Is Climate Alarmism an Establishment Attempt to Restore Social Control?

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Over the years, I’ve noticed pretty much every establishment attempt to push a climate agenda is accompanied by a call for people to unite. What if fear of change, of loss of control, and a desire for social unity and predictability are the real driving force behind the climate push?

Does the UK need a referendum on climate change pledges?

Critics say net-zero target has been imposed by ‘elites’ without electoral mandate

27 OCT 2021

A large proportion of the British public are in favour of a referendum on the government’s net-zero proposals, according to a new poll by YouGov.

The Tony Blair Institute’s Tim Lord rejected the idea that “elites” are behind the drive for climate action. He said “there is irony in this – as it is the poorest who will be most severely affected by unconstrained climate change”.

Lord agreed that the net-zero target was introduced in the summer of 2019 with minimal debate in the Commons and no mention of the plan in the 2017 election – but it was included in the Conservative manifesto ahead of the December 2019 election.

While delivering net zero is a “complex task” that “cannot be achieved without public support for both the overall goal, and the policies required to get there”, this “cannot mean everyone supports every measure”, he said. Consent must be drawn from a broad base and “net zero has to be based around a politics of unity, not division”.

Read more: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/uk-news/954591/does-the-uk-need-a-referendum-on-net-zero-pledges

Here’s another call for unity;

Pope Francis praises youth activists in fight to tackle climate change

“It is said that you are the future, but in these matters, you are the present. You are those who are making the future today, in the present,” the pontiff said.

The pope said solutions to climate change, including sustainable development and production, must be built on unity and a shared sense of responsibility.

“There must be harmony between people, men and women, and the environment,” he said. “We are not enemies. We are not indifferent. We are part of this cosmic harmony.”

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/pope-francis-praises-youth-activists-fight-tackle-climate-change-rcna2401

China wants unity too;

China releases white paper on climate change response

Updated 18:47, 27-Oct-2021

China on Wednesday released a white paper on the country’s policies and measures for responding to climate change. China has set a goal of peaking carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.

The white paper states that climate change is a cause shared by all of humanity. Faced with unprecedented challenges in global climate governance, the international community needs to respond with unprecedented ambition and action. We need to act with a sense of responsibility and unity, take proactive measures, and work together to pursue harmony between humanity and nature.

Read more: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-10-27/China-releases-white-paper-on-climate-change-response-14Hs1nziBe8/index.html

Unity, unity, UNITY. Plenty more examples where they came from.

When you think about it, a child could see through the nonsensical claims of climate alarmists. If slightly warmer temperatures are so terrible, why aren’t slightly warmer places already suffering all the problems alarmists say will happen? But climate alarmism, as a potential source of social unity, is far too valuable allow it to be defeated by mere logic.

What has caused this sudden upsurge in fear amongst global elites, that they are losing control?

I believe the trigger for this panic amongst the global elites was the fall of the Soviet Union. The Soviet State, right up until the very end, seemed all powerful, enormous, an unstoppable juggernaut with its terrifying state security apparatus and apparently complete control of communication.

But the Soviets failed to adapt to the information revolution.

“Truth is good,” goes an old Russian proverb that Shane quotes, “but happiness is better.”

The earliest stirrings of free thought were nurtured on the radio broadcasts of Voice of America and the crude, self-published books and tape recordings of the Samizdatand Magnitizdat movements. By the end, of course, it was CNN and cellular phones that finally defeated the Soviet Union.

The exploding arsenal of electronics–cellular telephones, fax machines, VCRs, satellite dishes, computers with modems–demonstrated a trend for technology to become more compact, portable, versatile and inexpensive,” Shane explains. “As such, the new machines seemed to be weapons the citizen could wield against the state as readily as the state could use them on the citizen.

As Shane points out, the phrase “information revolution” takes on an entirely new meaning in this context. And he helps us understand how stirring but also how bizarre it must have been for a Soviet citizen to turn on his television set and see the top brass of the KGB on a call-in show: “Tonight they will be answering the questions,” the host announced.

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-11-ls-56160-story.html

China has survived more successfully than the Soviets, because they had more money. Deng Xiaoping’s capitalist economic reforms in the 1980s gave the CCP the financial resources they needed to buy monitoring equipment and expertise, which made them more able to keep up with the information revolution. But even the Chinese are struggling to contain the free flow of information which is undermining state control of public narratives. Global freedom initiatives have provided systems like the TOR Project, which are used by Chinese citizens who want to sneak past the Great Chinese Firewall, so they can keep track of what is really going on in the world.

If global elites cannot control communication technology, the next best thing is to try to dominate the conversation, through a fear campaign and a call for global unity. The focus point for that push for global unity didn’t have to be climate change, but I believe they chose climate alarmism because it was convenient and available, and already had a significant following at the time the elites took an interest. Mikhail Gorbachev, after he lost his old job as the last dictator of the Soviet Union, spent a lot of time in the early 90s supporting United Nations climate initiatives.

The desire by elites to cling on to control, in my opinion, is why climate alarmism has survived repeated embarrassing predictive failures.

Normally when a scientific theory produces a disastrous series of wrong predictions, the theory withers and dies. But in my opinion global elites are keeping climate alarmism on life support, with vast infusions of taxpayer’s cash for compliant researchers, and en entire renewable energy industry which only exists because the governments of the world keep diverting taxpayer’s cash to pay the bills.

So long as a significant portion of the population believes in the climate crisis, this powerful source of social unity is too useful for spooked global elites to surrender.

The elite desire to hold back the information revolution at any price does nothing good for ordinary people.

Frightening kids with false climate doomsday narratives might buy the elites a little time, by helping the elites to retain their grip on power in the face of the technology driven growth of free speech and open communication, but the kids who accept the climate lies endure tremendous personal suffering.

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saveenergy
October 28, 2021 2:07 am

Is Climate Alarmism an Establishment Attempt to Restore Social Control?

YES !!

Next question …

Alasdair Fairbairn
Reply to  saveenergy
October 28, 2021 2:45 am

And the Social Control will be be by the Communist Mantra that: “The end justifies the means” which precludes any consideration of honesty or ethics. A total recipe for disaster which has already been proved.

Curious George
Reply to  saveenergy
October 28, 2021 7:54 am

Isn’t the COVID-19 an even better excuse?

Giordano Milton
Reply to  Curious George
October 28, 2021 8:30 am

Any means necessary

Tom
Reply to  Curious George
October 28, 2021 8:58 am

Climate change alarmism is based on the illusory notion that the earth and everything on it is about to go over the edge due to projected unrelenting climate catastrophes. COVID, on the other hand is already here and is already killing people and the governments’ responses have been, reasonably, to encourage vaccinations and other logical and non-draconian measure to limit the transmission of disease (social distancing, mask wearing, etc). COVID is not a stalking horse for creeping government control of our lives, it that was your suggestion.

Reply to  Tom
October 28, 2021 11:13 am

Tom, how do you ignore “vaccine mandates” that imprison healthy people who don’t want to risk their lives with an experimental gene therapy that has killed more people than all the real vaccines have for the last 60 years combined?
“Vaccine passports” are actually just another way to try to impose a social score onto formerly “free” countries.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  Tom
October 28, 2021 2:46 pm

You’re suggesting that vast government over reach while mandating risky untested drugs is a normal response to a rather unprepossessing infection with a very inflated outcome. Why are they pretending asymptomatic spread is so prevalent? Why are they using an improper testing? Why are they pushing these treatments on people with natural immunity? Why are they gas lighting people who answer these questions? Why are they STILL pretending that masks are effective prophylaxis?

