Guest essay by Eric Worrall
I love the smell of climate activist despair before the big COP26 conference. Smells like hope for a better future, in which nobody important even tries to pretend that climate change is a problem.
Our leaders look climate change in the eyes, and shrug
Hamilton Nolan
Wed 4 Aug 2021 20.12 AESTIt is not good to be too pessimistic on the climate crisis. That said, it sure does seem like we’re screwed
If you have cultivated an Edgar Allen Poe-like appreciation for the macabre, there is a certain sort of amusement to be had in watching the developed world deal with the insistent onslaught of climate change. Like many horror stories, this one features a main character full of futile determination to maintain a sense of normalcy even as the ominous signs of doom become ever more impossible to ignore. We can chuckle knowing that the monster is going to come for our designated protectors. We stop chuckling knowing that it’s coming for all of us next.
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The latest demonstration of this comes from the G20, that coalition that is as good a proxy as any for the combined will of the world’s richest countries. The latest G20 meeting wrapped up last week without firm commitments on phasing out coal power, or on what steps nations will promise to take to try to hold global warming to 1.5C. This goal is both necessary and, perhaps, unlikely – a report by scientists found that China, Russia, Brazil and Australia are all pursuing policies that could lead to a cataclysmic five degrees of warming.
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As overwhelming and omnipresent as the climate crisis is, it is not the core issue. The core issue is capitalism. Capitalism’s unfettered pursuit of economic growth is what caused climate change, and capitalism’s inability to reckon with externalities – the economic term for a cost that falls onto third parties – is what is preventing us from solving climate change. Indeed, climate change itself is the ultimate negative externality: fossil-fuel companies and assorted polluting corporations and their investors get all the benefits, and the rest of the world pays the price. Now the entire globe finds itself trapped in the gruesome logic of capitalism, where it is perfectly rational for the rich to continue doing something that is destroying the earth, as long as the profits they reap will allow them to insulate themselves from the consequences.
Congratulations, free market evangelists: this is the system you have built. It doesn’t work. …
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Capitalism is a machine made to squeeze every last cent out of this planet until there is nothing left. We can either fool ourselves about that until it kills us, or we can change it.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/04/climate-change-crisis-environment-politics
Hamilton Nolan, I’d say Capitalism and Freedom have done a fine job of filtering out the trash. The bloody history of the 20th century repeatedly demonstrated that freedom loving Capitalist societies have plenty of what it takes to overcome genuine problems. Free societies have also repeatedly demonstrated they are far less susceptible than authoritarians, to the false messages promoted by scientist advocates who have been captured by institutional groupthink.
Right, everything will be so much better when the world is run by totalitarian warmunists.
Sometimes there is a rare and brilliant suggestion on Twitter:
I think we need to shut down the government for two weeks to slow the spread of totalitarianism.
Don’t worry, Senator, it’s only ‘two weeks.’
Yeppers…all the Warmunists, Ecofascists and Socialistas are gravely afraid of Capitalism. They will blame weather on it
Well, Capitalism was always the target – climate change was just one of the arrows.
Totalitarianism was the goal.
Of course, it looks like Covid was the more effective arrow.
Not that they aren’t going to stop shooting the other ones.
Don’t laugh, they actually believe that.
In their minds, the world is broken, and only they can fix it.
And they are so very certain that what they are doing is for the greater good. That makes them very dangerous.
Every time I read “the greater good” I feel impelled to post this:
The Greater Good – Hot Fuzz – Best Version – YouTube
Hubris!
Oh hell yeah – Tom Foolry was on just a couple weeks ago, objecting to my characterization of progressives as ’cause-plus Nazi’ equals ‘progressive’ – safety nazi, climate nazi, health nazi, food nazi, virus nazi – not objecting to their nazi-esque methods, mind you – just the characterization.
Gordian writes lot of nonsense, from today’s paper:
“Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points.”
The fact is that the Gulf Stream takes warm equatorial Atlantic waters into the Arctic Ocean that melts sea ice from underneath, 90% of which is below the surface. If he Gulf Stream ever looses even half of its strength the North Atlantic bordering lands will indeed face tipping point, but not a global fry-up but onset of a new ice age.
The Gulf stream is a very small but hot current that comes out the Gulf of Mexico and this is driven by equatorial winds. By far the biggest current (the North Atlantic drift) is again driven by trade winds, this time South Westerlies. So, neither of these two have anything to do with ice. The last one, which is a very small current, is one which drags in some of the warm water from the North Atlantic drift into the Arctic ocean. This one is driven by Arctic ice conditions, but the importance of this is extremely minor except for those in the very north of Scotland, Iceland and Scandinavia – which are already warmed by the North Atlantic drift, but the effect is increased by the Arctic current.
Mike, thanks for clearing the point. I know most of of that, but frequently all those currents are refereed to under common umbrella of Gulf Stream.
The opening quote is from the article itself, but to be fair in the rest they talk about “Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC)” and that is exactly what I meant and should have said.
To prove the point I’ll refer you to one of may early articles from dozen or so years ago, when I made foray into subject of the ‘global warming’, at that time very few were talking about the ‘climate change’.
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/418304/filename/NATA.pdf
the first section title is ‘North Atlantic Currents’ (I’m sure you could find few errors in there too)
All the best, Vuk.
” by trade winds, this time South Westerlies.”
I don’t know the ways of the Scots when mentioning winds, but to this hill country kid, the above seems somewhat garbled. In the Northern Hemisphere the “trade winds” viewed from the Equatorial Zone appear to come out of the Northeast – thus, the Northeast Trades.
The winds between 30°N – 60°N seem to come from the west, so then called Westerlies.
To add to this, ocean currents have other controls, such as the rotating Earth, shape of the basins, salinity, and temperature.
The atmospheric “disturbance” moving across the Atlantic (about 12°N) during the past week, and the next one, now crossing the Geba River estuary, are hampered by the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). This trailing disturbance seems more likely to trend north of the ITCZ, and thus has a better chance of further development.
