“Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. No concept [wo]man forms is valid unless [s]he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of [her]his knowledge.”
- Ayn Rand
This quote might seem esoteric (being from philosophy) or confrontational (being from Rand) but it is actually relevant beyond belief. Here is what happens if you don’t think so.
Calgary has a new mayor, Jyoti Gondek. She must be good at some things – intelligent enough to get a PhD and win an election – but clearly exhibits an inability to think rationally. She has irreconcilable visions running through her head that she laid bare within a week: her first order of business was to declare a ‘climate emergency’, then several days later was enthusiastically welcoming the birth of a brand new discount airline. In case it is unclear to anyone, discount airlines make flying easier and more common, and are to emissions what fertilizer is to plants.
One more head-splitter just for fun: On the campaign trail last year, Joe Biden declared that fossil fuel executives should be thrown in jail for not taking responsibility for pollution caused by hydrocarbon production. This year, Biden is castigating those same executives for not producing more hydrocarbons. The impact on jail sentences of fulfilling his request was wisely sidestepped by his camp.
I could write seven hundred pages of such examples, but you get the point. The same fog has entered the brain of every public figure that adopts the climate emergency narrative. Average citizens pay lip service to the topic but generally ignore it (polls show a majority of citizens claiming to be concerned/extremely concerned about climate change, but in both Canada and the US almost 90 percent would not spend $500 per year to prevent it, and half would not spend more than $100).
The average citizen can live with this contradiction because they just say, ‘Whatever…” and change the channel/fuel up the car/book a holiday/get on with life. The problem with the contradiction shows up in far more consequential skulls: those of policymakers and activists.
Gondek, Biden, and every politician in between is ramming through policies that directly contradict each other, according to the very statements they make and definitions they accept. The result is the madness we see in mainstream media as it tries to interpret a situation where politicians are declaring that something massively important both exists and does not exist at the same time, where there is an emergency that demands emergency measures, but then pursues policies that can only make the emergency worse.
Activists are the wild card, and that brings us to David Suzuki. For those who might have missed it, Suzuki stated in an interview that if politicians did not change their attitude toward climate change soon, there will be “pipelines blowing up.” A few days later, in some strategic maneuver, he apologized.
It was duplicitous for him to have apologized, and if anyone’s feathers are ruffled about his comments that week, it is the apology they should be upset about. When he mentioned pipelines potentially blowing up, for once he was speaking truth, though he was loathe to get into why.
For years his cohort has fomented panic by pointing out how screwed we all are without immediate and substantial action (but one example of many – Oct 2021, headline/sub-header in The Guardian: “The climate disaster is here. Earth is already becoming unliveable.”).
Suzuki et al have relentlessly pointed to hydrocarbon combustion as the cause of this hellish future that is ‘now here’. The IEA says there can be no new fossil fuel investments post 2021 if we are to achieve net zero 2050, which would mean producing fields declining precipitously, which would mean truly apocalyptic shortages within a year. Biden knows this, which is why he is pleading for more oil.
However, if one accepts the premise that hydrocarbon combustion is causing a climate emergency, that that hellish emergency is arriving imminently or is already here, and that to prevent it hydrocarbon consumption must be halted as soon as possible, then it is a logical and moral imperative that consumption be stopped involuntarily, via sabotage if necessary, because humanity is refusing to do so voluntarily. Don’t jump on my head for calling it a moral imperative; here it is from the horse’s mouth, a Guardian article called “The moral case for destroying fossil fuel infrastructure”. There are others; the New Republic website ran a story called “The Climate Case for Property Destruction”. I’ve yet to see a fact-check site or social media moral police force take issue with either of these pieces.
It is profoundly evident that citizens and governments will not stop consuming hydrocarbons any time soon; in fact hydrocarbon usage is increasing year over year. As a significant example, the entire continent of Africa – 1.2 billion people – is just growing into its dedication to developing vast hydrocarbon resources. Much of the world’s population is no different; they wants lights and refrigeration and air conditioning and roads and parking lots more than they want to slash emissions. They may want to do all that in the most environmentally friendly way, but, like their western cousins, they won’t sacrifice a shot at a comfortable life.