October 28, 2021 2:09 am

“Is Climate Alarmism an Establishment Attempt to Restore Social Control?” Maybe so! In any case, we are now sure that it is nothing to do with the Climate or People’s Welfare.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  nicholas tesdorf
October 28, 2021 2:35 am

It never was & never will be!!!

MarkW
Reply to  Alan the Brit
October 28, 2021 7:02 am

Much like the socialism that spawned it, climate alarmism is about protecting the welfare of the elites.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  MarkW
October 28, 2021 2:48 pm

It’s intended to keep all the chicken littles ripe for the plucking.

a happy little debunker
October 28, 2021 2:18 am

I love the fact that the IPCC deems that the impacts from climate change will be more exaggerated in the higher latitudes (the minimums, not the maximums), yet all we hear about is how it impacts the lowest latitudes…
Think Tuvalu, the Torres Strait Island and the Tropics…

Reply to  a happy little debunker
October 28, 2021 4:20 am

In northern latitudes warming is a blessing! Waiting for winter at 60 deg N in Finland.

Ouluman
Reply to  Lars Silen
October 28, 2021 5:31 am

Already here! We’ve had 3 or 4 snow periods in October and about 8cm in mid-September, earliest I remember in Finland. It’s a long long Winter and no sign of warming here in recent years at least.

pochas94
Reply to  Ouluman
October 28, 2021 6:00 am

I hope you Finnlanders have put away enough food and fuel for a hard winter. Planning, conserving, preparing, it’s what we northern peoples do.

Reply to  Ouluman
October 28, 2021 12:40 pm

Please don’t keep all of the snow and cold!
Share as much as you can with Scotland, especially Glasgow.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  ATheoK
October 28, 2021 2:51 pm

Glasgow needs a generous coating of snow, starting next week … if only to keep things running smoothly.

Philo
Reply to  Rory Forbes
October 28, 2021 5:16 pm

What are they going to do if a storm drops 2 foot or so on the airport ans surrounding ares=as

Rory Forbes
Reply to  Philo
October 28, 2021 6:15 pm

Whatever it is they’re going to have a struggle doing it 🙂

THOMAS ENGLERT
Reply to  Philo
October 28, 2021 8:55 pm

Flood out the Teslas?

Philo
Reply to  Ouluman
October 28, 2021 5:14 pm

You might consider an accurately predicted global minimum over the last 20 years. Temperatures did not rise over that time. I’s being followed by another predicted part of a Solar Grand Maximum. (Think the “little Ice age where rivers froze over in Europe)

The Grand Maximum is predicted to affect the climate until 2050. Look into long winters and cold weather.

October 28, 2021 2:26 am

This began well before the Soviet physical economy imploded and not because of information. It refused Reagan’s offer in 1983 of a major technological program to make the nuclear arsenal obsolete. Result? We are still under a MAD threat, and still have no commercial fusion – so squabble about fossil fuels under the cave floor.

Margaret Mead, Anthropologist let it all hang out at the 1975 Endangered Atmosphere conference : What we need from scientists are estimates, presented with sufficient conservatism and plausibility but at the same time as free as possible from internal disagree-
ments that can be exploited by political interests, that will allow us to start building a system of artificial but effective warnings, warnings which will parallel the instincts of animals who flee before the hurricane, pile up a larger store of nuts before a severe winter, or of caterpillars who respond to impending climatic changes by growing thicker coats …

Meanwhile the financial system, which has run on empty for decades is about to implode, and the elites desperately need that $150 trillion for another green bubble. In other words the western physical economy is imploding just like the Soviet in 1990 – the other foot is about to fall. China is well aware of this, as is Russia – been there done that. High time for that 1983 proposal to be realized! The so-called elites know that means they are toast.

Spetzer86
Reply to  bonbon
October 28, 2021 5:04 am

Think 200 new missile silos in China a maybe be happy we didn’t trash all the nukes. Fusion is just 10 years away! Ignore the observation this has been true for something like 30 years.

October 28, 2021 2:31 am

The UK 2019 election was based one thing “Get Brexit Done”. The Tories could have included virtually anything else and still won. Any financial problems created by Bojo and his wife can be blamed on “The Pandemic” after which we’ll be “Building Back Better” and the energy shortage is caused by greedy energy companies.

Dennis
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
October 28, 2021 2:34 am

Dysfunctional, chaotic and incompetent.

Reply to  Dennis
October 28, 2021 3:54 am

Dysfunctional, chaotic and incompetent.

A perfect description of any politician or government.
So, whaddya gonna do about it?

Fred Middleton
Reply to  Leo Smith
October 28, 2021 4:41 am

DCI acronym. Maga Box 240 each Crayons – 2 of each color. Some offerings come with a ‘sharpener’. $25.00 US-D. Product of professional Politician throwing chicken scratch out in the yard.

Ron Long
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
October 28, 2021 3:21 am

Excuse me, Ben, the “…energy shortage is caused by greedy energy companies.” may be true of Britain, I have no idea, but the shortage in the USA is caused directly by anti carbon based blocks put in place by the Biden Administration. Now the Biden Administration is imploring OPEC to increase production to fill in the self-inflicted shortfall. Shortfall? Interpret that as a price increase.

Reply to  Ron Long
October 28, 2021 5:06 am

Ron, Ben was joking about greedy energy companies in the UK.
The UK has the same problem. Long term green policies preventing fracking, new build of power stations and massive subsidies for wind and solar.

We are one power station fault away from a major blackout.

Reply to  Ron Long
October 28, 2021 10:39 am

Ron,
The energy companies, and petrol/diesel suppliers included, have been convenient scapegoats for politicians in the UK for a couple of decades.

Alan the Brit
October 28, 2021 2:34 am

This is something I have been aware of for many years, a neo-feudal system re-introduction across the globe, with the wealthy, ruling, intellectual elites, calling the shots on how we ordinary people, who achieve extra-ordinary things, must be controlled, something ALL Socialists (Champagne & otherwise) & Communists fervently believe in!!!

fretslider
Reply to  Alan the Brit
October 28, 2021 2:56 am

neo-feudal system”

In the UK its always been there and now it is gaining traction; more control. You cannot have anything other with a monarchy, certainly not a classless society.

Once upon a time the socialists would have shot royalty, now they love to cosy up to them.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  fretslider
October 28, 2021 4:49 am

As a matter of interest, we humble people of the UK once beheaded a King, because he was an inept incompetent ruler who believed in his divine right to rule over the English people (including the Welsh). You chaps & chapesses from the Virginian Colonies also have your understated class system, your Hollywood film industry has demonstrated this time & again, the wealthy elites living on the hills on the edge of town, social comments such as “I don’t want you hanging around with that boy/girl again, he/she comes from the wrong side of town”. etc. So whilst your class system has never been formalised as it has been in Britain & Europe, to deny its existence in the USA is somewhat disingenuous!!!

fretslider
Reply to  Alan the Brit
October 28, 2021 5:24 am

Indeed we thought we did [get rid of inept and incompetent leadership], but that was just the beginning of the Parliamentary dictatorship – Parliament above Monarch and People.

“You chaps & chapesses from the Virginian Colonies also have your understated class system”

The last time I checked, Alan, Tooting is:

A: A district of South London, England, forming part of the London Borough of Wandsworth and partly in the London Borough of Merton, located 5 miles (8 kilometres) south south-west of Charing Cross. 

B: An impact crater (of the type rampart crater) with volcanic features at 23.1°N, 207.1°E, in Amazonis Planitia (Amazonis quadrangle), due west of the volcano Olympus Mons, on Mars.

You can take your pick.

I can trace my family back to 1066. Can you?

Thanks for the best laugh of the week – so far.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  fretslider
October 28, 2021 11:20 pm

Sorry, you lost me when you started on about Tooting!!!

