Climate Activism Isn’t About the Planet. It’s About the Boredom of the Bourgeoisie
By Paul Homewood
The downfall of capitalism will not come from the uprising of an impoverished working class but from the sabotage of a bored upper class. This was the view of the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. Schumpeter believed that at some point in the future, an educated elite would have nothing left to struggle for and will instead start to struggle against the very system that they themselves live in.
Nothing makes me think Schumpeter was right like the contemporary climate movement and its acolytes. The Green movement is not a reflection of planetary crisis as so many in media and culture like to depict it, but rather, a crisis of meaning for the affluent.
Take for example a recent interview with Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Ehrlich is most famous for his career as a professional doom monger. His first major book, The Population Bomb, gave us timelessly wrong predictions, including that by the 1980s, hundreds of millions of people would starve to death and it went downhill from there. Ehrlich assured us that England would no longer exist in the year 2000, that even modern fertilizers would not enable us to feed the world, and that thermonuclear power was just around the corner.
“At the "Climate Action Summit" in 2018, two dozen billionaire-backed foundations pledged 4 billion dollars for climate-change lobbying. Some of them, like the Hewlett Foundation, are directly funding journalists at the Associated Press for "climate reporting," while foundations associated with the Packard and Rockefeller families have been backing the journalistic endeavor "Covering Climate Now," which "collaborates with journalists and newsrooms to produce more informed and urgent climate stories" and is financing hundreds of media outlets.”
Ehrlich, who recently turned 90, is in the lucky position to have witnessed the complete failure of all his predictions—only to double down on them in his 60 Minutes interview Ehrlich has been wrong on every public policy issue he pontificated on for almost 60 years, yet the mainstream media still treat him like a modern oracle.
The best answer to this question comes courtesy of New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who in 2019 famously said that, "I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually and semantically correct than about being morally right." In other words, no matter what nonsense one spews, as long as it is "morally right," it does not matter what the facts show.
Full story here.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Despite being bombarded by the MSM about AGW the number of people actually involved in activism is tiny, but vocal. Unfortunately here in the USA the courts support them under the guise of “freedom and democracy” even though those same groups want to usurp the AGW skeptics ability to be heard.
H.L. Mencken had it right…
“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 had it right:
“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.”
Yes, it is about the Boredom of the Wealthy Bourgeoisie.
Orwell’s critique in England your England remains true
“”In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box.”
Just swap the UN for Moscow
I still remember how the left felt about English football fans started flying the Cross of St George from houses, cars and in particular white vans when England reached the finals of some competition or other.
As a Scot I don’t get the opportunity very often these days, but I was pleased that they used the St George flag rather than the Union Flag as was the case in 1966
But they still insist on the British national anthem when playing against other UK teams and are as resistant to understanding why Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are not happy with this as any climate activist confronted with a “noncomformist” point of view on CO2 and the inanity of “renewable” energy!
Herr Ehrlich could be the next U.S. President: He is wrong about every policy he backs, he is well past his prime and belongs in a nursing home, and he likes the graft that accompanies the grift. Let’s Go, Brandon !
We recently had some cult members trying to disrupt a local sporting event – the bicycle Tour Down Under.
After the initial blocking of a city street with old rusty bike frames I haven’t heard anymore. I suspect that the State Govt. encouraged the police into discouraging any more activity. In any case it would require them to plan ahead and drive (or get driven) outside the city to get to most of the various routes.
You have to wonder about anyone who wants to saw off the economic branch they’re sitting on, just for fun.
They have a safety net called cash, lots of it.
Paper and electronic money can become worthless very quickly. Precious metal is the way to go
Most do not understand anything about the world they inhabit. They are Art graduates (or worse) working in taxpayer-supported jobs where over the years they have managed to increase their pay to relatively high levels despite producing nothing of value. Their understanding of Economics is childish Marxism and they believe that all the good stuff they enjoy will continue in their vision of the world but that they will be the real elites, as they deserve to be. They live in bubbles where anybody not like them is an unwashed pleb or nasty fascist. They are luxuries we support with our nasty trade and they both hate us for that and disdain us. We have allowed an army of parasites to live on us who want nothing more than our destruction.
They suffer from Dr Strangelove mentality.
The West is in the late stages of the Decadence phase of the Prosperity-Decadence-Poverty cycle.
The West has become so comfortable that they attack that which keeps them alive.
Net Zero means no food for London’s 8.8 million people. It’s not rocket surgery. No transport = no food.
Climate activism is about the boredom of the bourgeouis ” My Ralph does indeed say it so well
They’re all a bit fick, too. The planet will survive, they might not.
The double standard approach for climate change science evidence has been normalised.
Any “fact” that supports the narrative requires very little robust evidence, whereas anything that might cast doubt is attacked as based on unreliable evidence.
