Tackling the climate crisis means the end of capitalism as we know it
By Paul Homewood
The far left journalist, Paul Mason, reveals the real agenda behind the climate wars:
When John McDonnell announced plans to de-list the companies wilfully destroying the planet through unchecked carbon emissions, the response from the City was predictably hyperbolic. “Financial totalitarianism,” said one banker. “Kamikaze communism,” said the right-wing propaganda website Guido Fawkes.
Labour’s thinking on industrial, fiscal and central bank policy has taken a sharp green turn under the impact of the Extinction Rebellion protests, and last October’s IPCC report, which dramatically shortened the deadline for halving global carbon emissions. But it is not yet radical enough.
Climate change is a problem where — given the scale and the deadlines — nothing short of dramatic structural change in the way capitalism works can deliver the 2030 target of a 45 per cent cut in carbon emissions. To deliver the net-zero carbon emissions demanded by 2050 will require an economy so different from ours that we are unlikely to recognise it as capitalism.
Full story here. (You should be able to access 1 free article)
If McDonnell is not extreme enough, heaven help us all!
What Mason goes on to argue is that only a full scale, Stalinist central planning approach will work, with all investment and effectively spending directed from the centre.
Truly frightening, and well worth a read.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.
And this centralised control vision is completely supported by the majority of the global elite who see themselves ( and their future descendents) sitting above this , for ever.
Its been stated before by members of the UN, its nothing to do with climate its all to do with changing the econmic system. Now after 2008 and QE infinity its supported by $trillions.
I feel defeatist for saying this, but I’m glad I won’t be around to see this either come to fruition or fall in an orgy of violence.
Wrong attitude, Jim. You should be planning to outlive the bubble so you can tell people like him “I old you so.” I’m going for 100.
told!
ianprsy
I like “Old you so”. In context it’s very effective. LOL
The most spine-chilling paragraph is this one:
Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on human rights and poverty, spells out the consequences in a new report. Most of the human rights we today regard as universal will become negotiable: the right to life and the right to asylum, for example. And 50 years of development in the global South could be reversed.
If the right of life is negotiable, I don’t fancy capitalist’s chances of doing a successful negotiation in Mason’s world: it’ll be off to the gas chambers again as a final solution to the world’s climate problems.
And I don’t hold much hope for impoverished Africans either.
Philip Alston, brother of a former Australian Liberal (conservative) Party government minister, has flipped his lid:
“There is no shortage of alarm bells ringing over climate change, and an increase in biblical-level extreme weather events appear to be finally piercing through the noise …”.
That hyperbolic rhetoric borders on deranged.
The main reason this is utterly ludicrous is not the difficulty of switching the mind sets and structure of the last 300 years in the UK (which I would consider near impossible), it is the fact that this de-industrialisation has to repeated globally – and in third world areas where any such change would quickly result in a death toll so enormous as to be quite unthinkable.
Unthinkable to who?
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” (Maurice Strong)
“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.” (Michael Oppenheimer)
“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer.” (Paul Ehrlich. Draw your own conclusions!)
“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.” (Ted Turner)
“In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 per day.” (Jacques Cousteau,)
I could go on …
The Communists, Fascists and Nazis of Eastern Europe and in the West did not vapourise into nothingness when the Iron Curtain was demolished in 1989/90, they just lowered their profiles and ‘disappeared’ into convenient causes and organisations where they could survive, perhaps take a measure of quiet control and then await future opportunities.
A great mass of well-meaning other people, who do not really share their political beliefs and ambitions, have been taken in, believing for the best of reasons that they are merely doing something to help humanity and ‘the world’.
It will not go well.
The Limits to Growth and populations-must-be-reduced ideology are fascist legacies of the Nazis who wanted to subjugate the Volk. These Deep Green plots are believed by infantile (and wealthy) leftists, and implemented by legislation imposed (without due diligence or impact assessment) by idiotic and powerful parliamentarians.
Yes, Ariane, and there is that subtle combination of ‘moral’ (anything but moral in reality), social and psychological pressure put on Parliamentarians, Civil Servants, Local Authorities and the wider public to conform to ‘the accepted view’. If you are a questioner, a sceptic, a dissenter or rejector (all titles now wrapped up neatly in the label ‘denier’) you either keep quiet or face public opprobrium or even worse.
I hope it’s not going that way but there are signs that it could be a complete replay of Russia and eastern Europe, Italy and Germany from the period 1900 to 1990.
National socialism lies in a strange place between anti-prosperity and a death cult; confusing, because national socialists say anti-capitalist things so appear pro-poor whereas they are in reality people haters. Thus, Stalin and the Nazis and the Deep Greens share fascistic traits.
The ‘moral’ aspect – ‘save the planet’, ‘climate justice’, dying polar bears and coral reefs (they aren’t), rising sea levels and melting glaciers (due to long-term climactic, solar and cosmological reasons) – reveals the brilliant tactic behind the fascistic campaign to blame humans for these things, get us to feel guilty about our prosperity and very existence – and thus make us destroy this prosperity and the very lives of ordinary folk.
National socialism lies between the ideal communist state (red) where workers are in control of the means of production and the fascists’ death cult (green) where the state controls the means of production. Currently, the greens have convinced the reds (and our parliamentarians) that joining the death cult is right. As has been pointed out, China is red and China is not joining said death cult. The Chinese are the intelligent ones.
