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.
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.