Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Guardian author Jeff Sparrow thinks we need a modern equivalent to the violent Communist uprisings which rocked France, Germany and Russia towards the end of WW1 to solve the climate crisis.
Climate change is a disaster foretold, just like the first world war
Jeff Sparrow
The warnings about an unfolding climate catastrophe are getting more desperate, yet the march to destruction continues
“The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”
The mournful remark supposedly made by foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey at dusk on 3 August 1914 referred to Britain’s imminent entry into the first world war. But the sentiment captures something of our own moment, in the midst of an intensifying campaign against nature.
According to the World Wildlife Fund’s 2016 Living Planet Report, over the last four decades the international animal population was reduced by nearly 60%.More than a billion fewer birds inhabit North America today compared to 40 years ago. In Britain, certain iconic species (grey partridges, tree sparrows, etc) have fallen by 90%. In Germany, flying insects have declined by 76% over the past 27 years. Almost half of Borneo’s orangutans died or were removed between 1999 and 2015. Elephant numbers have dropped by 62% in a decade, with on average one adult killed by poachers every 15 minutes.
…
The devastation of the first world war eventually engendered a wave of revolt from a populace appalled at the carnage their politicians had wrought.
Climate change has not yet spurred an equivalent of the mutinies in France or the revolution in Petrograd or the uprising in Berlin.
Yet Labor’s appalling equivocation over the Adani mine – a piece of environmental vandalism for which there can be no justification – illustrates the urgency with which we need a new and different type of politics.
The stakes could not be higher. Lamps are going out all over the natural world … and no one will ever see them lit again.
Perhaps pseudocryptic demands for a “new and different type of politics” is what fanatics do when they realise ordinary people have stopped listening to their ranting.
Question: Why do activists operate from the point of view of: if you don’t believe what they believe, you must be “forced” to believe.
Because the revolution won’t happen if you aren’t.
I’ve been informed by the true believers that communism can’t work if everyone isn’t participating.
Funny how almost every progressive policy requires one-hundred percent compliance.
Doesn’t exactly jibe with that whole freedom and liberty thing.
It’s all about the struggle for leftists and in a colourless, odourless gas that’s everywhere all about them they have found their perfect Utopia to struggle against. They don’t do irony.
Violence against people who disagree is a natural reaction when you’re convinced beyond all reason that you are correct, and those who disagree are responsible for horrible atrocities.
So this reporter wants millions of people to be “purged”, imprisoned, and/or tortured, all in the name of “climate change”? I can never decide if the people who advocate this kind of thing are simply extraordinarily ignorant, if they honestly think that THIS TIME things will be different, or if they are hoping that it WON’T be different this time. Considering the vitriol that usually accompanies the calls, I suspect it is the last explanation.
I haven’t called this movement the ‘Fourth Reich’ lightly.
I don’t see any analogy between the Russian revolution and global warming. The world did not
embrace Communism, quite the opposite. Communism grew only at the point of a gun and occupation of Eastern block nations by Russian armed forces after WWII. And, of course, there was China, another Communist military dictatorship created out of the chaos of WWII
And you think the world sans propaganda and forcing would embrace windmills?
arthur4563,
You say, “the world did not embrace Communism, quite the opposite.” That is correct. Socialism=> Communism was forced on people during the Revolution and, as you point out, the Eastern block nations after WWII. However, they had 20+ years from the Revolution to the end of WWII to consolidate their power and control to the point that they COULD take over the Eastern block nations after WWII.
Global warming is not, and never has been, about “the science.” It’s another way to delegitimize people who disagree with you and ultimately seize power and control. If they are allowed to get far enough, it ultimately damn will be at the point of a gun. By then it will be too late.
Why does the fact that animal populations decreasing 60% over the last 40 years not raise any eyebrows? Are we so desensitized to such a fact, or do we instantly ignore it because it is absurd?
I simply can’t believe that a journalist would put that number in print….. and keep their job.
Because it is a ‘fact’ with a wrong and missing context, and because its factness is limited.
Here, the population of many ‘animals’ has risen tremendously during the last 40 years. So the limited applicability makes the statement a putative fake news, if not just ordinary misrepresentation due to biased fact mining.
I’m cynical but the Guardian just bullshits.
So I mean no raise of eyebrows, business as usual.
It really is unfathomable that warmists can trot out such nonsense and look us in the face and scream denier!
Where I live there are more deer, more raptors, more frigging rodents and rabbits than in living memory. Just not many hedgehogs. I guess the slug pellets got them all.
On my way home I drove past a “gaggle?” of wild turkeys. As a child I never saw any, now they are quite common and this is only in the last 10 years. I am just waiting for the predators to show up.
Surely someone of the believers can understand the concept that we see climate change peer review as equivalent to a trial where the detectives, the prosecuting counsel, the jury and the judge have all been pre tested to ensure they believe that only a guilty verdict is valid. Any climate studies degree guarantees that condition is met and a post graduate level essential for any higher post means it is a really entrenched view.