(Winds can be seen on the earth dot nullschool site.)
The opening sentence reads, “I love the smell of climate activist despair before the big COP26 conference.”
Fantastic opening, Eric. Made me laugh.
Regards,
Bob
It is now very clear that COP26 will be a complete fiasco for climate alarmists. China and India will never agree to anything which will limit their prospects for economic growth. This fact is gradually dawning on climate alarmists. Of course, this means that any action that Britain takes will be utterly pointless. Any serious attempt by Britain to achieve the impossible net zero carbon target by 2050 will destroy the British economy for no benefit at all.
A complete fiasco is what I am hoping for so thanks for the optimism, though complete fiasco is what people should have learned to expect after past performance. More CO2 please, the plants and life on Earth love it.
It does seem extremely difficult to see what our betters have in mind for the upcoming political theater. They didn’t reach their lofty perches in the parasitic class by being obtuse, so it must be obvious to them that an utter fiasco is in the works. How does their messaging reflect what they plan to do when the failure occurs?
The agitprop barrage across every branch of the propaganda organs does not seem to signal any kind of U turn in policy back to sanity.
The only explanation that I can see is that the fascist faction (who hold power and whose only interest is to retain control over the nanny state) wants to abandon the obviously impossible net zero, ban ICE, and similar overreach policies on the pretense that China and others have scuttled the deal, so it’s pointless. But the communist faction embedded in the propaganda organizations, (who are out of power and whose only interest is to destroy capitalism), is hell-bent on preventing them from pulling that off.
I think they are in disarray and fighting each other. Too bad there are no free market classical liberals (in US terms “conservatives”) on the field of battle to take any advantage of it.
The UK’s CO2 emissions are a rounding error on the annual increase of CO2 from China. The UK is irrelevant. They just refuse to accept that fact.
Yep, they refuse to buy calculators or even pencils and backs of envelopes. I’ve tried with griff and loydo, but they don’t want to confront that cognitive dissonance.
I’m not gonna waste any of my life looking up who TF is Hamilton Nolan. Presumably an elitist nitwit who can’t actually function in the real world?
Great post, Phil! Made my day.
You obviously don’t realise that Hamilton Nolan is a Life Guru who has the good fortune to possess that unique knowledge of knowing what’s best for everyone, except that “knowledge” doesn’t apply to him personally or any of his like minded buddies!!! Sarc off!!! It’s rather sad that they give their game away, & for me, virtually destroy any rationality of looking after the planet, when they open up with “it’s all Capitalism’s fault”, signalling their nasty evil Socialist intentions to dominate the world, starting with the dismantling of the USA, the Socialists’ sworn enemy, it really is something out of an Orwellian style novel!!! Agenda 21 anybody???
Fortunately, they’re pretty much too useless to actually do anything, especially in the US, where the tribe with the most ammo ain’t there’s. They couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery, get carbon dioxide out of a paper bag, or fix just one pothole.
If you’re completely useless at everything, become a writer for the Guardian or a BBC science correspondent or a poor man’s Joseph Goebbels, but there I go repeating myself.
Don’t worry, Canada will save everyone. Idiot. (Justin, not you)
The UK may be irrelevant with regard to CO2 emissions, but their relevancy in other areas is beyond compare.
Uh, Jim, please list those areas in which the UK is relevant. CliSciFi?
Dave
The UK is important in Biotech and Finance, but the “beyond compare” is a high bar.
Maybe: Brexit? [ie showing a way forward ?]
That was a century ago when they were there to bring civilization, wealth ans freedom to the far corners of the world. The British Empire dwindled into a nonentity over 70 years ago. Now not even the EU cares about their fate after they opted out. The world will go on just the same if Britain sinks into the Atlantic tomorrow…..
Au contraire, the EU hate the thought that the UK has sent a signal to other members of the club, especially Poland, who I understand are already considering abandoning the EU, once they realised that after being liberated from one source of oppression, only to be subsumed into another by joining the EU!!! They have seen that the EU countries are dictated to by a bunch of un-elected, un-democratic, un-accountable, un-sackable bureaucrats, that uses a token worthless parliament full of overpaid under-worked MEPs, with huge expense accounts, presenting to the World an “impression” of democracy, when in fact none exists!!!
Wish I could give that 1000 likes +++++++++++
All it needs to be a fiasco is for what the warmists themselves are pleading and begging for. This suicidally depressed Nolan character needs the same treatment.
What do they want: Unreliable Energy.
Fine. Give them it. Let it roll.
(Oooops, rolling blackouts. YES!!!!)
It really would be The Most Epic Thing to watch them spluttering around Glasgow with no electricity, no phones, no interweb, no TV or media.
No security cameras. Fortunate for them the Speed Cameras on the M74 southbound might be off also.
They wanna be carefull going thro the Cumberland Gap, the boys in that part of the world are ‘a bit handy’ with the old double-barrelled 12 Bore.
And Cumbria is now even bigger than Cumberland ever was – I doubt any EV could get through without running outta juice esp if it set off from Glasga. Sitting Ducks is the term I believe
Do we have any ‘Friends’ inside China?
If those intrepid little Tik Tokkers can hack Mr Trump’s election, organising a few Glaswegian blackouts would be a piece of cake…..
Get in quick before they eat it. again, and again, and again. and aga…..
hahahhaha How come they never seem to choke?
I’m struggling to see how the whole climate shebang would survive such an event – who could they possibly blame especially, as we see here with Nolan, the only real tool in their entire box is : Buck Passing
Yes Bill Toland you are right and our quasi communist government here in New Zealand are hell bent on destroying our economy in the false hope of saving the world from a very small, if any rise in temperature .
Nothing that New Zealand could do could ever be measurable on any temperature record anywhere in the world.
Now this is the latest and most stupid action that this mentally challenged government has come up with.
They are encouraging investors in New Zealand and abroad to purchase sheep and cattle farms in our hill country and plant them in pine trees which will never be harvested and calling this carbon farming .
