Summary: William Lind takes a sharp and accurate look at the politics of climate change. In modern America, always look beneath the glossy surface of narratives in the news.
Global Warming
By William S. Lind at Traditional Right, 10 April 2019.
Posted with his generous permission.
A March 15 article by Larry Kummer at the Fabius Maximus website discusses how global warming advocates have misused a worst-case scenario to generate panic. Titled “About the corruption of climate science”, Kummer’s article details how politicians are misrepresenting climate projections, especially one called RCP 8.5. That their goal is to create fear should not surprise us: from the government’s perspective, fear is a growth industry.
Russell Kirk called conservatism “Politics Of Prudence
But the Left seeks far more. In fact, its goal is nothing less than total control of every aspect of human life, which we call “totalitarianism”, justified by fear of climate change. Since everything a person does, including breathing, affects the climate, if climate change is a huge threat, someone needs to control everything. That “someone” should obviously be whoever is most concerned about the climate, i.e., the extreme environmentalists and the larger coalition of which they are part, the culturally Marxist Left.
Every totalitarian ideology offers a one-factor explanation of why it deserves power over everyone and everything. For Marxism-Leninism, it was that the whole condition of man and society was determined by ownership of the means of production. The Communist Party, through the state, therefore had to control all producers and consumers, i.e., everyone. Today’s cultural Marxists argue that all of history is determined by which groups, defined by race and gender, have power over which other groups. Therefore, they, through the state, must have complete control over all such groups and everyone in them.
National Socialism justified its demand for total control by the need for racial purity, since race determined everything, and Fascism’s power derived from its theory that everyone was defined by their corporate role in society. Mussolini said, “Everything for the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state.” Italy’s congenital inefficiency made sure that didn’t happen, but it is what all ideologies seek–including the ideology of environmentalism, for it is ideology, not science, that drives those sowing panic about global warming.
Theirs is an ideology of which we should warn even more strongly than other ideologies, because, again, everything we do affects the environment. This makes their demand for total control seem even more justifiable. Add in widespread public panic over increasingly volatile weather and you have an excellent basis on which everyone should surrender their freedom. Why, humanity itself stands on the brink of extinction. How can you justify your puny desires to do as you please?
We need a global warning against overstatements of global warming and its consequences. In fact, we have been for several centuries in a period of unusual climate stability. We cannot expect that to go on forever, because we know that in the past, the climate has changed and weather has become more volatile. Human ingenuity should prove adequate to deal with it, so long as we do not block that ingenuity through too much government intervention. Yes, overpopulated areas with dysfunctional states and cultures are likely to suffer, as they will under any scenario. The solution is not to let them come here, unless we want to become them.
Meanwhile, when we hear hysterical statements about global warming ending life as we know it in a few decades, we should remind ourselves that this is politics, not science. It is politics designed to panic us into surrendering our freedoms to a new, hideous totalitarian ideology. For those who want to see how such a totalitarianism might play out, read about Cascadia in Thomas Hobbes’ {AKA WIlliam Lind’s} recent novel, Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War
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The Left looks at climate change and see an opportunity
Lind points to an obvious but too-seldom mentioned fact: to many on the Left, stoking fears of climate change are a means to gain power. They have been quite open about that. As Matthew C. Nisbet says in “Sciences, Publics, Politics: The Green New Dilemma“, from Issues in Science and Technology, Spring 2019.
“Progressives see climate change as not only a crisis but also an opportunity. As argued by Naomi Klein in her 2014 best-selling book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
Proposals for a Green New Deal end the masquerade, proudly announcing that “fighting” climate change is a means to larger ends. See About the Green New Deal, dreams given form.
About the author
William S. Lind is director of the American Conservative Center for Public Transportation. He has a Master’s Degree in History from Princeton University in 1971. He worked as a legislative aide for armed services for Senator Robert Taft, Jr., of Ohio from 1973 to 1976 and held a similar position with Senator Gary Hart of Colorado from 1977 to 1986. See his bio at Wikipedia.
Mr. Lind is author of the Maneuver Warfare Handbook
He’s perhaps best known for his articles about the long war, now published as On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009
- His posts at TraditionalRight.
- His articles about geopolitics at The American Conservative.
- His articles about transportation at The American Conservative.
For More Information
Ideas! For some shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
Please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information see all posts about doomsters, about fear (perhaps become our greatest weakness), about the RCPs, about the keys to understanding climate change, and especially these …
- About the mass extinctions supposedly occurring now.
- Focusing on worst case climate futures doesn’t work. It shouldn’t work.
- Updating the RCPs: The IPCC gives us good news about climate change, but we don’t listen.
- Roger Pielke Jr.: climate science is a grab for power.
- Secrets about the 1.5°C world temperature limit.
- A crisis of overconfidence in climate science.
- A look at the workings of Climate Propaganda Inc.
- About the corruption of climate science.
- The noble corruption of climate science.
Books about the crisis in climate science
The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters & Climate Change
The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened