Guest opinion by Robert McCarter
This is an apology to all those commentators over the years who pronounced on the underlying Marxism in the debate over climate change. I am a scientist by training and have tried my best not to sully the argument with politics, when commentary turned to ‘watermelons’ I turned to another article. Naively I thought the argument would be settled by data not dogmatism.
I recently attended a seminar given by a professor emeritus from UBC on ‘Global Population, Growth and Sustainable Development’, with an introduction by Rex Wyler co-founder of Greenpeace International. Sure that was a clue I was entering the dark lands, but my training make me want to cut out the middlemen and see things for myself.
The softening up started with the idea of social constructs that were artificial and could be replaced with ‘truer’ constructs, as an example the anthropogenic climate change construct that is ‘truer’ than the climate denial construct.
Then came the ‘ain’t is awful’ exponential population graphs, collapsing resource graphs, overflowing carrying capacity graphs and the de rigueur CO2 graph that I can summarize as ‘we’re all doomed’. Note that the population graphs only showed a global trend, and did not display how wealthy nations are getting their populations in order and limiting their growth rates such that increases are largely dependent on immigration. When reminded of this, the lecturer quickly dismissed it – ‘wealthy people are more selfish and do not want to share their wealth with their young’.
What followed was a litany of doom and gloom, how terrible things are now (longevity increasing?, health improving?, poverty decreasing?), that fracking fracking and don’t expect Elon Musk to come to the rescue (I finally agreed with something) with his electric cars and semis and emigration to more hospitable Mars – not a mention of the possible benefits of GMOs (Greenpeace after all), greenhouse greening or small modular reactors. The lecturer implied that billionaires were greedy and did little to share, ignoring that billionaires invest their money and only get a proportion of the great wealth that they create for others.
Having sufficiently depressed the audience it was time for the reveal. We are not doomed if only we change those arbitrary social constructs like capitalism. Roll back your expectations by 75%, have your governments share your wealth with the poor of the world. Hmmm he seemed to have missed the ‘give a man a fish … teach a man to fish …’ proverb. How about Cicero’s “It is human nature that what starts as gratitude, becomes dependency and ends as entitlement.”
But of course he was concerned about all of those extra resources being squandered on the hoi palloi – I get it now!
So having had doubt about climate change being a political rather than scientific problem I am now a bit wiser. Here is another guise for the Marxists, the warmunista peddling their bureaucracy controlled, idealistic sharing in a world driven by more basic motives like if ‘I work harder I gain more’. Sure capitalism has problems and has created problems but it has also created solutions. Our skies are clearer, our water safer, energy more abundant, wildlife is more protected and the future has potential for those willing to work.
ps As a Canadian I apologize for Naomi Kline.
From one Canadian to another. Neither of us us is responsible for Naomi KLEIN (sic). Like Tucker Carlson, she has beautiful hair. But, unlike Tucker, she is stupid.
Stopped reading at marxism. I have no idea what the rest of the article says but the second that comes up in any debate from a supposed uni graduate i know youre not so much graduate as much as person who argued with as many people as they possibly could as often as possible on irrelevant things while sometimes getting the right answer but for the wrong reasons.
Like climate change isnt man made at all…. BECAUSE CHEMTRAILS! Instead of – because even a casual look at long term data by the dumbest layman in about 50 different fields says its been going on for… billions of years before humans were a thing.
But hey clearly MUHCONSENSORS that think either aboriginals had open sea going vessels or arafura sea over the land bridge between papua and australia just suddenly magically appearered the second the first steam train went into revenue service in the uk, setting off a magical chain reaction just to kill polar bears are totally right and we are all morons for not believing them. TV physicist and amateur climate scientist Brian Cox said so! And hes a doctor!!!!
“Then came the ‘ain’t is awful’ exponential population graphs, collapsing resource graphs, overflowing carrying capacity graphs and the de rigueur CO2 graph that I can summarize as ‘we’re all doomed’. Note that the population graphs only showed a global trend, and did not display how wealthy nations are getting their populations in order and limiting their growth rates such that increases are largely dependent on immigration.”
The dwindling populations of European countries are the justification that Merkel is using for the mass migration policy in the European Union.
All countries are forced to take a quota of Syrian and Libyan refugees.
Victor Orban is one of the few elected leaders who has told the EU that decisions about who comes into the country, and the country’s demographic identity, are matters of national self-determination.
Perhaps the fact that the populations in Western countries have flat lined is in reality the sad result of the Baby Boomers’ pet overpopulation theory (mixed in with a cultural contempt for domestic married life and also the student debt from going to Universities). I certainly think it is. Women in France, Spain, and other Western nations have been having less than 2 children since the 70s.
And the mass migration and free movement of people and labor, as a multicultural utopian theory, has not been so lovely in practice — although pointing that out makes you a right wing racist and fa..ist on the European political spectrum.
Perhaps this is the first the entire Holdren Population Bomb Baby Boom generation has heard about demographic collapse and transition, so I will not expect to much appreciation at first.
