Guest essay by Eric Worrall
PHD student Christian Elliott is worried that democracy, the tendency for Conservatives to sometimes win elections, is impeding vital progress on climate change; though he hopes that reframing the issue and tackling negative stereotypes may bring Conservatives on board.
Both conservatives and liberals can agree on action on climate change
October 16, 2019 9.18am AEDT
Christian Elliott PhD Student and Researcher, Department of Political Science, University of TorontoWe tend to assume that democracies, over the long arc of history, work towards progress and justice. But with an issue like climate change, we’re running out of time.
It may come as a surprise, but at the moment, democracy may be an obstacle to the rapid action we need on climate change.
Democratic governments naturally swing back and forth between conservative and liberal control. But environmental issues are increasingly associated with liberal values exclusively in countries like Canada and the United States.
The transition from a liberal government to a conservative one often leads to a relapse of environmental policies, including program cuts, delays and even outright rejections or silencing of the science underlying climate change.
…
If political psychology is any indication, there’s clearly an opportunity to bring conscientiously minded conservatives into the environmental movement.
…
We have real world examples of this approach at play. Though by name the “Green New Deal” is associated with large-scale American public investment and thus “big government,” it’s also sensitive to the plight of citizens that might otherwise embody a conservative anti-environment sentiment.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/both-conservatives-and-liberals-can-agree-on-action-on-climate-change-124878
Christian goes on to argue coal miners and oil rig workers will ultimately embrace the green new deal, because the GND will provide renewable jobs to replace lost fossil fuel jobs.
No doubt Christian will soon find a home for his political science skills in a policy think tank or ministerial advisory panel, where he will work hard to reduce the scope for Democracy and partisanship to interrupt efforts to save the world from climate change.
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We can’t let the ordinary people rule themselves – that is democracy and ‘correct’ decisions will never always be made. We MUST have a King or Emperor. There is no other choice.
Right….!
(sarc for those who don’t understand)
The other alternative he seems to promoting is only people who agree with him get a vote. It’s a variation of the over educated stupids idea that people should have to pass some IQ test that they set to vote.
Lets face it this stupid pratt will be one of the first against the wall when he starts his little revolution.
LbB wrote: “The other alternative he seems to promoting is only people who agree with him get a vote. ”
LdB, I believe they call that facism. The very thing they accuse of others….
He surely deserves a PhD. In “political science”.
How dare you, University of Toronto?
‘LdB, I believe they call that facism. The very thing they accuse of others….’
Which is their by-rote method of deflection. It’s getting so they only have one play.
Classic subversion tactic. Accuse the others of what you are doing and then condemn it. Keep repeating the message.
See also Yuri Bezemov
There was a cartoon about an election. The monitor told an incoming voter that he first had to write out how he understood the issues. The voter asked if the CANDIDATES had passed the same test!
We have Liberals and Conservatives because it provides an evolutionary advantage. Sometimes Liberals are good for society and sometimes they are poison. Same for conservatives.
The problem is that Liberals can’t imagine that Conservatives could possibly be right.
When have liberals ever been right?
PS: The vast majority of things that liberals claim as their successes, were being provided by capitalists already.
Shorter work week? Provided by worker productivity gains as a result of capitalism.
Welfare? Already being provided by increased wealth which was the result of capitalism. The difference is that voluntary welfare actually helps people escape poverty, while government welfare traps people in poverty.
Well I’ve come to realize that I would be viewed as very liberal – if I lived in the Victorian era, that is. Although I am kind of on the fence about that Votes for Women thing.
It’s just standard r-selection vs k-selection. R-selected liberals thrive in times of ease, while k-selected conservatives thrive in times of hardship.
Except the k-selected conservatives would also thrive in times of ease, if they didn’t have liberals stealing all their stuff.
Love the evolutionary reproductive strategy nomenclature!
The function of liberals is to make mistakes.
The function of conservatives is to prevent mistakes being corrected.
Sorry james you had a typo- the function of conservatives is to fix the mistakes. That’s what I have built my career on: fixing all the stupid mistakes made by dumbass liberals.
Some people actually believe that the only thing conservatives do is preserve the past.
I have a liberal professor friend who, as you would expect, supports most of the liberal causes. I constantly remind him that liberalism only survives in periods of peace and prosperity. When the S_-_ really hits the fan (e.g. war or depression) everyone becomes a conservative. Its part of the human survival process. I notice he never really disagrees with me.
“Democratic governments naturally swing back and forth between conservative and liberal control.”
I think he means the tendency to vote the party in power out on the theory that the other one couldn’t possibly be any worse. Which means that the labels on the parties don’t matter. The ‘liberal’ party is now the ‘socialist’ party. Who knows what the other party is. And if there are more than two major parties, then what?
The other maxim is that governments don’t win elections, they lose them.
The “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”,
Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood is now the domain of the conservatives.
The left claims to be Liberal, but they have switched to Fascism, Equity, Diversity.
