Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon, Climate Depot; Sustainability scientists from the University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, ETH Zürich and University of Leeds in Britain have outlined their solution to global warming.
Their plan involves wealth redistribution, public ownership of businesses and a cap on how much money people are allowed to have, with starring roles for eco-feminists and anarchists in their vision of a radically restructured society.
Scientists’ warning on affluence
Thomas Wiedmann, Manfred Lenzen, Lorenz T. Keyßer & Julia K. Steinberger
Abstract
For over half a century, worldwide growth in affluence has continuously increased resource use and pollutant emissions far more rapidly than these have been reduced through better technology. The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions. We summarise the evidence and present possible solution approaches. Any transition towards sustainability can only be effective if far-reaching lifestyle changes complement technological advancements. However, existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits necessary societal change.
…
It is well established that at least in the affluent countries a persistent, deep and widespread reduction of consumption and production would reduce economic growth as measured by gross domestic product (GDP)51,52. Estimates of the needed reduction of resource and energy use in affluent countries, resulting in a concomitant decrease in GDP of similar magnitude, range from 40 to 90%
…
The reformist group consists of heterogeneous approaches such as a-growth80, precautionary/pragmatic post-growth52, prosperity42 and managing85 without growth as well as steady-state economics86. These approaches have in common that they aim to achieve the required socio-ecological transformation through and within today’s dominant institutions, such as centralised democratic states and market economies52,77. From this position it often follows that current, socially vital institutions, such as the welfare state, labour markets, healthcare, pensions and others, need to be reformed to become independent from GDP growth52. Generally, bottom-up movements are seen as crucial, leading to value and cultural changes towards sufficiency42,47. Eventually, however, significant policy changes are proposed to achieve the necessary downshifting of consumption and production42,77,86and/or the reduction of environmental impacts through decoupling52,80. These include, among others, stringent eco-taxes or cap-and trade systems, directed investments in green industries and public institutions, wealth redistribution through taxation and a maximum income, a guaranteed basic income and/or reduced working hours42,77. Although these policies already seem radical when compared to today’s policies, the proponents of reformist approaches are convinced that the transformation can be achieved in current capitalist economies and democratic states42,77,86.
The second, more radical, group disagrees and argues that the needed socio-ecological transformation will necessarily entail a shift beyond capitalism and/or current centralised states. Although comprising considerable heterogeneity77, it can be divided into eco-socialist approaches, viewing the democratic state as an important means to achieve the socio-ecological transformation51,65 and eco-anarchist approaches, aiming instead at participatory democracy without a state, thus minimising hierarchies54,87. Many degrowth approaches combine elements of the two, but often see a stronger role for state action than eco-anarchists50,51,88. Degrowth is defined here as “an equitable downscaling of throughput [that is the energy and resource flows through an economy, strongly coupled to GDP], with a concomitant securing of wellbeing“59,p7, aimed at a subsequent downscaled steady-state economic system that is socially just and in balance with ecological limits. Importantly, degrowth does not aim for a reduction of GDP per se, but rather accepts it as a likely outcome of the necessary changes78. Moreover, eco-feminist approaches highlight the role of patriarchal social relations and the parallels between the oppression of women and exploitation of nature89, while post-development approaches stress the manifold and heterogeneous visions of achieving such a socio-ecological transformation globally, especially in the global South90.
Degrowth advocates propose similar policy changes as the reformist group50,80. However, it is stressed that implementing these changes would most likely imply a shift beyond capitalism, e.g. preventing capital accumulation through dis-economies of scale and collective firm ownership, and thus require radical social change59,62,91. Eco-socialists usually focus more on rationing, planning of investments and employment, price controls and public ownership of at least the most central means of production to plan their downscaling in a socially sustainable way65,77.
…
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y
Central planning, rationing, price controls, punitive wealth taxes and wealth redistribution. The glorious future climate concerned scientists are planning for us.
Dear ecomentalists, FOAD.
more money, less work…what’s not to like…..equality
…it’s the democrats platform
They might need to plan for a vast supply of alcohol to sedate the masses as the Soviet Union did with vodka when you give them dull grey lives to lead. No doubt life expectancy will be reduced but who would want to hang around in their world anyway
Every aspect of the proposals by this ‘reformist group’ are interlocking methods of forced control for humans. With that firmly in the forefront, I heartily agree with Chaswarnertoo.
Seconded! Motion carried…
Warmunists
Is 1984 no longer required reading? Where is there a prosperous, successful and happy socialist state? And, no, Bernie Sanders’ examples are all not socialist states. Even our poor have flat screen TVs.
Of course 1984 is required reading. It’s their instruction manual.
According to the Washington Post, 1984 is the #5 best selling mass market paperback as of June 2, 2020. What could that mean?
NO Leghorn their instruction manual is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
I am firmly of the opinion that Orwell (Eric Blair) meant the novel as a warning, unfortunately I think you have hit the nail squarely on the head and many of our modern activists are running with it as an instruction manual.
When I went through school all those many years ago we had 1984, Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies in our reading list. Looking at today’s rioters and the demands they are making it is clear that they did not see the horror these novels portrayed, that is if they even read them.
OLDGReyGuy i think it is because they know so little history that they think they will be in charge. They will be able to tell their parents what to do, get hold of their inheritance early etc. History shows the useful idiots were the first up against the wall. Perhaps they need to read a bit of Alexander Solzhenitzin as well as the 1984 instruction manual.
You must have gone to the same schools as me (!)
We had the same reading list.
Of all the crap books I ever hated it was Lord of the Flies.
It and the author’s views made me want to puke!
Orwell at least didn’t have an agenda, his views were tempered by nearly dying in Catalonia, and surviving down and out with zilch cash in his pocket in Paris.