Anon
Reply to  Alan the Brit
October 28, 2021 8:30 am

Alan,

That is a really good point. All societies are hierarchical & classed based. And the most effective are those that the lower classes don’t recognize, or better yet, intuitively and subconsciously support.

This really hit really home for me when I began reading Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe Series. Sharpe’s biggest problem was not with the upper classes (although he had problems there) but with the lower classes:

Sharpe – 01 – Sharpe’s Rifles

That scene really impacted me as a young impressionable student, I could not believe how the common soldiers were behaving… I saw them as being complicit in their own oppression! Hadn’t they read the American Declaration of Independence!? I wanted to shake them awake!

————

In the United States our hierarchy is based on IQ (and the money that accrues from it) but that “accident of birth” is just as random as an “officer class touched by the grace of God“. We paper that over with the “hard work ethos” but how is a person with an IQ of 70 going to make it in the United States?

Another fascinating example is the Indian Caste System, which we in the West find appalling, but Indians have lived with it for thousands of years. The idea there seems to be the acceptance of hierarchy. They probably noticed, through years of observation, that there will always be a rich man living in the great house above the town, so any revolution will not change the system but just the name of the family living in the great house. So, instead of striving to become the rich man, which will just unsettle the society, especially if there is a violent revolution, why not concentrate on being “the best and most content street sweeper you can be”? With the belief that you will be reincarnated into a higher caste if you fulfill your duties in your current life.

And even the ostensibly equal communist societies are not immune:

‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ ~ George Orwell, Animal Farm

We so often look at oppression and hierarchy being imposed from the “top down”, but if you really look, you will find that it is often from the “bottom up” and more often than not a two way street.

Thanks for your comment!

Reply to  Anon
October 28, 2021 12:29 pm

I heartily recommend the Indian author Arundhati Roy, especially her novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” for a look into the India of today.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  Anon
October 28, 2021 3:09 pm

The tyranny of “woke” and cancel culture is most definitely from the bottom up. The shaming and gaslighting we see most often arises from Facebook, twitter and that most egalitarian of all platforms … tick-tock.

Anon
Reply to  Rory Forbes
October 28, 2021 4:41 pm

I really never thought of that, but I think you are correct. I need to be more aware of that… it is definitely that way at Yale.

Richard S Courtney
Reply to  Alan the Brit
October 28, 2021 4:34 am

Alan the Brit,

I am socialist and I don ‘t believe in that. Indeed, I have never met a socialist who does.

It would be interesting to know where and how you acquired such a mistaken idea.

Richard

Alan the Brit
Reply to  Richard S Courtney
October 28, 2021 5:00 am

Having met several over the years is how I acquired such a mistaken idea!! Why is it a mistaken idea that ordinary people can achieve great things, I wonder? I recommend reading Cromwell, Our Chief of Men, by Antonia Fraser, & The Image of the King, by Richard Ollard. I am no Socialist but no far-right enthusiast, but a man of unfashionable Christian faith, also the left has a tendency to label anyone who questions or disagrees with them as “far-right”, a naive allusion to the Nazi Party, which I have already explained was a Socialist grouping, or anyone who seeks a sensible immigration policy is likewise called a racist in an effort to paint an opponent in a poor light for political advantage!!! I believe in fairness & justice, unlike most blood-sucking lawyers – sue Spielberg/ Richard Attenborough first before getting to me, it’s where I first heard that phrase describing the legal profession!!!

Regards AtB.

fretslider
Reply to  Alan the Brit
October 28, 2021 6:15 am

“I acquired such a mistaken idea”

Given that you think I – an Englishman – come from the Virginian Colonies, things haven’t improved.

fretslider
Reply to  fretslider
October 28, 2021 9:26 am

A down vote!

One has to laugh

Alan the Brit
Reply to  fretslider
October 28, 2021 11:26 pm

As I said, you lost me when you mention Tooting, I am at a loss as to its reference, unless you are implying that is where you live!!!

Mark Gobell
Reply to  Alan the Brit
October 30, 2021 5:42 am

I too used to labour under the illusion of Cromwell being some pious working class hero, until I read about Menasseh Ben Israel & co …

MG

Reply to  Richard S Courtney
October 28, 2021 7:49 am

That’s because you believe in the idea of socialism, while Alan is describing the reality of socialism.

Reply to  Matt Kiro
October 28, 2021 12:33 pm

Socialism without human being might work, maybe.

Lrp
Reply to  Richard S Courtney
October 28, 2021 2:08 pm

Just go live in Cuba, Venezuela, take your pick. It’s easy to be a socialist on the back of the wealth built by capitalism.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  Richard S Courtney
October 28, 2021 3:17 pm

Socialism is always most successful where there is no possibility for it to become implemented. I’ve never met a socialist, living in a free market system, who didn’t believe in it’s efficacy. Only the socialists who must live under that system are very critical.

fretslider
October 28, 2021 2:37 am

“Does the UK need a referendum on climate change pledges?”

The short answer is yes and it’s long overdue.

Every scrap of climate legislation, the targets and much, much more are entirely conceived and implemented by the Parliamentary dictatorship and its CCC. There has not been a single consultation of any kind, not even for the hated Low Traffic Neighbourhoods that sprang up during lockdown.

They just appeared and the people were told to like it or lump it, that’s the way it’s going to be. 

Will the UK get a referendum on climate change pledges? Of course not.

“Over the years, I’ve noticed pretty much every establishment attempt to push a climate agenda is accompanied by a call for people to unite. “

I have noticed the complete fragmentation of society through the imposition of woke values and the new reality of identity politics. Getting people to unite seems a little fanciful to me. How will they get the feminists and the blokes in frocks (the new patriarchy) to unite, for example?

Hashbang
Reply to  fretslider
October 28, 2021 6:23 pm

The objective is anything but unity. As mentioned, the woke values only serve to progressively fragment society. The only thing unifying in all of this is the rejection of traditional societal standards.

The faulty logic and destructive nature of wokeness is illustrated by examples such as this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385.amp
The woke fragmenting the woke!

Our western society cannot possibly survive when its foundations are being replaced by this purposely destructive ideology.

Peter F Gill
October 28, 2021 2:47 am

In a word Eric, Yes. I hope you will recognise that this is also a SAGE comment.

October 28, 2021 2:56 am

Unfortunately, such a referendum would be preceded by such a wall of misinformation and scaremongering that it would be a brave citizen who voted ‘No’.
I fear we would lose.

fretslider
Reply to  Eric Worrall
October 28, 2021 3:30 am

Brexit is precisely why there won’t be another referendum. Johnson was sent in to bat with the assumption the clown would lose. As the Grauniad put it: “A pyrrhic victory? Boris Johnson wakes up to the costs of Brexit

“Anti-Brexit people in the worlds of culture and commentary unleashed some of the vilest hatred of recent times on Friday night. Their masks fell and we saw what many of us suspected to be the case – that behind the Remoaner facade of cosmopolitanism and tolerance there lurks an extreme, Victorian-level contempt for ordinary people and their stupid voting habits.

The tone was set by Tom Peck, political sketch writer at the Independent. He resuscitated the pre-democratic fashion for depicting the lower orders as animal-like savages, as not fully evolved, by describing the pro-Brexit gathering in Parliament Square as ‘a knuckle-dragging carnival of the irredeemably stupid’.

Knuckle-dragging. We all know what that means. Ape-like. Lacking in true sentience. Not properly human. “

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/03/the-remainer-elites-are-the-true-bigots-of-brexit-britain/

What was that about uniting people?