Not sure how fascism and diversity coexist in that mélange. My guess is they coexist about as well as their other political concepts perform….not at all.
Justin Trudeau has also stated that he admires the Chinese “basic dictatorship”.
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/justin-trudeau-seemingly-admires-chinas-basic-dictatorship-at-toronto-fundraiser
Justin said: “There is a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say we need to go green, we need to start, you know, investing in solar.” Like, y’know, I mean, totally!
That is the Marxist-child who is the current Prime Minister of Canada. He and his father Pierre (aka “le petit PET”) were also great admirers of Fidel Castro. Those who voted to elect Trudeau should stay home on voting day – they are clearly too stupid and/or corrupted to vote.
This Trudeau imbecile and his Marxist minions have done enormous, possibly irreparable harm to Canada. It is entirely possible that this was their deliberate intent, like Chavez in Venezuela or Mugabe in Zimbabwe – destroy the economy and live like kings atop a ruined nation.
It’s incredible how similar in appearance Justin and Fidel are. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence though.
I see where Barack Obama has endorsed Justin Trudeau for the next election on Monday.
That ought to put Justin over the top. Just kidding! it’s probably the “kiss of death”.
Yes, bring on the tyranny.
“We can’t let the ordinary people rule themselves”
If we have to talk politics, let’s get the facts straight. Fear of majority rule was/is the core driver of National Socialism and pseudo-Republicanism. Hard-right candidates don’t win national elections, they lack the majorities needed in most states. So they steal them by suppressing the vote and jury-rigging the electoral college.
Now, can we please get back to the science ?
Speaking of getting your facts straight rich, you didn’t get a single one right.
The number of “far right” in the US is probably less than 1%. Most sane people don’t label anyone who isn’t a socialist as being far right.
What is it with left wing nut-jobs, they actually believe that removing dead people from the voter rolls and asking people to show ID when voting, suppresses the vote.
Please explain to me how the electoral college is being jury rigged.
Most socialists believe tha the only reason they are getting all the free stuff their greedy little hearts want, is because there’s an evil group stopping it.
Global Warming has always been about politics. Even many of the leaders admit that they are ridding this train purely as a means of implementing their political goals.
“Jury-rigging the electoral college,” shows such an ingrained ignorance of history and the US Constitution, that you should consider suing whoever (mis)educated you, Richie.
And you might want to reconsider your bigotry in believing Democrats are incapable of obtaining voter IDs, whereas Republicans aren’t. Granted Democrats are less intelligent, but not even I think they are THAT stupid.
Despite years of trying, the Democrats were only able to find one person who had difficulty getting an voter ID. A 90 year old woman who didn’t have a car and had no relatives living near by.
A number of pro-ID advocates offered to drive her to the office so she could get her ID, but this offer was rejected by the anti-ID advocates as being too burdensome for the woman.
Apparently she was too old and sick to stand in a line to get her ID.
However she wasn’t too old and sick to stand in line in order to vote.
Oh Griff, more nonsense from tha paid trolls,
Unfortunately, National Socialism is a phenomena of the Left, not the Right, and there is not a shred of evidence of “voter suppression” from the American GOP, anywhere.
What must be understood here is that when Richie speaks about “voter suppression,” what he’s really saying is that conservatives in general do not want illegal foreign nationals voting in American elections, and support laws reauiring proper, legal identification to vote.
His claim about the electoral college is unintelligible, but it is, let’s remember, the Left that wants to abolish it entirely and move the nation to direct democracy, essentially ensuing a de facto, one party, Democrat-controlled nation for any foreseeable future.
Love the sarc but which Democracy is Elloit referring to.
Of the 48 countries ranked as Democracies, 20 are Full Democracies and the remaining 28 are Flawed Democracies. Most of the Top 20 are in Northern Europe.
Political Parties vary country to country. Liberal vs conservative in relation to what form of Democracy?
This was the real purpose of all this climate change Armageddon BS in the first place. It’s hard to miss if you pay attention to the collateral beliefs of those who are pushing it.
The noble cause fallacy invoked yet again. It’s been the pattern ever since the famous “we don’t have time” to get the science right. My cause is nobler than thou.
Of course we’ll accept the scientific interpretation of a PoliSci major. He’s a Ph.D., that’s a scientist, right?
He hasn’t “earned” a Ph.D. yet. He’s in a program to do so. In actual science fields, the fraction of Ph.D students who do not succeed in earning their degree can be significant. In PolisSci, it’s probably just a matter of putting in the effort and time.
How dare you ask that.
A political scientist is as much a scientist as is a climate scientist, a sweet scientist, or a Christian Scientist.
Next you’ll be asking whether a koala bear is a bear.
Koalas aren’t bears anyway. They are marsupials. But I’m guessing you already knew that.
That went right over your head.
Bear with him. He’s a little slow.
Keyes, you are out of control, man!
Who are you gonna mock next…Scientologists?
Are you gonna ask us if peanuts are not nuts?