All of them pretty down to earth easy to understand stuff, which that shitter William Golding could never have done.
If you want to discuss dystopiae, I prefer any day the “Stanford prison experiment” and Millgram’s experiments.
They relate to real life phenomena.
“pigs_in_space June 22, 2020 at 3:02 am
If you want to discuss dystopiae, I prefer any day the “Stanford prison experiment” and Millgram’s experiments.”
Indeed!
read? you expect them to sit and read something more than 2 paragraphs at most?
is there a film? or an app for that?
talking books
the present behavior is reminiscent of Clockwork Orange as well as 1984
Chaz/ chop is lord of the flies in action right now;-)
Also, no one touting for socialism seems to have read and/or understood
https://mises.org/library/socialism-economic-and-sociological-analysis
It shows the consequences of having a socialist
economy and that’s not a case of “We only have to do it right.”
I correctly called this called this global warming/climate change/green energy fraud in 2002. What’s the problem? Any false BS – climate or other! What’s the solution? Totalitarianism! Quelle surprise!
Now that the Marxist-Democrats and their Antifa Greenshirt thugs have come out of the closet, only the most obtuse cannot see their game plan. Whatever the question, their answer is totalitarianism!
The leaders of the climate scam always knew they are lying – nobody could be this stupid for this long.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/22/liz-warren-explains-why-she-believes-ocasio-cortezs-green-new-deal-doesnt-go-far-enough/#comment-2923090
When I started writing my current series of papers in 2019, almost nobody believed that the political situation could be as extreme as I then stated. Our core debate was still a scientific argument about the magnitude of climate sensitivity, and the skeptics kept repeating – correctly – that the alarmists’ estimates of climate sensitivity were far too high, and there was no real global warming crisis.
The reality is that the extremists’ argument was never really about the climate – their climate argument was always a false narrative, a smokescreen for their true objective – their use of the false climate scare was always political, not scientific, and was intended to achieve totalitarian control.
When I stated as early as 2012 – correctly – that the alarmists had a covert agenda and that nobody, not even the alarmists, could be this stupid for this long, my statement was initially rejected as extreme, even by many climate skeptics. However, the alarmists have recently proved me correct.
Since ~late-2019, the climate extremists have engaged in a bidding war to see who could propose the most costly and ineffective “energy” programs to destroy the economies of the Western democracies. For a while, the winner was “carbon-free by 2050”, as adopted by the leftists in the USA, Canada, Britain and elsewhere.
Recently, the Democrats in the USA have doubled-down, advocating even more extreme measures, to destroy their energy systems even sooner.
When I first started studying this subject in ~1985, I knew the alarmists’ argument was false. Like many scientists, I assumed the alarmists were simply technically wrong. It is now obvious that they knew from the beginning that their entire narrative was technically false. Still, with huge financing from largely unknown sources they have managed to deceive the public – wolves stampeding the sheep on the way to slaughter.
By now, even the most stupid of the global warming/climate change acolytes should realize something is amiss. Maybe, maybe not.
As Einstein said, “Nothing is infinite except the universe and humans stupidity, and I‘m not sure about the universe.”
__________________________
Note written 13June2020:
Since I wrote the above on 23Feb2020, Michel Moore has released his new film slamming worthless green energy schemes. Surprise! We’ve known wind and solar energy were costly nonsense since forever, and published that conclusion in 2002. Since then, trillions of dollars have been squandered on destructive green energy schemes that are too intermittent and too diffuse to be practical or economic.
And public health is another issue that the totalitarians will want to tackle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3fRzuMtuKw
The battle today is not between left and right, that field of battle was shifted when the left took over the green movement in the 1990s. Today the battle is between totalitarians and libertarians.
Although this is an ongoing struggle in huamn society, the totalitarian formula was defined by Plato in his “Republic” 2500 years ago, where the wise led society and determined all things for society.
It took a lot longer for the libertarian theory of society to be developed, finding its current best expression in the US Declaration of Independence, 250-odd years ago.
The modern day bureaucratic state is naturally totalitarian as it claims to be the source of wise, professionally considered action. By claiming the monpoly of wise action, it ignores the fact that it works in the interest of those running it – the party, the leader, the movement or whatever excuse is given for their rule – be it climate, virus, race, anything to keep the masses in line.
Too bad so many of your so-called “wise” are not wise at all but use that label to justify their quest for power, which rewards them with money and control!
The very description you use “to keep the masses in line” proves my point! If the “wise” were actually that, the masses would gladly accept their leadership as it would benefit all, not just the rulers! But some of the “wise” are doing all they can to exempt themselves from accountability by the masses except getting elected, in which some think lying is acceptable considering their need for power!
Fantastic observations Allan. So few understand the cancerous effect Plato’s Republic & Laws have had on Western history, especially since 273 BCE (see Russell Gmirkin research)
1984 has been cancelled, Orwell’s statue has been pulled down, burnt and thrown in the sea because …. well because ! That’s enough isn’t it ?
Did they ask the anarchists it they wanted to play second fiddle to globalist dictatorship ??
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/08/ross-mckitrick-this-scientist-proved-climate-change-isnt-causing-extreme-weather-so-politicians-attacked/#comment-2718916
Ever wonder why extremists attack honest scientists who oppose global warming and climate change hysteria? Ever wonder why extremists refuse to debate the science?
It is because global warming and climate change alarmism was never about the science – it was always a smokescreen for the political objectives of the extreme left.
The book “1984”, written by George Orwell in 1949, foresaw a time “when most of the world population have become victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation”(wiki).
Well here is the REAL “1984”, an interview that year with ex-KGB officer and Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov, who describes the slow, long-term “ideological subversion” of Western societies. Note Bezmenov’s discussion of ideological subversion. It’s all about manipulating the “Useful Idiots” – the leftists in the West.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA&feature=youtu.be
One commenter on the video wrote: “this is f***ing crazy, almost everything predicted by this guy is already happening.”