Gerry, England
Reply to  fretslider
October 28, 2021 5:35 am

The lying oaf Johnson took a chance that pitching up for the Leave side might get him the top job of PM given that the current PM, Call Me Dave had nailed his colours to the Remainer mast. Via the bump in the road that he failed to be first choice, it is mission accomplished.

fretslider
Reply to  Gerry, England
October 28, 2021 6:29 am

They tried to split the leave vote using Johnson against Farage

Cameron, to his credit, did try to get the EU to consider some reform. It was firmly opposed.

Max More
Reply to  Stephen Wilde
October 28, 2021 8:31 am

But surveys consistently show “climate change” as just about the lowest priority in long lists. A referendum should show this result.

Giordano Milton
Reply to  Stephen Wilde
October 28, 2021 8:35 am

Perhaps, but the timing of the referendum might matter, for example: should the UK suffer a very cold winter with little (and overpriced) heating then people’s patience with the big scam that is the climate “crisis” might well be tested.

Tony
October 28, 2021 3:05 am

Yes.Pretty much everything these days is about controlling and spying on you.I’m not going to feel guilty about the climate or pretty much anything else that was happening way before i was born.

Peter Wells
Reply to  Tony
October 28, 2021 5:38 am

Agreed, and I was born in 1938.

eyesonu
October 28, 2021 3:06 am

Nice essay and thought provoking.

October 28, 2021 3:11 am

“there is irony in this – as it is the poorest who will be most severely affected by unconstrained climate change”.

And it is the who will be most severely affected by efforts to combat climate change.
But the efforts are now and the climate change is later.
And because of economic growth, the poorest will be less poor and so lees affected later.
This is obvious to the poorest who feel the pain. Tim Lord is not exactly on the ball.

commieBob
Reply to  M Courtney
October 28, 2021 4:03 am

I would add the preceding sentence.

Tim Lord rejected the idea that “elites” are behind the drive for climate action. He said “there is irony in this – as it is the poorest who will be most severely affected by unconstrained climate change”.

This is like the Democrat mantra that the forgotten people could not possibly vote for the Republicans because, “they would be voting against their own interests.”

The left wing thinks everyone else is stupid. Actually, the left wing has such a tenuous grasp of reality that it mimics schizophrenia. For sure, they learned nothing from Trump’s election. At least the relatively unschooled forgotten people can see the blatantly obvious. The (relatively Marxist) left wing is blinded by their precious theories and clearly can’t see obvious reality.

The elites are indeed behind the CAGW scare campaign.

MarkW
Reply to  M Courtney
October 28, 2021 7:09 am

The other side of that coin is that the poorest are being hit the hardest by the policies that are allegedly designed to fight climate change.

commieBob
Reply to  MarkW
October 28, 2021 11:16 am

Yep. Energy poverty is a way worse problem for the forgotten people than whatever climate problem the alarmists think will happen.

aussiecol
Reply to  commieBob
October 28, 2021 2:30 pm

The energy crisis in western Europe being a case in point.

October 28, 2021 3:17 am

‘The emperor has no clothes’ has never been a more pertinent expression.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was the moment everybody admitted he had no clothes.

The collapse of climate alarmism will be the moment everybody admits it has no clothes, and the more politicians, celebs, XR and those other nutters bloviate over a nothing burger, the quicker it will happen.

Maybe then the adults could look at future energy problems through competent, realistic and pragmatic eyes.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  Climate believer
October 28, 2021 8:11 am

“Maybe then the adults could look at future energy problems through competent, realistic and pragmatic eyes.”

A very nice thought but a very unlikely one, the MSM & national broadcast organisations have been infected by corruption. It is a political fact that, just like the BBC, all other EU national broadcasters of member states, were given millions of Euros for promoting itself to the populations of the EU, after all, what dog bites the hand that feeds it???

Philo
Reply to  Alan the Brit
October 28, 2021 5:46 pm

Perhaps the next 20 years or so, as the world cools off a bit more and then starts to gradually warm will cause enough soul searching the lower, middle, and somewhat upper classes will finally shed the blind fold on their minds.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  Philo
October 28, 2021 11:40 pm

I agree. The longer times goes by without the predicted (promised) disasters & catastrophes don’t happen, the mist over the eyes & ears of the majority who have been sucked in by the scary stories, will lose interest, that is why I have said, that this is the granddaddy of all scary stories, but the scare-mongers are already working on the next disaster, probably harking back to the impending devastating meteor/comment impact which will be caused by our wicked ways!!!

Ozonebust
October 28, 2021 3:25 am

Eric
Social control is and has been ever present in ALL countries in different forms. Whether it’s religious, political, peer pressure, group think etc.

They have been working on the climate group guilt think for fifty years, starting with the ozone hole in the late seventies.

It has very little to do with science, just manipulative stories, empowerment of the young and green factions to do the hard yards of emotive persuasion.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  Ozonebust
October 28, 2021 8:19 am

As I have said before, we need to buy time. The Ozone scary story has been shown to be false, with there being not just one “hole” but in fact several, which it isn’t it’s merely a thinning of the layer, & with the British Antarctic Survey announcing in full “sotto voce”, that they now think it’s always been there & is perfectly natural, as when discovered in the early 1980s a real scientist asked the question, “How do we know it hasn’t always been there?”. However, we may not have that time before the globalists in the UN, get their way & create a Global Guvment, claiming ownership of all resource on Earth, which they, & ONLY they, will meter out as they see fit, after they have castrated the USA politically!!! Only freedom & democracy will save the planet, not totalitarian domination!!!

Ozonebust
Reply to  Alan the Brit
October 28, 2021 10:00 am

Alan
Do you have a reference for the Sotto Voce from the British Antarctic survey.
Yes the reduction in ozone through movement of air within the vortex causes the ozone hole as they call it.

For the NH ozone values NASA have provided a maximum ozone value and a Polar cap ozone value since 1979. Still no maximum value for the SH, and only in the last two years have NASA provided a Polar cap value.

Previously for the SH all they recorded was ozone minimums and loss values to support the theory. They had the skill to provide a similar range of values to match the NH but they chose not to. Just emphasis the so called problem.

I am yet to find a scientific paper that provides an accurate description of the zonal winds that create the vortex above Antarctica.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  Ozonebust
October 28, 2021 11:46 pm

I am sorry to say I don’t. I was driving one day listening to a news channel, & I was so surprised to hear “a scientist” mention that the BAS had come round to this thinking. After that, I never heard a dickybird about it, I don’t read newspapers because they are full of nonsense, well most of the time, so was unable to look further into the statement. However, it is no secret that the “Hole” has taken a back seat for many years now, with it’s young cousin, AGW, taken the lead position for giving cause for concern!!!

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Alan the Brit
October 30, 2021 1:11 pm

Alan, you are correct that there are other coincident holes that were not caused by CFCs. I commented here, years ago that there is a CO2 hole, CH4 hole, NOx hole and, IIRC, Noble gas hole as well. There are satellites collecting this info and it falsifies the CFC cause. Maybe the data is not being made available now- NASA is the cheerleader for the human caused ozone hole.

Moreover, if you look at the bigger picture, surrounding the hole is a collar of thicker ozone (like a turtle-neck sweater). Someone who can digitize the colors may find that there is no net reduction in ozone
comment image?crop=480×270

I wanted the notoriety of having falsified the ozone/CFC scheme but didn’t get any traction even from sceptics. Probably few read my diatribes.

October 28, 2021 3:29 am

FLOP26 unity? China, Russia, are not interested. Maybe now that the Queen demurred, Prince Andrew might turn up dressed as Mum? It is haloween after all.

Reply to  bonbon
October 28, 2021 4:10 am

Charles is the perfect Eco-stooge. He actually believes in it.

