“Some 35 years after the collapse of the 20th century’s most rigorous experiment in the failure of central planning, the fall of the Soviet empire, and comparative success of the capitalist West, it is hard to fathom how we’ve got into this climate communist mess. It should be self-evident that the planet doesn’t have a thermostat, let alone one easily adjusted by national leaders ordering technology to improve through a cascade of plans lashed to a target. Decarbonisation will happen regardless and is likely to go faster by inventing better solutions funded from the proceeds from growth, or bottom-up innovation. Rather than five-year battery-powered tractor plans, in the context of mission-led state direction – the latest reinvention of the language of failure by top-down socialist planners.”
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Samizdata quote of the day – climate collectivism editionNovember 14th, 2024 |
 11 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – climate collectivism editionLeave a Reply |
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We don’t need to decarbonise. CO2 is at a very low level and more of it will probably affect the weather but not in any way that needs worrying about. We can’t even say for certain that recent rises in atmospheric CO2 are not completely natural, the recent moderate temperature rises certainly are. Climate alarmism is only taken seriously, after decades of failed doom laden prophecies, because it is so useful to those who love tell other people how to live.
On the subject of decarbonisation happening naturally. My two litre turbo diesel has a similar performance to a 1970s V8 muscle car but does 45mpg rather than 15mpg.
Stony,
Good point about your motor. Nobody in their right mind doesn’t want energy efficiency. Compare a big new turbofan with a Newcomen atmospheric engine. That wasn’t driven by green ideology. It was driven by economics. The entire green-skewing of the economy via subsidies and tax-antics is almost literally pushing a boulder up a hill. When I was a postgrad (astrophysics) I was involved in a pub debate over the efficiencies of various modes of transportation. It came down to two – the bicycle and the aeroplane. Both were the Wright answer but to different questions. Nobody gets in their F-35B to pop to the shops. Nobody has ever cycled the Atlantic. Anyway, Greenies, where’s my nukes?
It’s an extreme religious cult, and, as with every cult, the brainwashed won’t listen to reason. You can’t convince them, so why even bother.
If rainbow unicorn farts were to become a practical energy source, then the greens and the Left in general would call rainbow unicorns a dangerous invasive species and demand that they be banned.
It doesn’t matter that ‘green’ policies fail by their own criteria and produce poverty and misery. What matters is any pretext at all to bring back central planning after the Evil Side won the Cold War. For the Left, it’s axiomatic, a matter of faith, that centralized planning by wise and benevolent experts is totally superior to stupid revolting peasants making their own decisions seemingly at random.
And if that central planning produces poverty and misery, why then that proves that poverty and misery are GOOD things and ought to be pursued and that the prosperity and abundance produced by free or even semi-free markets are BAD things to be disparaged and avoided.
Because any hint that central planning isn’t totally superior to the alternatives is impossible inconceivable blasphemous heresy, and doubleplus ungood crimethink.
@Deep Lurker
I think you are half right. There are certainly a number of ideologues looking to impose a philosophical agenda. However, I think there are far more who are just grifters trying to make vast fortunes off the public. The green new deal is perhaps the biggest grift in history. Madoff looks totally JV in comparison.
And for sure, some are seeking power because they a megalomaniacs relishing power, influence and the sense of importance it brings, and because they want to be rich and famous.
Politics, they say, is hollywood for ugly people.
Well, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
And when the enemy is reality and the laws of physics….
Remember the Decorator Crab metaphor for Leftist action:
A hard core of nihilist wolves don’t really believe in anything but power, and will say and do anything to get it.
They surround and camouflage themselves with useful idiots, bien-pensants, and garden-variety grifters. These fools are loaded into the political/cultural Trojan horses.
Therefore – stop calling them “greens”. They are “watermelons” – green outside, red inside.
It is interesting that the “solution” came before the problem – or alleged problem.
From the 1960s onwards people such as the late David Rockefeller and the (still alive) Dr Klaus Schwab (who behaves has if was a Bond villain – I keep expecting him to have a white cat and live in an hollowed out volcano) have pushed for world “governance” with detailed Corporate State control of the lives of ordinary people all over the world.
And then – decades late, the C02 is evil theory became fashionable – and, hey presto!, it just turns out that the totalitarian policies the international elite had been pushing for decades just-happened-to-be the correct policies for combating the “Climate Crises” – well how very convenient!
As David Rockefeller said after the Rio Conference of 1992 – they had got the governments of the world to sign up to, eventual, world governance, without even knowing they had done so.
As for the C02 is evil theory itself – why do members of the elite spend many millions on homes right next to the sea?
If sea levels are going to greatly rise these vastly expensive houses are going to be destroyed. Why are not Barack Obama and the rest not buying, or building, great houses high up in the mountains – supposedly it is going to be warm up there soon.
And why do the international elite not give a damn about C02 produced by China and other such countries? Why is it only Western produced C02 that is evil?
So, if a “carbon market” is a good idea, presumably to lower the overall emission of “carbon” [Aside: as a chemist I hate the abuse of “carbon” by the Green wackos], why aren’t markets for other “pollutants” also a good idea?
Why can’t I pay someone who is NOT dumping toxic chems into the river, buying their “river dumping rights”, to enable me to dump more?
Do we each have equal rights under such schemes, e.g., we are each allowed to emit 1000 pounds of CO2 per year, or dump 14 pounds of pharmaceuticals into the sewer, or …? I’m definitely not using my allotment so where can I sell my rights?
@GregWA
Yeah, the vilification of the word “carbon” really bothers me too. Being as I am, a carbon based lifeform, I don’t much care for the insult. Can we point out that Spotted Owls are made from carbon? Perhaps that would help.
TBH, when I hear people saying that I just assume they have no f-king idea what they are talking about. They probably think that carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are both equally toxic. They are probably really concerned about the dangers of dihydrogen oxide. After all, it is a major greenhouse gas and it is a major disease vector killing millions of people every year.
I repeat – totalitarian (total control over the lives of ordinary people – control on an international level) policies that were being pushed decades-before the C02 is evil theory was fashionable (and had nothing to do with this theory), just-happen-to-be the correct policies for dealing with the “Climate Crises”.
Policies of total control of ordinary people (on an international basis) that were developed decades before the C02 is evil theory became fashionable (and had nothing with this theory) just-happen-to-be the ideal response to the claimed “crises”.
What a strange coincidence.
Meanwhile. following E.U. policy, Spain gets rid of (or decommissions) 131 dams and flood barriers – and hundreds of people are killed by floods.
Rather than blaming E.U. and Spanish government “rewilding” policy (part of Agenda 2030 – this is being pushed world-wide) the media blame “Climate Change” – so even more of these policies can be pushed and even more people can be killed.
Whether it is voting numbers or historic temperature figures (some of these “temperature figures” come from areas that did not have measuring stations in the years cited – YES the statistics are just made-up, “estimated”), or anything else, the modern (modern) media never really check what is going on – they always follow government and corporate press releases.
I suspect that the old hard drinking Fleet Street people would not have been so conformist.
How many people have to die (say from Covid “vaccine” injections, or from getting rid of dams in Spain) before the press wakes up?