Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to political theorists Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright, people will increasingly turn to international institutions to address problems like climate change.
How Governments React to Climate Change: An Interview with the Political Theorists Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann
By Isaac Chotiner
January 14, 2019…
In “Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future,” Joel Wainwright, a professor of geography at Ohio State University, and Geoff Mann, the director of the Center for Global Political Economy at Simon Fraser University, consider how to approach a problem of such international dimensions. They look at several different political futures for our warming planet, and argue that a more forceful international order, or “Climate Leviathan,” is emerging, but unlikely to mitigate catastrophic warming.
…
Wainright: One of the arguments in our book is that, under pressure from the looming challenges of climate change, we can expect changes in the organization of political sovereignty. It’s going to be the first major change that humans have lived through in a while, since the emergence of what we sometimes think of as the modern period of sovereignty, as theorized by Thomas Hobbes, among others. We should expect that after, more than likely, a period of extended conflict and real problems for the existing global order, we’ll see the emergence of something that we describe as planetary sovereignty.
So, in that scenario, we could look at the current period with the crisis of liberal democracies all around the planet and the emergence of figures like Bolsonaro and Trump and [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi as symptoms of a more general crisis, which is simultaneously ecological, political, and economic. Maybe this is quibbling with your question, of trying to disaggregate the causal variable. Which comes first—is it the ecological or the political and economic?—is a little bit difficult because it’s all entangled.
Mann: I think we’re going to witness and are already witnessing, in its emergent form, lots of changes to what we think of as the sovereign nation-state. Some of that change right now is super-reactionary—some groups are trying to make it stronger and more impervious than it’s been in a long time. Then, other kinds of forces are driving it to disintegrate, both in ways we might think of as pretty negative, like some of the things that are happening in the E.U., but also in other ways that we might think of as positive, in the sense of international coöperation. There’s some discussion about what to do about climate migration, at least.
…
There is a terrific book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which examines amongst other things why comparatively united great powers like China stagnated for millennia, while quarrelsome, disunited Europe went on to create the modern world.
… At the beginning of the sixteenth century it was by no means apparent that the last-named region [Europe] was destined to rise above all the rest. But however imposing and organised some of those oriental empires appeared by comparison with Europe, they all suffered from the consequences of having a centralised authority which insisted upon uniformity of belief and practice, not only in official state religion but also in such areas as commercial activities and weapons development. The lack of any such supreme authority in Europe and the warlike rivalries among its various kingdoms and city-states stimulated a constant search for military improvements, which interacted fruitfully with newer technological and commercial advances that were also being thrown up in this competitive, entrepreneurial environment. Possessing fewer obstacles to change, European societies entered into a constant upward spiral of economic growth and enhanced military effectiveness which, over time, was to carry them ahead of all other regions of the globe …
History suggests that nations and cultures which retain their individuality and liberty in the face of brutal transnational political pressure to conform will be the nations and cultures which shape the future.
Was there any moment when it was not the whole point for the watermelons?
Holdren openly dreamed of the Green Comintern overriding everyone’s sovereignty too (add crocodile tears to taste).
My thoughts exactly
Go USA…retain your individuality and liberty in the face of Green Oppression
Go Brexit…retain your individuality and liberty in the face of EU Oppression
Sorry EU just another flash in the pan government that tried to create an empire and only lasted a few decades.
AMEN !!!!
Socialism has always needed to be international, to stop companies relocating to escape it, environmentalism acquired internationalism in the 1960s, via books by Rachel Carson and Barbara Ward, and of course by the inexorable rise of our dear leaders, the UN and its sustainability goals.
Then we have groups like this trying to ’embed’ climate change and sustainability services.
https://www.ey.com/ca/en/services/assurance/climate-change-and-sustainability-services
Are Ernst and Young everywhere?
Even so, blaming “Trump” on global warming, even indirectly, is a HOWLER!
Methinks these academic types read a few too many “dystopian YA novels” growing up . . .
The pity is that anyone pays any attention to their drivel.
the true pity is that the LSM only prints their drivel
Newsflash to the green blob Human Rights got removed from the Paris RuleBook with no support of any of the major countries (especially China).
There isn’t even a way that you could even bring Planetary Sovereignty into climate change at the moment 🙂
Completely agree! Not only is this not a new claim; this has been the whole point of the entire charade from the very beginning. This is where those who have said “we need to focus on science, forget the politics” have been so wrong – from the very start, the reason and passion behind “climate change” and it’s permutations has been the perception on the left that it was a horse that could be ridden roughshod over all existing laws and governments. It was to be the Fast Path to Power, for all of its proponents.
And that, of course, is why they have no interest in actual science, and do everything they can to shut down and destroy anyone who suggests their might be an error in their thinking. Power is all this fight is about; it is all it has ever been about.
“Power is all this fight is about; it is all it has ever been about.”
…..and money. Lots and lots of it.
I feel that at some point, power is the same as money. They’re interchangeable, one equals the other.
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
– Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation
What we really need is for people to stop thinking socialism and communism are answers instead of disasters.
We need people to stop being TAUGHT that for that to happen.
Only among the rank and file – and those are some of the hardest to deal with, because they believe they have a righteous cause.
God, please SAVE me from the righteous.
When I was a child I believed in world government. Then I grew up.