AOC / KGB.
As I wrote recently:
“The Green movement is really a smokescreen for the old Marxists – and they are the great killers of our age.” – March 11, 2019
Best, Allan
References:
“Hypothesis: Radical Greens are the Great Killers of Our Age”
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng.
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/
“Science’s Untold Scandal: The Lockstep March of Professional Societies to Promote the Climate Change Scare”
by Tom Harris And Dr. Jay Lehr
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/05/25/sciences-untold-scandal-the-lockstep-march-of-professional-societies-to-promote-the-climate-change-scare/
Many more videos of Yuri Bezmenov
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Yuri+Bezmenov
Communists! You can vote them in but you have to shoot your way out.
Here in the States, BLM activists have pulled down a statue of Ulysses S. Grant.
If that isn’t extreme historical ignorance, I don’t know what is.
Collective farms raise their ugly heads again. Somebody in the role of Lysenko is called for, immediately! Michael Mann rushes in to to the job and save the day. Where can I get my copy of the next 5 year plan?
Holy s*** are these people dumb.
In contrast to Bernie, the Swedes have figured out that having a good social safety net requires a strong economy to finance it–an economy where some people can get filthy rich. https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/11/28/in-sweden-billionaires-are-surprisingly-popular
The problem is that in the long term, socialism is antithetical to a strong economy.
In the beginning, strong social cohesion is sufficient to convince those on welfare that they need to get off welfare as soon as possible. Over time, this social cohesion breaks down, and once it does, the idea that welfare is something temporary dies away and people get used to living their whole lives having someone else pay for their needs.
A real scientist would see that this experiment has already failed, repeatedly and disastrously. No science here.
Are you badmouthing sustainability scientists? Are they a concomitant risk?
Sustainability Science [the journal] probes interactions between global, social, and human systems, the complex mechanisms that lead to degradation of these systems, and concomitant risks to human well-being.
Show me the falsifiable physical theory of sustainability, CG.
If there isn’t one — and there is not — then it’s not science. It’s no more than a subjective narrative decorated with some math.
Rather like climate modeling, actually.
Subjective narratives, which now dominate academia, assume what should be proved, give their assumptions the weight of evidence, and every study is confirmatory.
They are a magnet for second-raters and grievance mongers.
“Decorated with some math.”
Excellent, Pat.
Very well stated, Pat!
“Subjective narratives, which now dominate academia, assume what should be proved, give their assumptions the weight of evidence, and every study is confirmatory.”
Wonderful
Thanks, folks. It makes me sick, what’s going on in our universities.
The collusive silence of the scientific societies is even worse.
Sophistry pretending to be science is not science. There is no such thing as a “sustainability scientist.” I mean, how long does it take to prove sustainability, anyway? Do you think someone has done this? Show me the papers. Show me the public debate minutes where the governed all agreed!
There are deluded Utopians who think they know something about sustainability, and there are those who understand that sustainability movements are cruel jokes, at best, and a vile totalitarian threat to a sane polity, at worst. Pick a side, Curious George. Hopefully, you’ll wait until AFTER you learn how to stop being baffled by bullspit to choose.
Socialists tend to argue that, This time it’s going to work, because this time we’ll be the ones in charge.
I am happy to be 78. I should miss most of the mess these people are creating unless someone steps up and squashes them. God help you all if Biden wins.
Dan-
At 81, those have been my recent thoughts also.
I’m 61. I keep telling my grandchildren: I’ll be around to embarrass your grandchildren! I figure that to be about 30 years, certainly an obtainable goal, after all, my mother turned 91 last month, her grandfather lived to be 99, and although my father passed away at 77 I figure cigarette smoking shortened his life by at least a decade, so genetics is with me. But I’m starting to think this next third of my life may not be all fun and games!
These are not socialists. Whatever your opinion is on socialism, socialists had the same humanist goals of progress, development, prosperity, and growth. It’s just their methods were wrong, and often lead to destitution and hunger, as well as always creating oppressive police states, although at other times it worked as intended and resulted in marvels of industry and science. Environmentalists, on the other hand, have misery, poverty, starvation, and death of all humans as their primary goal, not as a possible side effect of misguided policy. I have yet to encounter an ideology more evil than that.
Really, mass starvation and murder, seizing of all property and destruction, stripping children from their parents and putting then in camps, destroying education and eradicating all opposition are progress, development, prosperity, and growth? Okey dokey, scooter.
Exactly right, damp.
These people are not scientists. Their intellects are either fatally careless or ideologically enslaved.
At the very best, they’re methodological hacks (competent in the lab).
Taleb calls them IYI, intellectual yet idiot
I call them educated beyond their intelligence.
I’ve settled on “brilliant idiots”.
That will require a whole lot of policing to make it work, and we know how much the left likes cops.
No cops. Just cLIEmate Karens.
This was tried in China with abject failure. What replaced it, US style capitalism. Soviet Union tried it with abject failure as well and the Soviet Union broke up. Creating mutually attained misery is not the answer. Human nature is selfish hence the desire of people to have others work for them no matter the system. One has to look at the outcome benefiting the most people versus balancing wealth creation and sustainability of Earth’s resources. That is the role of government regulations which ebb and flow seeking that balance. America is actually the best example of that balancing act with high GDP per person and very high environmental standards with some of the cleanest water and air standards in the world. We have the template for environmental governance and wish to throw it away for collectives which have no organized means to create the “Nirvana” they preach about.
The purpose is to destroy the Western Culture Economically and Culturally.
