Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Another green attack on Democracy; According to the Financial Times, giving ordinary people a say over public policy impedes climate action, because we don’t care enough about other people’s problems.
Democracies are ill-suited to deal with climate change
It is tempting to say the problem is too abstract but the focus should be on the economy
…
Harrowing images of Australian bushfires and Californian wildfires should be blowing a hole in such complacency. But they also crystallise how hard it is for democracies to mobilise public action. If images of Sydney enshrouded in smoke, or Napa Valley in flames, cannot arouse the voter’s imagination, what will? Those hoping the world’s wealthiest countries will take more of a lead on climate change must confront three hard truths.
The first is that politicians struggle to look beyond the electoral cycle. It is hard enough for a government to invest in education, which can take years to show results. It is that much more difficult to take unpopular actions to reduce carbon dioxide output that might take generations to bear fruit, and even then go unrecognised.
…
The second obstacle to climate change action is uncertainty. It is impossible to establish that any single disaster is entirely man-made. Despite the summer fires in Siberia, heat deaths in Pakistan and two once-in-a-century storms hitting Houston in two years, natural disasters occurred before the era of climate change. …
…
The third obstacle is — how to put it? — human nature. … I have spoken to people who are more exercised by Greta Thunberg’s mannerisms than with the content of her message. They find the fact that a 17-year-old girl is lecturing grown-ups on climate change more grating than the likely extinction of the Great Barrier Reef. We filter what we want to see.
…
If we want action, the best response is to talk about the economy. The age of abstract climate change is over. The 2018 fires cost California an estimated $400bn, according to Accuweather. That is more than half the annual US defence budget. …
Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/636327d0-2e36-11ea-a126-99756bd8f45e
I’m glad a climate action advocate has finally gotten the message the Greta effect only works on people who already believe. When this message filters through to the top, we might see less of her.
Sadly Edward does not go on enlighten us about his version of the ideal eco-fascist utopia which should replace our current freedoms. His feeble suggestion, “to talk about the economy”, undermines his position that Democracies are not well suited to dealing with long term problems.
If people can be persuaded to take climate action by talking about the economy, surely this means Democracy works?
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I guess the 80 million who died in WWII making the world safe for democracy were deluded chumps.
It would have been 580 million if the sleeping, politically divided giant had not been jolted by Pearl Harbor and the German super weapons had been give more time for full production and further upgrades. Timing and sequence is an overlooked aspect of the arrow of time. The lessons from those branching reality simulations have also been overlooked. Would a minority party President in the White House been able to start lend lease for example or would it have been too provocative.
Because communism has done sooooooooooo well as caretakers of the environment. Just ignore Chernobyl. Or the Baotou toxic lake in China. Or the Aral Sea that was once one of the largest lakes in the world. Or … Do I really need to go on?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_UdqZdFr-w
And if you think the right people in a big government will be better caretakers of the environment, I ask you to research the EPA’s Gold King mine disaster.
Democracy is not a block to climate action, the lack of proper initiatives is.
Anyone capable of educating themselves knows that you only rig data if you have no case without data rigging. Strike One for Climate Bedwetters.
Anyone aged over 25 knows that climate does not stay the same, has never stayed the same, will never stay the same. The claim that ‘climate chaos’ is occurring has no evidentiary back up. It is just typical BBC mumbo jumbo plugging a predetermined line by finding anything they can make a four minute segment about. When did a BBC Greenie go to Verkhoyansk recently? They will not go if cold temperature records do not fit the warming narrative….
Greenies are a bit thick if they think climate change comes before healthy food, clean water and cheap power. The time to plug green puritanism is when Maslow’s lowest hierarchy of needs have been adequately supplied…..
However, at the end of the day, the UK electoral system is no way to determine what the UK thinks about Green Issues. You need a Brexit-style referendum to address that…..
Far more people have been killed by people wielding power than by nature wielding power and only the people who are not asking for power seem to know this.
Wow, that came out far better than I imagined when I first wrote it.
In this context , the post yesterday at Notrickszone may be of interest:
https://notrickszone.com/2020/01/05/german-solar-industry-politicians-call-for-punishment-of-dissenters-sabotaging-climate-emergency-measures/
Germany, never a laggard in such matters, is proposing to put the suppression of democracy into action in order to boost the dreams of the Greens and the wealth of the renewable entrepreneurs whilst the rest of us just talk about it.
From that article:
-” Climate scientist Johan Rockström thinks the declaration of a climate emergency is justified.