Thank you, Gerald the Mole. Great point of view.
Regards,
Bob
This is part of the reason I voted to get out of the EU as it was based on the one size fits all for everything from business to fishing, what the unseen and uncountable decided was law for the rest of us like it or lump it.
James Bull
…..If you give it a careful examination you could well conclude that government of all kinds and types should be nothing more than just another passing fad. But then, just like a recurring bad dream, that that passes has a way of being resurrected by the power mongering elitist crowd.
I like the Wizard of Oz character analogy.
Whoever is 20 and doesn’t believe in Socialism must be like the Tin Man (he has no heart).
Whoever is 40 and still believes in Socialism must be like the Scarecrow (he has no brain).
And feminism the wicked witch….Kurt.
Or any hate-based ideology – predicated on the ‘I’m a victim’ justification for it.
Kurt, I agree with the sentiment, but the analogy falls flat when you realize (at least in the movie) the scarecrow was pretty smart on his own – the “diploma” didn’t bestow upon him anything he didn’t already had. And the tin man had displayed plenty of “heart” (emotion, sympathy, etc) and the testimonial and heart shaped clock the wizard gave him didn’t bestow upon him anything he didn’t already have. (same with the lion and his bravery vs the medal the wizard gave him) remember the wizard was a con-man all along (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain)
And tying the Wizard of Oz back into the discussion of government, it’s worth noting that the book was written as the story of the 1896 US presidential election. This one was famous in many ways.
Among other things, 1896 was the only time a man ran against himself for president. He lost. This was William Jennings Bryan, the “boy orator” who roared in the Senate with the Cross of Gold speech but did not have the courage to back up his convictions.
This cowardly lion ran as a Democrat, but was then picked by the Populists as well, the new fresh-faced young political party rising up like a tornado out of Kansas. It carried the interests of the brainless farmers who were victims of the wicked interests of the West (silo and railroad owners) and wicked bankers of the East, who also owned the factories that the poor heartless workers toiled in like heartless robots.
The wicked owners of the West aligned with the Native Americans, who plagued the settlers like winged monkeys. There were good forces in the North, and in the South (representing the sharecroppers).
The Grand and Glorious Politician William McKinley was the face of the Republicans, but his strings were being pulled by Mark Hanna, the real wizard of the party machinery.
And the new greenbacks were the way things got done in Washington DC, where everyone saw everything though a filter of money. It was the Green City.
The Cowardly Bryan felt that the path to fix things was to replace gold with silver, at least partly, as the money standard. But the party knew that if they were to go to Washington, it had to be on a path of gold bricks. Only then could they try to change things.
McKinley (and Hanna) clobbered ’em.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
You have a mix of theories concoceted by others long after the book was written. Baum never indicated any such allegories were intended.
You got Henry Littlefield’s 1964 theory regarding monetary policy (the golf & silver stuff) – though you forgot to mention Oz being named for Oz. (ounce) the unit of measurement for gold & Silver. And you’ve got the theories of Historian Quentin Taylor (the bits about whom the scarecrow et all were meant to be) and probably a few other revisionist theories as well.
As there’s no evidence that Baum intended any of that, the bold claim that “the book was written as the story of the 1896 US presidential election” isn’t supported by any facts, it’s just the speculations of people decades after the fact.
“There is a terrific book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which examines amongst other things why comparatively united great powers like China stagnated for millennia, while quarrelsome, disunited Europe went on to create the modern world.”
Yes it is a great history book, worth having if you are into history as a subject of serious interest. I have it in my 300 book library collection. It showed France and Spain as wild eyed blood shedding nations, while England tried to keep Spain and especially France from dominating Europe, by supporting nations who were under attack with troops and lots of money.
It shows that peace will never truly be universal since humans are still predatory in behavior, which is why free based governments are the best way to corral the predatory behavior into positive channels.
Gerald the mole, is correct that a dominant world government would be a disaster as it would over time become more tyrannical as it tries to 100% fix the problems that will never go away, especially under an Authoritarian rulership. The former USSR was an expose on a smaller scale of what a world government would become in time that drove a lot of people to madness and drink.
A great history book.
And who would rule over us? Joel and Jeff, right?
Scratch a leftist like the authors of this piece, find a totalitarian.
The core of a Right is ‘can I just be left alone to do my own thing?’
The core of a Left is ‘Everything would be better if only *I* was in charge’.
A Left may have good intentions about social equality, but when you look at the Worker’s Paradises they like to dream about you will normally find they have cast themselves into an administrative role.
“I want the revolution so I can go do my part and work my 40 hours a week shift at the factory” said no Socialist ever.
Have these people been hibernating in a remote cave in the last decade or two? The entire political trend in the free world is increasingly rejecting the self comfortable globalist elitism so characterised by the academic superiority displayed here and the mind numbing looting of the public purse by the hand in glove partnership of green eco-madmen and self serving politicos . Even France is rejecting these elites who know so much better than the mere plebs or deplorables. If anything we are only at the start of this process. It will be interesting to see how long it will be before countries like Germany and Holland, much more deeply submerged in this green moneyland criminology, begin the recovery from their slumber and follow the example of the USA, Britain, Eastern Europe etc.
Moderately…………..:
I think you should exclude Britain from your example list. The U.K. has its Climate Change Act now embedded in law, hanging about its neck.