What of the other others though, the not inconsequential number of people that are convinced of impending climate doom? They certainly exist – “eco-anxiety” or “eco-distress” are now syndromes recognized by the American Psychological Association, and the media’s sensationalistic take on the subject fuels the fire like gasoline. Given their fear is so real that it has a name, is Suzuki’s recanted pipelines-blowing-up warning relevant?
Not only is it relevant, it is happening already in one form or another. In October, activists attacked a remote Enbridge Line 5 pump station site. Numerous eco-distressed youths cut through a site fence to sabotage the pipeline. The dangerous stunt was of course destined for social media; one strapped on a very nice guitar and played a very bad song while a fellow cast member randomly and dangerously turned valves. The whole thing was streamed on Facebook for that afternoon’s scheduled pyre-dancing.
They had no clue what they were doing and only by chance did they not hurt themselves. Only the lack of a proper fireball separated them from what Suzuki described as coming soon. Only by sheer dumb luck did nothing explode. It surely could have, and this event predated Suzuki’s talk. So he was not wrong at all. Eco-terrorized people are already trying to sabotage infrastructure in one way or another, but the media mostly ignores it because they have not yet succeeded in causing an actual explosion. Fireballs bring eyeballs. Until then, don’t bug us.
So what was so offensive about Suzuki’s statements the other week? Nothing. Suzuki’s words were just notice that the juggernaut of fear-mongering was bearing fruit – “Hey everyone, you know, I’ve been agitating people for years and frightening them and demanding action, and now it looks like they are starting to listen to me, so better watch out.” The nihilistic anti-fuel stance he has had for years is the problem, not telling people that things might start blowing up. That train has left the station, as evidenced by articles cited above now unchallenged in the mainstream media.
The phrase climate emergency crept into the global lexicon because extremists ran wild, unchecked. We now have horror-inducing descriptions of every weather event. A heat wave is a heat dome. Abnormal rainfall is now an atmospheric river. A lack of wind in Europe is global stilling. A rapid pressure change over the ocean is now a bomb cyclone.
Each term cements the feeling of anxiety, by design. Each uncensored and unobjected-to exhortation to ‘do something’ ratchets the tension until it is acceptable to declare a moral imperative to destroy fossil fuel infrastructure. Don’t pretend these notices don’t get noticed. They do. While Trump gets banned, children read Guardian articles for class projects. Who should teach them what is a moral imperative, you or The Guardian? 29dk2902lhttps://boereport.com/29dk2902l.html
An emergency is an emergency. Words mean something. Definitions mean something. The political shape-shifters have seized the cause of the environment and are debasing language to achieve political goals. Politicians blindly participate because they are frightened not to, and incapable of thinking their way to any sort of clarity.
Is there a climate emergency, caused by burning hydrocarbons? I take people seriously when they say that they believe that, and I believe that children and the energy-uneducated will believe it also, because ‘science’ and the media and the government says so. Then they will start smashing stuff up, because they are doing the right thing to prevent an apparently rapidly-escalating climate apocalypse. Why is anyone surprised at this?
My opinion is that hydrocarbons are, at present and for a long time yet, life-sustaining. Hydrocarbons provide 80 percent of the world’s energy needs (same percentage for decades) and underpin everything we use, almost all of what we eat, and heat/cool our worlds as needed.
If there really is an emergency close at hand, it is due to a lack of hydrocarbons for the world, not too much. I believe this position is more credible and tenable because a hydrocarbon-centric view does not preclude wind turbines, or solar panels, or Teslas – it simply says they have a place that will grow over time.
A climate-emergency-centric view holds no such breadth – the more one believes in the emergency, the more one must act to prevent apocalypse, which means putting a stick in the hydrocarbon wheel however your little noggin deems is necessary. Glory awaits those who do.
As an energy industry, we have a job to do: provide reliable energy in the cleanest way possible, and, as reality allows, begin transforming the system to accommodate new energy sources in a way that does not impede the ability of the existing system to do its job. That is it.
Clarity is not just important, it is critical. Either leaders back down and admit the value of hydrocarbons in today’s society, or radicals will reinforce the idea that hydrocarbons are killing us all. Wise leaders will engage the existing system, energize it and utilize it. Weak, poor thinking leaders will continue this impossible dance in their heads, preaching a climate emergency while demanding more hydrocarbons and more emissions generating activity that citizens want. The more the climate emergency belief takes hold, the stronger the moral imperative to smash hydrocarbon infrastructure. Faulty thinking has consequences.