There was an interesting video years ago that showed what the range of individual income levels that existed for different countries around the world. The video progressed through the years and showed what was happening in each country. Specifically China. At the beginning of the video the income level for China was at the bottom of all nations and there was no range; everyone’s income was the same and their incomes were the lowest in the world. As capitalism crept in the sliding scale for incomes in China changed. Everyone’s income increased. A spread developed as wealth inequities developed and reflected what already existed in other developed nations.
If you were to ask those individuals who are currently at the bottom of the economic ladder in China if they want to go back to the way it was, they would say NO! But the economically ignorant want us to ignore the benefits of capitalism and drag us back to the communist days of Mao where everyone in China existed at borderline starvation.
Those who don’t know and learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Venezuela, God only knows how many others have tried central planning. IT DOESN’T WORK.
I’m sure it’s only a wild coincidence that every cultural and economic changes required to save the planet from the warming trend we’ve seen (for over 150 years now) are exactly the same prescriptions required for a just and equitable society….according to the teachings in the standard American University Marxist Indoctrination Programs that we taxpayers are still paying for.
Pure coincidence.
Also don’t forget to turn in your guns, and report to the nearest re-education labor camp. “Arbeit macht frei “.
Who can withstand the use of their vocabulary? — economic and political terminology used as their eco-religious jargon.
“Suatainability scientists”?
Thomas Wiedmann
Sustainability Assessment Program, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Manfred Lenzen
ISA, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Lorenz T. Keysser
Institute for Environmental Decisions, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
Julia K. Steinberger
Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
As many commenters to the article note PURE COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY = central planning by “experts,” who have absolutely zero intention of sharing the people’s new threadbare economic existence…
I wonder if the solution would change if the “experts” compensation and PENSIONS were tied to GDP reduction?
One would think that the schools involved would be embarrassed and ashamed, but one would probably be wrong.
“Zero intention” also applies to being among the 97%+ that will have to die.
Although they will be – cf. every Socialist (whether of the “National” or “International” flavor) regime ever. The “intellectuals” have always gone to the front of the line for the cattle cars.
“Sustainability scientists”. Good grief, what next? How about space alien scientists, bigfoot scientists, ghost scientists, or pixie dust scientists? They sure use a lot of bafflegab. I guess to hide the fact that they haven’t a clue what they are babbling on about.
bigfoot scientists?
That would be crypto-zoologists.
I was at the University of Washington when they established a Department of Astrobiology.
Yes, a frickin’ University Department to study something which has not even been shown to exist, and probably never will be.
I also met, but was not familiar with, a student who left the graduate Chemistry program for Astrobiology. In all fairness, I had already quickly pegged her as a space cadet.
I just wonder who would hire some to work in the field of Department of Astrobiology? It would seem to me a class of twenty graduating every ten years might be able to find jobs in their field, I could be wrong though is may be more like ten every twenty years. I have always had a laugh about the complaints of private collages roping people into degrees that don’t pay when not a word is said about the million of worthless degrees awarded to the naive young people by public collages.
Look in a college course listing from 1965 and one from today.
Many of the courses offered have been created over the last 55 years to employ the leftist loons that have graduated with degree that make them otherwise unemployable.
Then these same clowns got in the government and produced regulations that require businesses and government agencies to hire the otherwise unemployable to reprogram employees. Think all the diversity this, anger that, sexual harassment the other classes where any corporation of any size must “train” their employees at regular intervals.
Americans do not need diversity/minority/women’s etc. training. We are raised in a diverse integrated society. The training is just to employ the brigade of leftist useless bags of skin pumped out yearly by our current institutions of “higher” “education”. Such institutions greatly subsidized by productive taxpayers to our own detriment.
If I had my way, the BLM and other US land management agencies would only be able to hire people with degrees such as animal husbandry or farming or ranching or forestry or mining etc. No one with a degree in ecology need apply. The departments that manage our forests and parks and other lands didn’t need ecologists 55 years ago and don’t need them today.
Extra-terrestrial biology is more likely to exist than bloody anthropogenic global warming.
Dennis! There’s some lovely filth down here!
Bless ’em.
Yet another proof of how the entire climate change scam is about creating a socialist society.
Eric, I think it is more traditional to have the Looney Tunes, and other cartoons, on Saturday morning and not on Sunday morning?
This is Marxism. It was never about ecology, always about a “societal transformation”.
A question: how can you persuade wealthy, successful people to abandon all they have and go back to
indentured servitude?
By convincing them to “degrowth” to “save the planet”.
Yeah, ‘transformation’ in the sense that George Floyd was ‘transformed’ by a knee on the neck. We will end up as Soylent greens in order to ‘contribute’ to the new world order ‘society’. These eco loons are little more than narcissistic control freaks with about as much commitment to society as the worst of the Wall St Greed is Good rat pack. Bernie Madoff running an Eco-ENRON would have more integrity.
re-education camps? Machine guns?
A perfect example of “Woke” Bullshit Bingo.
This particular prescription for social and environmental justice sounds familiar. I have an indefinable, nagging sense that it has already been tried, and with really, really bad results for a lot of people.
There’s this movie, see? Doctor Zhivago? It’s about this Russian guy who cheats on his wife with this blond chick. I forget how it goes exactly, but everybody in it gets slammed by people like these anti-affluence science guys in Mr. Worrall’s article. So okay, it’s just a movie I saw when I was drunk, but these environmental justice guys remind of the movie, for some reason.
Say what.
Any one who uses the term ”sustainability” is an agenda 21 commie, and i dont need a degree to know that.
How people just sit and wait for the coming holocaust of western societies led by these ”educated” beasts is beyond me.
Oh boy, here we go again….do I hear Kumbaya(I know I’m spelling that wrong) playing in the background? I believe I do.