Are tomatoes a fruit or a veggie?
Do we have to know if pineapples are pines or apples, to keep up with you?
Who was the Chinese feller who modified the game of checkers to the Chinese version?
Arabic numerals, fireflies, glow worms, starfish (and do not get me started on jellyfish…they taste terrible with peanut butter!), sea horses, strawberries, Panama hats, Bombay duck, Catgut…will you try to tell us these are mere sobriquets?
Next you will be asking us how many islands are in the 1000 Islands, or where the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought!
Nicholas,
This is hardly the amphitheatre in which to re-litigate the Legume Wars, though I’m sure the peanut gallery would applaud the spectacle as mindlessly as ever.
What I will say is that peas is not only not vegetables, it isn’t even things.
Look it up (if you don’t already know the etymology) and spare a thought for the much younger Brad who was bullied for years, in his adorable lil boater hat and short-pants, for the social crime of owning a slightly better edition of the OED than anyone else, one which honest-to-god did not boast an entry for “gullible.” I didn’t even get that old joke kids used to play at the expense of each other’s credulity, because for me it really was a wild goose chase tracking down a definition. I did find it, you’ll be glad to know, in a note under the transitive verb ‘to gull.’
I would be refrying more than I could chew to attempt at a relitigating of the time period encompassed by Napoleon’s 100 days, let alone the rarely fabled Legume wars.
It was not exactly my fava, right?
I am just glad you did not attempt to take a swing at auditing the softball I lobbed WRT the Scientology. What with the whole religion being invented by an actual science writer, even if it was just to win a bet.
Oh, sure…some could argue that he was a science FICTION writer, and I bet that they would win that argument, but still…
Granted, his fiction could not hold a votive candle to that of Mary Baker Eddy.
But I would stack engrams as the cause of all human suffering, against the idea that sickness was an illusion caused by lack of prayer, any day!
I know some may choose to dress a guy down for saying these things, and I would sure hate to get dressed down in public, at least not without my Joseph Smith-approved magic underwear on…but that is a discussion for a latter day.
Breed’s Hill, actually.
Whoosh!
I still want to know where the corn is in corned beef. I’ve never found any. 😉
How dare you insist poli sci isn’t a real science!
I bet next you’ll be saying sociologists aren’t scientists either!
Again – note the area of expertise – if it may be called that.
“Christian goes on to argue coal miners and oil rig workers will ultimately embrace the green new deal, because the GND will provide renewable jobs to replace lost fossil fuel jobs.”
Is an undertaker a renewable job?
People that think renewables can replace a significant fraction of fossil fuel energy are not very bright.
No …. but a welfare check is. The job posting looks like this:
WANTED …. Green Energy Engineer
JOB RESPONSIBILITIES …. sit on own porch, go fishing, pick up cans, hang out at your favorite hangout, volunteer as a protestor, … or just about anything you want to do.
PAY …. cumulative pay and benefits package is estimated around $30,000, and includes competitive pay determined by the welfare department, a free company phone, healthcare (Medicaid), retirement plan (Social Security), bill pay assistance, free lunches for your children and an earned income tax credit.
APPLY AT GOVERNMENT OFFICE …. equal opportunity employer, prior experience in fossil fuel energy sector preferred
They’ll get jobs carrying turmeric lattes for political “scientists”
Christian forgets to mention that work is optional under the GND. As OAC noted in her GND vision statement, a living wage is provided to those who are unable or unwilling to work.
Now we all know that climate alarmists are all unwilling to work as evidenced by their endless protest time on paid welfare and constant calls for socialism and a living wage. I can only assume that Christian thinks the GND society will consist of idle progressives sitting in their comfortable government provided social housing and enjoying life on the comfortable living wage, while conservatives flock to their new RE jobs and try and keep the electricity flowing by either blowing on idle turbines or shining torches on the solar collectors at night, in order to maintain the progressives energy intensive blog and Netflix lifestyles.
Keep dreamin 😉
I can’t help wondering, will I get double if I can claim both?
Perhaps a more important question is who is paying for Chritian’s PhD, and do they/him expect to get out of it?
When Obama had both houses of congress he failed to get Cap and Trade passed into law. Even Dems. realized it was a losing issue.
David, Cap and Trade is what got me to have a look at OMG! CO2-based CAGW and “The Science” behind it.
“The Science” was created to support CO2-based CAGW with Cap and Trade being the solution. Cap and Trade was designed to pick all but a few pockets and send us down the road to serfdom and perdition.
I wasn’t the only one to perk up my ears when Cap and Trade was proposed. Until that was proposed, to me, CAGW was just so much background noise and “maybe so, maybe not, but it could be a thing.”
I was and am old enough and experienced enough to know that anytime anyone wants your money to “Save The Planet”** it’s time to RUN! Run like the wind!
**As that noted philosopher George Carlin pointed out, the Planet doesn’t need saving. It’s doing just fine.
“If political psychology is any indication, there’s clearly an opportunity to bring conscientiously minded conservatives into the environmental movement.”