Surely food production for export makes a lot more sense than “carbon farming “.
These investors are paid carbon credits as their pine trees grow for 50 years and as I understand the land then reverts to government ownership after a very profitable 50 years for the investors .
What is wrong with this some of you might ask.
The answer is every thing .
Growing pines for timber on marginal land makes sense and some plantations are now in to their third rotation .The trees are pruned and thinned and are milled from 26 to 30 years .
With carbon farming there is no management and they will become a major fire hazard well before 50 years as the trees die and fall over in storms .
They will be a disaster waiting to happen .
Our native bush could be grown as it is reasonably fire proof but it is very slow growing and the carbon sequested is a lot less , probably only a fifth of what pines grow per year .
Graham
Good for China and India. Taking care of yourself helps everyone in the end, such a strange idea nowadays.
It is more likely to be a complete success for the totalitarianism minded. They can, and probably will, claim success in achieving agreement on their goals and use that as a lever to force implementation on the west, regardless of what the rest of the world does.
You don’t believe that the Xiden admin will throw billions into the black hole of Climate Commitments? The Obammy Puppet Master originally got out The Pen and spent a few billion with just a small squiggle. This new gaggle of loony toons has no problem invoking Modern Monetary Theory to spend trillions.
The rallying cry has become “Print Moar!”
Thanks Bob 🙂
It ain’t over till The Fat Alarmist keels over…
It won’t be over until the voters (or their surrogates “harvesting” votes on their behalf) stop electing Climate Fascists, and until the Climate Fascists are weeded our from “deep state” government “bodies.”
Thanks, Bob. I’ve always been drawn to my personal experience of “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
I had a hunch that Eric was paraphrasing Robert Duvall in that scene from Apocalypse Now
Been there. Done that. Got the valor medals and Purple Heart. But the movie was B.S.
Do I detect a change of emphasis away from carbon dioxide (not ‘carbon’) emissions towards a general attack on ‘capitalism’? Capitalism is what happens when you leave people alone. No ideology. Unlike what this writer wants instead which is yet another doomed-to-fail excursion into ‘socialism’. Rich countries are best at preserving the planet . Is racist Greta Thunberg still forbidding the billion without electricity to build FF power stations while they daily burn down her ‘collapsing ecosystems’?
I think so. At least they are getting more honest about their goals.
That was always the real motivation. Up until recently, attacking capitalism directly was a fringe Marxist theory, but sadly, we have more and more woke products of a broken educational system that are getting away with openly opposing capitalism without enough pushback.
I doubt if they teach Basic Micro and Macro Economics in Government funded Universities here in the States today. They may call it economics on the syllabus but it is more like Soviet Union religious orthodoxy with the primary theme Central Authoritarian Government Good, Capitalism, fettered or not, bad. The “Consensus” Proof is that when socialized, the former can control Profits which are pure evil. And after taking their kickback spread the wealth “Equitably”
Of course basic economics teaches us that when we take profit out of the equation we eliminate competition which removes any incentive to innovate or to meet demand and we eliminate the incentive for process improvement and quality control. Eventually what you end up with is bread lines and shoes with detachable soles. And not detachable by choice. Only then will the hive-minded, post 1990 public School graduates. understand the consequences of their voting. But by then it will take a revolution to break the bondage chains of whatever ISM you choose to describe Central Authoritarian/Totalitarian Control of the braindead drones we call comrades.
Under capitalism, you build walls to keep people from getting in; under socialism and all its forms, you build walls to keep people from getting out. Under capitalism, the bread is waiting for you. Under socialism and all its forms, you are waiting for the bread.
Apologies to whomever said that first.
“Soviet Union religious orthodoxy”
Why on earth do you call it ‘religious’? The Soviet Union was run by the Communist Party. The Communist Party was anti-religious. It tried to turn the Soviet Union into an athesit state. Just like the current Communist regime in China, it persecuted religions.
Because it is a religious orthodoxy. Instead of the Bible or Koran, the writings of Marx. Instead of the Second Coming of Christ, the New Soviet Man. Instead of the rule of Christ on Earth, the utopia of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Those who disagree are denounced as evil heretics, aka reactionaries, or now ‘deniers”.
And of course, the total belief system, where no doubts are ever allowed to enter their thoughts. Facts and logic are irrelevant.
If you are still not sure, search for “communism as a religion”, and you will find many posts on this.
Ah yes the famous Nietzschien new Soviet man. He’s got a lot to answer for.
Ah, Karl Marx, he used to enjoy his Sunday afternoon picnics with champagne in London’s Hide Park!!!
Atheism IS a religious system. It is a world view upon which communism is built. Both the Soviet Union and China weren’t / aren’t anti-religious, it is that they persecuted/persecute OTHER world views / religions because they are viewed as a threat to their authority. Here in the West, we are not far from that same open persecution, because believers answer to a higher authority rather than ill-conceived governmental laws and regulations.
In the United States, built upon a Christian belief in a creator God, our founders stated and believed the following:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Preamble to the Declaration of Independence)
The remainder of that document as well as the contents of the U.S. Constitution are built upon that foundation. The “woke” (avowedly or practically atheists at heart) are using their rights and liberties enabled by this system of governance to destroy that very system.
Atheism is as much a religion as is Christianity, Islam or Buddhism.
And there are both communists and capitalists within all of those groups.
How long till Phillips pops up to assure that he didn’t really say what he said.
I suspect Capitalism has always been a target.
Radical climate activism kind of filled the gap when the collapse of the Soviet Union made naked support for communism a little embarrassing. That is why greens became so powerful so quickly in the 90s, there were a lot of communist sympathisers who reinvented themselves as greens, to continue their pursuit radical left wing ideology under the banner of caring about the environment.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, encouraged this communist sympathiser pivot to climate activism by re-inventing himself as a green leader. He founded Green Cross International, got into climate activism in a big way after the fall of the Soviet Union.