Clarity in energy thinking IS available. Pick up “The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity” at Amazon.ca, Indigo.ca, or Amazon.com. Thanks for the support.
Read more insightful analysis from Terry Etam here, or email Terry here. PS: Dear email correspondents, the email flow is wonderful and welcome, however I am having trouble keeping up. In past I replied to everything but am getting stretched. Apologies if comments/questions go unanswered; they are not ignored.
There is no doubt that our new mayor Gondak is a bubblehead, but she is in good company.
The cognitive dissonance in these people is deafening.
In years past both Victoria and Whistler in BC, places who’s economies are 100% dependent on tourists, have declared climate emergencies.
And in both cases the climate emergency declaration appears on the same websites that brag about how many tourists came in the past, and how many $millions they are spending to attract more now.
Watch if the USA spikes the old rule that cruise ships heading from usa pacific coast cities have to stop by BC on the way to Alaska. The screaming will be deafening. Or maybe that will be my laughter.
All of these people, along with Trudeau and so many others, fulfill the description given them by journalist George Jonas years ago, “educated beyond their intellectual means”.
They think they are so smart but they cannot process what they take in and so say stupid things one after the other.
1972 clip of David Suzuki comparing humans to maggots
He has been very weird for a long time.
In my opinion, the above statement ruins a perfectly good article. It is a strawman, and doesn’t belong. The issue with those things is that about the only reason they are here is because of the climate scam, and are being forced on society. Market forces did not create those things.
The article draws attention to a social phenomenon which has become increasingly visible over the last few years. Its not confined to climate, similar things also occur in the race and gender debates.
One, people advocate doing things which, if they believe what they claim to believe, are exactly the opposite of what’s needed. This is Biden demanding more oil production, Gondek’s welcoming of a budget airline.
Two, people advocate doing things which cannot according to their theory have any effect on what they claim to believe is the problem. For instance, turning off standby power because climate. Eating less meat because climate.
Three, they refuse to advocate things which, according to their theory, are essential and effective to reduce global emissions. For instance, real reductions in emissions by China and India.
Four, they refuse to advocate doing things locally which, if they really intend reducing local emissions, would be necessary and effective. For instance, moving the population into well insulated dense urban housing and the abolition of the car industry and all the concomittant changes this would require.
Having observed the pronouncements of the climate activists and their followers over a couple of decades now, I am driven to the following view of what’s going on.
People utter the predictions of doom, like the Guardian they enforce a vocabulary of emergency and global heating, like the BBC they ban all coverage of any dissenting point of view. Indeed, all the UK mainstream media ban any questioning of the emergency doctrine. But no-one really believes any of it. People are not saying these things to argue a believed point of view. They are performative utterances testifying to membership of the righteous.
They are then very disconcerted to find that their ideas have got enough traction to start practical people moving to actions based on them. Like banning ICE cars, like converting the country to unreliable wind and solar based power generation. Like the absolutely insane British idea of trying to convert natural gas use to hydrogen.
The reason these mad ideas seem attractive is that they are felt to be in the category of testifying. But when you get into the practical details of implementation you find they either don’t work at all or have the opposite effects from what was desired. Does anyone really believe that converting the Drax power station to woodchips imported from Georgia does anything at all to influence either global emissions, global temperatures, or even British emissions?
They only discover the impracticality or nonsense of their programs when forced by the waves of opinion they have generated to move to action based on it. Previously they have not found it necessary to do any analysis of implementation, because all they were doing was testifying.
Its a bit like how we end up explaining that men can get pregnant and give birth, or in a more fundamental example, its how a wave of opinion and feeling can give rise to the decision to go to war, without ever having done proper analysis of whether war against this opponent right now is either sensible or necessary. We started out testifying to our patriotism, and to our surprise ended up reading casualty lists and paying raised taxes.
This is how it is with climate. AOC advocated the Green New Deal in a spirit of testifying. No-one would have been more astonished and dismayed than her by the consequences of actually trying to implement it. We have allowed advocacy of policy to be used as the currency of testimony to membership of the righteous, and then are surprised when the policies advocated are nonsensical.