Not with a gun pointed at my head. I don’t know how he will address such an issue in his “PhD” thesis.
“…the GND will provide renewable jobs to replace lost fossil fuel jobs.”
The operative word is: will. That is, the future will bring the fruits of the Green New Deal, just you wait, and wait, and wait, and…. There is no end to speculations of future bounties from solar and wind as has been demonstrated, present day renewables are only viable with government subsidies. Your electric car, solar panels, wind turbines as far as the eye can see all become cost prohibitive without adding public money, lots of public money.
As a reality check, and some Californians may make the connection, spending dollars on solar and wind energy by pubic utilities means those dollars are not available to maintain the electrical transmission lines, such that when the winds knocking down trees, bringing down those high voltage lines and causing sparks in dry tinder areas results in wildfires, which when fanned by Santa Anna winds fires spread quickly. There is a growing awareness that spending money now for renewables means no money for later on to do preventative maintenance. The situation is known as: “opportunity lost costs.”
Liberals spending money now means that there is no more money to correct the mistake when the paradigm in vogue today is wrong.
Socialists are people who think that using 15 people instead of 10 to do the same job is an improvement.
Yes, apparently those enthralled with the GND did not focus on simple math in their collegiate studies. (e.g. Lil’ Miss Sandy).
The other night Prof Bernie claimed that by replacing existing fossil fuel generated energy with “renewables” he’d create 20 million additional jobs.
The pop quiz today boys and girls is “Will that proposal substantially reduce your energy bill or raise it?”.
This is a complex question so take your time in thinking it through.
I sincerely hope that this fellow (Elliott?) finds himself in a cold and snowy place that he can’t leave without a shovel… and his shovel left him because he doesn’t believe in snow.
The list of impediments to climate action keeps growing.
Let me get this straight. To save the planet (which is “alive”) from dying (which is like “totally a thing that planets can do”), we’re going to have to live without such luxuries as:
—democracy (source: Christian Elliot, various climatomanic Sinolators before him)
—transparency in science (Lewandowsky https://www.nature.com/news/research-integrity-don-t-let-transparency-damage-science-1.19219)
—the scientific method in science (Oreskes)
…if you call that living. At what point does it cease to be worth it?
If I remember correctly, in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”, the enemy, the “Living Planet”, out to destroy Mankind and “Every-thing-else”kind, was named “Ego”.
I’d prefer that what these Elitist Egos’ want to become reality (us Muggles in their rightful place) in the name of saving Ma’ Gaia, remains a fantasy.
Brad: Its not really a moral or a value judgement issue.
Rather you should ask : At what point are people so at odds with whatever reality actually is that they become incapable of staying alive?
If you haven’t read Joseph Tainter’s ‘Collapse of Complex Societies’, you should.
His general thesis is that as a societies resource base becomes exhausted or inadequate, for a growing population, it reacts by building yet more bureaucracy to exploit and distribute it to the point where managing the society becomes and impossibly heavy burden and a rapid meltdown to a far simpler society (usually with less population) happens.
Western Civilisation, it appears to me, is now too complex and technical for politicians to handle, regardless of democracy. It is also beyond most of the people who have a real stake in it – the middle class – who are now in the anomalous position of enjoying its benefits without having a clue as to how it all works. The epitome of that is Extinction Rebellion, who are as incompetent and ignorant a bunch of doublethinking hypocrites as it is possible to get.
The fact of the matter is that finding an executive who are benign, competent across a vast range of disciplines and have a coherent visions of the future towards which to work is about as likely as magic money trees and Unicorn farts.
The irony of this article is that it is precisely people such as the author himself who need to be prevented from voting, and yet to do that would be to introduce something far worse than Extinction Rebellion.
An executive that cannot be challenged, and therefore need not be either benign or competent.
We are seeing this in the European Union, today.
The West’s response to rising technological dependence has been along the lines of Michel’s ‘Iron law of oligarchy’ – that is the rise of a professional ruling elite – a civil service, or deep state, that stands behind an increasingly irrelevant puppet government which is democratically elected, but does nothing at all other than distract with faux debates about irrelevant issues.
The problem is, that this antidemocratic model has been around since WWII and is the sort of thing the author wants to see. It is already here. And it is failing us. Democracy has been a façade for as long as I can remember. One or another party gets to power, meddles, does some damage or some good depending on sheer happenstance, and is quietly replaced as soon as the public is bored, but the main directions of social development are happening elsewhere.
No, the problem today is that the deep state itself has shown itself to be venal and incompetent. The very oligarchy that has made a mockery of democracy has got complacent and venal and far from benign. Even the professional technocrats no longer understand the society they are creating.
And they fear the last vestiges of Democracy are about to overthrow them. Democracy does not exist to ‘carry out the will of the people’ . How could it? No. It exists for one reason and one reason alone., To sack without violent revolution an oligarchy, a political class, and executive, who, in the end, are so incompetent that the alternative couldn’t possibly be worse.
