Guest Essay by Kip Hansen
In today’s New York Times, Maggie Astor, writing on behalf of the Climate Section’s editorial narrative, manages the incredible cognitive gymnastics trick of turning a story 180 degrees around, totally misdirecting the arrow of cause-and-effect.
It is really very nicely done and is a fine illustration of just how deeply personal and cultural bias can penetrate into even a well-trained intelligent mind.
The story is “No Children Because of Climate Change? Some People Are Considering It”. Our intrepid NY Times journalist gets her examples from a radical anti-fossil-fuel group called Conceivable Future, “an organization that highlights how climate change is limiting reproductive choices.” Their rant is that Climate Change will be so bad that they (some people) are reluctant to bring new children into the world and they demand Reproductive Justice. You get the idea.
Using anecdotes from Conceivable Future, Maggie Astor tells us that it is Climate Change that is causing this horrible, unconscionable result — young people are too worried about climate change to have children — or in some cases, having extra children because of climate change (really…read the story).
Maggie is careful to give the facts:
“…children born today will have as shorelines flood, wildfires rage and extreme weather becomes more common. Others [potential parents] are acutely aware that having a child is one of the costliest actions they can take environmentally.”
Just in case we might apply critical thinking skills and dismiss this idea, Maggie Astor (or her editors…) explains: “The birthrate in the United States, which has been falling for a decade, reached a new low in 2016. Economic insecurity has been a major factor, but even as the economy recovers, the decline in births continues.” Well, that is certainly a very small part of the truth — the large truth is:
Somehow, I don’t think that worries about shoreline flooding and forest fires caused by climate change have been causing this long-term drop in the birthrate. It may, however, have more to do with the birth-control pill first approved by the FDA in 1960.
ADDED: (from comment by “The Original Mike M”)
Wealth is an even better population control than the pill –
And what do high GDP countries all have in common?
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/correlation-of-per-capita-energy/image_original
The hypocrisy that undergirds this story is, to me, simply astonishing.
Maggie Astor, in her cognitively impaired state, directs the arrow of cause at the idea of future of Climate Change — rather than at those spreading a sense of doom and alarm that is far from justifiable by reality. Ms. Astor is one of those responsible.
I maintain that it is rather the case that the endless streams of overblown Climate Alarmism is having harmful effects on the general public, to the point of the commission of one of the greatest crimes possible — I will quote Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan:
You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins
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Author’s Comment Policy:
You know it by now — I’m happy to answer your questions and discuss the topic of the essay above. In writing it, I found I was more emotional about this than I originally thought. I beg your indulgence.
Note: Please don’t drag in Dylan’s solution to the Masters of War as a solution for Climate Alarmists. I don’t and I won’t allow it here.
If you want me to respond specifically, begin your comment with “Kip …”
Thanks for reading.
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Congratulations, “irrational climate zealotry” is a Top Class Phrase which I have marked down for future re-use.
While if they are one ‘the Astors’ that would explain a lot , vast wealth and an ability to get any job without any ability to do the job , hardly makes for a great combination.
I think Maggie Astor should just be left to get on with whatever she does.
Anybody trying to link the ‘evils’ of global warming and sex is riding alone in the front carriage of the train to totallyignoredbecausethey’reanidiotsville Arizona.
Kip, seems to me that anything she posits could be construed to be a “Potentially Hazardous Astoroid”.
Pop ==> It is the Editorial Narrative on Climate Change to blame all bad things on Climate Change — whether it is currently happening or not. One of their memes is “Climate Change is already happening” — by which they mean weather or any change in environmental conditions or any unusual weather event — but only if it is bad. They never claimed the drought in US land falling hurricanes was caused by Climate Change — because that was a good thing.
When their misguided exaggerations of current and possible future climate changes risks produces bad effects in the general public — depressions, anxiety, worry about kids — they blame as yet inexperienced climate change instead of the alarmist Propaganda that is the real cause.
Yikes, that’s spooky because I was thinking something very similar while I was checking to see if you caught my pun on her name.