This is not a criticism of WUWT or the author. And I am sure someone meant to say something about the lack of replacement (also known as “having a family”) in too many Western nations, even though it has been at least 24 hours and there have been 309 comments.
I tried to do my share. My wife and I had 3 kids.
3 kids? Oh alright, twist my arm.
Of course I wanted five but the mate wanted three, so we compromised and had 3.
And of course the reason I wanted to bring it up is because this —
“Note that the population graphs only showed a global trend, and did not display how wealthy nations are getting their populations in order and limiting their growth rates such that increases are largely dependent on immigration.”
—this is a perfect description of the crap sandwich Europe is eating right now.
What you said is what I generally said in another comment. That government’s reach a point where the citizens don’t produce more citizens. They create ways to bring people from other places to grow their population. When that happens it is bringing more people from less economically stable countries to the more stable economy countries. Because people in countries that are economically stable usually don’t want to go somewhere else, unless the feel they can become paid more or/and have better chances than where they’re leaving. So when government’s just hypothetically throw their doors open to anyone that has a pluse and don’t vet them for what they can add as a benefit to the country. It harm’s the population of the country that has to foot the bill to those that have little skill or abilities to prosper as an individual, without reviving government benefits that the citizens pay…because government’s have no money that doesn’t come from the citizens. And that harm’s the low skilled and poorest of that countries citizens the most. On the other end are all the graduates that are looking for jobs in the field of their studies that cannot find jobs, because the government has been bringing in more skilled people from other countries that have experience in those fields.
Devolped countries tend to slow their population growth when a degree of financial security is lost and it becomes more expensive to have children. Government’s want a growing population to fund more government and when the population cannot proliferate they look to outsiders to fill that need. After WWII the “Baby Boomers” created a population growth in the USA that created a era of prosperity that by the time LBJ and his “Great Society” was through it took that prosperity and created a bigger “welfare state” of sharing the wealth taken from the well to do to give to those less productive. And he – LBJ – started the population growth by removing the limits set on immigration. After roe v. wade made abortion legal the mostly leftist population started losing it’s voter base by killing the unborn and to get more voter’s the Democratic Party changed their tactics on illegal immigration to replace what they lost in the welfare state that used abortion as birth control…where places like Planned Parenthood put the majority of their office’s in the poorest neighborhoods. That people from Latin countries and the Middle East lean more family oriented and to democrats ideologies of Socialism they have flooded the USA with future voter’s if they can get them legalized. That a bigger population requires more energy production and capitalism to support it is the hypocrisy of their ideologies.
Politicians are not born; they are excreted.
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
http://www.azquotes.com/author/2894-Marcus_Tullius_Cicero
Global warmening must be happening because penguins are dying from too much ice-
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/tim-blair/not-global-warming-it-was-warmal-globing/news-story/835257b77f6becaba94c7af006809215
So more grants and legislation desperately needed if you really care about what mankind is doing to penguins.
How about taking the responsibility of your actions and start to pay back the damages and harm you have caused during the past years, mr McCarter? First thing you should do however, is to give up your science titles, because you are not capable in unbiased, open and scientific way of thinking. How about a new career as a janitor of some highschool, mr MC Brainer?
From your description, Robert, I think that this was the event:
https://parksvillequalicum.whatsondigest.com/event/saturday-speakers-series-growth-and-sustainable-development
The speaker was neo-Malthusian Dr. William “Bill” Reese (“one of the foremost advocates of limits thinking”).
Wikipedia has a flattering article about Dr. Reese, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_E._Rees
GWPF has a less flattering article about him, here:
https://www.thegwpf.com/wendell-krossa-limited-thinking/
Rees signed the 2014 “Environmental Laureates’ Declaration on Climate Change,” begging for more money to finance the poor, starving climate change community:
https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2014/09/22/who-signed-the-climate-declaration/
From JunkScienceArchive we find this snippet of an article by Peter Foster in the Financial Post section of the National Post newspaper:
Over on the NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat blog, someone posted a quote from Dr. Reese: “The human population should be controlled safely below each planning region’s average carrying capacity, and with due consideration of the global context.”
Oh, goodie, you’re in luck, Robert. This event was just one of a series:
https://www.cheknews.ca/event/achieving-global-sustainability-decent-life-viu-eldercollege/
BTW, if you’re wondering how I found all that info about Dr. Rees, most of it was found using Leo Goldstein’s Climate Search Engine. Bookmark it.
Oops, I misspelled his name. It’s “Rees,” not “Reese.” Sorry!
The dwindling birth rates in the more economically developed Western nations is the great “problem” that solved itself without direct intervention by the state.
Environmentalists, and Malthusians general, ought to celebrate this and learn from it. That they refuse to do so tells you all you really need to know about their mind set. They apparently want and need problems requiring control over other peoples lives. Actual solutions and self-limiting problems are of no interest to them at all. It is the exercise of power and control of other human lives that really appeals.
+100 Exactly so.