If it is beyond question then there ought to be a list of questions and they should be able to swear on oath that every single one has an answer that can be backed up by evidence that could stand up in court.
That is clearly not the case.
Without an impartial review and that means climate scientists are only witnesses not judges and superior skill levels from outside the profession are called on and deferred to correctly climate science will always be held in contempt as it rightly should be.
Exactly—that’s why a nongovernmental “Science Court” is needed, where appeals against entrenched and/or fanatical Groupthink can be made.
Uprising in Berlin will be near if Merkel really closes the last nuclear plant instead of eine Energiezurückwende.
At first they tell nonsense and at the end they solicit you for money. Isn’t that scurrilous?
I think man-made climate change was used as a tool by the left to polarize society, and create a sense of mission for atheists. Note: Environmentalists are far more likely to be atheist than any other social group. CC works like political correctness and various social justice causes to distinguish them from us, with the added advantage that CAGW is supposed to be an existential threat and our fault.
All modern left politics are due to the economic failure of the left. They could not find any socialist economic model which worked. When everyone accepts that capitalism is the only way to run an economy, the left need something else to distinguish themselves from the rest. I’m not saying this was a conscious ploy by them. It’s the way things work themselves out when there are no alternatives to what really matters: our economic welfare. It only works when they can convince us that climate change is some real threat to life. So, can’t work unless it’s ‘catastrophic’.
So Earth Day can now be a big Stalin party for the progressive elitists to attend and mingle.
The shivering reality is that vast swaths of North America have had a cold and snow winter. A warm winter is the signature of AGW. The blame for the present winter’s weather is focused upon the Arctic, although Siberia, from whence much of the cold dry air comes remains very cold. Deep ocean currents; ocean surface temperature changes; Sun UV Stratospheric impacts upon both poles; and a slightly weakening sun altogether seem to be scientific reasons involved, yet, not mentioned in many news articles.
Billionaires from both US coasts have provided considerable resources to maintain the drumbeat of single causality (CO2) for future mankind troubles. As these billionaires have made much money betting on the future, their clairvoyance in one realm has them believing there is carry over into the another realm. Maybe so, although the history of prognosticators is littered with failures. Only the forecasts that have had observational confirmation make it into the history books, like the saying: history of conflicts is written by the winners. History does seem to have a lesson: the outcomes of many revolutions of the 19th, 20th and early 21st century are associated with vast number of deaths; impoverishment of the majority remaining; and tyranny as the final outcome. Not to be recommended. We are now in a crowded world. Bullets fired at close range tend to have unintended collateral damage.
I presume Jeff Sparrow avoids using lithium ion batteries: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/
What has elephant poaching got to do with climate change?
“The UK tree sparrow population has suffered a severe decline, estimated at 93 per cent between 1970 and 2008. However, recent Breeding Bird Survey data is encouraging, suggesting that numbers may have started to increase, albeit from a very low point.”
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/tree-sparrow
The RSPB does not give a reference for the 93%, but it also suggests numbers are increasing. Funny how that was not mentioned! Can’t have good news!
The Petrograd revolution was to challenge the orthodox or consensus way of life in Russia.
Its a very poor analogy to think that the climate orthodoxy (the so called 97%) represent the poor downtrodden masses, in fact its the other way round .
Lenin would not have got much support for
Shut down the steelworks
Close the coal mines
Increase energy bills
Demand higher food prices
The points you make are one reason I see today’s Environmental Marxism as more in line with Mao’s quite destructive Cultural Revolution rather than the Bolshevik revolution of Russia. The Progressives/Liberals in the US have indeed essentially lost the white working man’s vote.
(Someone might point out Democratic Party candidate Lamb’s apparent COngressional seat vicotry yesterday in Pittusburg’s conservative district as counter-evidence. I will point out the Mr. Lamb clearly aarticulated centrist Democratic positions. Positions that are out of sync with the Liberal-Progressve agenda that controls his Democratic Party. Mr Lamb will have to become just another two-faced liar to survive in his Party and the Democratic congressional caucus.)
The Democrats used to have a Wonderful Party. But now that it has been infiltrated by extremists, Anarchists, Communists, Marxists and Socialists it is a mere shadow of what it used to be.
The only difference between the Democrats of today and the Democrats of FDRs time is how fast they want to move towards the same goal.
Ordinarily I do not favor violent uprisings, but they do have one upside- the early victims are often the “journalists” and elitist twits who promoted the uprising. A new low in Climate Communications.
Yes, one of the very early purges in Moscow took them out.
I am curious as to their North American bird population drop. There is mention of “a study” in the linked article but don’t cite it. I would think a drop of a billion birds in NA would be noticeable. A quick look at the Globe and Mail story does not cite any reference to the drop.
As always the more you look the more you find statistics are just made up or improperly referenced.
Climate change is a disaster foretold, just like the first world war
Foretold just like the first world war?
The stupid. It burns.