We have, I believe , allowed this complex network of power and influence and money to control us too long already. Their delusion that society not only can be controlled, but should be controlled is outmoded. The reality of those who apply the discipline of systems analysis to society is that it has to be too complex to be controlled by a top down imposed system The antidote to Tainter is conservatism and devolution and grass roots democracy. That is, we must allow localised freedom, of smaller autonomous units and not pretend to second guess the future and let society develop in a laissez faire manner until something is obviously wrong, and then, when the popular consensus is that it is wrong, we pressure the executive to fix it, and if they don’t, we use democracy to sack them.
This is precisely what is happening with Trump in the USA and with Brexit in the EU. Enough people have had enough, and the mechanisms of democracy are being used to sack the old order. Which is why articles like this are being written – to justify the suspension of democracy that threatens the existing oligarchy. Remember that Marxism and Socialism and Ecology are no longer opposition tools of radical thought, they are fully absorbed into the system and are now merely empty rhetoric used to justify the existence and increase of the oligarchy. Today the threat to that oligarchy is not from communism, it is from democracy.
Towards what, then, should we be striving? At one level the answer is, we simply don’t know and cannot know. The existing oligarchy appears to believe that it all can be controlled and their narrative is all about centralised power and control. But we know that is utter tosh really. The system that has worked better is benign conservatism. That is, you do NOT pretend to know where society is going. You do not even pretend to know where it ought to be going. You let it develop, and where it’s definitely broken and you can get political consensus, you fix it.
The rest of the time, you shoot pheasants, hunt foxes, play golf or watch the cricket and generally don’t meddle.
But at another level if we accept the complete inability of centralised government to control affectively, anticipate the future or even define a direction, there is still need for governance, and there is one structure that has proved itself reasonably adequate at operating in a cloud of uncertainty, and that is the military. And the key point here is that at a given level the commanders of a platoon, brigade or regiment have a high degree of autonomy. They can make decisions based on local conditions, local intelligence, and local knowledge that the generals cannot.
And I believe that to be a hint as to the direction successful politics and governance must move. Towards decentralisation and devolution., More state power, less federal power. Or in Europe, less EU or even no EU.
If California wants to commit suicide by becoming the first state to ban all fossil fuels, then it should be allowed to do so. As a prime example of what not to do. Then once its executive is sacked, and the people appoint saner politicians, that particular boil is lanced, and we can place the likes of Cortez, Thunberg, Orestes and the like in the gallery of blithering idiots, where they belong. That is, we can allow California to fail as an example, without bringing down the USA. But a federal policy of decarbonisation were pursued, it would destroy the USA.
Exercise what democracy we have left to put in place an executive who are wiser and more humble and allow smaller units to have more autonomy, and see what works in one place and copy it elsewhere. The system is too big to manage centrally. Conservatism isn’t an ideology, it is just what has worked in the past.
In the end Darwin only demands one attribute from society: that it isn’t so badly managed that it collapses and dies. Morality is ultimately not relevant except in that context. The eco warriors would have you believe that society is in danger of imminent collapse because climate change.
Maybe. But it is more in danger of imminent collapse because eco warriors.
The important issue with climate change in a conservative world would be to react only once it was not only obvious, but that full political consensus was achieved that there was a problem, that we could fix the problem and that the cost of fixing it was less than the cost of not fixing it.
The so called ‘liberal’ alarmist movement is there precisely because none of the above conditions have been satisfied.
That there was one fine comment, Leo.
Plus many and many more.
“Conservatism isn’t an ideology,”
That ought to be an (analytic) truth, but I’m not sure it is.
Unfortunately it’s hard to disentangle the specific ideological “content” associated (rightly or wrongly) with conservatism—things like anti-abortionism, certain sexual mores, an instinct to flatten taxation, etc.—from the conservative function from which the word itself derives. I’d like to live in a world where words meant what they ought to mean, because in such a world “conservatism” would refer (as I think you’re arguing) to an opposition to fixing what ain’t broke. That would entail, among other interesting entailments, that revolutionaries inevitably become conservatives once their revolutions have made gains that are worth safeguarding from erosion. I’m sure you’d agree that this is a non-zero set, even if it’s depressingly close to zero. For example, who would want to see the success of the women’s suffrage movement reversed?
I don’t know a better word for my politics than menshevism, though there probably is one. We don’t need another hero. We don’t need to be governed in the Latin sense of the world: steered, guided, by a benevolent/malevolent/indifferent, in/competent cybernaut (the Greek cognate). What we need is to be left in peace and effing quiet so that we can get on with curing cancer[s]. The “government” needs to keep the trains running, collect train-running tithes to pay for it, and then shut up. Like some kind of… and I’m grasping for neologisms here… some kind of civil service, as it were, if that phrase makes sense.
And by curing cancer[s], I mean solving the problems we face, not the problems some messianic w*nker tells us we’re facing.