Rockström (Potsdam Institute Director):
The declaration of a “climate emergency” would make it possible to make really big decisions. …such as making things possible that are necessary but have not been considered realistic.“ –
and P Gosselin comments :
-This reminds in the diction of 24 March 1933, at that time the law was officially called: “Law to remedy the distress of the people and the Reich” and it served to abolish the Republic. Isn’t anyone suspicious?
What fits well here is an action of the solar industry lobby, which has made good business from the alleged climate catastrophe. Whoever criticizes the climate alarmism professionally is considered a troublemaker. So it fits in well with the picture that the Solarenergie Förderverein Deutschland e.V. (Solar Energy Association of Germany) is calling for the punishment of critics on its website. The address of the site is: http://sfv.de/artikel/verharmlosung_der_klimakrise_eine_straftat.htm.
Apparently PIK are calling for :
‘Anyone who plays down or denies the climate catastrophe in a way that is likely to disrupt, disparage or completely prevent the defense of the climate catastrophe under the Paris Climate Convention and its follow-up agreements will be punished with a fine of up to 300 days wages. In case of recurrence, the penalty is imprisonment.’
However, to be fair to PIK, they point out that these measures, which possibly may seem disproportionate to many fairminded people outside Germany are actually quite acceptable according to German law:
-“Such a threat of punishment in no way undermines the fundamental right to freedom of opinion. Also the freedom of opinion has, as already mentioned in the introduction, legal limits (Article 5, Paragraph 2, first half sentence German Law). For example, according to Paragraphs 185 to 187 of the German Criminal Code, insult, libel and slander are also sanctioned, because otherwise peaceful coexistence is not possible.”-
Is the 1933 repeating itself? At least, in Germany?
Yes. But last time the communists lost, and this time they plan to win.
People who truly believe that 8 billion people will ever come together as one and be in total oblivious harmony are the real danger.
The TV reporters in my general area were saying at first that 15 billion species had been destroyed by the bush fires in Australia. Since it’s unlikely that there are that many species on Earth to begin with, some of them switched “species” to “wildlife”. No reference to the source of any of that, just off the top of someone’s head.
They also said at first that the fire acreage totaled something the size of West Virginia, but have since switched WV out to replace it with Manhattan. Are they living in the same universe I live in? Same planet? Generally speaking WV is considerably larger than Manhattan, by a long shot.
They’re more interested in reporting gun violence anyway, as if it’s the only thing to talk about, so I don’t give them a whole lot of credit. The only good thing they have going for them is their long-term weatherman, who is the best meteorologist -and the most accurate, so far – in the area. And oddly, he never brings up climate change or any of that nonsense.
Use that as a signpost to go find better quality sources of information. Competency has left the building.
The reason California suffers from so many wildfires is directly due to the eco freaks who take strong action against any attempt by the government to manage the forests. This results in extensive wood and brush debris which humans are forbidden to scavenge. So, they become a tinderbox and any time a lightning strike hits, or someone is careless with a cigarette or match…. off we go. They love to blame any disaster on global warming.
Carbon dioxide is unlikely to be the cause of significant warming…. and don’t forget the law of diminishing returns. Further increases to the CO2 content is less and less effective at increasing warming.
For my part, I think we can easily stand some global warming.
FT, do you mean like democracies dealt with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
Memories of the ecological mess that was the Soviet Union, is all you need to be reminded that democracies and free people are much better suited to deal with climate change than their socialist counter parts.
From a book review in the current American Scientist with “A path to change–How can climate data be turned into widespread action” highlighted on the cover. So far I have not found any climate evidence therein.
“First, we have to give up on the idea that we live in a free ‘marketplace of ideas’ that allows only the best to prevail. Information has to be regulated to make sure that it conforms to the facts. Second, human beings are too vulnerable to manipulation by misinformation to be able to sustain a democracy. Democracy may be a moral imperative, but we need institutions that allow us to make decisions based on evidence rather than ignorance.”
He is correct, which is why we have a republic with democratic principles, which reviewer apparently does not understand. Also that he may be one of the wolves voting to decide on which sheep for supper? Happens rhetorically to minorities in academia.
We are not far off from the nights of fire and rampage by urban mobs against ICE cars parked on the street and against single family homes as elitist dwellings. Give them some time and organizing efforts and they will get it done. Watch the armbands and little green books waved in the air.
Let’s face it, authoritarian regimes are better at negotiating international agreements that cost nothing (heads they win, tails you lose Chamberlain style), rigging fake elections, rigging fake compliance and enforcement, and controlling public discourse at all levels. They are still working on thought control with brain wave analysis at this point.
