Essay by Eric Worrall
Climate activists appear to be losing control of the narrative, as their followers reach the very logical conclusion that nobody is going to do anything substantial to avert their imaginary climate disaster.
Why is climate ‘doomism’ going viral – and who’s fighting it?
By Marco Silva
BBC climate disinformation specialistClimate “doomers” believe the world has already lost the battle against global warming. That’s wrong – and while that view is spreading online, there are others who are fighting the viral tide.
As he walked down the street wearing a Jurassic Park cap, Charles McBryde raised his smartphone, stared at the camera, and hit the record button.
“Ok, TikTok, I need your help.”
Charles is 27 and lives in California. His quirky TikTok videos about news, history, and politics have earned him more than 150,000 followers.
In the video in question, recorded in October 2021, he decided it was time for a confession.
“I am a climate doomer,” he said. “Since about 2019, I have believed that there’s little to nothing that we can do to actually reverse climate change on a global scale.”
…
Why it’s not too late
Climate scientist Dr Friederike Otto, who has been working with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says: “I don’t think it’s helpful to pretend that climate change will lead to humanity’s extinction.”
…
“There is no denying that there are large changes across the globe, and that some of them are irreversible,” says Dr Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment.
“It doesn’t mean the world is going to end – but we have to adapt, and we have to stop emitting.”
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-61495035
McBride’s videos are available here. If anyone can be bothered digging out the doomer video, please comment and I’ll post a link.
Even the newly elected Australian government isn’t going to do anything substantial about emissions – because green solutions just don’t work. They’ll make a few noises about closing down coal, maybe shut down a coal station or two, kill a few big companies, then panic when power prices spike, inward investment collapses and the tax money runs dry.
So the part about “but we have to adapt, and we have to stop emitting.” just isn’t going to happen. In the context of their limited understanding, the doomers are being rational, more rational than the activists.
The only question is, how many committed doomers will “catch the bus” early?
I hope I’m not being too obscure with the Jonestown reference at the top of the page – the mass murder / suicide at Jonestown stands as a grim lesson of what can happen when an apocalyptic death cult embraces the logical conclusion of their warped worldview. I believe the same thing could happen to the climate doomers, except on a much larger scale.
At any moment an insane but charismatic climate doomer could publish a final TikTok video, and trigger a wave of copycats. I doubt it will be Charles McBryde – he seems way too narcissistic to end his show early. But there are some sick people out there, and some of them have a following.
We already have unequivocal evidence that young people are acting on their climate pessimism, embracing self destructive life choices because they genuinely believe there is no hope.
Frankly I would rather climate doomers go back to embracing climate activism instead of continuing to embrace climate doomerism – at least climate activists have a mission, they have something to live for. People can learn by their mistakes, if they are still alive to do so.
If the media hires “narrative writers”, then the media makes a lot of money pandering “narratives, therefore “doomism” is a profitable product. Anyone have a good grasp on the psychology of doomist narrative consumers? Consuming futile fear seems either very boring or psychologically damaging to one degree or another.
As soon as some of these Doomers are encouraged to make one final, futile gesture then the MSM should be held to account for encouraging and assisting suicide.
Jeff, its fascinating that media outlets feel comfortable enough in their corruption of society such that they point out their specific organizational elements that are responsible for developing climate propaganda. The Columbia School of Journalism and a large number of its partners loudly and proudly proclaim their creation of a worldwide consortium designed to manufacture and disseminate climate propaganda. And I forgot who or what organization(s) is paying news outlets to hire climate propaganda “journalists.”
As a people are we stupid enough not to see the manipulation of the town square of information?
Reducing the surplus population of leftists is simply Darwinian selection in action. It seems liberty enhancing to those of us who want to go about our business without constant hounding from control freaks.
Imagine there’s no climate crisis
It’s easy if you can
People say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one.
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the whole world can live as one
“Even the newly elected Australian government isn’t going to do anything substantial about emissions”
Hope you are right, but that is what everyone who voted for Biden thought about his statement he would shutdown oil & gas. “He won’t really do that,” they said. Now look at the mess we are in.
Prof. Ole Humlum (University of Oslo) has released numbers (from real world data and not computer games) and he doesn’t see any climate crisis.
Besides, several people like Kirchhoff, Thomson, Woods and Tscheuschner, Angström etc. have debunked the greenhouse effect.
However, this doesn’t reach the ears of the church of climatology. We in Germany have a sect called “Letzte Generation” (Last Generation). It’s like a doomsday cult. They love to glue themselves to streets thus disturbing traffic and ambulances. Totally mentally ill! I prefer the people with a shield which says “the end is near”. They were less of a nuisance.
