Oh, the elites are at it again, folks. They’ve figured out that the real reason you’re lying awake at night, sweating over whether the world will combust in a fiery climate apocalypse isn’t because of their fearmongering, but because of—wait for it—individualism. That’s right, in this gem from the Los Angeles Times, the author wrings their hands over the scourge of “climate anxiety” and, of course, traces it back to the root of all evil: the fact that you still value your personal freedom.
This masterpiece of neurotic nonsense, titled “To Fix Climate Anxiety, We First Have to Fix Individualism,” (behind a paywall), is peak elite navel-gazing. Let’s break down their neurotic argument and laugh at their complete inability to function outside their groupthink bubble.
The Anxiety Industry: The Left’s New Favorite Hobby
First, let’s talk about climate anxiety, the latest designer disorder that’s sweeping the liberal elite like avocado toast. In case you haven’t heard, it’s what happens when your climate virtue signaling turns into full-blown panic attacks. People are losing their minds because they’ve been bombarded for years by end-of-the-world rhetoric from media, politicians, and activists who’d have you believe that every breath you take is choking Mother Earth to death.
Just knowing that climate change is getting worse can trigger serious psychological responses. And the shock and trauma are all the more great if you’ve already had to live through the kinds of disasters that keep the rest of us up at night.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-09-11/climate-anxiety-essay
According to this article, people are feeling “anxious” about the climate, and naturally, the solution is not for them to step back and take a rational look at things—no, no, the solution is to dismantle individualism. Because of course it is.
Blaming Individualism: The Left’s Favorite Boogeyman
The article opens with the dramatic claim that “climate anxiety can’t be fully addressed until we confront the toxic ideology of individualism that underpins it”. You read that right. If you’re feeling uneasy about the planet, it’s not because of the endless climate alarmism or the fact that these elites have been screaming “we have 12 years to save the Earth” every year for the last 30 years. Nope, it’s because you still stubbornly believe in your right to live your life without being micromanaged by bureaucrats.
“One huge reason why climate anxiety feels so awful is this feeling of not being able to do anything about it,” Ray said. “But if you actually saw yourself as part of a collective, as interconnected with all these other movements doing meaningful things, you wouldn’t be feeling this despair and loneliness.”
The trick to fixing climate anxiety is to fix individualism, she said. Start small, tap into what you’re already good at, join something bigger than yourself.
And by fixing individualism, as many young activists like Patel have already figured out, we just might have a better shot at fixing climate change.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-09-11/climate-anxiety-essay
Apparently, individualism—yes, that awful notion that you have autonomy over your own choices—is now considered “toxic.” Forget that individualism is the cornerstone of free societies, personal freedom, and, oh yeah, human achievement. In the world of the eco-left, it’s now the villain in their ongoing climate horror show.
A Neurological Condition? Please
What’s more laughable is how they frame climate anxiety as a mental health crisis akin to depression or PTSD. They write about it like it’s an epidemic of post-traumatic stress from people being bombarded by all those horrible individual freedoms. I mean, seriously? The real crisis here is that people have been indoctrinated into believing that they’re responsible for saving the entire planet every time they use a plastic straw or don’t recycle perfectly. This is what happens when you raise a generation to believe that everything they do contributes to the imminent collapse of the world’s ecosystems.
The Author’s Prescription: Collective Climate Neurosis
So, what’s the solution according to these enlightened minds? Naturally, we need to get rid of this pesky idea that you have any individual rights or freedoms. The article practically celebrates the idea that if we can only get everyone to think collectively, like good little comrades, the anxiety will melt away.
It pushes the idea that “individualism places all the responsibility on each of us to act, making it impossible to live up to expectations, creating a cycle of guilt, shame, and paralysis”. Oh, poor babies! The very same people who lecture us about reusable shopping bags and meat-free Mondays are now telling us that the crushing weight of their own guilt is our fault. Let’s not forget who’s been creating these unrealistic standards and then weaponizing guilt against anyone who doesn’t fall in line.
But don’t worry, they’ve got a plan! Their brilliant strategy is to embrace collectivism—because nothing says mental health like forcing people into a hive mind where the individual is secondary to the group. Yep, if you could just stop thinking for yourself and let the climate overlords run your life, you’d be so much happier. Or at least that’s what the elites think.