Alasdair
I fear on reflection you may well be right. Incidentally, “Green moneyland criminology “ should be “criminality”.
Not that anyone will be held to account.
I note that there is hope that Trump will shake up the World development Bank. I hope so; no wonder they hate him.
He is shaking down their slush funding institutions, thats why they hate him, defund and derail, more power to him.
MCOEA.
it has, BUT it i rejecting the people who framed it.
Apply systems analysis to globalism an – depending o te degree of control exerted by a cental authority as ‘feedback” you will see one of three scenarios.
(1) utter inability to respond to change at all. The classical case of stable but overdamped system, like the stagnating Soviet Union was..
(II) response delayed and then wildly exaggerated . The system swings from boom to bust from violence to oppression, critically damped.
(III) attempts to exert central control are so fierce that the whole system becomes deeply unstable and spliis apart into quasi autonomous ‘blocs’.
Minority report in a 100% surveillance society will not work, as attempts to change the future will always change it in more ways than anticipated.
maintaining the status quo by deep indoctrination as seems to be the current way, will only serve to generate a society incapable of responding to any new threat.
Modern….
I hope you are right, but I mostly see global government sycophants 🙁
In the US, the country is pretty much 50/50 dems and Rep with one party firmly entrenched in global governance and the other party not firmly against it. An Obama type can return to do a lot more damage.
THe fundamental defect in this sort of incompetent theorising is that the worl, the universe is ‘iterative’ in is evolutionary process whether we are talking about the ‘intert’ objects from dust to asteroids to planets to stars to galaxies etc or whether in terms of life forms evolving. That is because the myriad of entities imply a myriad of mechanisms by wht=ich the iterations can occur.
On the other hand a one world government approach is a mechanism to shut down, to persecute, to execute all such iterative mechansims in global policy development and to rely on the assumed ‘wisdom’ of the central committee and the various delegated subcommittees and their expert apparatchiks. Nice theory if you say it quickly but it misses the fundamental point that highly complex systems with all manner of implicit relationships simply cannot be managed with explicit instructions backed by didactic enthusiasm.
Eric’s closing paragraph sums it up well. The reason being that the individual nations ( or individual persons) have the flexibility and incentive to innovate, to test, to assess and have another go…. and another one.
yes, you have restated what system analysis shows in more sociological terms.
I believe the old adage goes something like this – “If you can’t convince them your point of view is correct, use force.”
Which works only if you control the army or have the majority 🙂
As Mao Tse Tung (or Zedong) was fond of saying, “All political power grows from the barrel of a gun.”
Its amazing how often the words ‘for the good of the people ‘ have been followed by actions a long way from ‘good’ and which result in lots of dead ‘the people’
‘for the good of the people’ is just another fig leaf for a ‘reference to authority’. Ultimately it is all about using some difficult to contradict, ‘over the horizon’ reference point so it cannot be questioned on an evidentiary basis and from which one is free to extrapolate and postulate. In ancient cultures dating from the stone age, society’s ‘shamans’ have used such rhetorical devices to grasp social influence and leverage it into power and status.
Whereas patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel this sort of crap is the first port of call.
If you concentrate on what is good for the individual, what is best for the group will naturally follow.
The expression “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” is actually from an essay in *support* of patriotism by Samuel Johnson.
His basic complaint was that scoundrels pretend to be patriots, but are not. Real patriots should be sought out and elected, but scoundrels should be dumped.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
What crisis? We have here in Aus more rubbish. 15 world hottest sites, in Australia. (Forgetting it is summer here and, well, winter up north).
10 out of 15 sites, at airports.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/the-world-s-15-hottest-sites-were-all-in-australia-amid-significant-heatwave-20190116-p50rmr.html
I thought that was weather.
Weather at airports, YAY! You missed the /sarc off tag right?
and airports measurements are used not because valid for the task but because they are there and ‘better than nothing ‘ like magic tree rings
I thought quoting from the Sydney Morning Herald WAS a sarc tag? 😀
Lets just accept for arguments sake that atmospheric CO2 due to evil human activity has increased by say 50% since the pre-industrial age. By what % has the amount of concrete and bitumen increased in the same time? 500% ? 5000% ? 50,000% ?
It is far, far, far more likely that what we are seeing in the so called temperature record is heat island effect that atmospheric ‘feedback.
What we are also seeing in the 21st Century is MSM hysteria over the purported doom, doom, doom, we’ll all be rooned scenario used to sex up every news and current affairs bulletin and provide a theme to every wannabe internet influencer trailing their coats for the next conference invite.
“Planetary Sovereignty”
As if coming up with ways of getting their own government to donate taxpayers cash to fund their personal supremo lifestyles wasn’t enough. Now they want to drain the global pool of taxpayer funds. This is so typical of the left to find ways to allow them to live like kings off the hard earnings of the workers.
Wainwright also needs to change his name to Wainleft.
I have to admit, I find it hilarious that they hold up the election of Trump and other National leaders who are actually Nationalists instead of Globalists as a sign of their impending One World Communist Government soon becoming a reality.
Reminds me of the holdout Soviets Communists who though everything would be fine as soon as all the Eastern Bloc countries they’d just lost control of tried Capitalism and Freedom and realized how Good they had it as Satellite States.