A sad personal story, the person who first introduced me to Fallen Angels, a satirical warning about climate activists triggering a new ice age after they shut down most industry, is one of those left wing sympathisers who pivoted to supporting radical climate action.
Before we parted ways I asked him what happened – he used to be really optimistic about industry and our glorious technological future. He used to laugh at climate alarm as much as I do, he convinced me to read “Fallen Angels” because he enjoyed poking fun at alarmists.
His answer, he admitted he supports climate action because he thinks “reforming” capitalism is the right thing to do, even if the science underpinning his embrace of climate activism is wrong.
Your account makes me think of a cousin of mine, an avowed Marxist. While this person generally seems in earnest about apocalyptic dangers, I don’t think any sort of mainstream science optimism would ever change the anti-capitalism that’s there.
Why does “reforming” capitalism lead to socialism and and Deep State control?
Because the only way to “reform” capitalism, is through socialism and the deep state.
It is irrational. However, it speaks to the core problem, which is that these people are operating under the approach of “Don’t confuse me with facts. My mind is made up.”
“Capitalism’s unfettered pursuit of economic growth is what caused climate change…”
Anytime you see the words “capitalism” and “unfettered” in the same sentence, you can be absolutely certain you’re dealing with an adherent to some variant of a socialism.
And socialist (in all of its guises) countries have the absolute worst record of the treatment of the environment of all, so the “solution” will be far worse for the “environment” than the imaginary “problem.”
Weird coincidence – put up a post earlier in a similar vein. Yes, the goal was always anti-capitalist, or anti-corporate – the fringe nutcase ideology is that ALL corporations (hence ALL capitalists) are evil, rapacious, polluting destroyers of the natural world. That goal has occasionally surfaced, but has generally been hidden from public view for the most part – I’m guessing that the mask is really starting to slip now. Good – it’s time everyone saw these nutjobs for what they really are.
The global marxists smell blood in the water. The COVID-19 nonsense showed them that their dreams can become reality with fear. No need to hide anymore when there has been a successful practice run.
Seems capitalism is often confused by greens with basic human drive to improve ones personal conditions. We learn in Biology 101 the Properties of Life:All living organisms share several key characteristics or functions: order, sensitivity or response to the environment, reproduction, growth and development, regulation, homeostasis, and energy processing. When viewed together, these characteristics serve to define life. Capitalism simply accommodates human nature best. Marxism, on the other hand is an abomination.
Thus the term “watermelons”: green on the outside, red on the inside.
That was always their objective, watermelon syndrome, green on the outside, red on the inside!!! I say again, Agenda 21, all the information one needs is in it, preservation areas of wildlife/nature, habitation areas selected for Human habitation in controlled communities, people living in pre-determined housing of dictated size, it’s a real Orwellian read/nightmare!!!
An after thought, can I kindly request that people stop referring to Climate Change, Global Warming is what has been promised/guaranteed, Global Warming is what must be delivered!!! Climate Change is simply a “heads I win tails you lose” version of Global Warming, that way it doesn’t matter which way the Earth’s temperature goes, it’s the fault of unfettered Capitalism!!!
Good luck trying to phase out coal power. Currently there’s the following amount of coal power worldwide:
Operating – 1,790,642 MW.
Under construction – 199,572 MW.
Planned – 297,829 MW.
That about says it all. The minuscule difference countries like the UK will make to reducing ’emissions’ from coal barely registers on this scale. And to think we created the technology to clean up most actual pollution from coal burners, mostly in the West. But the climate zealots are demonizing natural gas, counting mythical fugitive emissions all down the line, to make NG as bad as coal. You can’t win with the ideologies of crazy people who have a totally different goal in mind, which is to destroy civilization itself aided and abetted by our enemies.
This morning in the Southwest Power Pool (Great Plains of the US) the mix is 51% coal, 29% natural gas and 8% wind. Coal isn’t going anywhere. The wind is only that high as a percentage because the overall load is not especially high.
That 8% wind is also installed capacity, not generation. So at a 25%-30% capacity factor (which is very generous) it is more like wind supplies 3% of the actual electricity supplied to the grid. All this nonsense for that, and PV solar is even worse. Not to mention the recycling debacle after 20 years, if that. And the subsidy that wind gets is based on nameplate capacity. Just saw an interview on Bloomberg Business about Innergex, a Canadian renewable producer bragging about their newest Texas 250 MW wind farm being commissioned this week, and half their revenue will be from subsidies for the first 10 years and the CEO admitted it wouldn’t be economical without the subsidy. With grid priority for wind electrons over every source of generation. How crazy can this get?
Observing Germany and California, it gets mega crazy.
Warren Buffet honestly said that the only reason his companies invest is RE is for the tax breaks. He said without the subsidies and tax breaks, the would be no reason to bother with it.
“It’s said that science will dehumanise people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers.
Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken.”
I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died here, to stand here as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.”
Jacob Bronowski – from his series ‘The Ascent of Man’.
Congratulations, Free Market Captialists?
Why, Thank You! Thank You very much!
“….the ominous signs of doom become ever more impossible to ignore…” says Chicken Little’s presentation to the national press gallery…..
I think it’s time the Guardian commissioned a study of the CO2 tonnage impact of the last 10 COPs.
Two points worth noting.
1. The alarmists are now openly naming their actual target and enemy, I.e. capitalism.
2. It is the Guardian so nobody with any reputation worth preserving will take a blind bit of notice of what its alarmists say.
I believe it was an official with WHO who was quoted as saying that covid is the result of road building, logging, and other development. They are showing their cards.
Ah, but it is. If transportation was by foot, animal power, or (for fast trips) sail, the CoVID would have never made it to Wuhan to be weaponized in the first place. Even if the disease still miraculously appeared there, it would have taken years to spread out of Asia. It’s a two week kind of infection, but it would take months to sail across the Pacific.
A lot of the Asian plague that arrived in the mid east and Europe originated in or near Wuhan, one of the originators of the old ancient Silk Road. There appears to be nothing new under the Sun, except this time it appears to be deliberate, and the CCP Red China allowed hundreds of thousands of people to fly out of Wuhan at near the speed of sound to the 4 corners or the globe, while they shut that traffic down domestically in China itself. So it was at least a planned global super spreader event by the CCP.