A Reality Check for the Paranoid
Here’s the thing: climate anxiety isn’t a real problem; it’s a manufactured condition, hyped up by a generation of activists, politicians, and media hacks who’ve been making a living by scaring the living daylights out of everyone. They’re the ones who’ve been telling you the world is ending unless you stop eating hamburgers and driving your SUV.
The truth is, climate change is not an existential crisis, and certainly not one that justifies abandoning the values of personal freedom and individual rights. But for these people, it’s not even about the climate anymore—it’s about control. Every crisis, real or imagined, is an opportunity to chip away at your autonomy. And “climate anxiety” is just the latest weapon in that fight.
We hear so often today that climate change is the existential crisis of our time, but that dismisses the trauma and violence to all the people who have been fighting to survive for centuries. Colonization, greed and exploitation are inseparable from climate change, Uchendu said, but we miss these connections when we consider our emotions only through a Western lens.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-09-11/climate-anxiety-essay
Elites and Their Collective Fantasy
What really drives the article’s insane conclusion is this ongoing obsession the left has with collectivism. They yearn for a world where nobody thinks for themselves, where your life is dictated by the enlightened few who, of course, know better than you. The article barely hides its disdain for the idea that individuals should be responsible for their own actions. Instead, they fantasize about a world where everything is a group project, and we all obediently march to the beat of the latest government decree.
According to them, if you weren’t so caught up in your individual rights, you wouldn’t be so darn anxious. Yeah, because nothing calms the nerves quite like having the state control every aspect of your life.
Their Real Goal: Control, Not Climate Solutions
Make no mistake, this isn’t about fixing climate anxiety. This is about eliminating individual thought. The environmental elite knows that if they can convince you to surrender your personal freedoms for the “greater good,” they can push through their agenda without resistance. They can introduce any policy—no matter how ridiculous, no matter how intrusive—because you’ll be too busy trying to be a good little cog in their collective machine to object.
In the end, their whole argument boils down to this: your desire to think for yourself and live independently is making the planet worse and giving you panic attacks. So, naturally, the only way to fix the problem is to surrender your autonomy to the group. Because, hey, collectivism always works out great, right? Just ask Cuba or Venezuela how that’s going.
Final Thought: Don’t Fall for the Nonsense
Let’s get real: climate anxiety is a product of indoctrination by a radical environmental movement that thrives on fearmongering. And now, instead of taking responsibility for the anxiety they’ve caused, they’re trying to shift the blame onto your belief in personal freedom. It’s absurd.
You don’t need to fix individualism to “fix” climate anxiety. You need to fix the constant stream of doomsday propaganda that’s designed to scare you into submission. The real mental health crisis isn’t caused by climate change; it’s caused by the relentless bombardment of apocalyptic messaging designed to make you feel guilty for existing. Don’t let them fool you into thinking that giving up your individual rights will somehow make you feel better. The only thing that will do is make it easier for them to control you.
So, to the hand-wringing author and the climate anxiety brigade: Take a breath, grab a steak, and stop trying to guilt the rest of us into your collective neurosis. We’re not buying it.
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Yeah, the bogeyman under the bed is real! Who cares about any examination of the latest environmental scare story? Who cares about the history of such claims? Be scared anyway, and keep sending money!
We are the Democrats.
You will be assimilated.
Resistance is Futile.
Bite Me
Let’s go Brenda!
The only thing that makes me anxious about the climate, are the insane climate policies instilled by the left. Policies which I know are unnecessary and I’ve known they are unnecessary since 1988, when James Hansen, formerly Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies made his bogus global warming predictions in congress. Somehow way back then, I knew it was all BS!
As George Carlin said – The Planet Is Fine, The People Are F#%ked!
I saw Carlin twice in his last years. It was a thrill. Mind blowing.
didn’t they turn off the AC in Congress- in that room- for the meeting? If not, it makes a great story. 🙂
Yup, and opened the windows to let the hot humid summer air (perfectly normal for the DC area, of course) in. After selecting a date for the hearings during the hottest time of year.
It has been pure theater from the start.