~¿~
Reminds me of Baghdad Bob insisting US tanks were not in Bahgdad all the while those US tanks that “were not there” were fully visible in the background of his video proclamation.
I think a lot of us watched the news just to see Baghdad Bob with his pep talks. He was a classic character.
It wasnt war that drove the development of the wind mill, the fulling mill, the steam engine. It was individual creativity, with a reward system. It encourages risk, rewards success. Despotic centralised systems dont allow individualism, and dont reward creativity.
So cars, fridges, TVs, radios from communist countries were junk compared to their western counterparts.
It is natural selection in a free market. Goods become better and better, they have to, to survive.
True.
But in the rise of Europe we had a lot of small (struggling for correct word here… States? Principalities? Duchy’s?) run by the ‘Warrior Princes’ in an age where it was less ‘Keeping up with the Jones’ as ‘Punching Jones in the face and parking in his driveway’.
So you had a lot of cashed up people willing to sponsor new idea, develop new ideas and deploy those new ideas. Effectively it was an environment actively promoting development in order to one up the neighbours. It was not as much ‘I want better stuff’ as ‘I NEED better stuff’ and was, unlike a consumer based system, driven more from the top (which was also where all the money was).
Your point about central control completely screwing over progress is completely valid. When you run everything you don’t want people inventing new weapons (in case they arm themselves against you) and you don’t really want them inventing new methods of making wealth (in case they upset the balance). Change comes from the need to compete and the need to survive.
Products exist because people have a need for them and they fill that need. If they cannot fill a need (cough – wind power – cough) then either they don’t exist or they must be forced onto the unwilling.
Usual socialist clap trap.
Trump is a “crisis”?
The US economy is doing well, I believe unemployment is falling (?) and strangely enough, Trump has declared war on no one, he’s not escalated any existing conflicts, indeed he want’s to pull out of Syria I believe.
I guess the socialist model of success is to bomb the eff out of everyone in sight, crash the economy and ensure legal American citizens are thrown into unemployment by displaced illegal immigrants. Although of course, judging by socialists values, there is no such thing as an illegal immigrant indeed, Americans should all be flooding to Mexico, the British to the Balkan states and the Germans to the Middle East because of course, open door policies are reciprocal. We are all welcome to overrun these countries and leave our horrendous lives for the tranquillity of dictatorships and war zones.
As much sympathy as I have for people less fortunate than myself, I’m damn sure I’m not sacrificing the future of my family for that of others. Whilst America came to the aid of the UK, it’s Commonwealth, and civilised European countries on two occasions in the recent past, I didn’t see too many other countries rushing to provide men and equipment to fight Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo.
And it’s happening again. Whilst our idiotic politicians are wrestling with Brexit, Trump has already said he’s prepared to help the UK, if they break free of the EU, with a monumental trade deal. But it just won’t happen if we’re still shackled to Europe.
These two idiots exemplify creeping, destructive socialism. My suggestion is we agree to their terms of a single global government as long as Donald J. Trump is running the show. But then peace might break out and they wouldn’t want that.
Watch them back pedal furiously!
Trump would never be acceptable. He believes in “merit-based” systems, which have no place in global governance.
“I guess the socialist model of success is to bomb the eff out of everyone in sight”
No, the socialists are pacifists when it comes to international war. The only people socialists get tough with are their domestic political opponents. The Russians and the Chinese have nothing to fear from Western socialists. Western socialists won’t be sending out conquering armies anytime soon. The Western socialists fear the other authoritarians of the world. And the other authoritarians of the world know it.
Didn’t the USSR and China have that violent falling out in the 60s that no one really talks about?
“Western socialists won’t be sending out conquering armies anytime soon.”
Hitler managed it.
I’m talking about modern-day socialists. The ones that, in the case of Europe, grew up after the atrocities of the Nazis and are now naturally pacifist as a result of living through the horrors of war. That’s why European politicians freak out over every action of the political right. The European pacifists see Hitler rising all around them.
And Americans built up their pacifist forces to a peak during the Vietnam war.
Today’s Western socialists are pacifists. They have no taste for international war. That does not mean they are not violent, they are just violent where they think it will do them the most good, on the domestic front against their political opposition. They are ruthless in these circumstances.
File this under, “People will never support my agenda if they have the freedom to choose, so the right to choose must be taken away from them.”
Here is how modern politics works:
The far-left is winning, especially in the developing world, where over 100 countries are pseudo-Marxist dictatorships, based on their leftist phony rhetoric, but are actually just military dictatorships, run for the ruling elite and their armed thugs – see Zimbabwe and Venezuela… and North Korea, Cuba, the Soviet Union countries and many more..
The left gains political power by promising imbeciles lots of free stuff. Then they destroy the economy, create widespread poverty and live like kings atop a ruined state – because you can’t be kings without lots of peasants.
It is really no different in the developed world. Get elected by lazy greedy imbeciles, destroy the economy with fake green energy and other crazy policies, and live like kings on top of a ruined economy, looking down on all the peasants. Venezuela and Zimbabwe used to be wealthy countries – look at them now.
The globalists want us to open our doors to these dictatorship sh!tholes, and allow their refugees to flood into our countries, bringing with them all the failed values that caused their countries to be ruined. What could possibly go wrong?