Communism is a mental illness.
With guns and tanks
Fixed that for you.
Climate change has always been a stalking horse for anti – capitalism. It’s not new as the writers suggest.
Does Nolan of the Grauniad think the Peoples Republic of China is capitalist? Given the behavior of the PRC, anything the warmunists do in the West is meaningless as far as reducing emissions.
The leadership of China have abandoned everything about communism except for the dictatorial control. They realized that to retain power they would need to give the people the freedom to improve themselves and to create wealth. Yes the Peoples Republic of China is capitalist. What they are not is democratic.
By the level of state control over the economy, China is not all that capitalist. They are not following the Stalinist model anymore, but it is not either/or.
New York Times sells out the US to China for a mere $100,000 a month
How cheap was it for the Chinese Communist Party to buy the American media? Like adding a room to a house.
Practically nothing.
The New York Times, the “paper of record” since 1851 in the USA became a tool for China for just $100,000 a month. It put stories out for years that were essentially nothing but Communist advertising. They and other newspapers had a deal with state run China Daily which sanitized and covered up human rights abuses like Uighur concentration camps.
China knows how capitalism works, better than many others (believe)
Been going on for longer than that. The NY Times published Walter Duranty’s coverup of Stalin’s forced starvation of 6 million Ukrainians. All to end private farms and force future farmers onto Soviet communes. Duranty got a Nobel prize for this. Siding with the CCP is easy, once one has taken the side of mass murderer Stalin.
Capitalism is for people who want to work and get ahead. The other side is socialism.
About 70 years ago a real life experiment started in Korea. Both the North and South started at the same level of economic development at the end of the war. One side chose free market capitalism while the other chose centralized control driven socialism. The results of this experiment could not be any more clear.
It’s unfortunate that a brain disease called TDS has prevented many from thinking rationally which is sending America on a dangerous path towards centralized control simply because Trump is a successful free market capitalist.
Not long ago whilst driving I heard a University Professor of Political Science (pray tell, where is the science in politics?) on the radio state “Democracy in this country is broken, what we need to do is move towards a true democracy like North Korea…”. Haven’t listened to that (guvman funded) radio station since. I still struggle to see how North Korea is “democratic” in any way, or how as a country it is a desirable place to live, but then maybe I am blind to the enlightenment and will be among the first put against the wall. Shows you how far down into the pit our universities have sunk.
It’s the “one man, one vote” style of democracy – Kim Jong-un is that man with the vote!
One man, one vote, once. Socialism in a nutshell.
A quote from Pournell and Niven. Thanks. Now I don’t have to bother.
The science part of political science is all that can remotely be called the science part of climate science.
North Korea is ‘democratic’ only because they put the term in the official name of the country. It’s a classic case of the misuse of language that’s so popular with the political left.
According to most of the leftists I know, it’s only democracy, when their side wins. Whenever they lose, it’s proof that democracy is broken and can only be fixed by massive infusements of government control.
Since their side never loses in N. Korea, that’s proof that they have perfected democracy.
Plus, it’s the “Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea” so even MORE proof that it’s a democracy, right?
As I have said before, whenever I here of a country containing the words “The Peoples’ Democratic” in the title, the two things that country is not, is for the people, nor democratic!!!
Maybe he would like us all to return to the days before the industrial revolution, where we were all poor together
If we did return to the days before the industrial revolution Nolan would have real problems – he would have to (physically) work for a very basic living!
He just imagines that he will be part of the ruling class when in reality he would just be another serf.
“Serf” no, but Lenin had a term for people like him, he called them “Useful Idiots”!!! 😉
No, the elites were always relatively rich. It is only Capitalism that gave the common man the riches of the elites.
The operative word is “relatively.” No king ever owned a chariot or coach pulled by 300 horses, or had access to all the books or music ever published, or could be cured of most bacterial diseases. The rich of old had it better than most, but not a single one owned a computer or TV. Except for the power of life and death over the average citizen, they had a standard of living inferior to most poor people today living in industrialized countries. Even the poorest today seem to be able to afford a cell phone, even in under-developed countries.
For city dwellers in undeveloped countries, cell phones make a lot of sense.
It costs a lot less to put up a few cell towers, than it does to run phone lines to every dwelling, in a city that was never designed for the running of any kind of lines.
Technology destroys the old. Socialism holds onto the old. Capitalism creates the new and destroys the old. The old being poverty, starvation and disease.
All these things are the result of the economic system we call capitalism….where people seek bank loans to get ahead, governments authorize banks to loan out 10 times what they have on deposit, sometimes more, with an effort on the part of bankers to make sure borrowers are upstanding individuals who will pay back their loans and have the ability to make their business successful…..Works good as long as everyone believes their loans will get paid back, something the GND politicians need to remember.
Under communism, political parties determine the means of production. No profit, no motivation, you end up with a shoe factory and a million shoe boxes full of shoes for left feet, with nobody taking a loss for the error. Not effective for many supply issues, but effective for sending a million people to the battle front with a factory produced rifle but short of ammo.
I wish I knew where this nonsense gets started.
Banks have never been permitted to loan out 10 ties more than they have on deposit. That has never been true.
Banks are permitted to loan out about 90% of what they have on deposit.
I guess the more people hate something, the less need they feel to actually learn something about it.
…wrong MarkW….check deeper….a century ago it depended on what bank “reserves” were….but they have trickier definitions these days, big banks don’t even care what they have in citizen’s personal deposits. Some totally depend on selling “Mortgage Backed Securities” to the government, the mortgages being government insured…quite circular wealth creation.. The ratio that used to be 10:1 is now nearly 20:1. Governments and banks work to keep that number up so that more people have wealth…It all works fine as long as everyone believes the loans will be reliably repaid.