Historical revisionism is a common characteristic of Marxism.
Well, He who wins the war, gets to write the History
Everyone in 1914 thought it would be over by Christmas.
And no one ever saw the streetlights lit again. The climate cult is reaching sub basement level of stupid.
This is a criminal call to violent overthrow of the state by a common-and-garden ecofascist, and he should be thrown in jail.
The fact that loud-mouthed thugs like Jeff Sparrow are allowed free rein to spout incitement to murder and revolution is why more and more countries such as Russia are losing any respect for the UK as a serious country, and feel less and less need to take us seriously. If Sparrow stays out of jail, the UK is a joke.
Hey, at least the Siberian camps for climate political prisoners will be a half degree warmer. Another day in paradise
Besides the Bolshevik analogy, thereare also elements of Mao’s Cultural Revolution in what the environmental Leftists want. Climate Change is just the Trojan Horse — the wrapper containing their poisonous revolution.
Mao’s Cultural revolution (1966-1975) embodied Red Guard rallies, where Mao’s senior revolutionary army general Lin Biao called for the destruction of the “Four Olds”; namely, old customs, culture, habits, and ideas.
Essentially Mao built his “Red Guard” of revolutionaries from mass protests. The bulk of his Red Guard were easily manipulated youth who had not been alive during WW2 or the civil war with Chiang Kai-shek’s conservatives.
And their call for the destruction of the Four olds (customs, culture, habits, and ideas) are exactly what the Left has been doing on American culture for the 8 years under former President Obama’s guidance.
Now in the US they are having their rallies, with easily manipulated children and teenagers and weak minded adults. They are all being manipulated by a few men with an evil intent.
Another “great leap” Forward in the tradition of wicked and final solutions favored by Marxist derivatves.
The quotes from the World Wildlife Fund are generally bogus. If indeed the world’s animal population has declined by 60% it had NOTHING to do with CAGW. Also, bird populations in North America have probably been more impacted by wind turbines than any other form of mortality. Even with the wind turbines and the fact I have don’t a population estimate, I am a bird watcher and we certainly don’t have a billion fewer birds. In fact I see far more birds today than I did when I was a kid and first went bird watching with my Dad.
“Climate change has not yet spurred an equivalent of the mutinies in France or the revolution in Petrograd or the uprising in Berlin.”
Possibly because no climate change has actually happened yet! Revolutions occur when large numbers of people are suffering constant oppression. Has the author so little knowledge of history that he has missed this;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848
or earlier this;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation
Who is being oppressed, exploited, deceived and robbed and by WHO by the global warming narrative? Who is freezing their arse off because the cannot afford fuel – and why?
When people demonstrate in the streets in favour of poverty and deprivation of the needs to survive then will take writers like this seriously. Until the ” plus ca change c’es tout le memes chose.”
I was going to overthrow complacency, but I just didn’t get around to it.
+1
It has been said that the world is beset by ignorance and apathy, Max. Well, I just don’t know about that and really don’t care.
+1.5
Can I say how much I despise the historical idiocy and ignorance of the Left? The Petrograd Revolution ended up with 1,443 people killed. The Berlin uprising ended up with 48 dead. Anyone calling for a rerun of those bloodbaths is one sick puppy …
w.
“Climate change has not yet spurred an equivalent of the mutinies in France or the revolution in Petrograd or the uprising in Berlin.”
Mutinies in France? Mutinies against the level of casualties for what was seen as no great gain.
Revolution in Petrograd? Could be a reference to the first revolution rather than the second (Bolshevik) one.
Uprising in Berlin? “The German Revolution or November Revolution (German: Novemberrevolution) was a civil conflict in the German Empire at the end of the First World War that resulted in the replacement of the German federal constitutional monarchy with a democratic parliamentary republic that later became known as the Weimar Republic. The revolutionary period lasted from November 1918 until the adoption in August 1919 of the Weimar Constitution.” (Wikipedia)
It might be the case that suggesting that the author is wanting a Bolshevik-style revolution is putting an interpretation on his words that is invalid. I say ‘might’ because it’s not clear. But it’s certainly not the case that this is an unambiguous call for a Bolshevik-style revolution. It’s certainly possible to interpret his words simply to mean that the (for him) impending disaster of climate change requires some upheaval on the part of the public. That could simply mean a big change in the public’s acceptance of what the author sees as too little action by the political establishment.
Similarly ‘a new and different style of politics’ could mean anything. Politicians on the moderate left and moderate right regularly call for such a thing. Isn’t that what Donald Trump campaigned on?
Just put ‘new style of politics’ into a search engine and see what comes up.
It’s rather like, say, Donald Trump stating that ‘we must stand up to the North Koreans’ and his critics on the left accusing him of threatening nuclear annihilation.
I hadn’t thought of it quite like that but in that case he is wanting this ‘revolution’ based on an assertion or possibility of impending climate change disaster, whereas the Russian revolution was propelled by actual experiences.