The one or two percent of your comment that I understood, I enjoyed. As for my modest response, I’m sure you understand more of it than I do.
Many thanks, Leo.
I like your work Brad.
Thank you Leo – one of the most perceptive and coherent commentaries I have ever read as a long-time follower of Anthony’s excellent blog 👏👏👏
Leo Smith,
You say,
“Western Civilisation, it appears to me, is now too complex and technical for politicians to handle, regardless of democracy. ”
You provide no evidence nor reason to support that contention, but you claim it is true because it agrees with assertions of somebody called Joseph Tainter. Your logical fallacy of trusting Tainter’s assertions is called ‘Appeal to Authority’ (see https://www.thoughtco.com/logical-fallacies-appeal-to-authority-250336), and in this case it is a severe error because Tainter is plain wrong.
Having stated your mistaken contention, you provide a long diatribe that consists of a series of assertions all of which are wrong because they require your contention to be correct and it is not. Please think about your contention and see if you can find any evidence (n.b. not appeal to authority) which supports it because you may learn from your failure to find any such evidence.
Richard
Civilization in general is too complex for anyone to manage. Period.
That’s why centralized control always fails.
Anyone who has read the writings of the US’s Founding Fathers, and their contemporaries, and understood the Constitution as written, would realize their intent was exactly as you state.
The country is the United States, not the People’s Republic. Each state was intended to govern themselves as they wish, with the only requirement being that they had a Republican form of government. That way, each state could be an incubator of new ideas, and all other states could learn from the successes and failures of each state. If a single state screwed up, the rest of the country would not be harmed, and might be able to help. If everything were controlled by a central government, and it screwed up….
Most Conservatives I know want to return to the original intent of those Founding Fathers.
And it was the 17th Amendment to the Constitution that paved the way for a more centralized federal government, under the guise of being a more democratic way. The Founding Fathers purposely devised 3 different ways to elect our federal officials to prevent the tyranny of the majority that prevails in true democracies. The House was a direct vote of the people and the term was only two years in order to quickly correct stupid decisions by the public. The Senate was appointed by the State legislature of each State to represent the State in the federal government not the people. This was a check on any one group from controlling the federal government. And the President was to be elected by a board of electors who themselves had to be elected every 4 years. A masterful plan to keep the centralized federal government from getting too much power. The 17th destroyed all that.
Remember, it’s supposed to be the United States ARE a country not IS a country.
Brad, I thought your ‘sarc’ tag was permanently on. What changed that?
My latest bloodwork came back so iron-y, my GP called me Ferrous Bueller. So I’ve gone vegivorous for a couple of weeks. Please don’t mention sarcophagy—I’m one whiff of my neighbor’s barbecue away from backsliding. Fun factoid: for many years, the mammoth in Sesame Street haunted my nightmares. I was convinced he had Mad Mastodon Disease, because the other muppets kept referring to him as encephalophagous. At their wits’ end my parents took me to pediatrician after pediatrician but there was nothing they could do. With any luck I’d grow out of it, they said, and sure enough I was sleeping like a baby by 30.
Anyway, Leo’s comment was a tour-de-force. What did I write to deserve such an erudite riposte? /serious
Alright Brad, but can you please let me catch my breathe from the laughing fit I caught after reading this obvious truism:
“Though by name the “Green New Deal” is associated with large-scale American public investment and thus “big government,” it’s also sensitive to the plight of citizens that might otherwise embody a conservative anti-environment sentiment.”
…prior to your next comment?
Hi Nicholas, long time no excuse.
I can’t be held to account for the truisms of others—altruisms, I believe the Romans called them. Since when did calling someone’s contribution a tour-de-force of erudition imply endorsement?
I’m sure many more gems will be unearthed over the coming weeks and months as the faster readers among us get to the end of Leo’s comment.
I have set aside a few days next week to read Leo’s post, but to be honest, I never even got to that part of your comment…my side was splitting, for some reason I can barely enunciate without a recurrence, halfway through the part about Sesame Street-induced nightmares. Mena-mena do do do-do-do!
Whenever someone says the planet is dying (which implies that it is alive), they are, knowingly or not, subscribing to the new environmental Gaia religion (or “Gaianism”.) It’s based on a weak scientific hypothesis that the entire planet is one living being; that all living things on it are part of a matrix of life or a giant ecosystem; and that this system has a consciousness due to it’s complexity. Followers tack on parts of whatever religion seem to fit; Native America, Hindu, neopagan, Christian, while denying it is a religious belief at all and screaming they “love science” despite often having no scientific background.
Humans in the view of Gaians are essentially parasites who should be eliminated or minimized to a safe level.
So not all pigs are equal after all.
all pigs are equal, it’s just that some pigs are more equal than others. As it’s always been with leftist ideologues (who always assume they will be counted among the more equal pigs).
Ironically it’s the US who they hate who are actually reducing Emissions of harmless plant food while the Centrally planned States are doing the most harm to the environment. This movement is immune to facts as it was always about implementing a global socialist government, it was never about the environment.