IMHO, the biggest problem the world has regarding climate change is the perception of its gravity upon the present paradigms of nature and society. Improbable, worst case scenarios are regularly touted as “backed by settled science” and “likely if we don’t change our ways”, only because they have “wow factor”.
The politrickster’s solutions have been far more painful and expensive for Humanity than the climate change which has occurred over the last half-century. Not to mention the divisiveness of the “believe or be chastised” nature of the climate cause.
By logical inference, we can assume these buffoon’s are pro war and pro-virulent pandemics, as both are proven performers in reducing vast swaths of carbon polluters.
Are we really to believe these “Climate Savior’s” are abstaining from having children out of love for Gaia? One could forgive such nonsense, were it devoid of ego and self-righteous indignation. The meek shall inherent the Earth and these self-involved nutburgers will likely succeed in voluntary sterilization.
At the seventh bell, when the womb sours, our barren hero’s will know they have succeeded at nothing, and Winter will descend on a dank existence devoid of progeny.
If you want a smaller, more controllable population; scare people into not wanting to have kids.
“CAGW” is just the latest scare.
But, yes, it’s almost amusing how she has turned the CAGW scare (and the political atmosphere behind it?) making the young reluctant to have their own young into the just “the fact” of CAGW being the cause.
If birthrates have fallen, the hype is the cause. Not Man’s CO2.
https://youtu.be/Tc-rZKjjbLo
If you take a close look, birthrates fall according to the rate of affluence.
http://www.vhemt.org/tfrgdp.jpg
That appears to be more proven than scare tactics, if they’re really sincere.
Pop ==> The affluence thing only works to a certain point — certainly true for differences between the developing and the developed worlds. After that, other, more subtle, factors take over.
Yes, it only works to the point where corrupt dictatorships enter into things.
“…After that, other, more subtle, factors take over.”
I’d guess the least subtle of those other factors would be religion. Perhaps it’s pivotal in that Catholics, Muslims, Mormons, etc. are encouraged by their religion to procreate liberally, while the faithful disciples of the Model Fellowship of Mann are shamed into ending their genetic heritages.
I honestly do not get the feeling that most people around me have the slightest bit of fear about climate change. They are more worried about the charge on their iPhones running low.
Talking so much about climate alarm creates it, even when you are talking about the talking about it. WUWT, unfortunately, gives alarm an extra boost by giving somebody else yet another opportunity to rebut another counterclaim to theirs.
Who are these people who are so worried about climate catastrophe? — the same people living extremely comfortable lives because of all the amenities that fossil fuels have allowed modern civilization? — the same people who sport their new fossil-fuel transportation, and wear their high-thread-count, fossil-fuel-enabled clothing? — the same people eating healthy diets, enabled by farming methods that have increased production, transportation, and distribution of food, thanks to (you guessed it) fossil-fuel technology?
How do such people think that they are as comfortable as they are to focus on climate change, rather than spending their energy adapting to climate, to such an extent that they would have no such time or comfort to think this way?
Robert ==> I am afraid that certain people are more suggestible than others. Some are so suggestible that they are good candidates for hypnotism. I used to demonstrate this as part of my amateur magic act when I was a kid. These hyper-suggestible minds can easily be convinced of the most ridiculous dangers — rogue planets, magnetic pole reversal, chem-trails conspiracies. The press and the climate warriors have spent 30 years repeating the same scary stories – -none of which have come true — but the mere repetition of the stories, for many younger people, their whole lifetimes, has hypnotized them into a state of terror which no amount of safe reality can shake.
I think my generation was less susceptible because we only had radio and limited TV demanding our attention before cable TV came to be. The impact of the information revolution (and the exploitation thereof) to shape the collective consciousness of mold-able minds is a threat to future generations, though.
Ya Pop, all that on top of an ‘education’ (indoctrination) system that certainly appears to be deliberately dumbing down the population and shortening attention spans. What do you feel 2 + 2 should be?
… climate alarm hypnotism — there should be a word for that — “climypnotism”, maybe? (^_^)
I suggest that the “terror” over such things might be a mythical overstatement. I don’t know that I really believe that anybody is terrified. I think this might be a word game played in the media for political gain and, as I suggested, this myth is unknowingly amplified by treating it seriously as real “terror”.
