Guest essay by Eric Worrall
In the wake of serial failures like the collapse of AG climate litigation initiative, climate activists are desperately searching for other means to force the rest of us to accept their policy ideas.
Greta Thunberg is right – only a general strike will force action on climate change
McEver Dugan and Evan Cholerton
Thu 25 Apr 2019 00.16 AESTEvery day at work we all contribute to a system that is burning us alive. Downing tools on 27 September will help change it
Climate change is hurling humanity towards disaster. There is no more room to question the science, when nearly every climate scientist is in agreement that the implications of a global rise in average temperature will spell drastic changes for human civilisation. In the face of such a rapidly encroaching threat, political niceties and traditional incrementalism and compromise cannot come close to the level of change and upheaval required to solve, or even mitigate, the problem of global climate change.
…The current ineptitude and impotency of the ruling class is unacceptable when the consequences of inaction are so far-reaching. More than ever, it is time for workers – those who will be hardest hit by soaring food and healthcare costs, and by property destruction caused by natural disasters and the rising sea – to exert their power and force the hand of major players (governments and corporations) to avert what is almost certain to be the next global mass extinction.
…
Through all of this, as Greta Thunberg has said, one thing must be made clear. There is no greater way to capture the attention of the public, and the powers that be, than a general labour strike. An old and effective strategy, it is the holy grail of activism. And in such dire times, there is no question that a general strike is sorely needed once more. Earth Strike is seeking to revive the general strike in service of a global, apocalyptic problem – one that encompasses the lives of every creature on the face of this planet.
The reason Earth Strike exists is that shutting off the global labour supply will force governments and industry giants to listen. There’s no way to avoid the conversation when profits are in danger of eroding, and production has stalled to a halt. Every day we go into work and spend our time and labour building a system that is burning us alive. The top polluters in the world are directly dependent on this effort. It is time to withhold it.…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/24/greta-thunberg-general-strike-action-climate-change
What do you think? Are you worried about the impact of the upcoming climate change general strike?
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I have a prediction for juvenile climate worriers like Greta. (Just a thought – could she be a 10 year older version of Kevin Rudd’s “Gracie” at the Copenhagen CoP?)
Anyway, here’s what going to happen –
in about 2 decades or less, all the currently installed wind and solar installations will be due for wholesale replacement.
But next time, there will be no “no questions asked” public subsidies for the replacement costs of these installations.
And they will still be under-performing big-time.
Retail power costs for the vast majority of voters will be at an 11-level of painful.
So about now, peeps will start to conclude – “hang on, there’s nothing happening out of the ordinary with weather in my neck of the woods. We’ve been had. Stick your climate catastrophes where the sun don’t shine. Let’s get on with the standards of life we have developed”
”in about 2 decades or less”
Climate change freak out will be severely waning in 5 years and in 2 decades, a distant memory.
That’s unless it doesn’t get too cold of course…
I have a simple prediction for juvenile climate worriers like Greta – she will grow up and realised she was being used. And then she and many others will be the biggest thorn in the backside of the remaining few climate crazies.
“The Guardian Demands a General Strike to Force Climate Action”
—
The Guardian Demands a General Strike to Force WEATHER Action
FIFY
Why don’t they simply strike by refusing to use fossil fuels for heating, cooking, electricity, travel etc? And not just for day, try a week.
Shell has clearly decided to go along (with CAGW hysteria) to get along, at least for public consumption.
Shell aims to lead Big Oil in pivot to clean energy
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/22/opinion/shell-aims-lead-big-oil-pivot-clean-energy
I’d sell my Shell stock, if I owned any.
Now this is something new and innovative. A strike by people that provide no services or anything useful to society! Does this mean that they will no longer scream their (insert psychosis here) meaningless drivel at us anymore? Oh, probably not.
The activists are not striking themselves. They are trying to claim solidarity with the workers, and asking the workers to strike. Of course, these activists have nothing in common with workers, having avoided the concept for most of their lives. Hopefully, productive people will realize that the activists do not have their best interests at heart and ignore them.
And here I thought the “Guardian” was supposed to be a NEWSpaper…..but all along it has been nothing but a propaganda organ! Color me surprised! Not.
Oh….and as for Shell, we also hear great things from China about how they are going to “clean energy”….meanwhile building coal fired power plants at a furious rate.
Maybe this is just a ploy to basically consolidate all alternatives to gas under one roof and then shut them all down. That would be a brilliant maneuver. Sort like buying a competitor to put him out of business. I
Socialists, gonna socialist. They have no eyes to see, no ears to hear, but their mouths shout nonstop agitprop.
As an investor I’m watching long dated bonds to see if the market is pricing in the catastrophe. Not a tremor so far. How can that be?
There was a time when climate as a subject was exciting, because there was the chance that despite the lack of any trends in severe weather and temperature, we might just be in the “lull before the storm”. Despite the fact I could see not a single piece of scientific justification behind the alarmism – perhaps I was missing something.
That was a decade ago – when yes I was prepared to debate the subject. However, a decade on, and any reasonable dispassionate person looking critically at the subject can only draw one conclusion: it’s a total sham. I am prepared to debate people who want to discuss the science, but they’re all silent now, leaving the only people still with any interest in climate being the religious nutters.
And my view is this: if people want to believe in a cliamte religion, then it makes as much sense as any other religion so why stop them. But they should do it with their own money and not bother the rest of us.
I’m totally for a strike in the Guardian. The longer the better.