Do you know why dystopian future outlook has everyone dressing in 1 or 2 colors (gray or beige)? Because it is the pursuit of color extraction that scares the living hell out of these people–as a mental exercise, lets explore why the use of color is so freaking scary to these “everyone engage in group think” people. And I’ll only scratch the surface of the color BLUE and simplify greatly as this is a fascinating color with a rich history:
Blue as it is called today was not always called blue. There are many names for the color throughout history, once upon a time, blue was the most valued color in the world as it represented the sky and the water. We see blue every day, yet we couldn’t represent it in our textiles and art until we learned how to extract it. So we did, first from stone, then plant, then we ingenious people developed stable dyes and pigments to represent blue. What about the name? Well the Greeks had I think 4 different names for blue? And they weren’t the only ones….in fact there were so many different names for blue that it must have been confusing as all heck to order the shade for either a textile or pigment. I picked blue because unlike yellow, green, reds, browns, and golds, blue as a textile dye is very freaking rare. A blue flower will not produce blue dye(you will probably get yellow or green) and even rarer is purple–a blue mixture. So the expense was due to rarity and extraction processes (indigo is not as easy nor as “clean” as synthetic), plus the color fastness or how fast it would fade exposed to sunlight or water.
Now lets suppose that this “everyone thinks the same way” folks had studied blue. They probably would have tried to extract the color from blue flowers right? Because they are blue..and since what you see is what you get mentality of everything only exists in their reality, they would have probably wasted thousands of blue flowers to get green or yellow or brown. Now their neighbor is involved as they like the blue flowers that once grew there and the groupthink are being accused of going against principles, they should have formed a committee to decide if taking all the flowers would be good for everyone, posted a survey to the surrounding neighborhoods to get a good decision on whether or not blue flowers are good for taking for experiments. They would have been involved in lets just say hundreds of man hours just to find out that not only was that a waste of time, they STILL don’t have the answer to the question of why blue flowers produced any color but blue.
The aftermath would be concluded that new regulations are put into place for nobody to be able to extract without full committee and surrounding towns weighing in on whether it would be a good idea, to the point where nobody would ever try to extract the color blue and the results of the experiment would show that despite the breach of protocol, blue can not be extracted and hence no color search should ever breach protocol again. Nature is allowed to be nature without interference, so no more breeding white sheep(because you don’t need to color the wool), no more bleaching cotton (because that is changing the processing..and that also prohibits splicing for more white to absorb color), no more dyes, no more pigments.
Hence, everyone only wears beige or gray because that is the natural color of natural fibers of wool, cotton, hemp and linen. (What about green? Green must be extracted and colorfasted otherwise it turns to beige. Natural green is a fascinating dye by the way, you can get a plethora of colors–but unless it is synthetic, almost all of those colors will fade to yellow and then to beige over time).
And that’s just for 1 color. Imagine all the colors we live in every day being reduced to beige or gray and all because groupthink decided that since you can’t get blue from a blue flower it is unattainable.
That is more insidious than 1984 ever considered. And it has happened before in I would posit every single facet of our scientific and artistic circles. I remember being told in Physics 101, that at the turn of the last century it was widely regarded as “fact” that there was no need to study Physics as man had learned all it could of that science. Talk about arrogant ignorance.
Being losers, their first reaction is to drag the rest of society down to their level.
That’s what this whole maximum income, reduce economic growth is all about. Losers who can’t achieve the lifestyle they want through their own efforts, so they have to destroy those who can succeed on their own.
Under this plan the maximum and minimum incomes will both approach the same value. Zero.
Let’s say that all the suggestions in this article are implemented. Someone please tell me what effect will be seen in the climate? Griff, Loydo, have at it.
And who will be in control of this green Utopia? I suggest a read of Animal Farm by Orwell rather than 1984
I’ve met a number of socialists who believe that the idea of a maximum income is the solution to people who have too much success in their lives.
Several have been open about their desire to lower gradually lower the maximum income until it is the same as the minimum income.
Anyone who isn’t a socialist can figure out what is going to happen when we reach the point that no matter how hard you work, you still get the same pay as those who can’t be bothered to work in the first place.
Let’s take them at their own word then, and cut all their salaries in accord with their estimates of “necessary” GDP reduction: 40 to 90%. Retroactively from the very first recorded day they began espousing these theories.
1) Many of them never had an income in the first place.
2) Of those that did, few managed to get much above minimum wage.
3) They never intended to cut their own salary. They want to punish the people who have more than they do. They want to drag everyone else down to their level.
The lead author has a PhD in Analytical Chemistry – nothing against chemists, some of my friends are chemists…. That’s an honourable field of inquiry, but the joker probably couldn’t hack it there, and far removed from the utter and unmitigated garbage of the actual Nature article.
“The evidence is clear. Long-term and concurrent human and planetary well being will not be achieved in the Anthropocene if affluent overconsumption continues, spurred by economic systems that exploit nature and humans…………………………………………A number of concrete policy proposals for governance can be extracted from the literature (see also Cosme et al.76). All of these will need further scrutiny and research on their feasibility and implementation:…………………………………………Second, empower people and strengthen participation in democratic processes and enable stronger local self-governance.”
You will be free, but you will do this? Arbeit macht frei! Ach du lieber! ..sowohl als auch!
I may have missed one, but the earliest reference I saw was 2002.
Asking people to work for their wages is exploitation, according to our progressive wanna be masters.
I’m trying to figure out how anyone is supposed to survive if mining, farming, fishing, hunting, or any other form of exploiting nature is outlawed.
“The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions”
Also this
The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most climate research funding no matter how vacuous the research question and methodology and they are central to any future prospect of climate science sustainability.
Oops!