Search fractional reserve banking multiplier ratio, And In March 2020, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System reduced reserve requirement ratios to 0%…
And, we would all be at the mercy of the whims of the local weather, small children would have to work to help the family survive, and things like antibiotics wouldn’t exist so we would be at risk of dying from a secondary bacterial infection after getting a common viral cold.
People also forget that the use of animals and human slavery was common throughout the history of Man, until the invention of machines.
Our schools have failed to teach what life was like before the industrial revolution.
Leftists and unionists like to claim that it was government laws that got rid of child labor.
It was capitalism that got rid of child labor. Capitalists invented the tools that increased worker productivity. It was this increased productivity that made it possible for a man to be able to earn enough to support a family, without the need of children working.
In the 1950’s and 60’s the average American male could support his family with his job at the mill, but now the wife has to work, possibly teenage children have to babysit or deliver pizza as well. But we have big screen TV’s and a second car, so it’s all good on the gentle downslope….
The end is nigh. Of Warmunism, that is. You can just smell the fear and desperation.
This reads like the ravings of an adolescent geek taking time out from his fantasy gaming in his mother’s basement to cut big words out of the newspaper and paste together what he thinks is a clever rant on yet one more pubescent fantasy – geek as savior of the world. He probably dreams of a future where he stands half naked in front of the few surviving nubiles of the climate Armageddon and offers heroically to lead them to safety and a new beginning. All this before he pops some pimples, grabs a bag of chips from the cupboard and sits back down at his computer to fight dwarves and dragons while seeking magic tokens and virgin princesses. Humanity would be gone long ago if this was all we had to work with.
All other boogeymen failed so why not just go to the heart of their goal?
Let’s see the capitalist impact on the local Glasgow economy from COP26 spending and travel. I’ll bet it’s not insignificant for that capitalist market. There will be a lot of ‘capitalist’ press there too in addition to state media organs.
To which I say, “Thank you, capitalism!”
He might as well “blame” capitalism for common sense, logic, reason and freedom while he’s at it.
The catastrophe has now warmed to 5 degrees. By November, I predict, it will be 10 degrees at least. Also that it will be cold and wet at Glasgow.
Every time a prediction fails to generate the levels of fear the warmunists need, they amp up the prediction and try it again.
From the above article’s quoted text of Hamilton Nolan, writer for the The Guardian:
“The latest G20 meeting wrapped up last week without firm commitments on phasing out coal power, or on what steps nations will promise to take to try to hold global warming to 1.5C. This goal is both necessary and, perhaps, unlikely – a report by scientists found that China, Russia, Brazil and Australia are all pursuing policies that could lead to a cataclysmic five degrees of warming.” (my underlining emphasis added)
Oh, please . . . where is the scientific evidence (i.e., hard data) that supports the necessity of holding future global warming to below 1.5 °C, or that a future 5 °C of warming would be cataclysmic?
Facts:
— during the Triassic Period, Earth’s atmosphere was more than 5 °C hotter than today
— during the Devonian Period, Earth’s atmosphere was 6 °C hotter than today
— during the Cambrian Period, Earth’s atmosphere was more than 7 °C hotter than today
(source: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/30/back-to-the-cretaceous-because-climate-change/ , which in turn references Berner et al, 2001 and Royer et al., 2004)
Yet Earth’s life not only survived, but THRIVED during these intervals of warm temperature!
Richard Feynman said it quite well:
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, if it doesn’t agree with observation, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”
“Oh, please . . . where is the scientific evidence (i.e., hard data) that supports the necessity of holding future global warming to below 1.5 °C, or that a future 5 °C of warming would be cataclysmic?”
”Yet Earth’s life not only survived, but THRIVED during these intervals of warm temperature!”
Oh please yourself!
And so will Earth thrive in the future
For humankind – it’s not so certain.
You see, here we have the usual “it’s been hotter/more CO2 before” straw-man argument.
No one denies those two things.
Thing is, there was rather a dearth of Humans in the Triassic, Devonian and Cambrian periods.
And well – the Earth just got on with it …. Like slow geological evolution has a tendency to do.
Problem is we have ~ 8 bn peeps residing here now, and it is social disruption and material cost of adaption that is the threat.
And no, “cataclysmic” does not mean existential.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cataclysmic
“And so will Earth thrive in the future
For humankind – it’s not so certain.”
Same went for the dinosaurs. I don’t see the problem.
With my air conditioner cranked up I am not seeing the problem.
Anthony Banton posted: “For humankind – it’s not so certain . . . You see, here we have the usual “it’s been hotter/more CO2 before” straw-man argument.
No one denies those two things. Thing is, there was rather a dearth of Humans in the Triassic, Devonian and Cambrian periods. And well – the Earth just got on with it …. Like slow geological evolution has a tendency to do.”
Just amazing . . . for its weak attempt at deflection, together with flawed assertion of a straw-man argument.
The hottest place on Earth that is continuously inhabited by humans today is Dallol, Ethiopia, where annual mean temperature was recorded from 1960 to 1966 as 34.4 °C (93.9 °F). The average daily maximum temperature during the same period was 41.1 °C (106.0 °F). (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremes_on_Earth#Coldest_and_hottest_inhabited_places_on_Earth )
In comparison, the average global surface temperature over the entire Earth as of April 2021 is 14.5 °C (58.1 °F) (source: https://www.co2.earth/global-warming-update#:~:text=Monthly%20Temperature%3A%20April%202021,in%20the%20142%2Dyear%20record. )
So, the factual data shows humans today are able to live continuously in an environment that averages as much as 19.9 °C (35.8 °F) hotter than today’s global average.
So, for humans, it is certain that they can survive temperatures much warmer than a mere 5 °C above today’s global average.
That’s the “thing” AB missed completely.
Like most leftists, Anthony is utterly terrified of a world that he doesn’t control.
Uh, Nobel prize winning economist William Nordhaus says optimum warming by 2100 is 3.5 C. Where is this cataclysm to which you refer? Who is it that has postulated 5 C? In what scenario of CO2 emissions? Which CliSciFi GCM having an identified TCR? What are the chances? Over what timeframe?