This is true across all branches of academic science and it has always been that way.
The scientists wallow comfortably in a sea of confirmation bias and activists just sit in the same puddle. Politicians jump on any passing bandwagon as that is all they are capable of doing.
This is who we are, the human race has always been like that since the dawn of civilisation.
How do you get to be “morally right” about issues if you don’t understand the facts about that issue? OCS is simply claiming she’s right because it’s what she thinks. And that’s the entire ideology of Woke – I’m right because it’s my opinion.
And it is people like her, who cannot stand having other people do or day or think what she believes they should not, that is destroying the tolerance and freedom of society and the basis of our prosperity.
Amd while your stance is “I believe I’m right; I believe you’re wrong”, hers is “I know I’m right; therefore you are evil”. Doesn’t leave much space for discourse!
It would be interesting to know the income distribution of us in the contrary camp. I suspect it would not be so different to the climate zealots and the doom mongers. Ditto for the difference along a “bourgeoisie” metric. It must be something in the way their brains are wired to remain so oblivious to facts and to consequences. An absence of imagination maybe that gets in the way of applying common-sense and thinking things through.
Yes. Those who can afford the time to campaign or even write and rant on political issues are generally in the upper income quartile. Even afford the time to read these blogs like us here. Many retired and supported by pensions and savings? The lower quartile of income cant afford the luxury of reading and commenting all day – they have to work and earn.
That said from my comfortable chair, so i must get off my —- grab my pruning shears and get back outside. Only another 6000vines to prune in the winter frost.
You can’t fight sanctimony with facts.
BritishVolt to enter administration – industry/ manufacturing is dead in the UK thanks to netzero pursuit energy prices.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64303149.amp
Paris to vote on dangerous antisocial e-scooters.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/15/parisians-to-vote-on-banning-e-scooters
MrGrim, today I read about the collapse of the share value of a ‘green’ hydrogen company called ITM Power. Scale-up and supply problems mentioned. On a more joyous note I see that the prostitutes are booming again this year at Davos. Race to the bottom confirmed!
Saw the same thing, media is still calling hydrogen a SOURCE of energy.
Ah, the need for the superfluous to feel relevant. We have a class raised to be the cats’ pajamas and turn out to be the cats’ litter boxes instead.
It is what happens when you are raised without purpose or a sense of others, except as pawns. Perhaps Mike Rowe needs to start a “college” to educate these folks in the realities of life….doing for yourself and others, rather than “to” others.
Donald Trump was raised in a prosperous family. When, at 13, he began acting up and it became a problem, he was sent to the New York Military Academy through high school. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance. His children are a testament to him. Eric Trump related that every morning before they left for school, his father would tell each one that he loved them AND “no drinking, no drugs and no cigarettes”. He had the 3 oldest mentored by a trusted job foreman. They have remarked that they were as comfortable operating large equipment as driving their own cars.
Then there is Hunter Biden…….
Climate activism is not just a manifestation of bourgeois boredom it is also has the qualities of “end of days ” millenarianism . What needs to be asked Joan is why hundreds of so called ‘mental health professionals ” most notably – and disgracefully – president of the world mental health coalition Bandy X Lee and Duke University psychiatrist Allen Frances diagnosed Donald Trump or alternately the millions of Americans who voted for him [ Frances declared them all ‘crazy “] with a repertoire of mental illnesses ” but none of them announced a ‘duty to warn ” of the dangers posed by Joe Bidens dementia or his hedonistic son Hunter .- who happen to be Democrats . I find this passing strange with regard to the former chair of the DSMIV , Frances for one very intriguing reason : Frances is on record as admitting ” there is no definition of a mental disorder . Its bullshit . I mean you just cant define it ” His qualification however was that psychiatrys “noble lies ” are analogous to ” false beliefs ” that ” help people cope with life ” Well why did he not leap to Trumps defense to remind the panoply of Trump loathing activist ‘mental health professionals [ aside from Clinton advisor Gail Sheehy and genocide denier Noam Chomsky ] who contributed to Lees book , the various mental disorders they diagnosed him with from afar were all , in his own words, ‘bullshit ” ? I suspect Frances reticence has a lot to do with the noble lies of his own personal climate evangelism and his judgement clouded by his hatred of Donald Trump . Interviewed on CNN , Allen Frances went on a pulpit thumping fire sermon denigrating Trump as a “bad evil con man ” , a thief ” a corrupter of others and as ‘destructive a person in this century as Hitler , Stalin and Mao were in the last century ” He later rationalized this was a reference to Trumps climate policies despite the fact climate related deaths have nosedived by 95% over the last 100 years and US carbon emissions declined under the Trump presidency . But who needs reason and facts when you are immersed in ‘bullshit ‘ and noble lies ” and climate apocalypticism is your surrogate religion ? After viciously attacking Trump personally Frances ,seemingly oblivious to his character assassination , insisted that Trump ” needs to be contained by attacking his policies not his person ” You would think that he could not possibly have contradicted himself again in that sickening CNN interview with Stelter but you would be wrong . Warning that ” medicalizing politics has ….dire consequences ” he medicalized politics by advocating a Soviet vintage politically motivated false diagnosis to impeach an American president . So there we have it : Frances has essentially argued that psychiatrys DSM bible is ‘bullshit ” but that its sacred texts act as a benevolent religion ” – that psychiatric diagnoses can be useful ‘noble lies ” in a religious sense not a scientific one . So if psychiatry [ and psychology ] are semiotically and thematically religious and the DSM is an evolving fictional construct , the question is whether it is a benign or malevolent and stigmatizing belief system. Donald Trump and Zhores Medvedev know the answer and so do I from bitter personal experience that I intend to resolve.