The “affluent” are the only ones with time and money to spare to even think about caring for the environment. When your day is totally taken up with scratching for a half-decent crop to feed your family, looking for enough fuel to cook that food on, and trying to stave off pests and diseases — no antibiotics or insecticides under this régime, remember — then the “environment” is what you use (to destruction if need be) simply in order to survive.
And in the same context, the authors of this report would very rapidly learn that the “civilisation” they are wishing on us has no place for parasites which is all they would be. I know the theory is that the élite will live like the pre-revolution French aristocracy while the rest of us become no more than serfs but I’m afraid that in their scenario they will not be the élite. What they believe they are wishing for is More’s Utopia; what they will get is Pol Pot’s Cambodia and they are far too fastidious to have the single-minded brutality they need to get them to the top.
Defund the b******s now before they do any real damage!
These guys are totally ignorant of future power generation technologies, which not only eliminate any need for renewables, or even fossil fuel peak generation but cost less than current power technologies and would improve the world economically. Renewable energy is stupid low carbon energy. Molten salt small modular reactors can do it all, safer than any other power technology and with levelized costs of 4 cents per kWhr. Supplementing our current conventional nuclear and hydroelectric with molten salt reactors to achieve 1ow carbon free power would cost about $one trillion, and that would also fuel a fleet of electric vehicles as well.
Aside from their fear of carbon, the dumbest thing the global warming alarmists have going is their idiodic “solution.”
“Molten salt small modular reactors”, the gift that keeps on giving.
Or will, if they ever manage to actually build one.
Socialists pretending to be scientists.
And this is from the group who think they are just tweaking capitalism a little bit. This reminds me of something Cicero said “There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not considered it.”
Where is Karl Marx when you need him?
Perhaps a copyright infringement suit could be filed, each time they trot this out it is plagiarized from the last time it was trotted out.
Where is Karl Marx when you need him?
Don’t forget, this time it is going to be different! (Sarc)
There is an old folk tale. I think it might be Russian but I’m not sure.
This fisherman catches a magic talking fish. The fish pleads with the fisherman “please throw me back and I’ll grant you one magic wish.” The man is of course startled at a talking fish but he agrees to the deal and throws the fish back into the water.
“What would like for your magic wish?” asks the talking fish.
“Well my neighbor in the village, he has two strong healthy cows. And I only have one old sickly cow. It isn’t fair that he has more than me. He has more milk and cream and butter and it ‘s just not right.”
“So” the fish says “You want me to give you a second cow?”
“No, no” says the fisherman, “I want you to take away his cows.”
“It is in the character of very few men to honor, without envy, a friend who has prospered.” – Aeschylus
The only reason these people have these worthless careers is because of affluence.
As long as there are many people in the world who are lazy or greedy or envious of what others possess this will never work.
“lazy or greedy or envious ”
You’ve just described the kind of people that push this kind of nonsense.
The pie has a fixed size; so anyone who gets ahead does so at the expense of others. No room for growth or more efficient use of resources. Typical lefty/democrat constrained “thinking.”
The same goes for their view of economic growth.
All they can imagine is more and bigger stuff. That’s why they equate economic growth with more resource depletion.
The reality is that in the first world, economic growth comes more from having better stuff, not more stuff.
Compare the energy, resource usage of a modern computer (3 GHz, 5Tbyte hard drive, 12Gbyte of memory) with a computer from 20 years ago (200MHz, 500Gbyte drive, 200Mbyte of memory).
Most families had two cars decades ago. However modern cars have more bells and whistles, get better gas milage and last longer than did cars from 2 decades ago.
And so on.
In the early 1990s I was a director of a small graphics design company that did desktop assembly as a (very profitable) sideline. This was in the days of Windows 3.1 and the Intel 486 processor. The Pentium arrived just about the time I left for other work.
There was major celebration the day our supplier phoned to say he could get us hard drives at under £800 a megabyte. That is not a misprint! The last HDD I bought for ‘The Beast’ before I went permanently onto laptops was 1Tb and cost less than £50.
Some people have very short memories!
It was in 1998, when I first saw an add for computer memory where the price finally dropped below $100/Mbyte.
It was in 1988 when I got my first desk top, it ran on a 6MHz 80286, had a 10Mbyte hard drive and 740K of RAM. We looked into buyinig 260K of RAM in order to get me up to a full MByte. The cost was almost $4000.
In the days before cell phones, most homes had 2 or 3 landlines. Compare the size of those phones to the cell phones of today. Those things could only make calls, nothing else, the cost of long distance was something like 10 to 20 cents per minute. This was at a time when a bottle of coke cost 15 cents.
How many kids out there even know what a CRT is? My first computer had a 12 inch CRT monitor. Monochrome.
Bells and whistles? Your analogy is bollox.
You will find your answer to your so called “more and bigger” = simply more bloat!
There is nothing I find in most modern cars that is better designed, lighter, made to last longer, or is not a total show stopper if it goes wrong, than anything from the late 80s.
In fact lean burn engines from the 80s still beat the pants off any modern power units with catastrophic subvertors, and don’t have acres of electronics that cost fortunes to replace while leaving your stranded on the roadside…
+
It’s usually the case, if a car is 25% lighter it uses less energy to accelerate it.
It’s well know the automotive industry is a perfect example of going backwards.
The vast majority of cars have got much heavier in the last 20yrs.
Anyone driven a 1970-80s Lotus will tell you that!
Your analogy with the computer is also pretty wayward.
We simply didn’t need the gigantic resources you are citing, because OS were light, faster and had very little bloat, with excellent design skills & few kludges, which is of course why tru64bit Unix or 64 bit Linux was some 20yrs ahead of its time.
Even Torvalds is moaning about mega bloat in linux now!!
The fundamental error made by the Socialists/Communists: wealth cannot be created, only acquired by exploiting someone else.
The term heterogeneous says it all as it is incommensurable making the whole article vacuous gobbledegook with dangerousness political connotations.