The sad and culturally unspeakable fact is that the African countries have never had better conditions and faster improvement in the standards of living than when they were being administered as colonies. There were some bad examples (King Leopold and the Congo, frex) but overall, those were the exception, not the rule.
In South America, one is tempted to say that the last government that tried to provide a stable and sustainable life for its people was the one run by the Inca’s 500 years ago. (ok that’s an exaggeration but not much of one)
wws
I had a job offer in 1971 in Northern Rhodesia – lucky I did not take it. Almost every country in sub-Saharan Africa has declined since the end of colonialism, and some like Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia, have been destroyed. South Africa is on the road to ruin, and professionals are leaving in droves for Commonwealth countries because they no longer feel safe. The standard of living of everyone (except for the ruling elite) has declined – that includes whites AND blacks. Before anyone squawks “racist”, check the facts.
Arguments about “human rights” quickly disappear when families are not safe from violent crime.
In South America, Chile is by far the most prosperous and safest country, with real Rule of Law and human rights. This fact is largely unknown in the developed world, because Chile has been vilified by the leftist press ever since Pinochet overthrew Allende – and saved his country.
wws
I also did business in Argentina and Chile in the 1990’s.
THE LOMA BLANCA BORATE MINE –A NEW MINING PROJECT IN THE HIGH ANDES – JUJUY ARGENTINA
Circa 1992, I co-funded the drilling of the Loma Blanca borate deposit 50:50 with International Nickel Company (INCO). It had been mined previously for a few years, and was later rejected by Rio Tinto Corporation as too small for that mining giant. We delineated the deposit and concluded that it was economically mineable, with a value of about 2 billion dollars. Then our new company President shut down the Minerals Division, and we sold the project and it was successfully developed by others.
The high Andes, including the high plain called the Altiplano (called the Puna by locals), is rich in many rare minerals. The Loma Blanca mine is located in this high desert, one of the strangest and most interesting places I have ever been. Salt lakes of every bright colour dot the landscape, herds of wild vicuña never let you get close, and large ostrich-like rheas run alongside the road. Native Amerinds live in adobe villages, much the same way they lived a thousand years ago. They grow tiny potatoes and raise llamas. They were very nice, amiable and hardy. I liked them very much and think of them often.
A 1m narrow-gauge railway traversed the Andes near our site, running from Salta Argentina to the coast at Antofagasta Chile in the Atacama Desert – the driest place on Earth. I tried to hop a ride on the train, but had to fly to Antofagasta to check out the port – drive down about 10,000 feet to Salta, and fly to Buenos Aires, Santiago and then to Antofagasta. The old railway system was fascinating and the port was in good shape. Even then, Chile was clearly more advanced and prosperous than other countries in South America.
Allan MacRae, P. Eng.
Lets not be too effusive with praise of Pinochet. He was still a totalitarian dictator (who over threw a legally elected government, even if it was a far-leftist government) and a lot of blood was spilled under his rule (again, mostly leftist blood, but still). Even if, in the end, he ended up bowing to the voting public (after a 17 year dictatorship) and brought democracy back to Chile.
Hi John,
I am aware of Pinochet’s record – about 1/10 the killings of the Generals in Argentina and about 1/100th of the killings in Venezuela. One wonders if any of that violence was necessary. But he probably saved his country from economic disaster.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/07/child-miners-aged-four-living-a-hell-on-earth-so-you-can-drive-an-electric-car-awful-human-cost-in-squalid-congo-cobalt-mine-that-michael-gove-didnt-consider-in-his-clean-energy/comment-page-1/#comment-2575826
[excerpts]
2. In the developing world, you don’t get to choose between good and bad – you get to choose between bad and worse. In Tunisia during the hot war in Libya next door and Arab Spring, I tried to explain this to some influential friends. I said “Just because you throw out a ‘bad’ leader doesn’t mean you will get a better one.” In fact most or all the countries involved in Arab Spring got worse regimes than the ones they threw out.
Just because you toss out a bad system does not mean you will make a better one…
Regards, Allan
wws
The USA, Canada and Australia (amongst others) didn’t do too badly out of Colonisation. Indeed Zimbabwe, whilst not under Colonial rule (but using colonial techniques sans the brutality) did well enough to be described as the bread basket of Africa before the self proclaimed marxist Mugabe took over and kicked the white farmers off their lands.
“On November 14, 2008, the annual inflation rate peaked at 89.7 sextillion percent every day, making Zimbabwe’s 100 trillion dollar notes worthless.” Forbes.
India had it’s problems with Colonialism but did an awful lot worse when Ghandi kicked the British out and ran the place his way. However, today the preferred second language in India is English and it’s parliament and justice system are still largely run along British Colonial lines. It’s also interesting to note that one of the largest volunteer forces of WW2 fighting for the allies was from India. The Hindu and Sikh community are valued and welcome members of the UK as they understand our laws, culture and language and integrate easily and peacefully.
We who support Brexit are branded racist, yet are happy to work closer with, and welcome our civilised Indian friends to our shores instead of having innumerable muslim immigrants who don’t speak English and who operate to alien political, cultural and social standards, many of them in direct opposition to our own, forced on us by the European Union.
The biggest hint that “ climate change” is not what advocates claim is that their solutions converge far more towards socialism than anything else. In their collective hive minds the biggest problem is that government is still too small.
