The Not-So-Strange Death of Europe: Cultural Sacrifice at The Altar of Gaia
In an excellent article penned by Tilak Doshi, he embarks on a journey detailing the tragic decline of Western Europe, particularly focusing on its transition from a powerhouse of economic and cultural vigor to a region hobbled by the very green policies it adopted. Doshi,
“The concern here is not related to the dire generational problems of mass immigration and ethnic and national identity… Rather, it relates to the present day consequences of West European left-of-center governments’ commitments to the radical Green agenda.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/13/the-not-so-strange-death-of-europe-cultural-sacrifice-at-the-altar-of-gaia/?sh=623862476dd8
The Unraveling of Germany’s Economic Machinery
Germany, once considered the very backbone of the Eurozone, finds itself in quicksand of economic regression. As Doshi says,
“Europe’s economic engine is breaking down” reads a Bloomberg headline published in May. The latest IMF forecast predicts that Germany will be the worst performing G-7 economy this year, the only economy expected to contract in the group.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/13/the-not-so-strange-death-of-europe-cultural-sacrifice-at-the-altar-of-gaia/?sh=623862476dd8
Indeed, once-reliable indicators of business confidence and investment have plummeted to disturbing levels.
But perhaps most revealing is the quote from the CEO Matthias Zachert of chemicals group Lanxess, who observed,
“de-industrialization has begun… This is seriously endangering German prosperity and social security for people in the medium and long term.”
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/lanxess-schliesst-moeglicherweise-zwei-betriebe-de-industrialisierung-beginnt-19081123.html?mc_cid=f9b6c6f0f5&mc_eid=cb7b3005ca
A Price Too High: Europe’s Green Energy Burden
While it’s convenient for some to attribute Europe’s energy woes to outside influences like Russia’s geopolitical machinations, energy expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt offers a more grounded perspective. To quote,
“The failed transition to green energies is responsible.”
https://notrickszone.com/2022/09/10/germanys-spiraling-green-energy-catastrophe-6-million-jobs-at-risk-a-national-emergency/
Germany’s ambitions, as laid out in its Energiewende strategy, were inherently misguided. However, and the execution went as expected. Doshi mentions,
“The magical thinking of green ideologues in government expects intermittent solar and wind energy to fully replace its dependence on fossil fuels.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/13/the-not-so-strange-death-of-europe-cultural-sacrifice-at-the-altar-of-gaia/?sh=623862476dd8
What follows are soaring energy prices, pushing one in four Germans into energy impoverishment.
Cult of Climate Catastrophism
Western Europe’s self-inflicted wounds can’t merely be attributed to policy missteps. There’s a deeper cultural shift at play, echoing religious undertones. Doshi notes,
“Much as the medieval Christian mendicant… modern Western society has adopted what a recently published book calls a cultural narrative of climate catastrophism.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/13/the-not-so-strange-death-of-europe-cultural-sacrifice-at-the-altar-of-gaia/?sh=623862476dd8
Doshi cites the astute words of Michael Crichton:
“Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism… environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.”
https://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Articles-Main/ID/2818/Crichton-Environmentalism-is-a-religion
Conclusion: A Modern-Day Sacrifice
In a touch of morbid historical analogy, Doshi likens Europe’s self-sacrifice on the altar of green policy to ancient Aztec rituals. He concludes,
“In our so-called age of science, the modern climate priesthood is figuratively offering the still-beating heart of Europe’s once-mighty civilization to appease Mother Gaia.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/13/the-not-so-strange-death-of-europe-cultural-sacrifice-at-the-altar-of-gaia/?sh=623862476dd8
Given the compelling evidence presented, one can’t help but smirk at the silliness of such self-inflicted wounds. As Europe tries to navigate these turbulent waters, it’s vital to remember that not all sacrifices lead to salvation. Sometimes, they just lead to more pain.
The Energiewende seems as reasonable as foot binding or mass flagellation, an outbreak of mass sado-masochism.
Corrected, stupid editor.
What is weirdest to me about the “cultural narrative of climate catastrophism” is the blindness and deafness involved. My personal focus has been the so-called “Arctic Death Spiral”, which was suppose to result in an ice-free Arctic Sea, which was suppose to be a bad thing.
Fifteen years ago, when WUWT first started, I was debating that A.) an ice-free Pole might be not a bad but a good thing, and B.) Sadly it wasn’t going to happen soon. At least back then there was some sort of pretense we should look at actual facts, and wait upon the results of that summer’s minimum sea-ice extent. But now it has been going on for fifteen bleeping years. Another summer is ending, and there is no evidence of an ice-free Pole.
