Essay by Eric Worrall
According to climate researcher Joel Millward-Hopkins, Trump, Putin and Bolsonaro’s rise to power was helped by Global Warming.
Why the impacts of climate change may make us less likely to reduce emissions
Published: June 30, 2023 8.51pm AEST
Joel Millward-Hopkins
Postdoctoral Researcher in Sustainability, University of LeedsThe wildfires raging across Canada’s south-eastern province of Quebec are unprecedented. A warm, dry spring allowed the tinder to accumulate and lightning storms in early June lit the match, dramatically escalating 2023’s fire season.
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One might hope, at least, that as these increasingly acute effects of climate change are felt by wealthy, high-emitting countries, people will be persuaded to act with the conviction necessary to avert the climate crisis, which threatens the lives of millions and the livelihoods of billions.
However, as I argued in a recent paper, the hope underlying this assumption could be misplaced. As the effects of warming are felt more substantially, we may instead vote into power people committed to making the problem worse.
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Right-wing politicians have successfully exploited the narrative around these issues which climate change is inflaming: immigration, economic inequality and global insecurity. Their promises to reverse falling living standards for a selection of the public, relieve stress on (underfunded) public services and protect the nation from external threats invariably involve appeals to close borders and scapegoat migrants.
These leaders are also anti-environmentalist. Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Jair Bolsanaro have fetishised traditional industries such as coal mining, abandoned global challenges in favour of national pursuits and are openly sceptical of, or outright deny, human influence on the climate.
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The absence of a global consciousness and a willingness to cooperate, which is inherent to this politics, would make maintaining a safe climate almost impossible.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/why-the-impacts-of-climate-change-may-make-us-less-likely-to-reduce-emissions-207385
There is zero evidence people are migrating because of global warming.
Affluent hot countries like Singapore, Brunei and the United Arab Emirates have some of the most difficult citizenship procedures on the planet, because so many people want to live there permanently. They accept guest workers in droves, people who are eager to make some money, but you really need to get in with the right people, or invest a lot of money, to have any hope of settling in such places permanently.
Brazil has a problem with skilled emigration, but that mostly kicked off after they elected a communist President. Nobody with other options wants to be trapped in the next Venezuela.
What about climate damage in cold countries? Like Canadians, most Russians live in a thin strip near the Southern Border. Russia has a serious problem with depopulation in the North, a resource rich region they are keen to develop. Even Russians mostly don’t like Siberian winters.
If global warming was directly hurting Russia, or Canada for that matter, large numbers of people would be migrating to the far North to escape the global warming.
Russia does have a lot of immigration, surprisingly, but I would argue this is mostly economic. The Russian economy might be a mobster run basket case from the perspective of Wealthy westerners, but for immigrants from truly poor countries, Russia offers migrants the opportunity to mostly eat regularly, which is more than many of them had back in their home country. Whatever mistreatment they receive at the hands of their Russian employers, many choose to stay, often overstaying their visas and paying bribes to Russian police to avoid deportation.
Climate alarmists would love us to accept their assertion that climate change is driving migration. But given the failure of hot nations like Singapore to depopulate, in my opinion their claims are less than convincing.
Millward-Hopkins seems devoted to confirming his status as a watermelon. Entirely orthodox on leftist politics and CAGW.
Is Millward his maiden name?
Is that hyphen-abuse? 🙂
Yes-sir-ree.
Putting Trump and Putin in the same category is a priori evidence of the bias of the writer. What drivel comes out of a lot of Universities these days.
I had the misfortune of reading the first few pages of his linked paper. Would you believe that populists link immigrants with crime?
I’m sure that Millward-Hopkins would blame the riots in France on climate change.
Did fires in Quebec lead to authoritarian Trudeau?
No… Authoritarian Trudeau lead to fires in Quebec.
Incompetent Forest Management.
These are the folks that want to disarm the population ban ICE cars and when you can actually afford electric transport they want to control how and when you can refuel it and suck the tank dry at their whim along with controlling your household power use to boot. Just who are the new climate authoritarians here?
To include Trump is wholly perverse.
Trump gave a speech in PIckens, South Carolina yesterday. Pickens has a population of about 3,000 people, but 50,000 people showed up to listen to Trump, and they said they had to shut the town down.
Trump has 56 percent approval rating among Republican presidential candidates with Desantis coming in second at 22 percent approval. Tim Scott has 4 percent approval rating (which I expect to go higher).
Trump’s approval rating went up three percent after his latest indictment by the Biden administration.
Trump says the gloves are off now, and if he is elected, he will appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the Biden Crime Family.
Leeds one to conclude that universities are where intellect goes to die these days.