I don’t know how prevalent it is, I don’t have close commination with large numbers of people, but I do have some connections. There are those who deeply believe that anything like the claims in this article are “right wing propaganda” and not the least bit true. This view seems to go along with Trump DS but that may only be a sampling error. Point out articles, books, web sites where various part of the left lay out their beliefs and plans and the response is total denial. “No, that is not what they believe. No, that is not what they intend to do. You are so gullible, falling for right wing propaganda”.
Anyone reasonable understands that virtually everyone, especially if the matter is at all political, spins issues towards their own point of view but what I’m writing about here goes well beyond that, to the belief that any interpretation of what those socialists, group think people or groups expouse, in their own words, in their own literature, isn’t really what they mean. Along with that viewpoint goes a refusal to try to explain what “they” really mean. What seems obvious from a simple reading is just the deceit of their enemies.
I have been saying it for a while now and personal experience over the years dealing with such people supports it, Leftism is a sign of mental illness.
Either mental illness or mental deficiency or dishonesty. Kamala dishonestly flip-flops. Mann exhibits mental deficiency—coildn’t make a go at a physics Ph.D, so switched to climate and invented a bogus ‘centered PCA that produces hockey stick from red noise. People like Maxine Waters and Joe Biden show signs of mental illness.
The latter two are just plain stupid.
“C. All of the above.” is not out of the question…
In my opinion it is narcissistic dishonesty in the case of Mann many others in climate science but total lack of intelligence in the case of politicians and politics whether they believe in CAGW or not. Wisdom and politics seldom share the same bed.
People like Waters Biden, Mann, and Harris, have an instinct to exploit perception for personal gain. Fear is an easy tool to use and one does not need to be all that intelligent to use it, or to be co-opted by others in that pursuit. Con artists come in all shapes and sizes.
I honestly see no difference between this nonsense and so many ancient religious practices whereby those in charge gained control over the populace by making them afraid of certain doom. Well, the doom would only happen if the people didn’t make sacrifices to various gods, and most of those goods went to the priests and other elites. It is hard to imagine how some ancient societies tolerated (and even accepted) human sacrifice, but we have to remember they were terrorized into believing that the gods would abandon – or outright destroy them, and everyone would suffer if they didn’t make such sacrifices.
The other thing is back then, people had no way of understanding weather and climatic variations, to know that a long drought was the result of a natural cycle and not failure to appease certain deities. Or that crop failure was due to a volcanic eruption somewhere on the other side of the planet and not because someone insulted one of the gods.
The really sad part is that one would think, in this supposed age of scientific enlightenment, that such a thing could never happen. I never thought it would, until it has…. But what is going on is that the powers that be are using failable and imperfect interpretations of scientific data to terrorize the masses into giving up power to the new high priests of climate doom.
Yes, scientific progress has changed, but the dark side of human nature has not. There will apparently always be those who will try to gain control over others thru falsehoods.
But the question is, how on earth do you break thru the mind control? Sometimes I feel like I’m in the old sci-fi movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. So many have been taken over and possessed, and so how does one get people to wake up?
To your last ‘wakeup’ paragraph, it will take three things.
“many ancient religious practices”
Ancient is relative.
“Witch trials in the early modern period” – – Search for this on Wikipedia and note similarities to the modern anti-“carbon” {aka Carbon Dioxide} activities. I can’t do the comparison justice in a short comment.
In Australia, we have similar articles from people with mental incompetence who should never be let near any position of influence. How would you react if you were discussing coming surgery when your surgeon started babbling on in this vein?
Here, most of the wails come from middle aged females from academia. They include former Australian Chief Scientists and several from major East coast Universities who unfortunately were authors of several papers on global heatwaves on which The Establishment relies to spread more anxiety. It does not matter that trucks can be driven through their faulty research, the anxiety gets through to some youngsters.
I have a different anxiety. Too many times when I read scientific and media accounts that have this fluffy favour, the authors are female. Ditto for fluffy political policies. These females are in a space that has been mostly male for generations, so they are at risk of being unaware of what developed in the past when their concerns were more with babies.
This is observed. It is not a sexist attack. I love viva la difference when it is not causing harm to society. It needs to be addressed and fixed, as it can be. Geoff S
Geoff, If I could concur more than 100% I would.