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2023/08/12/69077/
At some point it becomes apparent evidence does not matter to these people. Reality is what they say it is. There may be no emergency but if they proclaim a “climate emergency” we are suppose to bow down to them.
At some point they are going to hear a vast multitude simply say, all at once, “You have got to be kidding me!”
“You have got to be kidding me!”
______________________________
Way more sinister than kidding. The term “gaslighting” comes to mind. They are pushing an agenda that requires their intended to believe things that simply aren’t true “The Big Lie” is another term that applies. They aren’t asking us to slaughter all the Jews, rather they want to slaughter all the viable power stations. And that begs the question; why do they want to do that, what’s in it for them?
It’s not really sacrifices to Gaia – that’s just the distraction for the real purpose which the former head, of the UNIPCC stated was the destruction of capitalism- lots of anti-capitalist communists running the Western countries now
Germany collapsing quicker than “expected”
Germany’s Economic Woes Intensify As Production Slumps “Much More Than Expected” (notrickszone.com)
They’re not even pretending to expect anything but decline?
Decline is exactly what they plan for.
Their plans are progressing well.
They are hoping to get far enough along before most people figure it out. Sadly, a lot of people are slower on the uptake than I thought. I suppose I was an optimist.
And if the EU’s economic powerhouse collapses it will be interesting to see the impact on the rest of the EU and the Eurozone. I anticipate that “sauve qui peut” will be the order of the day…
It certainly goes deeper than the irrational fear of carbon dioxide epitomized by the closure of perfectly safe operating nuclear power plants.
By the time you log in, you forget what you wanted to comment on.
What I want to say is that the “climate change” movement has nothing to do with the environment. Wind turbines, solar panel farms, ethanol and other “biofuels” are literally destroying the environment. Wind turbines and solar farms are diffuse energy requiring from 400-800 times the land area as a coal power station for the same amount of power produced. They clear cut hundreds of square miles of forests to do this, destroying trees and countless animal homes. Wind turbines and solar panels contain many dangerous, toxic materials. When they are scrapped, they are thrown into landfill! The dangerous chemicals erode and end up in the water table.
It actually takes more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than the energy in it.There’s no reason for this, because we’ve only used up about 1/10 of all the known petroleum reserves. One third of all the corn grown in the United States is used to produce ethanol. This creates food shortages and increases the cost of food.
These are all financed by government subsidies (tax dollars and printed fiat money). These companies getting filthy rich on this, would go belly up if the governments weren’t financing them.
Shortages enable massive price hikes of the product, whether it’s oil, grains or finished products; by creating an artificial shortage you can increase profits immensely. Follow the money.
“These are all financed by government subsidies (tax dollars and printed fiat money). These companies getting filthy rich on this, would go belly up if the governments weren’t financing them.”
“printed fiat money” is, as indicated, (has meant) paper money, and of historical interest.
There is no need to print the amounts now created. A few keystrokes do the deed.
“companies getting filthy rich ”
A few individuals may become rich, but “companies” are going the other direction:
Siemens Energy, Proterra, Lordstown Motors, Solyndra, SolarReserve
https://dailycaller.com/2012/10/30/as-many-as-fifty-obama-backed-green-energy-companies-bankrupt-or-troubled/
True but who owns those companies? The shareholders and workers will be hurt but the backers will pocket their profits, shrug and move on to the next opportunity.
Echos of “Blut und Boden”?
I can’t smirk as Europe collapses morally and intellectually right before our eyes. Europe was the wellspring of science, reason, and humanism. From nowhere else did these virtues emerge. If Europe truly descends into poverty and narcissistic incompetence, it’s hard to see their rational baton passing to anyone else.
India? Maybe. But only because of their British inheritance. Did that standard penetrate the cultural core? Or will it be shucked off as the primary whimpers its way from Albion into oblivion.
China? Fat farking chance.
And the US? On the cusp of dissolution into a collectivist state committed to expedient lies. The dream state of Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Bernie Sanders, and the cancel culturati rank-and-file. Two hundred fifty years of freedom evidently notwithstanding.
If some future historian writes of the evaporation of optimism, freedom, and individual integrity in our time, While We Slept might be an appropriate title.
While We Slept. As in: sleep-walking to oblivion.
Yes, it feels like that for those WUWTers and Clintelers and others who are awake to it, but there’s an odious overtone – the whole of media is being manipulated to prevent the others from waking up.
Pournelle’s iron law of bureaucracy has gone global.
https://americandigest.org/pournelles-iron-law-bureaucracy/
They are not going to back down any time soon.
As I see it, we’re in Civil War II, Mike. It may get resolved at the ballot box, if honest elections can be reinstated. Though even then, likely not without lots of shouting and turmoil.
