We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day An awful lot of climate change people are not climate change people in the sense of people interested in mitigating climate change effects (which almost everyone is I hope). They are climate change people in the sense of people who need climate change to be an irresistible force for social change. The climate ‘crisis’ is a substitute for God’s wrath, the Crisis of Capitalism, and any number of other apocalyptic pretexts that give meaning and direction to the world and them a mission.
– Guy Herbert
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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The Eco-freaks are just an arm of CM evil. That is all. They no more give a shite about the environment than they do about the assorted minorities whom they exploit.
If the people who tell us that climate change is an existential crisis requiring instant, drastic action engaged in drastic action themselves, I might believe them.
But I have yet to see one who even wears a sweater in the house.
Does this cover it?
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
Just substitute NGO Pressure Groups for “politics”.
Didn’t there used to be a regular documentary on the BBC in the 1970s about never-ending impending doom? IIRC, the catchphrase was “Woe, Woe and Thrice Woe”.
Woe, Woe and Thrice Woe was Frankie Howerd’s catchphrase in ‘Up Pompeii’. Not quite what you were thinking of, perhaps. Or perhaps it was . . . .
llater,
llamas
“…interested in mitigating climate change effects (which almost everyone is I hope).”
Why? I’m not interested in mitigating it at all, it is a totally invented non problem. The alarmists aren’t interested in mitigating it either, they prefer to keep the alarm going by only advocating solutions that don’t work.
Stonyground: “… they prefer to keep the alarm going by only advocating solutions that don’t work.”
Au contraire, their ‘solution’ works perfectly … for them. Their solution is for us peons to give up what is left of our liberties and our income, so that they (the Enlightened Ones) can fly First Class to exotic locations where they discuss how to distribute what they have stolen from us in the name of doing good. We all should understand that this has nothing whatsoever to do with alleged Anthropogenic Global Warming or mitigating its effects.
And when the next Ice Age starts (the geological record suggests that one is due), their solution to Global Cooling will involve … more taxes, more government. No matter what the problem, giving the Political Class more power is always the answer, at least in their eyes.
There is a type of person that needs to be part of a Big Cause. They cannot seem to accept the probability that they live in unexceptional times, that they themselves are thoroughly ordinary and will leave no lasting mark behind when they are gone…
https://jonathanabbott99.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/the-big-cause/
The sun has already switched off.
Fallen angels was supposed to be fiction.
‘…in mitigating climate change effects (which almost everyone is I hope).’
Indeed, I do that in Winter when I switch on the central heating.
In fact Mankind has been mitigating climate change effects for over 200 000 years, not by running away in fear of change but by adaptation, counteracting its effects and even utilising them which is why Man is top of the food chain.
But Man did not do this by sacrificing what he has on the alter of Environmentalism and setting back his social and economic progress to appease the climate gods, nor by carrying out Human sacrifice to ‘stop’ changes in the climate system.
Guy Herbert has not understood the climate change loonies, they do not want to mitigate changes and in fact are quite opposed to this, but want to stop Cnut-like an unstoppable natural phenomenon by impoverishing and killing off large swathes of Humanity to thin out the Man-pest – leaving them, a select class, as custodians of the Planet with the wealth and comfort that would bring them.
Yes, that is sort of what I was getting at. Their solutions, windmills, solar panels and wave machines, don’t work in the literal sense. A real solution such as nuclear power plus substituting fossil fuel use for electricity where practical would achieve a significant reduction in CO2 emissions but that is the last thing that the alarmists want.
“… would achieve a significant reduction in CO2 emissions …”
Would achieve a reduction in anthropogenic emissions of essential plant food upon which all animal life depends.
Fortunately, anthropogenic emissions of plant food are negligible compared to the natural carbon cycle. Not so long ago, every schoolkid learned about the carbon cycle in high school science. Are we now paying a price for the dumbing down of education? (Rhetorical question, I know).
“….people interested in mitigating climate change effects…”
You bet! I expect folks in migrant caravans that stall at the US/ Mexico border to be paid for working on the Mexican side, to build 30′ concrete sea wall along the Rio Grand, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in anticipation of the inevitable 25′ rise in sea level from the melting polar ice caps!
The reinforcement steel is currently being installed by the US. It’s only fair that we do our share.
It’s for Mexico’s safety.
No need for thanks, “It’s who we ARE!”
Well yes, the CO2 cycle adds and subtracts CO2 in the atmosphere and the man made contribution is something like 3% on the plus side. All other things being equal, you would expect CO2 levels to rise as a consequence but the effect has to be fairly small. So the effect of reducing CO2 emissions is likely to be negligible, especially if China and India keep ramping theirs up. Nevertheless, there are things that can be done that would actually work, even if in reality there is no point.
Stonyground: “Nevertheless, there are things that can be done that would actually work, even if in reality there is no point.”
Wholeheartedly agree! If we had continued to advance the development of nuclear power, we would today be in a much better position to deal with alleged global warming or (probably more likely) coming global cooling. We would also have been in a much better position to raise living standards (through greater energy use) in under-developed countries. But Lefties in the 1970s killed the development of nuclear power in the West.
Instead, the West has wasted untold resources on technologies which are not ready for prime time or are positively damaging, such as solar panels and bird-whackers. The ironic part is that — contrary to Leftie claims — those technologies are not sustainable. They cannot even generate the amount and quality of power necessary to build their own replacements as they wear out.
Fortunately, the West is not the World. Thanks to China & Russia, the human race will survive this curious outbreak of irrationality in the West.
Some have cast doubt on whether solar panels ever produce enough energy to recoup what was used to produce and deploy them.
Paul makes his standard comment on these matters….
If the “Green” types were sincere they would support the MASSIIVE EXPANSION OF NUCLEAR POWER, as even James Lovelock (the “Gaia Man”) repeatedly stated that the massive expansion of nuclear power was the only practical way to really reduce C02 emissions.
Instead they OPPOSE nuclear power – thus showing that they are posers. They are not serious people.
IIRC, James Lovelock moved from a house on the edge of Dartmoor, Devon (UK) to the USA. Because of the ever-rising cost of heating an old house during cold wet winters (that just weren’t warming enough).
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/30/james-lovelock-interview-by-end-of-century-robots-will-have-taken-over