They got their jobs because of their identity- not their talent.
I’ve been thinking much the same Geoff for quite a while. Social change has been evolving through direct manipulation of anxieties in the young female population.
Recall the “Julia” ads in Obama’s second campaign. A single mom who was lured by the comforts of collectivism through government “benefits” throughout her life. Head Start, government schools, guaranteed abortion, government college loans, free medical care during pregnancy, recycle all the same handouts for her child, and the cycle of dependency rolls on to Medicare and the ultimate lie that Julia and her child can retire comfortably on Social Security.
Young men are demonized and indoctrinated to believe they should behave more like girls. And we know where that is going.
The feminization of culture leads to a population more easily manipulated by fear – and climate anxiety is a wickedly effective device.
I really like the first comment under the article.
Except if you live in – for example – San Francisco or certain parts of Melbourne……
There’s a YouTuber named Nick Johnson who travels America showing, often, the dark side of the nation. He often shows the homeless and he points out how it’s gotten much worse. One city that he talks of often is San Francisco. Some of what were the nicest areas of the city are now full of homeless – living on the sidewalks. Why this is tolerated escapes me- other than they’re “progressive” cities.
If ‘climate anxiety’ were real, its sufferers would be neurotic. It isn’t and they mostly aren’t. Crazy control freaks about ‘solving’ a non-problem, yes. Neurotic, maybe some—but not the author of this nonsense.
My late beloved Patricia suffered from a real anxiety disorder, acute PTSD. Caused by near fatal anaphylactic shock from multiple wasp stings at our mountain cabin in north Georgia. Took me 20 minutes (breaking all speed limits) to get her to town to the nearest doc in a box with an Epipen. Her throat had started to swell closed so she had trouble breathing during the later part of the drive. She actually said goodbye minutes before we got to the doc. Burned into memory.
Took three different psychiatrists and four different medication regimes (first three regimes failed within a year) to finally get under control. Her third doc worked several years of lasting magic with a two drug regime, duloxetene 2x/day (30 mg morning, 60 mg evening), plus one 0.5mg clonazapam per day if needed late afternoon (when the triggering event first happened). Near the end we had the clonazapam down to maybe 7 random days out of 30.
Kudos for sharing your heartbreaking but informative experience Rud.
RIP Patricia.
I have a very hard time with those that have not personally been there.
Rud,
It takes courage to go public with personal accounts like yours. I consider that your intention, which I read is to help others with similar problems, is laudable. Geoff S
SO true! I wonder where it is all going, I hope the resistance is rising. They are totalitarians, that is for sure and they are not to be underestimated. My father warned me about this kind of thing in about 1979, I thought he was daft but now I know what he was talking about. Of course those pushing collectivism have no intention of giving up anything, no energy or freedoms or luxuries.
Do any of these California elites have any idea what is going on in Asia? FF use on the rise!
“FF use on the rise!”
‘Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2024’
“Fossil fuel consumption as a percentage of primary energy…was 81.5%”
“crude oil broke through the 100m barrels per day for the first time ever and coal demand beat the previous years record level”
“In 2023 global coal production reached its highest ever level……The Asia – Pacific region” equalled “nearly 80% of global activity with Australia, China, India and Indonesia” producing “over 97% of the regions output”
“Global coal consumption was over 164EJ for the first time” and the growth in consumption “was 7 times higher than the previous ten year average growth rate”
China was responsible “for 56% of coal consumption” in 2023. “India exceeded the combined consumption of Europe and North America for the first time”
“Coal retained its position as the dominant fuel for power generation with fossil fuels overall forming 60% of global electricity generation”
Memo to Rosanna: carbon dioxide is a colourless, odourless gas naturally present in air that is essential to plant photosynthesis, it does not cause asthma.
Individualism fixed, from there the author goes on naturally to wallow in gender and race.
Not only is CO2 not dangerous or cause asthma, but a proven method of reducing symptoms and occurrence, called the Buteyko Method, actually works by increasing internal CO2, which is actually a bronchial dilator.
ie.. increased CO2 can help relieve asthma symptoms.
As an asthmatic, I disbelieve this extremely. You are promoting quackery.
I notice you don’t claim it worked for you so I also disbelieve you’ve tried it.