‘in the sense of international coöperation’
‘Like President Trump, Bolsonaro is making environmental decisions that could be calamitous far beyond national borders.’
Trump is rescüing envirönmentalism fröm the Left, which has cörrüpted it för their pölitical desires.
Well, I happen to think that international sovereignty is a good thing. Do we really want space aliens taxing us, and telling us what we Earthlings can and can’t do? The heck with that! We must resist with every bone in our bodies. Earth rules, space aliens drool!
two times in recent human history a dominant power has attempted to enforce “their world order” has not ended well……
…..If you examine it closely, it is easy to conclude that governments of any kind or type should have been nothing more than passing fads that faded away and was cast into the dustbin of history. But then every kind of government that has been consigned to the dustbin has been resurrected by the more simple-minded of some future generation……And here we go again.
There is a limit to the population and geographic size of a country that remains responsive and responsible to their population. The modern twist is instantaneous communication which means that regions of a country no longer govern but report to their central authority.
The bigger the government, the less individual responsibility, and the more committees and boards. This applies to any peopled organisations, not just government. General Motors failure to change and adapt. The Catholic Church horrendous handling of sexual abuse by clergy.
If the man made global warming threat was real, what would these guys actually accomplish? How quickly would the committee “How best to sequester man made carbon emissions” report back, and to who?
The US was supposed to be a union of States, with all the major decisions being made at the local and state level.
“Planetary Sovereignty” = “World Government”.
Big crises require big solutions. AGW is a big crisis.
Imposing a “Gaia-Centric” political philosophy is necessary to prevent global catastrophe.
The existing system of Capitalist Nation-States is the product of “Individualism” run amok.
There is a planetary emergency, yet somehow the populists are managing to sell their disinformation campaign, having taken a page from the similar campaigns of big tobacco, casting doubt on the sound science that tobacco kills.
It is so obvious, yet all you numbskulls fail to see it.
We must ration fossil fuels! We must also force institutes of higher learning, companies and communities to divest of fossil fuels, as these are destroying Gaia.
Anyone dissenting or casting doubt shall be censored; continued truth-mongering shall be punishable by ever-increasing fines and/or imprisonment.
(If you gave the Greens the unfettered reins of power, this is what they would do).
You think that’s what they would do huh? How soon we forget what they told us they would do.
The only possible use for a world authority is to mediate arguments between states.
Wait a minute, was that not the purpose in organizing the U.N. and the failed League of Nations before it???
To a very large degree, that’s what the role of the federal government here in the US was supposed to be.
Have been revisiting the evolution of gas and oil fracking in the US. What an amazing story and what an example of what can happen when people are free to buck the consensus. The current form of world government has been hijacked by countries and entities determined to transition the world away from hydrocarbons. Their reasoning is catastrophic AGW and we are running out of hydrocarbons making them uneconomical. Both have been presented as a scientific consensus that only fools would dispute.
One leg of that argument has been demolished by a hand full of guys in cowboy hats facing declining reserves. Even people in the oil business told them they were delusional to bet on fracking. Their courage to try any way has me and all of you paying less for gasoline now than I did when the consensus was locked in. A lesson for those who chose to learn it.
In real dollars, the price for gasoline in Colorado at least is as low or lower than it’s ever been. Regular is $1.69/gal at a Phillips 66 station a few miles from my house.
It will be interesting to see how the fracking revolution plays out and whether new technologies can reduce well depletion rates and put to bed other arguments that are the refuge of the peak oilers.
Peak Oilers are now in the same boat as the Phlogiston Theorists.
Enforced Socialism.
Socialist
”They pretend to pay us
So we pretend to work”.
This is a made-up controversy created by taking seriously the clueless musings of two academics. Mann and Wainwright’s thesis that there are emerging signs of a sovereign world state is not supported by an inkling of evidence. The Paris agreements setting up goals of emission reductions was a very weak attempt to do this, but is doomed to failure because there’s no enforcement mechanism. The withdrawal of the U.S. from this regime seals its fate.
Wainwright/Mann should be pressed for any signs that there’s any progress whatsoever in global governance.
Obviously there are many people who agree with them. Look at the EU unelected bureaucrats. But the EU is in decline and threatened with dissolution particularly if Brexit results in a clean break. And look at the UN and their climate change regime. They have conferences that create the aura of benign world governance but I challenge anyone to show any concrete evidence that the aura translates to any traction whatsoever.
To me, the only contribution of the UN’s regime is to highlight the global nature of the so-called climate crisis. And they and others produce gobs of data proving that action by any individual country is utterly futile.
In the U.S., other than a few young turk Congresspeople, there’s not a single sign that the notion of global government has any support at all. Liberal democrats like Eliz Warren have vocal supporters but are so far out of the mainstream that democrats are the ones who suffer.
Mann and Wainwright need to look at history. All attempts to impose a supra national centralised control system eventually fail. The detritus of defunct empires litter history.
The concept of an international incorruptible hotbed of infinite wisdom is for the fairies.
Leftists are always convinced that this time it’s going to work. Because this time, they’ll be the ones in charge.
Bogus political desire based upon false pretenses and utterly without evidence of any need.
Typical elitist progressive who believes that they are the next ruling class.