Well, he’ll get a faculty job at a liberal college, regurgitate these platitudes in worthless journals and meetings, bewail the intransigence of “deniers” at every opportunity, …
and never have to out and shovel coal or dig a ditch or empty trash a day in his life to feed himself
I keep asking people and I cannot get a straight answer.
“What the Hell is “climate change”.
I know what “climate” is, and how it is classified, and how it is intended to compare weather in one region with weather in another. Yet I do not know of any regions whose climate has changed significantly in the last hundred years.
Yet some people insist the “the climate is always changing”.
Yes, over the millennia no doubt they all change. and is specific geological history some of these changes have taken place over the thirty years or so it is necessary to monitor a change.
But do you know what “climate change” is?
“ over the thirty years or so it is necessary to monitor a change. ”
30 years is a common length of a house mortgage.
“Climate Normals” are based on 30 years of weather data.
High School reunions begin to fall apart after the 30th.
None of these have anything to do with climate change.
““What the Hell is “climate change”.”
That depends on who is saying it.
A real climate scientist is talking about long periods of time.
A political climate scientist is talking about the latest storm and/or a long term computer model. And, of course, “WE HAVE TO ACT NOW!” to prevent them from happening.
These people appear totally unaware of the massive expansion in mining that will be required to meet the demands for minerals that go into making wind turbines, solar panels and batteries. Coal miners will still mine the black stuff, just of the coking rather than thermal variety as steel demand increases. Children in the DRC can look forward to more job opportunities in the cobalt mines and we’ll see activists become deranged as they try to come to terms with the dichotomy between their instinct to stop all mining on environmental grounds and the need to open up new mining areas across the globe despite the environmental consequences.
Another university on my grad “do not hire list”.
I hope Harvard is somewhere near the top of your list, in light of their inaction in response to Geoff Chambers’ complaint 12 months ago (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/23/oreskes-harvard-and-the-destruction-of-scientific-revolutions/).
One of the defining differences between liberals and conservatives is their attitude towards the long term. Liberals don’t care about the long term. That is why I don’t believe that liberals really care about the environment. It is why they can be such hypocrites about using fossil fuels. They don’t really care. It’s conservatives who care about the future. The ecology stuff is a way to get long-term thinking people who don’t understand economics to vote for the liberal side of the spectrum.
No, liberals do care about the long term; they’ve been working tirelessly for a century or more to achieve their goals. But the ‘long term’ for them is them ruling over the rest of the human race forever… and they don’t care how many they kill or how many lives they destroy to achieve that.
Fortunately it appears Trudeau is now so desperate he’s had to call in Obama to vouch for him, which probably means his polls show he’ll be out of a job next week.
It’s not so much the ruling over others that they are after. It’s the power to grab all the free stuff they want. If that means enslaving the rest of humanity, then so be it.
“it appears Trudeau is now so desperate he’s had to call in Obama to vouch for him”
That sounds like foreign interference in Canada’s elections. Obama does a lot of that election interfering stuff. He interferes in foreign elections and in domestic elections.
“The transition from a liberal government to a conservative one often leads to a relapse of environmental policies, including program cuts, delays and even outright rejections or silencing of the science underlying climate change.”
Really?? Have a look at East Germany during the Cold War, where ‘Liberal’ (socialist) environmental rules prevailed, and West Germany, where Democracy values prevailed. East Germany destroyed all its forest by burning brown coal, while West Germany built nuclear power stations. West Germany produced Mercedes, BMW’s, VW’s and Porsche’s, while East Germany produced…Trabants. Please look them up.
Climate change has never been about climate; it’s all about change. Change to socialism, as this misguided student proves.
‘Democracy is an obstacle to socialism’. Yep; I hope a good one, and it better stay that way.
Great comparison.
Germany once consisted of many kingdoms, was then later made a republic 1871-1945. Then later on Germany was split in West and East Germany for many years. Recently in 1990 East Germany was then united again with West Germany and is now one republic again called Germany.
The political, financial and ecological transitions during the existence of East Germany tell a story that may repeat itself with completion of something like the fascistic GND in equally advanced societies as the German societies like the US. Comparison to China’s history may be less helpful, as their whole history and society is very different to that of Germany and the US.
What the socialists call a “relapse of environmental policies” is in fact the elimination of un-needed and burdensome regulations.
C. Elliot is likely a great fan of the achievements of Mao Tse Tung in applying social and economic policies to achieve rapid results. Mao’s Great Leap Forward provided poor farmers with government jobs in village steel making endeavors to catch up with the Soviet Union. The amazing results? At least 45 million dead from famine caused by preventing farmers from planting and harvesting, and from widespread destruction of birds. Proponents imposing the Green New Deal would likely achieve even more spectacular results in today’s larger developing countries.