Obviously, from his title at that institution, he is an ordained minister of the religion. And not even one able to use “climate models”. He just spews religious doctrine straight from the pope.
Joe, Said “Leeds one to conclude that universities are where intellect goes to die these days.”
The death of intellect at universities has been ongoing for decades.
Regards,
Bob
Leeds one, Motherwell nil.
Climate change propaganda will lead to more authoritarian governments only if people fall for it and elect the types of that claim to acting in the interests of the environment. Meanwhile these leaders are mainly concerned with being able to exert more control over the people and generating revenue from excessive taxation in the name of saving the planet. So voters need to be particularly wary of the types that propose the most ambitious Green agendas.
I’m still looking forward to AOC’s high speed train to Hawaii and not to be outdone, Biden’s train across the Pacific to the Indian Ocean.
One up on the Boris bridge from Scotland to Ireland.
I think the author has the message reversed – more authoritarian governments (left-leaning ESG globalists) will lead to more reported climate change impacts.
I would have said that more reports of Climate Change has already led to more authoritarian governments. For example:
Pylons to be forced on public to hit net zero goal
Well we will need more infrastructure if they’re going to persist in this net electrification idea, but why on earth don’t they put them underground? I would’ve thought that would be a win-win for the climate enthusiasts and the jackboot globalists alike.
Shouldn’t peoples’ names be capitalized?
After all, according to fire authority reports, people lit almost all of the fires.
They may well have had names such as Mr/Ms Lightning Storms.
(may have also had orange, green, blue or pink hair too)
Let’s be careful Mr. Were they set by arsonists or caused by negligence? We don’t want to give Nitpick Nick a legitimate nitpick. Saying “lit” if you really mean “caused by carelessness” risks dishonestly implying that all of the fires were set by arsonists. Now maybe you know of evidence of arson? In that case we should certainly be publicizing the fact.
All we can be certain of, Rich, is that climate change has s.f.a. to do with wild fires.
Obviously I agree with that. But making statements that can easily be misunderstood can be very counterproductive. My concern is that we’re effective in disputing the claims of climate change impacts.
On average, about 60% of forest fires are started by lightning. About 40% are started by (mostly careless) people.
And it’s pretty easy to tell which are which. Fires started by people are usually in areas fairly easy to access – i.e. not far from roads & trails. Lightning-started fires are mostly out in the middle of nowhere.
How do you score it if an arsonist is struck by lightning? A tick in both boxes?
It doesn’t happen near as often as we’d like.
“The wildfires raging across Canada’s south-eastern province of Quebec are unprecedented.”
I hope somone is keeping copies of the very “precedented” situation re Canada’s forest fire trends before the WEF orders destroying the history.
Speaking of authoritarian governments, it seems the Biden administration is open to the possibility of shading the earth to stop global warming.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/white-house-report-signals-openness-manipulating-sunlight-prevent-climate-change
Story Tip
How stupid do you have to be when that seems like a really, really good idea? No, don’t answer that – I don’t think I actually want to know the answer.
It’s easy to do. Just cover all the sunny deserts with solar panels. If that’s not enough, remove all SO2 emission prohibitions and start adding more.
Or get a really, really big beach mat made in China from hemp, and float it aloft with 4 of those balloons from China that can’t be detected for months, weeks, days at a time.
But what about the billions spent on solar farms? Shading the Sun is surely anti solar lol??
Climatistas are working hard to make that happen in every western democracy.
The climate researcher Joel skipped Canadian history class:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinchaga_fire
key words: fire, largest, 1950, Canada
Sorry, their records begin in 1951.
Of course.
The author of The Conversation piece refers to ‘authoritarian, populist leaders’ and links that phrase to an article about Trump as if his administration was ‘authoritarian’ while in fact Trump did all the courts would allow to roll back Obama’s authoritarian administrative state regulations.
Trump certainly did not weaponize the FBI to harass and silence political opposition as under the current administration.
The Wall Street Journal has referred to “Biden’s Regulatory Deluge: President Biden is leading an unprecedented expansion of the administrative state” (WSJ 21 Apr 2023).
I guess to those on both the political right and left extremes where they meet ‘freedom is slavery’ and slavery is freedom.
Poor Joel,
He is so blinded by his AGW cultism, that he cannot see that the leftist Net-Zero and hatred of CO2-based life is what is driving rational people to head towards more rational, LESS authoritarian governments, (like Trump and Bolsonaro)
People are getting sick of the AGW scam !
They are waking up to the hoax !
From Joel’s profile
”I ride bikes in the woods as fast as my age allows and only occasionally collide with trees.”
Explains quite a bit.