In summary: We who are more equal than others grant freedom to those who do precisely what we say.
Yes, absolutely, lets all get poor and hungry again together. That always makes the environment healthier. Nearly 8 billion people who know what a successful industrial society looks and feels like are sure to passively accept their gradual eradication without lifting a finger because some brain-dead academics who’ve never lived in the real world or solved a real problem in their life say it seems like a good idea based on their computer models and economic projections. And of course none of those billions will be upset to see the future of their children and grandchildren disappear in a puff of green smoke and their health and nutritional status dwindle to a premorbid precipice. All those people certainly won’t scrape the earth for every last morsel of protein to stay alive and feed their children, burn every scrap of wood and vegetation for heat and protection or resort to continuous armed conflict over the dwindling resources as humanity descends into oblivion.
My only suggestion to enhance this plan is that the proponents lead the way as they are so certain a of the beneficence of their advice. The rest of us should stay on the sidelines and watch till we have mastered the skills of these intellectual giants from watching them in action. There is probably a nice place in Antarctica where they can start which will certainly be toasty warm and comfortable by now due to out of control hum,an induced global warming.
“Well, I didn’t see that coming!” said no one on WUWT.
It has been clear to many that environmentalism in general and climate change in particular are just false-flag operations, designed to divert the attention of the masses from the left’s real target, which has always been the destruction of Western Civilization and its replacement with a socialist dictatorship. The only thing surprising about this paper is it’s honesty.
Apparently, these post-modern, neo-marxist feel that it is safe for them to come out of their closest and reveal who they really are and what they are really up to. And maybe it is! They have done a very good job of indoctrinating the masses with fear and nonsense at all levels of society, so that many ‘unaware’ are openly inviting these ‘foxes’ into the hen house.
This openness has caused some leftists to take the red pill and renounce their old delusions. Karlyn Borysenko is a clinical psychologist who is sharing her ‘red pill’ experience on YouTube, after she attended a Trump rally last fall. She is quite entertaining and a small, but growing threat to the leftist narrative. Also on YouTube, Scott Adams, in his episode 1030, is predicting that there will be a massive ‘red pill’ event coming before the end of the year, but he is not yet sharing any details. I don’t know if his predicted ‘call to reality’ will be something that saves Western Civilization or is just the realization that Western Civilization is already lost. I guess it could go either way.
What do you think?
Back in 2012 I stated that we faced our last chance to save this country, then the Republicans nominated perhaps the only person in the country who couldn’t defeat Obama. The milquetoast Romney.
Did you read the headlines recently about Romney saying that he couldn’t support Trump, because apparently Trump is too mean to the Democrats.
“The Ticks are conspiring about what the cow must eat”.
So that the blood may be sweeter.
Seems that our Parasitic Overload has reached a point where they are unaware of who feeds them.
Career Civil Servants unto the 5th generation.
It produces these fools and bandits,who “Know better than all the rest of us” how we shall live.
Perhaps it is time,in the Americas anyway, to hold a few accountable.
Time to revisit that “Temporary Income Tax”,which allowed the career civil servants to feast.
For most of these “1st world problems” such as The Cult of Calamitous Climate,Gang Green and The UN..will all fade away if we stop funding them.
These useless and greedy freeloaders are using our money to empower themselves,to ends that serve none of the Tax paying citizens.
So chop the money.
Income tax ,a temporary taxation to “pay for the War” has continued for 100 years..Mighty Temporary.
The Tithe lasted for centuries and 1 person administering for every 10 working productively may be affordable.
So Reset time,the useless and clueless are real good at rewarding the clueless ,shiftless and completely inept,with other peoples money.
So we are now awash in Useless,clueless and dangerously incompetent persons.
Maybe we could agree to pay a maximum of 10% net at the local level,then each local can give 10% of their take to the State.
For Government Money,without accountability to any taxpayer ever,is the source of almost all the madness that currently afflicts us.
Fake problems, thrust upon us by dangerously underemployed persons.
I’ve read that many city dwellers think that food comes from grocery stores, electricity comes from wall sockets and money comes from government.
I’m always shocked that people so clearly lacking any reasonable intelligence are actually placed in roles where they can write garbage like this. Democratic countries are the only states that allow them to spew drivel like this. Do they seriously think China will adopt policies like this? They want to burn down the only institutions that actually give them a voice.
Simply more strong evidence that Climate Change has little to do with Climate, and everything to do with wealth distribution and socialism, while bringing the middle class and its affluence into serfdom.
Hey, at least they’re being up front about their ideals. 😉
Mortal gods and goddesses. The philosophers of a Pro-Choice selective, opportunistic, politically congruent religion. Realized through a divergent ideology. In Stork They Trust. Let us bray.
Once science becomes entwined with finance, politics and ideology in this way it can no longer be classed as science. There is no data here, no observations or measurements just a (somewhat biased) thought process and fanciful ideas. The authors, and the publishing periodical, have lost sight of what constitutes “Science”.
At first, I thought the paper was one of those pseudo-papers submitted to journals for fun, to gauge how gullible today’s professional journal editors/referees are.
But no? This is a real paper? A real “science” paper? In a real “science” journal?
Nonetheless, I am still laughing. Jokes tend to have that effect on me.
Karl Marx would be delighted.
This Trojan horse is made of glass.
The problem is that the horse is already inside the gates.
Not only that, it was actually made inside the gates.
Well, in one sense they are kind of right…Implement all of this and no one will care about climate change – natural or not. They will be too busy fighting wars, killing each other, imprisoning and torturing the non-compliant, and starving to death.
Except for the elite socialist government officials (i.e. liberals) who will be living like kings and queens.
“For over half a century, worldwide growth in affluence has continuously increased resource use and pollutant emissions far more rapidly than these have been reduced through better technology.”