It’s probably harmless to try (unless you tape a baby’s mouth shut), so if anyone wants to give it a go and report back to us here, I’m breathless with anticipation.
(+1 for standing up for CO₂ though)
I’ve seen it work on several people… including my ex.
Not in other cases.
Remember the thing of breathing into a paper bag, can help an asthma attack.. same principle…. increased internal CO2
Denying the proven scientific fact that CO2 acts as a bronchial dilator.. why do that ???
I remember breathing in a paper bag to relieve a panic attack.
If it works for asthma, splendid.
But medicine is an art. Science, of course is involved, but there are 8 billion people, each with a unique genetic and physical makeup. There is no one size fits all.
Individualism is the enemy of a big nanny state = wall street oligarchy.
As it does not go along with all the wokeness, open borders,child mutilations,forced vaccines and whatever will be the next big narrative and mandatory truth unleashed on us.
The leading communist propagandist Yuri Bezmenov who defected already pointed out in 1977 the ongoing systematic destruction of the individual and the culture in the west.
And the plans to destroy the Individual are going at least back 100 years ago to Bertrand Russel from the Fabian Society who laid out plans to modify humans biologically(MRNA?),Chemically and Psychologically into a subservient species(the Kalergi Plan,absolutely confirmed by Barbra Spectre, was another strategy that occured at that time,but it is to politically incorrect to talk about :).
Further part of the plan was to eliminate nationalism and to turn people against their own if they even dare to show the slightest national tendencies.(already happening in all Western countries via Big Tech,MSM,politicians and their woke Army)
And that those who are smart enough and pose a threat to their classless,nationless global utopia by spreading individual ideas shall be eliminated.
(it is btw no coincidence that any new crap that has been forced onto humanity since the hippie movement ,including ice age scare and AGW,
is either made in USA or UK).
Iirc Bertrand Russels Fabian society boss at that time was Bernard Shaw who was a huge fan of Eugenics,Stalin and Mustache Man from Austria(until it became unpopular to like the painting Chaplin look a like).
Since Karl Marx replaced the Opium of the masses with his Crack Cocain for the Elites
the destruction of the Individual has become the top priority for the ruling class and their intellectual minions.
Because individualism(which is the root of all critical thinking) is in the way of globalism and its very very ambitious endgoal to reduce global population to >500 mio as it was written down by the Elites in the Georgia Guidestones.
The population growth rate has been decreasing, as families notice they babies as surviving, for some time and is projected to turn negative around 2050 and the population will start decreasing.
“Patel almost collapsed one day in front of his sixth-grade class when his heart suddenly started pounding at more than 300 beats per minute.
His parents, farmers from Gujarat, India, rushed Patel to the emergency room and held his hand while everyone around him thought he was dying. After months of hospital visits and procedures, doctors determined that he had developed a severe heart condition in large part due to the smog.
As he learned to live with an irregular heartbeat, he found joy in his family’s tiny garden and marveled at all the ladybugs that gathered on the tulsi, a special type of basil. He taught his classmates that food came from the ground, not the grocery store, and together, they went on to form an environmental club.”
Holy Basil (tulsi) can cause rapid heartbeat.
Tulsi makes my heart beat.
Separate thought. The real fix for climate anxiety is reality. None of the bad stuff we were supposed to be climate anxious about has happened. After 40 years, that becomes a problem. The reality problem grows bigger every year, since warmunist attempts to create climate anxiety must grow ever shriller and less credible.
Example: Gutierrez said at last COP “the oceans are boiling”. Well, no.
And Al Gore has upped the “heat trapping” claim in units of “Hiroshima Bombs” from 600,000 per day to 750,000. Just plain nuts.
UN IPCC Assessment Report Six (AR6) WG1 (the scientific basis chapter) reveals (grudgingly) that severe weather globally is not getting worse. Keep hammering that admission and pointing out that politicians, Deep State actors, academic activists, Leftist NGOs and socialists/Marxists of all stripes are lying to us.
Yes x1000
“Apparently, individualism—yes, that awful notion that you have autonomy over your own choices—is now considered “toxic.””
So … they’re saying it’s much easier for them to herd sheep than cats?
So we need less cats?