This behaviour can be explained psychologically: cognitive dissonance, Stockholm syndrome, normopathy, emotional blockage, affluent neglect, spoiled upper class brats, brainwashing by the media via fear etc.
The Christian in me feels for these poor deluded people; the ironist in me finds their bizarre behavior and proclamations interesting in a slow-motion train wreck sort of way.
It’s been said that the political spectrum isn’t linear, but is in fact a giant circle; if you chase any extreme long enough, you’ll eventually find yourself with those on what you thought was the opposite side of any issue.
Such as it is with “Climate Doomism”. Climate doomers feel helpless because they believe that we’ve long since passed the “point of no return” in being able to do anything to change the climate, and so they feel helpless.
Ironically, this is exactly where I was in 1998 when “global warming” officially became a thing. I’ve always argued that ultimately, the climate is going to do what the climate is going to do, regardless of what we try to do about it.
So fire up the grill and have a burger with me!
Despair is humane. Take away the believers’ hope and they can finally be at peace. Zeus was pranking mankind when he left that one cruel twist at the bottom of Pandora’s box.
We need to embrace doomism.
What’s easier: to persuade the faithful that 95% of what they’ve been taught is wrong, or to nudge them that extra 5% of the way into blissful surrender?
My thoughts too Brad.
Why don’t we pivot to promoting full-blown, unrestrained climate doom to the point that we can call the planet-savers “deniers”?
Hahaha. Cut funding now…there is no hope!
Regarding the first sentence of the above article:
It’s OK . . . many climate activists told me we reached the point of “no return” several years ago . . . or was it five years ago? . . . maybe 10 years ago? . . .
I came to accept that, and certainly now don’t want to revisit the subject.
/sarc off
No, the prophecies were misread. They forgot to carry a 1. Turns out we still have 12 years. Now is NOT the time for complacency!
The point of no return has been 10 years off for at least 50 years.
Are these doomers shouting the same disinformation in China or India?? And if not, why not.
If the climate doomers hang on for another decade then they will know the truth about the climate scam and will really be Pi55ed off but alive.
“By Marco Silva
BBC climate disinformation specialist”.
Humor and self awareness are, indeed, not visible to the woke!!
Somebody needs to edit the Jonestown sign to read Welcome Climate Cultists.
And add –
FREE KLIMATE KOOL-AIDE
Climate doomsters and fentanyl drug runners at the border make for rising suicides and overdoses in another sleepy response that looks like the opioid lag in response.
Eric, thanks for the coverage (Seaports With Sea Level Change – 22).
IS ECO-ANXIETY GROUNDS FOR EUTHANASIA
Vancouver man Howard Breen, 68, has applied for Medical Aid in Dying, Canada’s pathway to legal euthanasia. He is not terminally ill, but he is experiencing extreme mental suffering because of climate change. In 2017, his doctor diagnosed him with clinical eco-anxiety and biosphere-related depression, according to Vice magazine. Breen is an environmental activist and a member of Extinction Rebellion. Michael Cook
https://bioedge.org/end-of-life-issues/is-eco-anxiety-grounds-for-euthanasia/
Climate anxiety – soon to be declared a PANDEMIC!
(on the bright side, if euthanasia is made available to climate catastrophists, it will fulfil the prime effect the Darwin Awards were invented for – removing such people from the human gene pool. Will they make a D.I.Y. kit available too?
What’s not to like? 🙂
I hope he’s approved.
“The only question is, how many committed doomers will “catch the bus” early?”
Very few. They don’t want to die. They want you to die, and billions of brown babies too. I would worry about them going al qaeda on us, but I am pretty sure they lack the guts and the technical skills.
Climate suicides, and climate pledges to not have children are both already happening. It is terribly sad. Now George Soros claims that defeating Russia is the only way to save civilization.
Both are wrong.
Nuclear power is the solution. And even space resources. There are logical, workable alternatives to their doom and gloom and even self hatred.
Frankly I would rather climate doomers go back to embracing climate activism instead of continuing to embrace climate doomerism
As long one does not sink in it to suicidal levels, this can be good for the rest of us … when their claims of inevitable DOOM! are not validated by reality, I think it would be harder for them to (again) move the goalposts and keep the Climate Change Cult going.
Perhaps they might even throw down their torches and go home, after reality cuts off the head of their DOOM like Conan did his …
Jonestown isn’t obscure in the least…it could be worse…it could explode into eco-terrorism. Like most fanatics, they usually explode rather than implode.