MarkW
Reply to  Leo Smith
October 28, 2021 7:12 am

When Charles talks to plants, it’s usually the plants who end up carrying the conversation.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  MarkW
October 28, 2021 11:50 pm

Ironically, when news first arose that Prince Charles talked to his plants, much scorn was poured upon it & much jollity made of it, a regular radio show in the UK called “Gardeners Question Time” (or similar I am no gardener), had such a question raised for the panel to address, one eminent panel member stated that the only benefit likely for the plants was from the tiny amount of CO2 breathed out as the Prince spoke to them!!! Oh the irony!!!

Lurker pete
Reply to  Leo Smith
October 28, 2021 7:58 am

Yeah the £10 Billion from offshore windfarm ground rent has nothing to do with it, that just helps pay for the fuel conversion on his Aston Martin so it can use recycled excess wine.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  Leo Smith
October 28, 2021 8:20 am

The late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is on record as saying that when he died, he wanted to come back as a deadly virus to reduce the Human population – scary stuff indeed!!!

Reply to  bonbon
October 28, 2021 4:16 am

You must be British bonbon: you spelt “Mum” correctly 😉
The idea of Andrew pitching up at the COP shindig dressed as Mater made me chuckle.

Dean
Reply to  Andrew Wilkins
October 28, 2021 7:10 am

Well mum and mom are pronounced differently, as well as being spelt differently.

Reply to  Dean
October 28, 2021 7:14 am

This is true.

Tom Abbott
October 28, 2021 3:32 am

From the article: “But even the Chinese are struggling to contain the free flow of information which is undermining state control of public narratives.”

A very important point.

Some of China’s citizens appear to be a little rebellious of authority and mass communications may be one reason for this. Communism works when the narrative is controlled by the State. When other information is introduced into the system, it undermines the State narrative to a certain extent, and causes people to think for themselves. The State does not want people thinking for themselves.

I think China is beyond the point where all information from around the world can be cut off. So revolutionary thoughts are being introduced to the Chinese public and to everyone else on the planet. This is a good thing, if you are not a control freak.

BallBounces
October 28, 2021 3:33 am

“it is the poorest who will be most severely affected by unconstrained climate change activism”. Fixed it.

October 28, 2021 3:52 am

What if fear of change, of loss of control, and a desire for social unity and predictability are the real driving force behind the climate push?

I think that is not a completely wrong statement, but neither is it completely true.
I think the narrative started as a plausible way to attack coal, and promote gas, in the USA and in Britain, in the first case for profit, and in the second to regain political control of the country by the government.

Since then it has become a bandwagon that is – at least for a while – going in the same direction as a lot of other more, or less, unrelated interests would like to go, and the fear of change, of loss of control, and a desire for social unity and predictability is just one motivation to climb on it.

I am reminded of momentum trading on the Markets – a stock begins to climb, no one is quite sure why, but investing in it drives the price up and creates profit, and it becomes an overvalued bubble. Then it collapses.

The final moments of such a collapse are generally marked by loads of financial pundits pointing out how strong the stock is, and then unloading it to the punters who believed them.

I think the global warming bubble is about to burst.

Reply to  Leo Smith
October 28, 2021 4:53 am

COP will go FLOP – the problem is what then?
Anyone remember the Unabomber?
Well a Swedish Andreas Malm, professor of ecology at Lund University proposes BLM tactics with his book ¨White Skin, Black Fuel¨ . This a retread Franz Fanon’s ¨Black Skin, White Masks¨ and Bertrand Russell’s Icarus where he wrote technological progress is white science, done in a rap Eminem style. Fanon is the Pol Pot ideologue, and this time around with Amazon AWS doing GCHQ’s and MI6 data mining (new contract) , more efficient deployment.

So it is clear what to expect, do not be blindsided!

Reply to  bonbon
October 28, 2021 12:43 pm

Only such a non-informative rant could lead to so much blindsiding.

MarkW
Reply to  Leo Smith
October 28, 2021 9:16 am

The difference is that the stock market pundits don’t control the money that is being pumped into the rising stock.
In the AGW scam, they do.
The scam will continue as long as those who are in control, continue to profit from it.

Ozonebust
Reply to  Leo Smith
October 28, 2021 11:59 am

Leo
“I think the global warming bubble is about to burst”

I believe that your prediction or wish is incorrect.

The momentum is still climbing. The general citizenry and youth are too ingrained with the “truth” and fear of climate change. The great unthinking mass. Take the ozone hole for example, they have stated for years that it is “mending” or reducing, and in fact it is constant or increasing currently, with 2020 the second largest accumulated ozone hole area on record.

For your prediction to take effect the worlds media has to do a U turn, and that is not about to happen as it is controlled by the folks that are driving the agenda. Governments are afraid of countering the narrative due to trade implications.

Not many people (like us) really check the facts, so an unsupported belief system takes over from reality. In New Zealand (and most other countries) the media covers the dangers of Covid from morning to night, doctors are struck off for countering the response narrative.

There is a long way to go yet.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Ozonebust
October 30, 2021 1:38 pm

on record.

“For your (Leo Smith) prediction to take effect the worlds media has to do a U turn, and that is not about to happen as it is controlled by the folks that are driving the agenda.”

Here is what is going to change it in Europe: a very cold winter, major fossil fuel shortage and sky-high prices ($3 to $40/ million BTUs of Nat gas, oil, coal) for backup for Windless mills, heating, transport, ind. production (think unemployment), international shipping logistics and costs nightmare, empty food shelves … casualties high. The end of the climate putsch seems almost certain.

2hotel9
October 28, 2021 4:32 am

It has never been about climate.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  2hotel9
October 28, 2021 8:24 am

As already said, it never was & never will be, they don’t give a hoot about climate!!! Now, what’s the betting that the next Ice-Age is not too far off in the distance???

richard
October 28, 2021 4:44 am

off- piste but I think the covid 19 was part of the plan as well – “Blind obedience” – eeeek!!

“They will then start the process of brainwashing you which typically take five steps:

1. Isolation
2. Attacks on self-esteem
3. Us vs. Them
4.Blind obedience
5. Testing

https://www.learning-mind.com/brainwashing-signs/

Wade
October 28, 2021 4:52 am

Like many things to leftists, the word they use is not what they mean. They always employ doublespeak. For instance, officially North Korea is Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. When was the last time North Korea had an honest, open, fair election? It is not a republic, it is not democratic, and it does not further the interests of the people it controls. Doublespeak is a form of propaganda.

So it is with unity. They do not want people to unify. The leftist democrats in the United States preach unity, while they actively lie and divide people. It is all a lie. When the leftist say “unity” what they really mean “submission and conformity”. In the statements above, replace “unity” with “submission” and everything makes perfect sense.

Reply to  Wade
October 28, 2021 6:29 am

German Democratic Republic a comparable construct, now history since years.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  Krishna Gans
October 29, 2021 12:01 am

I have said it here before, but whenever I hear of a nation declaring itself to be a “Peoples’ Democratic Republic of………..”, I know that last thing it is about is democracy, & for the people!!!

Dean
October 28, 2021 4:56 am

I find it hilarious when these sorts of surveys come out about how much the poor will be hurt. The financial models used by the IPCC clearly show that the poorest will be smashed by the drakonian costs of keeping below 2 degrees of warming from some arbitraty low point.

October 28, 2021 5:00 am

The earliest stirrings of free thought were nurtured on the radio broadcasts of Voice of America and the crude, self-published books and tape recordings of the Samizdatand Magnitizdat movements. By the end, of course, it was CNN and cellular phones that finally defeated the Soviet Union.

Reply to  zee raja
October 28, 2021 1:51 pm

that’s bollox!
It was the price of OIL that destroyed the USSR.