It really amazes me how little your average leftist knows of the real world and about their fellow men.
There is no evidence that a degree or two of warming is going to cause any of the dire catastrophes that you so hope for.
The world has warmed up a degree or two from the depths of the little ice age, and people thrived.
The world was even warmer than today during the MWP, and people thrived.
The world was several degrees warmer than today during the Roman warm period, and people thrived.
Your fundamental problem is using logic improperly. The term “climate change”, as generally used, has no fixed meaning. It has been intentionally left as an appeal to ambiguity … equivocation. You must define your terms with science. You can’t leave it up to each individual. It must be put in context.
That is not a straw man. It is factual, empirical (historical) evidence of the relationship between CO2 and temperature, in the past … proving that CO2 can’t do today what it did not do in the past. See how that works?
That statement has no meaning in the present context. First you would have to show that humans could not have lived under those conditions to have any relevance to the this discussion.
You’ll need to provide some factual evidence of the finite population of humans on this planet. Otherwise, once again you’re equivocating to confuse the discussion. In ruth, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Come on, Hamilton. “Unfettered capitalism” hasn’t existed anywhere since about 1910. Anyone who thinks otherwise has obviously no understanding, or experience, of the modern business environment.
Well, there you go Hamilton; speak not of that which you do not comprehend.
Unfettered capitalism has never existed. Government has always used it’s power to guide resources towards those who run government.
I have always wondered why “unfettered” is thought to have such an irresistible negative ring to it, especially when people who profess to be all for freedom and liberty and equality use the word. To be devoid of fetters should be a very desirable way of being for oneself and for all others, to anyone who appreciates the concept of freedom! Yes please, I want Capitalism, and I want it unfettered because otherwise, the Capitalists are logically _in_fetters_, i.e. they are slaves, and slavery has been recognized as anti-human and gruesome long ago, hasn’t it?
For years critics have said, and the climate hysterics have denied, that this has nothing to do with “climate change” but is only a front for totalitarian power grab. Nice to see them admit it.
Man. Read the comments on the article.
Imagine. They think that a socialist, planned economy, like the USSR or Red China under Mao, was a positive thing for the environment.
Such people are fools.
Beyond hope.
No point in trying to use facts or logic with them.
The socialist mantra.
This time it will work.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Essentially the same as “This time it’s different”
If you’re positioned right, socialism does exactly what it was intended to do … create a well ‘fixed’ bureaucracy dependent upon the diktats of the intelligentsia. Each time they hope to revisit socialism, they intend to be among the beneficiaries this time.
True garbage: “fossil-fuel companies and assorted polluting corporations and their investors get all the benefits, and the rest of the world pays the price”.
Fossil fuels have made modern life possible. The benefits to humanity are enormous. Our civilization is still based on fire.
What a jerk!
It never takes them long to get to their real goal.
The elimination of capitalism has always been the ultimate goal of these clowns. Climate Change is just the latest hobby horse to get them there.
And as long as the actual climate does not align with their dire predictions, new and more scary boogey men will need to be invented.
capitalism versus socialism is a faux Marxist conflict: the real conflict is best understood as pragmatists versus ideologues.
ideologues know they are right because theory says so
pragmatists know its right because they just built it ,debugged it, and have been running it successfully for years
From the above article’s quoted text of Hamilton Nolan, writer for The Guardian:
“The core issue is capitalism. Capitalism’s unfettered pursuit of economic growth is what caused climate change, and capitalism’s inability to reckon with externalities – the economic term for a cost that falls onto third parties – is what is preventing us from solving climate change . . . (blah, blah) . . . Now the entire globe finds itself trapped in the gruesome logic of capitalism, where it is perfectly rational for the rich to continue doing something that is destroying the earth, as long as the profits they reap will allow them to insulate themselves from the consequences. Congratulations, free market evangelists: this is the system you have built. It doesn’t work . . . Capitalism is a machine made to squeeze every last cent out of this planet until there is nothing left.”
What stupefyingly ignorant blather!
The US has thrived under capitalism, raising an untold number of humans from poverty to middle and upper class. Under capitalism, the US became the envy of the world. And, oh yeah, along the way the US with its capitalistic economic system also managed to take out quite a few pirates, despots and dictators as well as tyrannical, fascist and communist regimes that were keeping millions of other humans in abject poverty. Need I mention that the US was instrumental in fighting and winning the two major World Wars and led the effort that ended the Cold War by bringing down the Soviet Union. And the “capitalistic” US is still renowned around the world for its foreign aid and disaster-relief aid freely given to other countries in their time of need.
You have to wonder why these freaks don’t end it all
I think you’ll find that the intention of these freaks is to end it all!!! To destroy millions if not billions of Human lives around the world, to create a new ruling intellectual Socialist elite world guvment, (Agenda 21), demanding ownership of ALL the world’s resources, to be metered out as they see fit, thus ensuring mass starvation & poverty! After all why should some peasant & his grubby little family be able to afford to holiday in the same luxurious resort that only me & my pals can afford to fly to & enjoy? The people have to realise the Earth has a fever, there is a Climate crisis/breakdown/disaster/catastrophe/armageddon/emergency, we’re all going to die!!! There, has that been frightening enough, if not it should be, that is what Agenda 21 is ALL about!!! Oh & for the record I’ve already put in my bid for the Cop 26 left-overs, all those fine wines, champagnes, sparkling wines, that food that only wealthy peeps can afford to buy only they don’t, the peasants pay through their taxes!!! I guess the real reasons these elites have to get together is that back-room deals can’t be done in the open where the ordinary peeps might get wind of being taken for a ride!!!
I suggest that he move to North Korea. He won’t have to worry about that nasty ol’ capitalist system over there. Oh, and make sure it’s a one way ticket, so we never stumble across your brand of insanity anymore.
