Climate: Waiting for Defeat
because it's world war climate
How do we stop the war? I’m talking about World War Climate. Gary Anderson writes that it won’t be that easy.
Blanket climate change denial is a sure loser. The mainstream media, NPR, and PBS are all in, and the true believers have made much of the public so frightened of impending Armageddon that any contrary arguments will get lost in the weeds.
You mean that people won’t listen to you if you say that, hey, we are talking about a trace gas here, amounting to less than 1 in 2,000 of the atmosphere? And you believe that at that concentration it is wrecking the climate? I gotta bridge…
OK. No go. Anderson says that you have to talk about wind farms killing poor little birdies and solar farms killing fluttering butterflies. Stuff like that. And then there is the pocketbook.
Lower-income black and Latino voters, who lean Democrat, should be concerned about being priced out of the car market by electric vehicles.
But the basic fact is that we are dealing with War World here: government and institutional religion.
In the first place, it is clear that our rulers look at climate change as an existential peril and we must mobilize as for war: World War Climate. Yeah. Think World War II and liberty ships and the Arsenal of Democracy.
In the second place, there is obviously a religious dimension. When we talk about “science deniers” and “climate deniers” we are talking about religious belief, and watch out you witches! In science, real science, there is always the possibility that Albert Einstein, the patent clerk, will came along and upend your fabuloso theory of the universe.
In War World, the political leaders call everyone to the colors to unite and defeat the enemy. And World War II is the example. Once the Japs had attacked Pearl Harbor on “December 7, 1941, a day that will live. In infamy” It was all over. Wanna talk about how FDR & Co. provoked the Japanese into the war? Better keep your head down.
And war leaders usually like to call on the religious leaders to teach us that God is on our side.
So the only thing that can break the united nation under God is defeat: defeat in battle or defeat in the war.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt to complain about the Green Industrial Complex making ill-gotten fortunes out of climate change. And it doesn’t hurt to by horrified by little kiddies in Africa mining lithium and cobalt for Rich Men North of Richmond and their fashionable EVs. And it doesn’t hurt to make a big deal about battery fires. Why, suppose an EV caught fire in the basement garage of your condo building…
And I imagine that, if there’s a recession, that a practical politician can make book on complaining how the Green Energy Transition makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
And he can complain about how the expensive electric energy hurts poor people. And he can put off the glorious moment when gas stoves and gas heaters and gas furnaces are banished from the Earth.
And forget about banning the production of gas-powered cars. Because it’s racist to discriminate against your Hispanic roofer and your devoted Latino landscape maintenance crew.
Of course, my line on climate change is that government is useless for anything except an actual war, or responding to an actual emergency like a hurricane, where people are actually dying.
In my view, assuming that the climate is changing, then dollars to donuts the present expert-led program of electrification and 15-minute cities and battery storage and public transportation is almost certainly not going to make a difference and will probably make things worse. Because that’s what governments do. They don’t solve problems, they just gift their supporters.
If the climate really is changing then the market and inventors and private equity will respond to it. But government and NGOs and WEFs and pay-to-play subsidies? Please.