As for China, obviously you have never been there!

“Global freedom initiatives have provided systems like the TOR Project, which are used by Chinese citizens who want to sneak past the Great Chinese Firewall, so they can keep track of what is really going on in the world.”

TOR DOES NOT WORK in China.
DPI (deep packet inspection) means the Chinese have an absolute strangehold on TOR, and even proper encrypted VPNs struggle to get through the damn thing!

Don’t forget they have the MAN POWER to do this censorship thing properly, and they sure do it well!

October 28, 2021 5:33 am

Australia is the looser in the US UNITY gambit accusing China of COVID conspiracy. China cut coal imports off and massively ramped up Russian coal imports, even with an energy crisis.
Playing UNITY with Orcus nuke subs is another loosing gambit.
Then we have outgoing German Defense Minister threatening Russia with nuclear weapons, UNITY with NATO, to be bluntly reminded by Russia how that turned out twice before!
The US tried to dump the UN Security Council Veto – all in pursuit of UNITY. Time for Australia and Germany to veto….
UNITY is not new, not about you – to paraphrase Professor mouse to Alice.

Bruce Cobb
October 28, 2021 5:48 am

They serve one another. Climate Alarmism requires social control, using lies and emotional manipulation. And Big Government, which is anti-democratic, also requires social control. Win-win.

David Elstrom
October 28, 2021 6:14 am

The weather scammers in our garbage elite have predicted disaster from global cooling to global warming to climate change—trying to hide their lies behind name changes. But the “solution” is always consistent: more control and more looting by the central tyranny in DC.

October 28, 2021 6:46 am

A UN guy confirmed this over 10 yrs ago.

October 28, 2021 6:50 am

No. The University Presidents and Media Moguls who permit this cabal to thrive are haters of mining in general. These Lib-Tards FEEL that they are defending the Earth. They don’t think much if ever.

That explains the endless coverage of any oil spill no matter how small, Mann himself, and the IPCC. Prosperity, particularly for the less fortunate, means nothing to them.

Yuck.

leowaj
October 28, 2021 7:15 am

It’s a classic tactic of the left.

Anon
October 28, 2021 7:18 am

Hi Eric,

This was a really insightful essay and this comment really caught my eye:

If global elites cannot control communication technology, the next best thing is to try to dominate the conversation, through a fear campaign and a call for global unity.

You might want to continue to explore that through the lens developed in Marshall Mcluhan’s famous essay:

The Medium is the Message

This fact merely underlines the point that “the medium is the message” because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. The content or uses of such media are as diverse as they are ineffectual in shaping the form of human association. Indeed, it is only too typical that the “content” of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium.

https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf

After you absorb that essay, you will notice that the “elites” as you refer to them, didn’t study Mcluhan when they pushed the notion that the internet and social media would unite and “bring the world together”. In fact, the response has been the opposite… and the reaction of the elites has been to double down on the “content” (dominate the conversation), which, as Mcluhan points out, is a futile.

A few years ago, I was reading an academic paper about the birth and introduction of the Gutenberg printing press which posited that within about ~70 years of its introduction, to any place in the world, there has been a revolution. Two of the examples I remember were the Reformation & American Revolution. In the American Revolution the regions with the most printing presses were the most rebellious. Canada had practically none and there were very few in the Southern States. Conventional, linear thinkers, would posit that the plethora of printing presses allowed the dissenters to “get the message out” but Mcluhan asserts this is incorrect.

I think you are really on to something with the “kernel of thought” you presented above, so it would be interesting to see what you come up with when you integrate Mcluhan’s thesis with your own observations.

Thanks for posting this!

Lurker pete
Reply to  Anon
October 28, 2021 8:52 am

Very intersting essay, and anecdote, thanks.

I see social media as an outlet for outrage, the lack of outrage outlets pre internet made revolution more likely IMO. That doesn’t negate revolution post-internet, if people are pushed too far they’re going to revolt. e.g. yellow vests

I wonder what Marshall Mcluhan would make of the internet, the push for biometric digital IDs as a requirement for access, the push to cancel people, and/or label anyone with a counter gov/narrative position as a ‘domestic terrorist’ with ‘hate speech’ and other laws so nebulous anyone could fall foul one day.

I see this trend leading to a social credit system in the not so distant future…

Lin Jinyue, lead designer of China’s social credit system, extolls its value and his hope for worldwide adoption: “If you had the social credit system, there would never have been the
Yellow Vests, we would have detected that before they acted.”

https://brandnewtube.com/watch/take-away-their-freedoms-take-away-their-homes_MvS2rHPhYGrLSDj.html

Anon
Reply to  Lurker pete
October 28, 2021 10:25 am

I think, not having studied Mcluhan in a while, is that all of the corrective measures (really content regulation) you mention, is an effort to put the internet genie back in the bottle. While that may work for a while, he would posit that ultimately the medium will prevail. Ultimately, all of the content regulation is a tacit admission of the content’s veracity.

What is interesting about Mcluhan’s lens is that he makes the assumption that people have not changed in thousands of years. There have always been liberals and conservatives living together and the complaints people were making back in 1776 are the same as people are making now. So, if people are the same, then the only variable left is how they communicate (the medium).

Before the internet, you may have had no idea that your neighbors believed in some ideology that you disagreed with. But now that everyone can tweet and blog, you know who believes in what. The internet is like providing everyone with their own personal printing press. The ironic thing is is that your community has not changed at all, but what has changed is that you now know how your neighbors think. So, with this discovery, your community or nation, goes from harmonious to acrimonious.

And this outcome was so obvious that there even as a Gilligan’s Island episode about “mind reading seeds” that seemed like a gift at first but ended up exploding the harmony of the castaways that they burned the bush that produced the seeds.

I don’t know where this going or how it will end, but I think Mcluhan’s lens may be of use in deciphering the outcome. IMHO

Lurker Pete
Reply to  Anon
October 28, 2021 11:31 am

Astute observations, thanks.

Anon
Reply to  Anon
October 28, 2021 8:58 am

Addendum: I also remember from that period of reading… about why Christianity swept through the Roman Empire. The authors suggested that it was not the content of the religion, but the Sabbath day weekly mass (Mcluhan’s medium) that gave it the competitive advantage over the pagan sects, which only met sporadically.

Lurker pete
October 28, 2021 7:21 am

What came first, promotion of climate alarmism, or the decrease in oil exploration spending?

Is climate alarmism a cover for peak oil?

or is it just a coincidence all the AGW policy nonsense is (almost) exactly the same response one would expect from a peak oil policy response?

Would the response be any better if the parasite class were honest about it?

MarkW
Reply to  Lurker pete
October 28, 2021 9:18 am

Climate alarmism started at least 50 years ago.
Peak Oil has been 10 years off for almost twice as long.

Lurker Pete
Reply to  MarkW
October 28, 2021 11:27 am

Hubbert presented his theory in 1956, his preliminary paper (Energy from Fossil Fuels) came out in 1949 laying the ground work…

Thus we may announce with certainty that the production curve of any given species of fossil fuel will rise, pass through one or several maxima, and then decline asymptotically to zero

But that doesn’t answer the question regarding exploration investment, I recall financial headlines ~17yrs ago Shell was buying back shares rather than investing it on exploration, which makes me wonder if the parasite class decided to leave it in the ground, or they really hit an exploration limit.

Reply to  MarkW
October 28, 2021 12:52 pm

Peak oil started much earlier, probably before 1900 but certainly not long after that date.

John the Econ
October 28, 2021 7:30 am

You just noticed this? I thought it was pretty obvious in 1988.