I think the root of the problem is that we are graduating recent generations with no exposure to evidence based argument. The liberal arts have been taken over by impressionistic advocacy approaches. There is a general acceptance, fuelled by post-modernism, of moral and epistemological relativism. What is right or true is right or true for me, may be different for you, and what you assert is only testifying to your particular sex, race, nationality, class position.
And so we get large numbers of English or Media Studies graduates firmly convinced their views on how to run the grid are as good as anyone elses. This is where the confusion between testifying and asserting comes from.
It also is the origin of the idea that you can refute an assertion by treating it as a performative utterance testifying to group membership. Dismiss the group, and you feel you have refuted the idea. if the idea is a difficult one, conceptually, you can now argue that this kind of argument is racist, sexist, nativist…etc. Like calculus!
People with no training in logical thought and the assessment of evidence don’t even know this is possible. They really do think assertion of group membership is all there is. Don’t go anywhere near a bridge they have built. It can be as anti-racist and diverse and climate friendly as you like, its going to fall down.
I am afraid it is going to take a generation’s worth of civil engineering disasters, such as those under way in the UK’s Net Zero project, to bring us to our senses. That they will happen if the project is seriously pursued isn’t in doubt.
William Golding, in The Spire, did a fictional account of this conflict between passionate fantasy and reality – in that case, gravity and the foundations of a building.
Suzuki has a net worth of $25 million and has a mansion worth $8.5 million plus a few other residences worth millions. His wealth will make sure HIS life style will be unaffected as the leftist intentionally drive up the cost of energy and devastate the lives of the little people struggling to make ends meet. Susuki is another incredibly rich, phony Climate Change Scold hypocrite.
So when does this totally bogus obsession stop resembling the Man Who Wasn’t There?
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish he’d go away! – Antigonish: W.H. Means/1899
Most of us try to use a little common sense about the real world, our so-called natural world, where we grow gardens, mow lawns, take the kids to the forest preserve to identify wild plants and birds and bugs and maybe see a leopard frog or two, or some turtles, sunning themselves. We may even take them fishing at the nearby lakes where it’s allowed by the forest preserve district, or take them to a spot at dusk where they can see fireflies in the summer and hear the bullfrogs and leopard frogs croak.
But these numbskullions, e.g., the “Inhoomans” described in the article, seem to have no contact with the real world, with the places that people like me know about and enjoy, where we can find baby frogs barely the size of my little fingernail, and goose/duck pairs raising their families, ID birds like the brown treecreeper (and the Mrs. Treecreeper) nesting in a willow along the river trail, ID wildflowers and the occasional green-eyed Longhorn Bee (gorgeous!).
The Real World frightens the living daylights out of them, a lot! I’m beginning to think that they are so utterly frightened by it that they have nightmares about it and that is why they are so destructive. They do NOT want to “save the planet”. They want to make it uninhabitable.
Just my view, but the more I run across this “need to destroy”, the more I’m convinced of that. Prove that I’m wrong.
Very good article.
Also from Rand, and equally relevant: “Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
People like Suzuki have staked their reputation on their climate misconceptions and thus will never ever admit they are wrong.
“It is easier to fool people than convince them they were fooled”
The moral case for destroying fossil fuel infrastructure? Too easy once you’ve earned everything out of it-
Norway wealth fund calls on companies to act on climate (msn.com)
“Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. No concept [wo]man forms is valid unless [s]he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of [her]his knowledge.”
Maybe.
With the sum of shim’s knowledge being based on hugely cherry picked facts/feelings, its pretty easy to hold any old crap as valid.
If you want to get to really worthwhile knowledge you need to test what you think you know for falseness. This is beyond the scope of people who think a religion is science.
Suzuki is as phony as a 3-dollar bill. He owns 4 personal residences, and has 5 kids; yet he’s on a plane at least once a month preaching how we have to renounce fossil fuels,keep the global population down, and adopt simpler lifestyles that consume less. Whenever he starts his hysterical ranting about climate emergencies, he gets the horselaugh; and it’s a good thing the CBC exists because no other network would give him any air time.