The funniest thing is the fact that the Chinese Communists continue to use fossil fuels for their energy needs, while pursuing the development of new advanced nuclear technologies, such as Molten Salt Reactors… Apparently they – the Chinese Communists – pay «lip service» to the «main stream» narrative of «global warming a.k.a. «climate change», but continue in their merry pursuit of greater wealth for them all…
Really, really, funny how the meaning of words such as «democracy» have been twisted over the last two centuries.
1984 is the solution! 😀
Aral Sea.
One would think that that testament to central planning and good intentions,should act as a cautionary tale for those in love with Dictatorial Power.
However I do concede that thinking is an act of heresy within the Cult of Calamitous Climate.
Luce writes “We filter what we want to see.”
What I’d like to see is the list of psychopaths who will be running for emperor of the world when it’s planetary election day.
In the comments column of this article in the FT I just came across a fascinating parallel case in terms of how pursuing one idea (say CO2 = CAGW) distorts research funding and pretty much forces group-think.
In this case the issue was the utter failure of Alzheimer’s research to fund anything that didn’t include “Amelyoid” in the grant applications. Sadly the Amelyoid plaques seem to be a result of brain damage and not the cause. The similarities are obvious.
https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/25/alzheimers-cabal-thwarted-progress-toward-cure/
It has already began.
The German green blob is lobbying for legislation that would ban anti CAGW speech.
What they call fake news.
The German green blob has of course declared that climate is an emergency…
… in their minds, everyone has said climate is an emergence, and governments have signed documents saying climate is an emergency…
… sort like the declaration of war… and in times of war, to win the war, dissention must be treated as treason…
https://notrickszone.com/#sthash.BlxTY2Yc.dpbs
…The Green blob now wants German federal laws..
…. Such that it should be a criminal offense to question the science of climate science, or the point of wasting more and more money on the green scams…, questioning climate models, and so on…
Anything that that is “fake’ news.
“Note: It is not the misled ones who should be punished, but the disinformers, the instigators, the authors and distributors of the fake news.”
Firstly when talking about Democraancy and the USA, we should take into consideration the fact that the USA is not a Democrancy but a Republic
Here in Australia we look at the Electorial Collage and realize that its what we call a “Jerrymander.
Here in the State of South Australia we had a Premier Playford who ruled for 26 years. It was made possible by giving the country voter a greater say by having much smaller electorates, thus more members of Parliament.
We were lucky in that he was a very good Premier, who rather than use a car with a driver he drove himself in a battered old utility. Today of course we have a fleet of white cars, all in a State which while vast in size only has just over one million people in it.
Our problem is the fact that a high percentage of City dwellers still t think that all food comes from a supermarket and think that they are well informed about all matters.
There are advantages and disadvantages between a authortarian and a democrancy systeem. The Chinese Three Gorge dams and power generation would not take off in todays Western World. In fact the Hover Dam in the USA and Australians Snowy Hydro electric system would never take off today. T he Tasmanian Greens killed off the mini Snowy like scheme of the Gordon below Franklin scheme, despite all the good resulting from it.
MJE VK5ELL
Well either you have a different definition of Jerrymander (we call it Gerrymander here in the states) or else you don’t understand the EC very well or at all. Gerrymander means to manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class. That’s really not an issue with the electoral collage as ultimately the boundaries don’t change, being that the boundaries are the individual states themselves. California’s boundaries, for example, are the same today as they were when the state first entered the Union. What’s changed in the number of people that live there (which affects how many EC votes the state gets), but that’s not an issue of manipulating boundaries since the boundaries of the states don’t change.
The democracies created the myth of AGW and Climate Change. They still cannot understand why the rest of the world is not following “their wisdom”.
“Democracies are ill-suited to deal with climate change”
Yes sir, of course.
Democracies are ill suited for totalitarian policy objectives.
“The 2018 fires cost California an estimated $400bn, according to Accuweather …”.
$400bn represents about 2% of the US GDP in 2018 (20494.10bn) while the annual cost of the GND may be up to an estimated $9000bn, in any case an order of magnitude greater than the purported cost of the fires.
Edward actually has a point.
If it wasn’t for democracy allowing inner city latte sucking sops a public voice the people who actually live and work in the Australian bush would have been allowed to undertake their fuel management programmes in peace.
Bushfires in Australia are largely unavoidable. What can be controlled is the potential intensity.
Climate Change(tm) doesn’t cause terrifying Australian bushfires, Green policy does.
Back in 2014 , Christiana Figuerres stated in an interview with the Guardian that democracy is a poor political system for combating global warming. Chinese Communism is the best model.
Well, how do you just like that. A high UN official praising the iron fist of totalitarianism to combat a non-existent “problem.” The alarm bells should be sounding off by now.