Actions speak louder than words. One would think that the author would have noticed the hypocrisy of all the world leaders and global warmunist activists and their massive carbon footprints. For people who believe in a global warming emergency, they sure don’t act like they believe.
I used to live in “non-capitalist” totalitarian regime that called themselves “real socialism”. It was a nightmare, we had lacked freedom, democracy etc, living standard was low. Moreover, the environment was just a hell compared to today when the biggest “issue” is CO2. After we succeded so called velvet revolution, we improved our environment considerably. It is extremely dissapointing to see opinions that blames capitalism that lead to much higher living standard and much better environment than in the times of the reckless communist government.
I used to live in “non-capitalist” totalitarian regime that called themselves “real socialism”
You might have lived it, but the college-indoctrinated children who grew up enjoying the wealth created by capitalism know more about socialism than you do and they know it will all be wonderful for everyone. You obviously don’t know anything about “real” socialism. Just ask them.
smh
Any UK subject with the first name “Hamilton” writing for the Guardian is clearly a champagne socialist
I’ll bet he doesn’t bat an eyelid eating his avocado on brioche for breakfast
Hamilton Nolan is an idiot. He seriously thought Bernie Saunders was going to win the Democratic presidential nomination.He’s almost a credulous as Griff
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/31/bernie-sanders-election-trump-democratic-establishment
Sanders was winning, until the insiders put all of the party’s resources behind Biden as the only candidate who had a chance of stopping Sanders.
Exactly. Nolan was an idiot to think that the Dem establishment wouldn’t shut Sanders out.
If Sanders had won the nomination and gone on to become President (shudder!) it would have been carnage. The US would have been screwed.
And that is different from what we are today???
Good point. I should have said, “even more screwed”
It’s going to be a total fiasco. The climate nutters are almost all covid nutters. But, just as the climate nutters think they have special “exemptions” to fly everywhere, so the covid nutters likewise think their virtue signally idiocy means they have a right to fly everywhere.
Which means almost certainly, one of them will either bring covid in, or will stupidly do a test supposedly “showing” they brought it in. The whole thing will then blow up in a stushy … with the Scottish National Socialists claiming that the “cop26 variant” is all the fault of the English and the English saying “but you organised it all and stopped us attending”.
And, best of all, it will likely be miserable Glasgow weather: Cold, wet, windy and extremely gloomy … which will suit the whole mood of the daft thing if it even gets to go ahead. Because the Scottish National Socialists like to pride themselves of locking up earlier, more often, and for more ridiculous reasons than the English (who just don’t do lockups with the same totalitarian zeal as the Scottish National Socialists).
It might even be worth watching the Biased Broadcasting Cult for the conference … as they struggle to reconcile their covid paranoia with their climate paranoia as they get blown off their feet in the Glasgow gloom.
Why Glasgow COP26? The Western nations have already said they have no money for climate reparations. The Third World nations have already said they won’t agree to anything the West proposes without significant bribes. Hubris is manifest with planning for COP26; it will be a huge embarrassment to thinking peoples. The spin, however, is likely to be that we have to redouble our efforts in light of the intransigent Third Worlders. No politician nor bureaucrat will acknowledge the massive future CO2 emissions of the Third World in comparison to the miniscule possible reductions in emissions of the West. The media will likely ignore the contradictions. The establishment is “all-in” and cannot back out now. It will take massive reversals at the ballot box to change anything.
Who is Hamilton Nolan? And why should we care what he, or The Guardian think?
As he writes for the Guardian his real name is probably just an accidental anagram spelling Hamilton Nolan!!! ;-))
Non-animal Thiol?
Ooohh , I knew it going to get to capitalism sooner or later. Just reveals the Marxist nature of the “climate crisis” narrative.
Hmm. It seems to me the only countries even remotely interested in climate change are free market democracies. I don’t see a lot of authoritarian nations leading the way reducing emissions, or actually doing anything to help the environment.
The writer’s depth of perspective is like a junior high student who doesn’t get his way.
All that fossil fuel wasted on educayshion, and higher educayshion. Greedy capitalists.
Eric writes: “I love the smell of climate activist despair before the big COP26 conference. Smells like hope for a better future, in which nobody important even tries to pretend that climate change is a problem.”
It is a rework of the infamous line in Apocalypse Now after Kilgor (Robert Duval) calls in a napalm strike 1/4 mile long to neutralize the enemy mortar fire, so his boys can surf:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k26hmRbDQFw
The line comes at 1:58 and the follow up about “smells like victory” is at roughly 2:25.
But I wonder, which of the “sides” in this analogy are the Climate Alarmists and which side are the Realists? Are we (the Realists) the massive force able to bomb the enemy into the stone age, or are we the gorilla forces fighting a leviathan? (and who won that conflict anyway?) (for the historically challenged it was won with public opinion, not with napalm or bullets and bombs) (i.e. the leviathan defeated itself by a change in public opinion – losing the will to fight anymore)
I would argue the irony is the forces that caused the change in public opinion back then, are the ones who control the leviathan now…
What a moron! Capitalism doesn’t pursue anything. He is confounding the laissez-faire non-governmental interference policy underlying capitalism with the authoritarian approach of the socialism he promotes. Talking about a case of projection!
I would like to take him on a time travel trip back to the good old communist days in Eastern Europe so he could enjoy the glories of communist endeavours. Polluted mining towns where sickly kids dragged themselves around en route to an early death. The whole area around the settlements and the mines were polluted with deadly dust. The Aral Sea was gloriously emptied of water so that crops could be grown in areas not suited to them. Poles told me that communism was miraculous. Russians planted wheat in Russia and harvested it in the USA. In dress shops in Moscow there was only one style of dress, but glorious communism produced it in two colour patterns: one with red spots on yellow background and the other in a stylish yellow spots on a red background. And the pollution in all Russian rivers was glorious – if you liked terrible pollution.
Who the hell does he think he is kidding in saying communism is better than capitalism.He is either too young to know better or he is stupid.
The freedom that democratic and lawful capitalism endows on its people is by far the best way to run the earth.