorism” – more terrorism – oh, that one hasn’t finished yet.
Roll on more Global warming and green the planet!
(I suppose I had better say “sarc”?)
As global warming increases temperatures worldwide but particularly in the northern hemisphere the balmy conditions particularly where I live will lead to reduction in fossil fuels for heating etc. this will lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions and therefore to global cooling without any need to declare war.