Probably makes zipping noises and pretends to be in a Star Wars film at the same time!
“could”, “may”, “might”, “can”, “would”, “possibly”, “eventually”, “climate crisis” . . the purely-speculation dance continues.
It’s all the alarmists have. It’s all they have ever had.
Such is the problem if/when any of us get into any argument with (classic example) someone who is drunk.
Because in their drunken state they are trapped by their own Magical Thinking – or = Self Brainwashing
(They don’t have to be at all in the least bit ‘drunk at the time’ – just a chronic/habitual drinker and that means **any** drink. There are *no* health benefits to the stuff, there is No Safe Limit especially not for your mind/personality and thinking.)
So it is here, and how the BBC operates, they project their thinking onto others.
Hence we are told that Putin and Trump are ‘authoritarian’
And so it is with this guy
Mr Double Barrel la-de-dah return to the womb socialist perpetual-student wimp and liar is =
The Authoritarian One – but his own magical thinking blinds him to it.
He is the one with the recipe for everyone’s happiness and well-being, he knows how to achieve that and it even says as much in his profile.
(I mention BBC because whenever they open comments on a story, that is all that happens = an orgy of Magical Thinking and Projection.
You can cheerfully use the most personally insulting bad language and naughty words against Trump or Putin *but* – ask another commentator which planet they are on and you get cancelled
If you go against that flow, the AI auto-moderator will block you and if you get past that, actual moderators will remove your comment)
There would be another cost to add to the Renewables Gravy Train.
When i went to Leeds, where the ‘climate’ building stands was empty space and is now a huuuuge glass & steel Temple of Modernism
Containing all the best computers and infrastructure and at least 200 professors teachers and ‘researchers’
Do we say, even conservatively, that salary, pension provision, tax and infrastructure costs £100,000 each per year?
There’s at least £20 Million per year and *just* at one UK university – are there 50+ more in the UK alone?
Where’s it all coming from
Oh silly me..
The kind gentle generous and benign Govermnet of Today declared that students must now pay £9,000 per year ‘tuition fee’ AND get a job at the same time to support themselves from day-to-day.
Or they can borrow the money off Government, at well-above market rates of interest. Nice and ‘socialist’ doncha think.
In the expectation of a ‘Good Well Paid career at the ned of the course.
Now do you see the Magical Thinking of Mr La-De-Dah here?
In my time at Leeds, Government actually paid me to attend
When Hubert Lamb left the MET Office to set up the CRU at the University of East Anglia the latter agreed to match the funds he had already raised from the oil company Shell. So can we blame ‘big oil’ for all this climate malarkey? 🙂
Doesn’t Singapore have a fairly stable climate?
“The wildfires raging across Canada’s south-eastern province of Quebec are unprecedented. A warm, dry spring allowed the tinder to accumulate and lightning storms in early June lit the match, dramatically escalating 2023’s fire season.”
Millward-Hopkins ought to know better than to write this drivel.
First, “unprecedented” – one of the favourite words of warmunists – means “never, ever happened before.” It does NOT mean, “as far as I know, it hasn’t happened since we started keeping written records less than 200 years ago.”
Second, a single dry spring does not produce the accumulation of undergrowth that we see in Canada’s forests. It’s there mainly because environmentalists throw fits every time anybody suggests intelligent forest management, i.e. controlled burns.
They’ve been doing it for at least 50 years in BC, which is why the mountain pine beetle spread far and wide, culminating in the great die-off about 20 years ago. Now we have acres and acres of dead trees in the forest. I expect at least a decade more of bad fire seasons here, because there is so much dead wood in the forests of BC.
There’s even more deadwood in the forest of Greens
Millward-Hopkins has got it all wrong. climate catastrophism is leading to more authoritative governments (and vice versa)
The curbing of our freedoms is coming from authoritative left-wing governments and their paymasters
yawn.….zzzzzzzzzzz…….
i rate this as true: totalitarians are using CC to grab power and destroy living standards.
“The absence of a global consciousness and a willingness to cooperate, which is inherent to this politics, would make maintaining a safe climate almost impossible.”
A global consciousness? Isn’t that something of a colonialist/imperialist feature? Even in the current politics of nation-states “local consciousness”, something important to individuals and small communities, is ignored in favor of the concerns of a larger bodies. Maintaining a “safe climate”, which of necessity must ignore the local meteorology, is meaningless and utopian to the small community. Painting the issue of “safe climate” as a global issue is inapplicable and irrelevant to local communities.
Trump / MAGA = high tariff on China (biggest CO2 emitter)
Need I say more?
Ironic Impairment: Climate mitigation leads to even more authoritarian governments.