You’ve cracked the secret why they’re letting in all the Haitians. who knew?
Recently in the context of collective bargaining and union achievements as she spoke to the United Auto Workers, Kamala Harris revealed her core beliefs:
“And that’s what our campaign is about. We love our country. We believe in our country. We believe in each other. We believe in the collective. We’re not falling for these folks who are trying to divide us, trying to separate us, trying to pull us apart. That’s not where the strength lies.”
Full official transcript.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/08/08/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-and-governor-tim-walz-at-a-campaign-event-2/
To me, this is disqualifying for a person who wants to become President of the U.S. Words matter. No wonder her opponent says, “Comrade Kamala.”
What was it Hillary said? Something like, “It takes a village to raise a child.”?
Who needs parents when you have people like Hillary and Harris running “The Village”?
They need control over the children for their pizza parties.
Trump uses the marketing approach where telling falsehoods to your customers(the American people) doesn’t matter as long as you sell the product(get elected).
Dangerous words from a mental defective. No concept of reality, no understanding of history, no self awareness, no idea and no hope.
We also hear that Kamala Harris is the way of enlightenment but that does not make it true now does it.
Fixing? Wow. A real mental giant walks among us!
Careful Sarah, reality is stalking you.
About 100 years ago in Italy an essay was published “La dottrina del fascismo”. The content was pretty much the same as in LA Times. Quote “If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the “collective” century, and therefore the century of the State.” We know how it all ended…
That’s why I laugh at anyone who calls the opponents of the radic political left “fascists.”
The Democrats ARE THE FASCISTS. Thei idiot followers are simply to deluded, blinded by emotion, or stupid to see it.
Fact. Individualism is the antithesis of communism.
Fact. Climate change hysteria is nothing more than a tool of communism against individualism.
Fact. The ballot box is the best tool to fight communism.
Fact. All political parties are built on communist principles.
Fact. The world will not be safe until democracy is infused with individualism.
Fact. This will be apparent when independents rather than political parties dominate.
Companies are internally Marxist.
Two evils ism’s: Climat and Commun.
We are not in a climate crisis, CO2 is not the control knob for our climate, we are not going to reach a tipping point and suffer irreversible global warming. CAGW and Net Zero are purely political arguments made to gain more control and power over the rest of us. These mongrels aren’t concerned with science, climate or CO2, their only concern is politics, power and control. It is as simple as that.
“Nope, it’s because you still stubbornly believe in your right to live your life without being micromanaged by bureaucrats.”
I prefer to call them burros.
The only combustion that is going to happen will be the result of our dirrect war with the Russian Federation and the nukes falling on Washington DC and other American cities. We have leaders who put a man who can not think in charge of the Nuke codes. Now, that man has been kicked out of office and Blinken, the most warmongering Neo-liberal fascist that has ever been in power, has his finger on the button. This is the reason there is no hope for peace or prosperity. Do you even want to be one of the one percent of the US population that will survive the climate disaster this man is making plans to implement?
There is a term that has been floating around mental health circles for at least forty years, which I first heard during my psychology graduate program. The term is “worried well.” It refers to people who seek treatment and identify themselves as suffering, in response to levels of anxiety which cause some discomfort but which most persons would deal with on their own. While practitioners are usually happy to offer their services, which insurance will pay for if one simply codes an acceptable diagnosis— such as “adjustment disorder” or the like.
The people who are massaging “climate anxiety” into a real thing, obviously for reasons other than an altruistic concern for humanity, have provided a whole new income stream for private practitioners, eager to jump on any bandwagon which promises to enrich their patient load. In return, they provide a sense of legitimacy (“experts say…”) publicly to reinforce the scam.
As for the ‘victims’ of such pseudo-disorders, yes they mostly are female, younger, and display a high level of suggestibility. They come from the same population that once were easily convinced that they had been victims of satanic cults, been raped by parents or grandparents as infants, but somehow just never recalled it until a helpful therapist hypnotized them into using their imagination to “recover” a memory of some thing that never happened.
The sadness is that given the vigorous social indoctrination from all corners, including incompetent/unethical treatment personnel, they stand to become True Believers, and may never fully return to normalcy.
Sounds a lot like “trans gender affirming care.”