If only they can scam citizens or governments into giving them their desired tyrannical despot positions.
Based in Paris, Brussels, or Geneva? or split among those three?
Which has been their goal, all along.
The Thermageddonites are fanatic, idiots.
One government plans, are a bad thing, not a good thing.
China is busy working on a one government plan for the world.
Step 1, dominate all industrial production. The richest country makes the rules.
Step 2, threaten small countries with commercial pain if they do not play by the Chinese rules.
On a lighter note, the following is a thoughtful overview of where we are in the CAGW saga.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Global Warming
“The very desire to be a politician should forever disqualify you from ever becoming one !”
Billy Connoly
The most amazing feature of this latest left wing nonsense is, they never seem to run out of incompetent thinkers?
How can the left be still with us after all these years of abject failure?
Wasn’t the USSR after 70 years trying and failing to get collectivism to work sufficient proof for the left?
Do we have to go through it all again with the EU. The EU which has all the same elements as the soviets had and now, the EU is seeking military powers to back up its totalitarian ambitions.
It even has five presidents! You Americans are way too cheap only having one. Think of all those Air-force One planes you could justify, with five presidents! I am told the reason there are five, is in case they have to hold one of them up, hic….that might just be hearsay though.
The UN is trying hard to become the big brother organisation of the world we must do all we can to make sure it never happens.
Keep up the good work, realists. Our children and grandchildren will one day thank us, for being here during their period of social blindness.
“How can the left be still with us after all these years of abject failure?”
The Leftwing Media has a near-monopoly on the “truth” which gives them the ability to turn the failures of the Left into successes, through one process or another (lying/ignoring).
A lot of people get their news from Leftwing Media headlines. A lot of people are misled by Leftwing Media headlines. A lot of people are living in scary false realities as a result.
The societal institutions we rely on to give us the truth we need to govern ourselves properly are no longer reliable. They have turned into partisan, political propagandists focused on gaining political power for the Left. We are in a battle for the truth and for our personal freedoms now.
All of that plus; they never learn from history. I sincerely believe non of them even think to look at history, let alone learn from it. Everything is Unprecedented! ya know.
Problem with Media is that it naturally attracts Lefts.
The Left, as we should remember, believes basically that ‘Everything would be better if only *I* was in charge’.
They believe that they know what is best for you. What is media? A business that tells the public what they need to know. And who best to fill this role? Someone who already knows what is best for the public.
What media SHOULD be is ‘here are the arguments’.
What media usually becomes is ‘here is the summary. PS – I know what is best for you.’
Now we see their real political agenda.
Climate change is just a vehicle.
That’s why they were so mad at the Trump election – they were basically at Endgame.
They might be anyway.
It’s not just now that we see it. Several times various alarmist have let slip what their real agenda.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for the, at least, 150 years, since the industrial revolution,” — Christiana Figueres of the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change
“But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy” –Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III, and a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007
Which is why I find it so frustrating arguing with people that deny it. For crying out loud, I’m not the one who’s saying it – THEY are. I can quote Obama verbatim, and it just doesn’t seem to matter.
And I”M a ‘denier’.
“World Sovereignty.” ? Does that the other planets can’t tell us what to do ? Whew, now I feel better……D’OH !
“World Sovereignty.”…? Does that mean that the other planets can’t tell us Earthlings what do ? Great, I was getting tired of being pushed around by those Venusian bullies… D’OH !
And those Marians always so belligerent. Not to mention always wanting to destroy Earth because it blocks their view of Venus. Good thing they never did get that “uranium PU-36* explosive space modulator” working properly.
* later renamed to “Illudium Q-36” or alternatively “Eludium Q-36”
Marian the librarian was easy to get along with.
It is highly sensible to make global decisions on some things. Here is a list of a few:
1. Nuclear weapons – unlike most Americans, I do not trust the USA unconditionally to be responsible where nuclear weapons are concerned. They need reining in by the rest of the world. Just as other single nations need to be.
2. Solar incoming energy. The whole world depends on it, so no nutcases from any nation can be allowed to use weaponry to affect that unilaterally.
3. Environmental dumping at sea. The whole body of oceans is a single entity, so dumping toxic chemicals at sea will soread to the whole biological world in time. Global agreement is required to outlaw such vandalism.
4. Particle Physics – the economics of new accelerators is such that global cooperation is reasonable.
5. Climate Engineering – we already know that changes in MJO cycles in the Indian Ocean can affect polar vortices, pointing clearly to global effects of localised/regional modulations in certain climate parameters, like ENSO, PDO etc. Getting humans interfering without global consent is therefore unethical in the extreme.
Rhys.
You are confusing world concerns with totalitarian world authority.
Everyone with any sense shares concerns about global issues. That does not mean we must have a single global authority with all that entails, to be able to do what is right.
The idea some all powerful individual sitting on high at the world parliament forum, let’s call it the UN, with actual power available to wield to bring about change, is too frightening to consider.
The ultimate question would be, how do you get rid of such authority if it goes off the rails?
The world is a far safer place having hundreds of individual nations that compete with each other, in an environment of mutual respect and consideration.
Totalitarianism has proven itself to be a dangerous failure. We must not allow any traction down that road to be achieved. The UN must never be allowed to grow its own sense of authority. It is the servant of nations not the controller of nations.