Failing the ballot, CWII will be resolved kinetically. One way or the other.
It certainly seems to have reached the UK Civil Service!
Having worked in a City government I was well aware of the 2 types of people noted in the referenced Iron Law. And yes, the second group, the @ss kissing self promoting politicos only cared about promoting the Lord of the Fiefdom, but the law misses the third group.
#3 Those employees who, due to either never caring about either one or two, or due to those in class two continually making it too difficult to be successful when acting as a member of group one, become totally inactive and just take a paycheck for NO productivity!
I always joked, being from group 1 and regularly having contentious relations with those from group 2, that I bought my giveashitters by the gross. I would get pissed off, join group 3 for a day or two, replace the last broken givashitter and return to my normal activity.
I was in Code Enforcement, both building and fire, and believed and still believe that I worked for the citizens, not the managers. City council would adopt codes then tell management to let their favored friends produce below “the minimum standard of the Code”. Many run ins, much documentation, and occasional hand offs of buildings with “problems” I was inspecting for management to give to #2 types to finish the inspections.
One fun encounter: I told an attorney to place the required 12″ high street number on the building. He told me he was not going to do it and that knows the City Council members personally. I told him, Great, then all you need to do is get the City Council to change the addressing ordinance, so that what he currently had would be legal. So funny when his head almost exploded! He then asked what would happen next. I told him I would return repeatedly until the correct size number was on the building, and that after my next visit, each reinspection would cost him $80.00. He asked the ultimate “penalty” and per the process, i told him it could end with a misdemeanor citation.
He immediately called to complain about my attitude and demeanor, always attack a personality in a bureaucracy, not the correction notice, and that I threatened to cite him!! BUT the number was up for my next visit. Funny, that was the only issue and I just drove by and saw it so closed the inspection. He later called ME to ask if I was going to reinspect, LOL.
I learned to demand to know the address or other identifying file number when being called into some emergency meeting, called by a supervisor of manager, usually at the behest of a Council “liaison”. I would refuse to attend without that information so I would be prepared for the lies to be told by the complainant. It was always about some flagrant code violation the correction of which would cost mucho dinero.
Funny thing is that for MOST of the meetings the Council person had no knowledge, it was just underlings helping friends or campaign contributors. The Council person being able to keep their hands “clean”. Usually, the result of the meeting was just a waste of time and the code violations would be corrected. Occasionally it would result in the Manager of others taking over the “situation”. I had no problem with that. I just saved my records, both paper copies and screen shots of actual computer inspection input, for future needs. The computer system we had allowed ANYONE to overwrite old input without defining what they had changed. All you could see was the LAST person to update the page. Luckily no one has died YET, so my records have not been needed YET.
I feel I did a lot of GOOD in my 24 years. I trained up some inspectors that are still doing a lot of GOOD. The least competent, laziest and worst inspectors I worked with are now the upper management of where I last worked, #2/#3 types from the beginning.
The answer is not a thoughtful response.
China is building economic and technological clout. They have no reservations about burning coal to manufacture stuff. Taiwan has a more open political system that the mainland could aspire to.
The unappointed administrators in Brussels have much to answer for for Europe’s woes. United Nations administrators are seeking the same level of control globally so they can feather their cosy nests with the rewards that come with high authority. The IPCC demonising CO2 remains their best chance to get a foothold in dictating how we live as well as establishing their precious global taxation system. The pandemic door is also slightly ajar now but a long way behind CO2.
China is a slave society. It cannot and will not permit independent thought. Unless it gets creativity externally, it will eventually decay and become moribund.
If Taiwan is forced to join China, it will meet the fate currently on view in Hong Kong. Suppression.
If Taiwan stays free, it could be a bright light of reason, but by itself is too small to influence global culture.
I have observed how the CCP takeover of Hong Kong has resulted in suppression but I am a little more positive about the influence Taiwan may have on the CCP. Taiwan governance offers a model for mainland China.
It appears that the CCP is not going to move militarily on Taiwan any time soon. Trade bonds are growing and there is mutual benefits in trade and other exchanges.
Remember, Xi is mortal too, and as all dictators have to “remove” all potential rivals it sows the seeds of collapse as soon as he croaks. I don’t think there is any example in history of a successful successor.
China is facing a financial catastrophe of colossal proportions, dwarfing the 2008 crisis. The Ponzi Scheme called Chinese real estate has imploded and prices are plummeting. The banking sector has lent huge sums to developers like Evergrande and Country Garden, and will never get it back. If you have any wealth invested in the Middle kingdom get it out NOW!