45 million died in Mao’s Great Leap Forward…
“vital” progress on climate? There is nothing nothing vital about it. Climate action programs are completely futile because they are non solutions to make believe problems. It doesn’t matter, it won’t change the climate one jot or tittle, any more than throwing virgins in the volcano did for primitive peoples.
And green jobs replacing energy sector jobs? You can count the numbers of green energy jobs created on one hand.
It’s vital that they use climate to gain total control of energy and industry before the grand solar minimum really gets going.
They have a short time to achieve their goals, and it’s rapidly running out.
The following was sent October 16, 2019 to journalists, editors and publishers in the USA and Canadian media – for the record.
The global warming scam was never about the climate – it was always a smokescreen for totalitarian control by a corrupted elite.
The same dire consequences await the British, American and Canadian people – a blighted life under the totalitarian boot.
Everyone involved in perpetuating the global warming/climate change scam is a liar, a fraudster and a traitor to their country.
AN OPEN LETTER TO CANADIAN MEDIA – BOUGHT BY TRUDEAU’S $600 MILLION?
TRUDEAU’S “ZERO-CARBON” POLICY WILL FORCE US INTO POVERTY, EXCEPT FOR HIS ELITE:
NO PRIVATE CARS OR TRUCKS; NO MORE PLANE FLIGHTS; NO MORE LUXURIES; NO MORE MEAT.
Today, this article was finally published by an honest Canadian newspaper, the Provost News – a little Alberta paper with the courage to do what the majors could not – publish the truth.
This article was first published online in the USA on October 1, 2019,
THE LIBERALS’ COVERT GREEN PLAN FOR CANADA – POVERTY AND DICTATORSHIP
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/01/the-liberals-covert-green-plan-for-canada-poverty-and-dictatorship/
The major Canadian media were afraid to touch this story, allegedly (according to two journalists) because they were afraid of losing their share of the $600 million in federal largesse that Trudeau used to buy their loyalty.
I have verified the credibility of my confidential informant, and he is 5-Star. With his permission, I even offered to introduce him to the editors. None of this mattered – the major papers still would not print the truth.
The question now is: Will Canadian media still try to bury this story, or will they publish it without further delay?
Regards, Allan MacRae
Calgary
Excerpt:
A highly credible gentleman wrote me as follows, concerning his recent conversation with an Ottawa insider.
The insider, he said, had been working on an advisory group to the Trudeau government. The group was not formed to discuss policy for the 5 year horizon that governments are usually interested in but to develop policies for the further future, 20 to 40 years out. The implication was that the group had concluded that the present economic model was flawed and had to be replaced. “Unregulated consumerism was unsustainable and people would have to learn to make do with less. The government would have to have more control over people to enforce their austerity and the wealth of developed nations would have to be redistributed to help undeveloped nations.”
These are not new ideas. For decades, intellectuals and politicians have argued that our consumer society, based on individual market demand, is a flawed system that generates waste, excess and environmental degradation.
The insider’s assessment also reflects the current underlying motivation behind the rise of climate change as the defining issue of our time. The words reflect the motives of environmentalists and climate activists who are using the climate “emergency” as a front for larger political and ideological ambitions. What they are pursuing as an economic revolution ushered in through the back door. They are yelling fire and then using the resultant fear to impose a new economic and political order.
It is possible that I was the first scientist to have my account with The zconversation locked. When I ask to have it opened, I get a response that no further correspondence will be entered into.
How ironic it is for the author to he quoted above ” …even outright rejections or silencing of the science underlying climate change.”
How dumb do you have to be, when you fail to realise that your own mob are the worst offenders? Geoff S
Geoff
I decided to test my status with The Conversation. Initially, it looked like my comment (essentially what I posted here on this thread) was posted. However, it was deleted almost immediately, without even being shown. The counter said that there were 6 comments, but only 4 were being displayed. I hope the editors have trouble sleeping at night. However, I suspect that they will rationalize their actions as being for the good of all.
Democracy may be an obstacle to action on climate …
but so can the need for a scientific basis for the attribution of wild fire and extreme weather events to fossil fuel emissions that can serve as the basis for the proposal that climate action will solve the wild fire and extreme weather problems being used to sell climate action.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/17/agw-flood/
So Christian found an article on Kotter’s Change methodology and is writing his PhD based upon it. Good for him. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_82.htm
He obviously is not up with Bentham’s greatest good Utility Ethics, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism i.e. the way we enact a Democratically elected government, or the fact that the “social cost of Carbon”, Co2, is still net negative according to fellow Canadian actual PhD’s. https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2010007817500063
Pretty disappointing for a Political Major in truth.
A political science PhD student?
Oh dear!
Piled higher and deeper…
I firmly believe that the (current group of) the left lack imagination. They seem to have an inability to think in the abstract. Why this may be so I have no idea but I do have lefty friends that are like this. I find it increasingly difficult to have a meaningful conversation with them. For example, they agree that science has the answers but fail to grasp the concept that it’s possible for some scientists to be complete morons due their own inability to think outside the box.
https://www.learning-mind.com/abstract-thinking/