It is good to see someone with enough awareness and interest to actually see this issue as political and not scientific. To some it has become “religious “ and thus indifferent to any reasonable discussion
I remain “curious “
daveburton enlightens the entire discussion:
This brings so much clarity to the discussion about the Ruling Scientific Paradigm of the environmentalist movement.
But it also wonderfully addresses several comments which present the elevation of selfishness and seeking personal power as the real basis of the free market economy.
These comments are influenced by the philosophy of Aynn Rand, a neitzcheian and a eugenicist, who brought in a secularist Darwinian explanation for the reason that free markets worked in the American experiment. And by the way, it is true that in her version of capitalism, there should be no reason ultimately for the strong to help the weak. That would, in her mind, cause the survival of unfit persons. But neither Nietzche (rule by the ubermensche) nor Eugenics (population control) are welcome in the actual conservative American base.
The reason I say the above quote addresses the question regarding the real reason for the success of the American free market model is here: “Alarmist environmentalism does not appreciate the fundamental human impulse to seek something better, to progress, and to create a better life and world. This impulse makes us truly human and leads to the humanization and benefit of all life.”
In other words, people do wish to both sustain and to better themselves and their property, and America became a nation in which any person could better themselves materially, mentally and spiritually. Now, the reason people do so is all-important and determines the results obtained: real people are doing it to provide for their own families and to serve the people around them with excellent value. There is a rationality and intelligence that is grounded in human bonds and commitments (starting with marriage & raising one’s own children, and including securing the civil well-being in our nation), which the selfish social Darwinians and the environmentalists cannot comprehend, and without which everything fails.
Hi Zeke!
I fear you have been misinformed about Ayn Rand. She was no eugenicist, and while Nietzsche was an early influence she repudiated his philosophy. See, for instance,
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2017-spring/ayn-rand-contra-nietzsche/
That article is not sufficient to make your case, but it was nice and short and I thank you for the link.
She holds the same views as Nieztche does in saying that altruism or self-sacrifice are “immoral.”
Ayn Rand: Why Altruism is Wrong dur 3:10
She Americanizes it a little towards the end, in saying that N zis and Commies were “altruistic,” but she is making as strong a racial Darwinian and Neiztchean case as far as she can considering that she is here in the US.
In “Ayn Rand on “Subnormal” Children and the Handicapped” dur 2:54
she generously applies the eugenicist gradations of being in determining who is worthy of education and who is not. While it is under the thin veneer of saving tax dollars for the worthy and gifted children, it still is just eugenics cloaked for American ears.
You know, there are reasons there are jokes online about people becoming complete jerks while reading her books. If you find you are a really self-focused person and you are using science and economics to justify your contempt and hatred of others, you really need to repent.
The trolls spent a lot of time & effort trying to distract from the point of this post.
Griff, Mark Johnson, etal are showing what they fear.
No amount of apology for Naomi Kline shall ever be sufficient.
As for the rest of it, better late than never…welcome to the struggle.
As an American, I apologize for Michael Mann.
And as a Floridian…hey, was that you in that Winnebago with several bicycles strapped to the back end, and pulling a pick-up truck, and with a golf cart in the cargo bed of the pick-up, and a little scooter in the back of the golf cart (with…and I am just guessing here…a skate board on the back of that scooter, and roller skates tied to the skate board)?
WOW lots of chatter. Fact is global warming dogma is based on political science, not real science.
Fact is we are entering a cooling phase which is actually bad for humans. Fact is USA would be even worse off if Hillary won.
Great article. I have heard all the arguments on why we have to transform our economies away from fossil fuels to renewables. Apparently it is because of the anthropogenic climate change. My quesIf people would FACT CHECK before they post & spread half truths they would be better off. Another Left Wing politician on headline news again this morning & people jumping on the Bandwagon of half a truth. The following is exactly what Trump said to the widow of the soldier who was killed on their phone conversation.
” This is what Trump said in truth: Quote: Here is the reported full quote –
“They know the risk, they know what they sign up for but they still volunteer to put their lives on the line for their fellow Americans. We owe them a debt that can never be repaid” – President Trump to the widow of Sgt Johnson End Quote.
All you have to do is FACT CHECK!tion, which I can not find an answer to, is what percent of the dreaded two degree increase is man made?? In 2100 will fossil fuels have caused 2% of the increase or 98% of the increase?? If they can not answer this question after billions of dollars in research money then we can’t know if we need to try to stop our emissions or adapt. For millions of years, plants, animals bugs and all sea life have all adapted to climate change. When it warms there is an explosion in biodiversity, when it cools we get mass extinctions. Maybe we are better off to adapt.
Maybe it’s just my opinion. But I feel if we humans have any slight ability to warm the planet… That we should be doing everything we can to heat it up before the next LIA or GM happens. Excess Carbon Dioxide is needed now than ever to support more life. Instead of this demonizing CO2 scam being detrimental to the environment. Adapting is evolution. Promoting better sustainable fossil fuels energy to the population of poor countries will do that and bring them up to modern technologies and prosperity to feed their own population.
how agriculture is contributing to the climate change??