Europe was the wellspring of science, reason, and humanism.
So what went wrong? Europe’s history of war and colonialism from the Greeks and Romans to the Dutch, Portuguese, French, British and the Brit’s descendants the Americans should have tamed the uncivilized and taught them how to behave. The third worlders have, in some cases, become good workers and consumers but still remain ignorant of basic morals, health practices and democratic procedures.
Every society has been as imperialistic and as colonialist as they could manage, GC. The point of focus should be non-standard practice.
Only the West developed the social ethics to rise above the usual impulse.
Marxism, fascism, progressivism, fake democracy and capitalist piracy are all inventions of the West. The unmentioned ism is Puritanism, the creation of the English anti-Catholics that made slaves of the Irish, fomented the American revolution, created a world-wide empire and instigated the War Between the States. It prospers today as its Harvard University, the oldest and most successful engine of indoctrination in the New World, continues its domination of Western ideas. The evils of Oliver Cromwell, demonstrated by the sieges of Drogheda, Wexford and Waterford, survive today in US foreign policy all over the world.
And that is one of the many reasons TRUMP! had to be removed permanently from the presidency of the US.
The second term would have seen the end of the US worldwide military control policy, and EVERYONE in the DC bureaucracy knew and feared it, especially the Pentagon and the “intelligence” agencies.
Marxism and Fascism are just different sides of the same coin. Progressivism is just Marxism/Fascism without police power. So, that much of your list is just reiteration.
Fake democracy cannot exist without the prior invention of real democracy. One might say that fake democracy honors true democracy by pretending a likeness.
Likewise capitalist piracy cannot exist without real capitalism. The same honor applies.
The invention of democracy and the use of capital to generate productive industry were both positive developments. The emergence of the democratic constitutional republic was an enormous advance in political sanity.
“Capitalism” is just the label socialists put on free enterprise, to create the image of an ideological enemy. But free enterprise isn’t an ideology. It’s free people going about their own business.
So, as Capitalism doesn’t exist, neither does piracy capitalism. What you are calling piracy capitalism is just monopolistic mercantilism, which is as old as autocratic states.
Socialism, by the way, is just the current ideological vehicle of the collectivist urge to power. Previously, it was Christianity. Collectivists lust for their slave state and detest individual freedom. They’ve wrecked every open society over which they gained police power.
The fact that there are historical evils does not negate the historical exceptions to the good. It is in the positive exceptions that progress lays and, candidly, nearly all of the positive exceptions arose in the West.
Australia is on the same path of religious zealotry in demonising CO2 and some States in the USA are actually ahead of Australia. Europe are not alone in the silliness and self-inflicted economic wounds. The open border policy in the USA is now similar to Europe.
Suki Manabe has a lot to answer for. His naive contribution to climate modelling is where the rot started. He was the first of the useful idiots the United Nations embraced to advance their agenda to control the global population while reaping the benefits of total control.
In Europe, they are invited migrants who are there legally.
I do not think they can or will be deported, except singly for extreme cause.
The people crossing the border in the US are illegals, and can be deported whenever an administration has the will to do so.
They have no legal right to be here and can be rounded up en masse and kicked out unceremoniously.
This one will not, obviously, but nothing prevents the next one from sending them home.
Many leave once such actions commence.
Story Tip:
Biden bets billions on tech that sucks carbon out of the air
The Biden administration is throwing its weight behind technology that sucks planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the air, selecting the first winners of a $3.5 billion fund dedicated to developing the machines scientists say will be needed to stop the worst effects of climate change.
Another government “best/winner” pick. Like most government winner picks it has a string probability to fail, just like the Proterra joke
One question I always have especially with the underground storage of CO2 is what happens when it escapes storage and comes out flooding large areas in a blanket of the gas, worse if in a valley.
Removing a trace gas from the air is not easy, which means it is not cheap and cannot be done at any scale that will be meaningful. In the US, a few billion is almost nothing when the government is doing the spending.
The best anyone can do is spend that money to plant trees.
Besides, the rate at which FF are being burned is only increasing.
How exactly could such a scheme ever possibly “succeed”?
And what does that even mean?
About as likely as Greta “tackling” climate change:
“And ClimateChange™ takes the handoff and breaks into the open across midfield!
ClimateChange™ breaks one tackle as it passes the 45, shakes off two more defenders as it goes wide left to the outside across the 40, now turning up field along the sideline and really turning on the speed as it passes the 35, the 30, and ooooh…a little blonde girl comes out of nowhere and Tackles ClimateChange™ at the 28 yard line in an amazing open field takedown! But wait…there appear to be flags down on the play, and it may be that…yes, yes, it seems that Little Greta has been called for a personal foul, unnecessary roughness, grabbing the facemask!