October 28, 2021 7:34 am

The satisfaction of knowing that the house of cards will inevitably fall does little to improve the lives of those it will fall upon. Which, unfortunately, is pretty much everyone currently living today.

History won’t look kindly upon charlatans like John Kerry, Joe Biden, Angela Merkel and Boris Symonds, but, since I believe in reincarnation about as much as I believe in algoremageddon, all this just makes me feel worse.

They won. They have our children dancing in lockstep (makes me yearn for the days when the biggest worry about high schoolers was that they’d have too much sex – these days, they have less sex than octogenarians). Our economies will be destroyed and we will become dependent on the same governments that destroyed them.

October 28, 2021 7:35 am

Unity -> conformity. -> obedience -> subservience -> subjugation -> slavery -> death.
This is not the formula that led to innovation and human flourishing.

Reply to  Andy Pattullo
October 28, 2021 12:54 pm

The bigger picture doesn’t matter when one believes he is losing his grip on his little part.

Olen
October 28, 2021 7:48 am

Dictators are always concerned about public opinion and is why they brow beat the hell out of their citizens.

A friend who grew up in East Germany said in school they told us everyday the Americans are coming, and you never came. She went on class trips to Russia to learn what the USSR wanted. Her aunt was in an engineering program when she demonstrated against the government, was promptly thrown in jail for five days while being threatened and upon release was expelled from any further education. The procedure of elites has changed but the results have not. Or maybe it has not changes so much after all.

Coach Springer
October 28, 2021 8:11 am

Obliquely admitting we may have already lost.

aussiecol
Reply to  Coach Springer
October 28, 2021 2:36 pm

The truth will prevail in the end. Hopefully the end will be before the collapse of western civilisation.

Giordano Milton
October 28, 2021 8:30 am

“Is Climate Alarmism an Establishment Attempt to Restore Social Control?”

I would say more to SEIZE social and political control.

Max More
October 28, 2021 8:32 am

UNITY! BETTER TOGETHER! Remember that “fascism” comes from the Roman “fasces” — bundles of sticks tied together for strength. Unity = “shut up and do as we say”.

Reply to  Max More
October 28, 2021 10:01 am

Great observation – fascism is literally a large group of people acting as one without dissent or individual thought. Antifa are the ultimate fascists and too stupid to see it. Same for most progressives who adopt their beliefs from the herd.

John Bell
October 28, 2021 8:45 am

OT note about upcoming :Green Summit”

The Green Summit is a two day in-person and virtual event taking place in San Diego on March 24th and 25th, 2022. The event will feature 20 of the biggest leaders in cleantech, sustainability, and renewable energy, sharing their vision for a more environmentally friendly future.

The event will feature leaders in solar, electric vehicles, finance, real estate, business development, aerospace technologies giving 30 minute presentations about how we can get involved and learn to create a better life for ourselves.

Featured speakers include Hap Klopp, the founder of North Face, Prince Gharios, the sovereign Prince of Ghassan, Karl W. Feilder, the founder and CEO of North Face, and Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Explorer. More speakers will continue to be added as we grow the event.

If you are interested in speaking at the event, or sponsoring the event, contact Dylan@DylanWelch.com

saveenergy
Reply to  John Bell
October 28, 2021 5:19 pm

Prince Gharios of Ghassan — the exiled Sovereign Prince and heir to the Ghassanid Kingdom … which no longer exists… overthrown in the 7th century, following the Battle of Yarmuk in 636 AD.
Prince Gahrios of Ghassan Al-Nu’mani is an actor, known for Ode to My Mother (2014).

Two guys from the same outdoor gear company & an oceanographer.

Sounds a bundle of fun !!!

Philo
Reply to  John Bell
October 28, 2021 6:09 pm

It might be interesting to attend just to see how far off these “future leaders” are.

Bob Cherba
October 28, 2021 8:52 am

“The Tony Blair Institute’s Tim Lord rejected the idea that “elites” are behind the drive for climate action. He said “there is irony in this – as it is the poorest who will be most severely affected by unconstrained climate change”.”

It’s not “unconstrained climate change” that’s going to severely affect the poorest, it’s unconstrained government action to solve a fake crisis that has been created to rid the world of eviiiiiil capitalism.

michel
October 28, 2021 9:14 am

Is Climate Alarmism an Establishment Attempt to Restore Social Control?

No, I don’t think so. Its an episode of mass hysteria and irrationality. There have been many of these in human history and in the 20th century, where they are well documented. Leave aside wars and genocides and financial bubbles and lets confine ourselves to the West, and to manias surrounding social issues. They usually contain a strong element of irrational fears. Here are some striking examples:

Early 20c masturbation mania
Eugenics movement
McCarthyism in the US, fifties
Satanic abuse mania in the eighties and nineties
Recovered memory movement late 20c
The current trans movement
Climate alarmism

People are just very irrational and prone to these sudden waves of hysteria. Take for instance shrinking penis mania, quite common in Africa but not only found there. Or the episodes of hysterical fainting that have been reported in a few girl’s schools from time to time. Extend it to the plainly irrational persistence in mutual slaughter of WWI, but then consider Pol Pot, Sendero Luminosa, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Stalin’s purges and famines. Not to mention the insanity and wickedness and purposelessness of the Holocaust. The tribe in Africa, who on instructions from crazed children slaughtered all their cattle and died of hunger. The great bull market of 1920s, which has its analogues today in the crazed idea that unlimited printing of money will lead to perpetual prosperity.

It happens on a large scale in nations, but it also happens on a small scale in groups and cults – a well known case is documented in ‘When Prophecy Fails’, when people became convinced of the imminent second coming, and persisted in that belief when the prophecies had failed.

The current widespread acceptance of the crazed idea that one can change a man to a woman by surgery and hormones, or vice versa, is an example.

We have to accept that we are a species in which irrational waves of feeling and action and policy based on them will sweep across the communities in which we live. Bertrand Russell expressed a rather disturbing but basically rational point of view on this. He was reproached for having moved to America during WWII.

He replied that when a group of madmen are fighting each other with knives in a pitch black room, the intelligent thing to do is get out.

So its dangerous, dangerous to communities and countries in the effects of the policies, and dangerous to anyone who is seen to be dissenting from the mania and can be turned into an object of attack. but its not an Establishment anything, its just another episode of mass hysteria.

Jeff corbin
October 28, 2021 9:39 am

Jacques Ellul, French Philosopher died in 1994 but his quotes are so relevant to this current discussion.

The allure of controlling the masses using smart phones, big data, industrial and Operant psychology is what has brought on the massive investment in what I call comprehensive propaganda. Then add false campaigns of fear, ( climate, weather, health, over population etc) and a entirely new set of tools is now available to the highest bidder. The establishment has bought into the power of the new technique. The outcome will be global smartphone serfdom. The allure of the power of the technique is what has caused the onset of the campaign to unify the world with fear. This is as much about megalomania as any ideology. Yet in our covert era of false flag and smoke and mirror, it is difficult to pinpoint the megalomaniacs. Whoever they are, they are bolstered by their own massive success.

Ellul Quotes.

It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale. (think smartphone in 2021) (Quote from 1968)

Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity. (think smartphone for controlling people) (1960’s qoute)

The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief (1960’s ) (the end of science and intellectual pursuit of truth)

No technique is possible when men are free…. Technique requires predictability and, no less, exactness of prediction. It is necessary, then, that technique prevail over the human being.

Jeff corbin
Reply to  Jeff corbin
October 28, 2021 9:49 am

The question for me is how free do we have to be to prevent a massive technique from completely over taking our freedom? How free are well really? Personally, I have no clue but I fear the technique is built to ensure that we won’t realize it’s gone until it’s long gone.

markl
October 28, 2021 9:43 am

Isn’t that the goal of propaganda?