Bruce Levine s analysis of psychiatry in his essay ” Leading Psychiatrists Acknowledge Psychiatry is a Religion Not a Science ” evokes troubling parallels with climate science , namely article 2 :
” Once we recognize the religious nature of psychiatry – unwittingly acknowledged even by leading psychiatrists – the following concerns about psychiatry – unwittingly acknowledged even by leading psychiatrists – the following concerns about psychiatry become clear and compelling
[1] If a society does not distinguish science from religion , this subverts critical thinking and scientific inquiry [2] If a society declares any religion to have the authority of science , this results in oppressive intolerance for individuals who reject that religion “
The surprise is an article critical of the climate religion appeared in Newsweek, which I have not read since the 1970s.
But the professor makes no sense. Leftists are not bored. That s data free opinion.
Leftism is based on the belief that the world would be a better place if run by leftist “experts” who know better, on all subjects, than the riff raff (that would be us).
That belief in “experts” has been true for over a century. Rule by “experts” requires a lot of political power. Leftists get that political power by abusing a real crisis (Covid epidemic) or creating a fake crisis (climate change) to scare people. People with fear demand that their government “do something”. And with a leftist government, “do something” always leads to more government spending and mandates = more government power. Which has been the goal of leftists for over a century.
The author has expressed an opinion without seeking any data. That’s the easy way to write an article. The author did not bother to survey Climate Howlers and ask them why they believe in the climate religion. I have asked friends in Michigan about this for the past 25 years — all of them leftists of course. Conservative friends are not believers.
Here in Michigan the winters are much milder than in the 1970s. We have greatly benefitted from global warming. Everyone here with a brain realizes that. Last winter we had the least snow since I moved here in 1977. This winter so far has had even less snow — it rained last night.
The friends I have questioned are not bored people. They are busy people, with most still earning a living even after age 65. I retired at age 51, by far the earliest retirement in my crowd,
They all have a common characteristic: The Appeal to Authority logical fallacy. They all believer what leftist politicians and governments tell them about the future climate. And about Covid vaccines being safe and effective (they are the opposite). And everything bad claimed about Donald Trump. People smarter than richer than me, including millionaires and MIT computer engineering graduates — all repeating whatever the government tells them like trained parrots.
When I tell them their Michigan homes were under an ice glacier 20,000 years ago, which had melted by 10,000 years ago, NOT FROM CO2. they look at me like a deer in the headlights. And then change the subject. Cognitive dissonance — they can’t have that. When I tell them the current CO2 level is unusually low based on the CO2 range during the history of our planet, and that C3 plants prefer at least twice as much CO2 in the air, they don’t believe me. When I tell them greenhouses CO2 enrich to at least 1,000ppm CO2, they never heard of that.
In summary these generally bright people, almost all wealthier than me, living in bigger homes than me, and busier than retired lazy bum me, know nothing about climate science. All they “know” is climate scaremongering — predictions of climate doom, which are data-free, junk science. And it appears they will never find 10 minutes to learn any real climate science. They have all been brainwashed by climate scaremongers in the government and media.
However, much of even the Western world is still quite pragmatic when faced with a sufficiently obvious threat. Thus, the Biden ideological war on fossil fuels seems to have been effectively dropped as soon as Putin started trouble – USA production of oil and gas is rising steadily while that of coal seems stable. Europe, which used to get 40% of its gas from Russia, has weaned itself off it, in no time flat, by upping its imports of LNG to 100 million tons a year.
Admittedly, there may come a time for the UK when pragmatism is simply outweighed by the sheer awfulness of the woke madness.
“…at some point in the future, an educated elite would have nothing left to struggle for and will instead start to struggle against the very system that they themselves live in.”
At some point in the future? It’s happening already isn’t it?
“At some point in the future?”
The quoted prediction was made in 1942.
God save us from ‘Experts’ (in their own little World)?