Well glue me to the road and call me a hero!
ClimateChange™ is still in the game, and is in great field position at the 23 yard line, automatic First Down!”
If there was any way of doing it, rational human beings would try to find ways of making sure it didn’t work.
Having the Biden admin putting billions into it, is a pretty good start… but more must be done.
The planet’s life needs more atmospheric CO2 not less.
You miss the whole point. This is crony capitalism at its finest.
Pay an unneeded company to do an unneeded thing, produce gaseous CO2, that is then sold to an OIL company at low costs to be used to pressurize OLD OIL FIELDS to increase production.
See ‘Lake Nyos disaster, Cameroon’ August 21st 1986 – 1,700-1,800 dead. And that was, basically, a small-scale natural release.
The reality is that there have been few real sacrifices that have lead to salvation.
Most sacrifices are predominated by those to so presumed deity, e.g. Egyptians, Greeks, romans, Aztecs, Incas, Gaia and the most important religious trend, Climate Change. These just cause death, destruction and have never produced many results. They serve as pretext for those in control, the elite, to keep the populous under control.
The elite do not believe any of this, but the use it against others.
The most common sacrifice is that of a parent’s time, wealth and freedoms for the benefit of their children.
Public service is second; the adoption of a less personally financially rewarding career to benefit the cmmunity (nurses, for example, are skilled, hardworking and lowly paid).
Sacrifice is a good thing. It collectively adds up to a stronger future society rather than entropically wasting potential in hedonism.
The German people have no one to blame for this mess than themselves. They elected these mongrels into office and kept them there even after it is clear that they intend to screw their constituents and that was the plan all along. It is past time to get rid of these monsters.
Why indeed?
Thats what I call climate justice!
Looks more like woody than irony.
When woody hit the irony!
From the article: “Germany’s ambitions, as laid out in its Energiewende strategy, were inherently misguided. However, and the execution went as expected. Doshi mentions,
“The magical thinking of green ideologues in government expects intermittent solar and wind energy to fully replace its dependence on fossil fuels.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/13/the-not-so-strange-death-of-europe-cultural-sacrifice-at-the-altar-of-gaia/?sh=623862476dd8
What follows are soaring energy prices, pushing one in four Germans into energy impoverishment.”
Unfortunately, all the Western nations are going down this Green “Road to Ruin”, and Germany is leading the way.
It looks like economic collapse will happen before Net Zero happens. Net Zero is not going to happen in reality, but economic collapse is certainly in the cards, thanks to some really stupid, short-sighted people.
And our politicians are so pig-headed they will just carry on no matter what havoc they wreak.
“We go out of our course to make ourselves uncomfortable; the cup of life is not bitter enough to our palate, and we distill superfluous poison to put into it, or conjure up hideous things to frighten ourselves at, which would never exist if we did not make them.”
— Charles Mackay
For decades, Europe has largely been little more than a museum to the greatness of western civilization. Soon, it won’t even be that.
Gaia is not an excuse. And in defence of Lovelock’s use of GAIA, in his later life he certainly thought the massive negative feedbacks of Earth’s natural control systems with were well capable of controlling the tiny effects of humans.Which they self evidently have been, for Millions of years, BTW. 1.6W/m^2 is noise in this system, a tiny perturbations, easilly controlled by an imperceptible change in ocean temperature. Linked is the letter he wrote me after his 101st Birthday.
Gaia does not support the claims of any significant human caused, AKA anomalous, change to the planetary climate due to human activity, mainly because the natural controls are so powerful, and also there is no hard evidence for such change. NONE. Gaia suggests the planet is capable of keeping its balance not loosing it.
Change now continues normally and cyclically as compared to the well known observations of the past. Nothing presented as justifying the claims of climate “scientists”, made up in models, stands up to the tests of observation and the application of physical laws. Nothing.
The predictions of GCM’s are basically wrong, by massive margins, year after year for 40 years, yet are presented as it proven science when in fact they are very disproven by evidence.
Change remains nominal while CO2 increases steadily with no measurable effect, other than global greening and increased agricultural productivity. Gaia at work. In physical control system reality Gaia is a strong negative system feedback that is easy to understand, IF you are a real scientist and not a climate”scientist”. Such charlatans pretend need to believe and promote consensual narratives for their grant money. Made up in a model, no proof required, just agreement with the narrative. Job done. Kerr ching!
PS Also, Defund, block publications of, and de platform the talks of anyone with hard science that can prove the reality with observational evidence. Heresy! science. Or real science, as I prefer to call it.