“It [UN] is the servant of nations not the controller of nations.”
Yes, and let’s keep it that way!
I think that was a Steven Spielberg movie remake with very tall machines.
This would play out about like Apple and Google operating in China, complete with double standards and kowtowing. At least we would see who the powerless people are in reality and digitally.
“There’s some discussion about what to do about climate migration, at least.”
This appears to be the regurgitation of the idea of investment opportunities in condos in Antarctica.
If these men tried to bring their book into China with almost 1.4 billion people under an oppressive 1 party state, they likely would be shot after a short trial.
they likely would be shot after a short show trial.
fixed that for you.
Funny, we’ve had trade agreements for centuries without the needed to go planetary.
The few aberrations (1917 Russia, 1930’s Japan, Germany) have always ended badly for millions.
Indeed. You don’t need a “one world government” to accomplish a global task. The nations of the world are capable of working it out amongst themselves when they want. The only difference is a “one world government” can accomplish it sooner (at the point of a gun) but that’s not necessarily a good thing. Oft times, being able to stand back and have time to really think about it will prevent bad decisions from being implemented
For example, we’re constantly being told the world is warming up, the ice is melting and that will lead to rising sea levels. But in the 70s there was an idea being bandied about to dump soot over the polar caps in order to melt them and save the world from the coming ice age. Just imagine how much “worse” so-called global warming/melting ice capes/sea level rise would be if a one world government immediately followed through on that idea in the 1970s rather than cooler head (no pun intended) putting on the breaks by not immediately jumping on the bandwagon and implementing such a scheme.
Tbjz is proof positive of reincarnation! Maurice Strong take a bow, you’re back!
These people imagine that the gov will be on the side of virtue. Starting in the 1930s it was the gov in US that instituted Jim Crow laws (segregated schools, redlining, etc). Gov was not the good guys. It was gov that did forced sterilization of tens of thousands of “defectives” in the US. Dictatorships in E Germany, Russia, China do not produce a clean environment. It was the US gov that turned away Jews facing genocide.
Dictatorships adequate to accomplish their climate change agenda also do not suffer protestors–they kill them.
So it was called “Global Warming”, “Climate Change”, “Climate Disruption” and now is called “Climate Crisis”. The alarmists are running out of names for their scaremongering propaganda.
“It’s going to be the first major change that humans have lived through in a while, since the emergence of what we sometimes think of as the modern period of sovereignty, as theorized by Thomas Hobbes …”.
=========================================================
Hobbes argued for autocracy and Mill for individual sovereignty.
Paraphrasing Robert Conquest about Marxists ‘there are temperaments that will always seek absolutes, cure-all formulae for reconstructing society … and inclined to fads in other fields, no argument could persuade them otherwise’.
They’ve now latch onto Climate Change™, totalitarianism or individual sovereignty, it’s a matter of temperament.
There is no climate crisis. Climate change has been going on for eons and it will continue to take place whether mankind is here or not. It is happening so slowly that it takes networks of sophisticated sensors decades to detect it. We must not mix up weather cycles which are part of the current global climate with true climate change. Based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models we can conclude that the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. So there is really no climate problem that mankind can possible solve.
As long as I am who is in charge okey dokey. No leftist c**t should be anywhere near ANY gears&levers that affect anything more than a pile ofr dried up dog crap. Ever. Period. Full stop. Just look at Venezuela, Zimbabwe, New York(state and city) and California if you need any convincing.
“Some of that change right now is super-reactionary”
Can we all chip in and buy this guy mirror?
“Planetary Sovereignty” is just another way to say what rich families and foundations such as Rockefeller have been pushing for decades: “Interdepdence” between nations.
My guess is that after WWII, the Rockefellers and other rich ‘important’ people realized that their wealth and lavish lifestyles could go away in a flash, especially now with nukes. They see interdependence and ending nationalism as ways to make the world less volatile and hence, preserve their wealth and lavish lifestyles.
“We Need ‘Planetary Sovereignty’ to Address the Climate Crisis”
Uh-huh. Speaking as an American, what you REALLY need to FOAD.
How do they plan to get China to yield up its sovereignty? Hmmm.
The Chinese elite will tell them to go pound sand (if they’re that polite) and the Chinese people will enthusiastically support them.
Look up the term “baizou”.
with all the war n dissent globally at this time
and growing
i seriously doubt their idiot plans will happen
if people cant agree when times are good, theyll sure not agree when it gets bad.
In a similar vein of people who have decided what is best for us and now wish to force it upon us, the BBC published another bunch of the usuals who have just decided the diet we must eat in order to save the planet and put Malthus back in his box, again.
While I don’t strongly object to the diet, per se, I would still prefer to have the choice. But, as usual, they have other ideas, preferring the stick over the carrot:
When Communism spoke for ‘the people’, somehow what they said and did was always the opposite of what actual people wanted and would benefit from. It’s nice to see consistency now that Communists are speaking for the planet.
“… we could look at the current period with the crisis of liberal democracies all around the planet …”
I think this is somewhat mis-worded and I take it upon myself to fix it:
“… we could look at the current period with the crisis of liberal political parties all around the planet …”
It’s interesting that they should use the term “Climate Leviathan” – Reminds me of the Hobbes quote “and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
That seems to be what the Socialists want?