Just a thought, will the Guardian still be around by Sept ? Their financial state is very precarious. If it were not for the imaginative ways money is funnelled through to them from …. and if it was not for the support from its sister organisation the BBC, it would have died and curled up its toes years ago. Global warming is killing off the Guardian, 97% of scientists agree.
+1
Promise?
I’m getting tired of the information and media pollution by this gross offender.
Do you really mean the world economy should change direction on the dictates of a 16 year old?
“The current ineptitude and impotency of the ruling class is unacceptable”
I find it tiring to read this fake claim of a ruling class, over and over….
Now, I kind of understand that the aim of the zombie alarmists is to try and convince people that we need to rid ourselves of democracy and instead embrace a green totalitarian state. Which not so ironically does indeed have a ruling class. It is therefore understood by most skeptics that alarmists would very much enjoy to set up a totalitarian state, so as to become part of a ruling class and live a life of luxury off the wealth of the hard working conservative persons that have accumulated more wealth than the average alarmist protester’s collection bucket on the sidewalk.
Notice to all climate zombie alarmists – WE LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY. THERE IS NO RULING CLASS IN A DEMOCRACY. WE VOTED TRUMP BECUASE WE CAN !!!
Quite clear what is the greatest thread to the democratic system: not the climste or any change by whatever but the green movement. GP, WWF, FotE are enemies of the state, a clear and present danger.
Indeed!
They should earn “terrorist organization” designations by our government, the sooner the better!
‘They should earn “terrorist organization” designations by our government” I don’t know as Popeo wants to formally recognize the competition.
Great idea!
The fossil fuel industry should lead in this and could be very helpful.
It should stop the supply of all fossil fuel products for, say, a week. Oh, and all petrochemicals etc.
Lets see how that goes down.
Based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change that we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. There is nothing that mankind can possible do to keep the climate from changing. If all of mankind committed suicide, global climate would continue to change unabated. There is nothing that we can do to fight climate change. We just do not have the power.
“Every day at work we all contribute to a system that is burning us alive.”
LOL !
The attempt to rejuvenate the tired old cliches of the left by the left in the name of climate activism has nothing to do with genuine old school Marxism. Marx was not an anti-capitalist. He wrote reams of stuff on how liberating Capitalism was for the development of the Human potential. He was a futurist, a believer in the idea that capitalism pointed to a future beyond itself. The current anti-capitalist/environmentalist movement is not based on any post-capitalist vision of the future. It wants to wind the click back to pre-capitalist society. It want undevelopment. Marx’s ideas were an extension of the idea of a Brotherhood of Man. The current left are representatives of the Otherhood of Man. The belief that it is Humanity itself that is the enemy. It is an extension of the Nazi denigration of minorities – Jews in particular – to humanity as a whole. Even the language is the same. We are lice, vermin, an infestation of the planet.
The idea that Greta or the climate activists represent anything positive is not challenged enough. This is a deeply dangerous, irrational, anti-humanist and anti-democratic movement. There is a widespread though passive acceptance of at least some of the ideas among the majority of people due to the relentless bombardment of propaganda. This has established a spectrum of acceptance extending all the way to the extremists of the extinction rebellion, and the collaboration of the vacant political class. We are witnessing a global power-grab by the denizens of Davos according to the principles laid out in agenda 21, and the Club of Rome.
might be interesting watching the runup to the proposed strike date..if anyone remembers,
any continuing pushing and by whom will be worth noting also
hope for usa sake Trump stays in.
in Aus it would appear we have a looming 30% going to vote inedpendant/small parties which will be interesting also. and i doubt the greens are happy as theyre not included in that breakaway voter prefs. neither major is promoting them as partners but Labor is likeliest to accept green prefs.
From the article: “The current ineptitude and impotency of the ruling class is unacceptable when the consequences of inaction are so far-reaching. More than ever, it is time for workers – those who will be hardest hit by soaring food and healthcare costs, and by property destruction caused by natural disasters and the rising sea”
These authors are seeing the movie 2012 in their minds with whole cities sliding off the coasts and into the sea. They are about as out of touch with reality as one can possibly be.
Before you go rioting and shutting down governments and causing all sorts of problems, shouldn’t you confirm that there is actually a problem to get that exercised about? These authors, and those who think like them are operating on *hearsay*. They don’t know there is a catastropy coming, they just heard there was and they have chosen to believe it and get all worked up over it without ever confirming any of the climate science that so worries them is true.
The authors ought to go ask the “consensus” to tell them just how much additional heat is added to the Earth’s atmosphere for each increase in CO2. Will they be surprised to find that the “consensus” can’t give them a definitive figure? They should be, because that’s what all their angst is based on, an uncertain number, with uncertain consequences. So you want to tear up everyone’s lives over such an uncertainty? Yes, you do.
The Climategate Charlatans have a lot to answer for, including detrimentally affecting the mental health of tens of millions of people, these authors being a good example of the detrimental effects. They have driven a lot of people nuts, and cost us unbelievable sums of wasted money with their Climategate Lies.
I hear there is a late spring snow storm coming to the U.S. upper midwest.
“There is no greater way to capture the attention of the public, and the powers that be, than a general labour strike.” ?
I guess they don’t realize that 97% of their supporters don’t work for a living….D’OH !
Really! Burning us alive? These people need a strong dose of sedative and a place with soft, padded walls, and leave the rest of us alone to enjoy life and make life better for the rest of us on this beautiful planet.
Should be a law against falsely shouting fire on a crowded planet.
Bingo. The comparison to stimulating stampede in a theatre is brilliant. I call it “The air is on fire and we is gonna fry!”, complete with added excitation marks.
Ooooh nooo! What would we do with a day without internet journalists, social workers, and teachers.