The half century ‘problem’ of increasing ‘affluence’ which is just a pretentious word, for more real money per person to spend, in the developing countries, …. Is over.
Unemployed people are not affluent. Shrinking GDP means cities and states and other countries all must spend less, as every level of government prior to the covid event were spending more than revenue.
The Left’s solution for every problem is to spend more money. That option is gone.
Where to cut? Drone, zombie ‘academics’?
So the new problem is how to get the GDP to grow again and put people back to work.
There is one simple rule about the sustainability movement, it rather simple really “there is nothing sustainable in the sustainability movement”. It is to bad the simpletons that buy into this falsehood don’t wise up and learn they are being played by modern snake oil salesmen.
The Aral Sea disagrees.
‘necessary societal change’. Very scientific!
Socialism comes from laziness and jealousy of the money that hard working people have.
Is it surprising the left thinks that totalitarianism (tyranny) is the solution to everything “wrong”?
Finally…the gloves are off. It’s time for normal decent people to stand up and say no! You’ve been lying to us for decades, alarmists, PC, racism, pandemics, name the excuse. Get out the pitchforks.
Oh, it won’t be pitchforks.
https://youtu.be/31vm3-BQRJU?t=56
Pitchforks, as well as tar and feathers, have their place in the modern arsenal.
I’m not against humiliation, but it should be followed by exile to Venezuela or North Korea, if they’ll even take people so obviously horrified of actual work. 🙂
How about Zimbabwe?
Lovely dusky ladies.
“Absolute decoupling, let alone an inverted-U-type Kuznets relationship, does not occur from a consumption-based accounting perspective.”
FIFY: “We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The time for jokes is very nearly up. It wasn’t jokes that defeated Hitler and Tojo. Just saying.
I see there’s someone (can’t bring myself to say scientist) from Leeds in this lot. I have the album “Live at Leeds” by the Who, recorded at Leeds University in 1970, when temperature anomalies hovered around 0°c. Great album.
So anyway….
Quote: “The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions.”
You forgot to mention that they are also responsible for being the greenest. Even back in 2014 The Global Green Economy Index assessed 60 nations on every continent and found that the Scandinavian countries, along with Germany, were clear leaders.
Poland, Senegal, Qatar, Vietnam and Mongolia bring up the rear in slots 56-60, with China just above them at 55.
Quote “Any transition towards sustainability can only be effective if far-reaching lifestyle changes complement technological advancements.”
Of course, I mean how could it be otherwise? /sarc
I’ve seen this written in many forms, just cut and paste. This is how the EU Environment Agency puts it: “Therefore, to achieve the EU’s long-term sustainability goals, the core systems of our societies will have to change dramatically.” the same core systems that make Sweden one of the greenest countries. Okay.
“Far reaching lifestyle changes” is the mollification of dramatic, radical or extreme changes. It’s sometimes seen with an time element added for good measure.
“sustainability challenges of unprecedented scale and urgency.”
https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/sustainability-transitions/
Quote “However, existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits necessary societal change.
If Societies wish to change their habits, and btw in a free society they have every right to stay as they are, then societal pressure on competitive markets will bring that about. The premise that there is a necessity for radical change ignores completely our favoured solution as a species for consensual adaptation. Nobody likes pollution, but I believe society would generally be better served by a carrot solution rather than a stick to solve it.
Quote: These solution approaches range from reformist to radical ideas, including degrowth, eco-socialism and eco-anarchism.
Is that it? that’s the big idea. My god have these people no historical knowledge at all.
Eco-socialism is just soy socialism, call it what you want it’s still socialism…. but this time it’s going to work, promise.
I had to look up Eco-anarchism, turns out they’re terrorists, lovely.
This is all peer reviewed.
Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. {cough}
What on Earth do stringent taxes, wealth redistribution, a maximum income, a guaranteed basic income, reduced working hours, wealth redistribution, public ownership of businesses, a cap on how much money people are allowed to have, and starring roles for eco-feminists and anarchists have to do with the weather of climate?
Nothing. It never did.
It does for those paying it!
The authors of this bafflegab are NOT Australian scientists. They are German blow-ins, given sanctuary by fellow ideologues in Aussie universities, misusing taxpayer monies, to plot and hatch global dissent. Remember Baader Meinhof gang? Similar unhappy chappies with strange minds.
Sad thing is, they adore mentions like this, publicising them like free advertisements.
Geoff S
Really? Now that is interesting, being exactly the mindset of the narcissistic troll. “Any attention, even if it’s repugnance and loathing, is positive just by virtue of it being attention paid to me. Look how much power I have over you! Bwahahahaa, ROFLMAO, etc ad nauseam.”
It seems very little can surprise me any more, because all I feel on learning this is weariness.
Just more proof that green is the new (marxist) red.
Watermelons, all of them.
“Central planning, rationing, price controls, punitive wealth taxes and wealth redistribution. The glorious future climate concerned scientists are planning for us.”
Most likely planning for us… and not for them. All Rich Westerners will be equal. Some will just be more equal than the rest.
Leftists have graduated from 2 + 2 = 5, to 2 + 2 = broccoli…
That’s what you get in a Leftist world of subjective “reality” where the rules of: logic, reason, the scientific method, facts, moral absolutes and natural law no longer exist…
The climate has always changed in the past… it will always change in the future. So there is nothing to solve about climate change.
What is wrong with these people. Why only 50 years,what about 500,000 years? Why at all?
Right off the bat, “reduced working hours” will require more commuting to work by more employees to get the same work done.
That solves the unemployment problem. More people shoveling shit! Same cost…
Ask the people of Venezuala how they are liking that approach. Only took a little over a decade of that to destroy the country and the people’s lives.