I don’t think that Gore or Hansen or Mann, for example, are “terrified” over what they claim. Rather,I think that they might be more terrified over loosing their financial foundation, if the myth dissipates.
Robert,
If you think that poor schmucks don’t take the “threat” seriously, then you’re not following along! “Climate anxiety” is among the mental problems that the non-stop terror-inducing apocalyptic your-CO2-is-killing-the-planet causes.
Just because the purveyors of the panic–Mann, Gore, et al–don’t believe it doesn’t make others cynical. Many poor souls lap it up and take it as gospel.
Lots of examples. Just Bing “ecoanxiety suicide”.
“For people not yet living directly in the path of climate change, mental health problems can also be triggered indirectly, from “watching the slow and seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change unfold, and worrying about the future for oneself, children, and later generations.” Such existential anxiety, in other words, can touch anyone grappling with the larger-than-life impacts of a warming planet. Psychologists and researchers are beginning to call this condition “ecoanxiety,” a term that’s been popping up in research papers in recent years.
Some people “are deeply affected by feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration due to their inability to feel like they are making a difference in stopping climate change,” writes the APA. “Some writers [of research papers] stress the possible detrimental impact of guilt, as people contemplate the impact of their own behavior on future generations.”
https://qz.com/948909/ecoanxiety-the-american-psychological-association-says-climate-change-is-causing-ptsd-anxiety-and-depression-on-a-mass-scale/
KC ==> For that matter, Bing or Google “threat of polar reversal” 15,200,000 hits, “threat of rogue planet hitting earth” 44 million hits, “government spraying chemtrails” 201,000 hits.
I have personal experience of acquaintances actually believing and being afraid of these wholly imaginary threats.
The threat of climate change is just a tiny bit less-imaginary — at least the climate does change.
RK ==> “I don’t think that Gore or Hansen or Mann, for example, are “terrified” over what they claim. ” Nor do I, I doubt that they are even simple honest believers — these three have some other motivation for what they do and say. (Though, I am unsure of Hansen….he may be a simple misguided believer.)
These unfortunate people will have quite a class action lawsuit potential when it turns out that they gave up having children and living a fulfilled life due to the collusion of the warmists to falsify data and misrepresent global warming models as accurate predictors of a distopian future.
The purpose I see here is to expose the ‘climate change industry’ which has taken a minor trace-gas process of the climate system and elevated it to unquestionable omnipotence over the rest of the system, for the purpose of instituting global socio-economic reorganization and the control of energy world-wide.
(that was a response to R Kernodle, above. My error.)
Thanks for the dialogue. That makes your presentations personal for me and others, I’m sure.
The illustration for this essay was excellent. Push one thing and you never know where it will go.
In all the comments I didn’t see much support for Maggie Astor’s claim. So why not discuss the counter-claims? I think The Pill had an enormous effect on the culture, in many ways. But birth control was available before the pill. At least where birth control was legal; it wasn’t always legal everywhere. So the pill may not have had a big direct effect on birth rate.
What is your position on feral cats? With sterilization?
Toto ==> I’ll tell you my position on feral cats — but I will not do any follow up to any response — pro or anti.
“Round ’em up, nuke ’em, bury ’em”.
I am having no more kids because the world might be (is?) ruled by mindless bigots who read the NYT. Can I sue?
In April 2016 I wrote for the skeptical blog Climatemonitor.it a brief, sarcastic article on birth rate and CO2. I’ve prepared now a quick English translation (my very private English, sorry) in the hope to be useful to discussion and fun. It can be found at my WordPress blog.
https://bozafit.wordpress.com/2018/02/06/in-italy-also-the-unborn-children-know-that-co2-is-not-so-good/
francozavatti ==> Thanks for the link. Very amusing.
Don’t worry about your English — you ought to hear my Spanish. I once brought a roomful of Spanish speaking government officials to the state known as ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing) by prouding announcing (in MY broken Spanish) “If you have questions, we have spare auto parts!” The difference in Dominican Spanish between “answers: and “spare parts” being a single letter at the end of the word.