October 28, 2021 11:48 am

These are my ideas about the roots of climate activism:
http://www.davdata.nl/math/piedpiper.html

Philo
October 28, 2021 11:51 am

The elites are promoting climate change as a driver of unity. As the only real driver our civilzation It is a strange choice. The human race has existed as species for many millions of years. Despite many cataclysms worse than anything except a cold period reducing CO2 to less than 50 ppm or so it has survived. Fossils and relics show virtually discoveries of might be human remains often includes items that must have been traded.

My future prediction is that the primary hazard is not just wars and another cycle of mad leaders. It is a very real risk that all this commotion, if carried to the bitter end will result in a few thousands of tribes scattered over the globe in pockets of relative livability. They will keep outsiders away by reflex and have very little communication or trade.

The main reason would be vague legends of the destruction of the tribes ancestors by such things as petrifying storms, plagues, the seas drying up, mountains falling, and huge tidal waves, almost ad infinitum.

Sound familiar. It’s all in the western bible and in other legends across the world. It can happen again.

The current climate/virus/trade could very well nearly destroy civilization. It woud leave the current intelligent people aghast. The power-hungry elites will start armies. The timid will either die are team up with somebody supposedly stronger. Loss of trade will turn many societies in ghosts of themselves.

Fortunately or not, no one living today will experience it,

Enginer01
October 28, 2021 12:45 pm

The founders of the Club of Rome ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome ) have had to to dance around a lot as they saw that increasing CO2 greatly aids the production of crops to feed the world’s billions, but they maintain their focus that the way to control society is to scare it, and try to convince you that only more government can save you.
Baloney.

James H
October 28, 2021 12:48 pm

What do you think “unity” means? Here, it means that any dissent from the globalist party needs should be squashed. Anyone that agrees with The Party should attack any dissent until the dissenters become silent. Unity = one group of people imposing their will onto others by force. We are seeing a worldwide push towards vaccine unity right now, aren’t we? See what that looks like as a reference.

Izaak Walton
Reply to  James H
October 28, 2021 2:45 pm

The global push towards vaccine unity looks like the previous global push to eliminate smallpox and the vaccine push to eliminate polo. Or are you opposed to those as well?

Lurker Pete
Reply to  Izaak Walton
October 28, 2021 11:46 pm

Ridiculous, it looks nothing like that, not from an immuno-biology POV at least (unless you get your immuno-biology from skilled TV watching). Have a read of this review paper, and think of unintended consiquences…

https://gigaohmbiological.com/review

October 28, 2021 1:02 pm

They mean Uniformity

Izaak Walton
October 28, 2021 1:21 pm

Yet another conspiracy theory about the global elite trying to control everything. And still no mention of who exactly this shadowy group are. Do they include for example all the billionaires who have gotten rich from fossil fuels? Is Donald Trump part of this “global elite”? Or George Bush? Surely being president of the US should be enough to put amount the global elite? What about Putin? Or Mohammed bin Salman?

tom0mason
October 28, 2021 1:23 pm

Communists/Socialists/Liberals believe they acting to ‘saving the planet’ and advocating wonderful things. They all display the worst aspects of a ‘Savior Complex’. Psychologists say ‘Savior Complex’ tendencies can involve fantasies of omnipotence*.

Communists/Socialists/Liberals are defined by their awful pompous pseudo-moral superiority, and their continual egotistical desire to virtue signal. They’re duplicitous in furthering their dangerous ‘the means justifies the ends’ suicidal advocacy. They are actually wreaking chaos on this planet. They are catastrophic for humanity’s development and evolution, being as they are, the greatest threat that humanity has ever confronted.
There will be only one outcome for this; human life being reduced to a consensus of drudgery, mediocrity, and immortality, godless empty lives with only vaporous celebrity pettiness and trivia as relief, before finally succumbing to absolute nihilism and slavery.

*See https://www.healthline.com/health/savior-complex

leitmotif
October 28, 2021 2:54 pm

Looked at that picture for an hour but still couldn’t solve “Where’s Anthony?”

Pieter A Folkens
October 28, 2021 3:23 pm

From the Switzerland-based UN thinktank, The Club of Rome in their publication The First Global Revolution that coincided with the IPCC’s First Assessment: “A common advisory to organize an act together is a necessary motivation. We must find it to bring the divided nations together to face an outside enemy. It need not be a real one, but it can be one invented for the purpose. . . . New enemies, therefore, have to be identified, new struggles imagined, new weapons developed. In searching for a new reality, a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, threat of global warming, water shortages, famines, and the like would fill the bill.”

Maurice Strong (who gave us the IPCC) and Al gore were members of the group.

Alan the Brit
Reply to  Pieter A Folkens
October 29, 2021 12:41 am

Ah, those two wonderful philanthropists Maurice Strong & Al Gore, oh how wonderful Socialism is to be able to create two multi-millionaires with other peoples money, both now living in harmony with the world in their multi-million$ luxury homes without a care in the world!!! I’ve made my money, now to pull up the ladder!!!

Corky
October 28, 2021 4:29 pm

C & C for thee! Whatever moves the control needle farther from the people is just good science (sarc).

Lark
October 28, 2021 9:04 pm

I’m going to disagree with this one. It seems to me that the current excesses are not attempts to restore power but to take all power for themselves.
They are not trying to restore the old social compact but trying (and almost entirely succeeding, so far) to prevent the citizen class from doing exactly that.
Every example of a call for unity you give is really a call for submission.

The single best method for social control is to be a good example and our beloved ruling class now reacts to that idea like a Socialist to sunlight.

michel
October 29, 2021 3:35 am

Is Climate Alarmism an Establishment Attempt to Restore Social Control?

No. It is an episode of mass hysteria, of a sort we have seen through human history, and which, for episodes after about 1600, have been well documented.

These episodes are always the same – incitement of fear, an activist elite, mass acquiescence and finally disillusion and oblivion.

In a previous attempted post I listed a few other examples, probably getting into dangerous territory, because one person’s delusion is another’s revealed truth.

But this is what it is, mass hysteria.

Alexander Vissers
October 29, 2021 9:03 am

No it is not. It may be a kind of religious belief shared among a globalist group. Climate change should be monitored and measures to avoid negative consequences should be on the agenda’s of the governments of the countries of our world. Secondly there is a multi billion dollar global warming industry that needs to uphold the urgency narrative. I personally do not believe the wind and solar approach are very sophistocated measures and agree that innovation and nuclear power should be reconsidered. Meanwhile I enjoyed today’s Indian summer on a near record breaking 28 October in Heerlen, the Netherlands.

FrozenOhio
October 29, 2021 10:09 am

Absolutely, as are mask/vax mandates.

JBP
October 29, 2021 11:35 am

Huh. Maintain, not restore.

Mark Pawelek
October 29, 2021 9:25 pm

What if fear of change, of loss of control, and a desire for social unity and predictability are the real driving force behind the climate push?

Alternatively. What if
– they’re not afraid of change but see it as an opportunity?
– loss of control? How can they lose control – they own the world.
– ‘desire for social unity’? Or maybe the opposite:- desire to divide and conquer:

  • Blacks against whites,
  • trannies versus “TERFs”,
  • greens versus Trumpists,
  • vaxxed versus unvaxxed.

Every establishment narrative seems to be pushing social disunity; not unity.

What if they just want to alter the burden of taxation to increase tax on essentials such as fuel and food?

Mark Gobell
October 30, 2021 5:37 am

Yes and to implement socialism.

Gaylord Nelson’s first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 was Lenin’s 100 th birthday.

The COP21 Paris Agreement was opened for signing on Earth Day April 22, 2016.

MG