Thank you Paul (Homewood) between you and me and all others on this site, we already knew that, as you say Mason just affirms it.
It’s OK insofar as they are the opposition, although they all sign up to this madhouse green financial catastrophe…………what I’d really like to know, there are some 22 odd million car drivers, some 45 million workers and taxpayers – what do they really think?
When is the penny going to drop or, will it ever?
Indeed Athelstan and this just underlines what Christina Figueres said in 2015:
At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
As I say it needs some UK political party to commence making the counter argument ie the UK unilateral suicide note – the UK CCA 2008 and green agenda will fashion immiseration for a fat load of nothing unless back to the fields is the desired policy. Plus, notwithstanding that, the basic premise is a pack of lies, man made warbling.
Whom among the political claque has got the cojones to stand up and tell the truth?
TBP?
The vast majority of the population is ignorant and indifferent so we are basically doomed in this country. it is impossible to imagine what state we will be in 10 years from now with the triple threats of a no deal Brexit, a Corbyn communist government and the climate change crap allied to a disfunctional political system.
“The vast majority of the population is ignorant”
you do have a point but I’d qualify it, with,
The vast majority of the population is made and kept ignorant.
How is a No Deal Brexit a threat, particularly when it frees us from exactly the sort of thing you are worried about?
We will no longer have to go along with what a small group of unelected socialists want to do if we can muster enough votes – and with a split electorate 30% might give a decent majority. But that only works if that government can then make it’s own choices on things like energy policies.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
THE belief that Climate Change (aka Global Warming) is an “existential threat” requiring urgent action, is the product of McDonnell-esq propaganda and a dumbed-down education system
THE belief that the world can painlessly transition away from fossil fuels is the product of an affluent and spoilt society.
Yes, and dumbed down politicians.
Sounds to me like ” genocide” , no carbon means we all die!
If this is brought in at a singular national level it is doomed to failure as capital and not a few people will relocate to other countries. This needs to be a world initiative so good luck on that. It is correct in highlighting the left wing stance of the Green movement though. Its going to be a very uncomfortable transition in the next 30 years if the general populace stands for it which they won’t.
In a dream years ago I was carrying a stone from the corner of a large game board on the ground. I was taken to a moorland and I had to show the stone to a man who came to me. He read it, there were clicking sounds, then he translated the meaning of the stone to me, “To the survivor of your people say this: SURVIVE” For ages I wondered who I should give the message to, then I understood that we are ALL Survivors.
Mason used to be openly mocked (on air) by his colleagues on Newsnight for his unhinged “Wolfie Smith” approach to almost everything.
A peruse of his cv seems to hint that British journalism has an institutional problem with batshit super lefties being given jobs unrelated to their ability to actually do said job.
I wouldn’t demean clowns by comparing him to that noble occupation – he seems qualified to busk on pavements or push a broom around a fast food drive-through somewhere.
He will be given the BBC DG job when Corbyn’s crew get into No.10
I suspected parody at first, but finally had to accept that the authorship was real, and that the author must therefore be bonkers. A tragic who has accepted, hook, line and sinker, the most extreme hyperbole of watermelon environmentalism.
But the real tragedy is that he was serious. A man who claims to be an expert on Stalinism and its grotesque failures and cost in human lives, now proposes it as a solution to a non-existent problem.
Then he believes that the UK’s current lemming-like dash for economic self immolation on the alter of “climate emergency” will translate into a global movement with the other seven billion members of the human race clamouring for more poverty and government enslavement.
PS. On writing the above, I have had second thoughts; it has to be parody. No well-known journalist could be that plain, simple stupid.
stupid with political/social connections pays quite well by the look of it.
What would C4 News “Economics Editor” get – £80K + ?
Oh yes they are and they mostly work for The Guardian, sorry I mean Communist News.
“Climate change is a problem where — given the scale and the deadlines — nothing short of dramatic structural change in the way CAPITALISM works can deliver the 2030 target of a 45 per cent cut in carbon emissions”
Climate change is a problem where — given the scale and the deadlines — nothing short of dramatic structural change in the way SOCIALISM works can deliver the 2030 target of a 45 per cent cut in carbon emissions.
Climate change is a problem where — given the scale and the deadlines — NOTHING can work to deliver the 2030 target of a 45 per cent cut in carbon emissions!
45% of 40 billion tons annually in 10 years? 1,800 million tons a year???
I’m intrigued. These proposals will collapse any ability for people to earn money. So where does he think that the money to pay for this will come from?
All Marxists know well that, money grows on trees but if, they shove all the trees into chippers to burn for lecky – wot then?
Oh, er, no trees, we’ll all be pushing up daisies by then.
If he understood economics he wouldn’t be a communist so he has no idea of how this will be paid for.
‘Climate change is a problem where nothing short of dramatic structural change in the way capitalism works can deliver the 2030 target’
Note that he doesn’t define ‘climate change.’ We’re just supposed to know what it means, and be scared.
With the possible exception of the Sahel, no climate on earth is changing. None. ‘Climate change’ is phony baloney plastic banana fakery. Yet there are people who will sacrifice everything to fight it.
It would be nice if someone asked us whether we mind. Compared to this, Brexit is a minor concern. We need a people’s vote.
May committed us to net Zero in the hope that her legacy might be that she saved the world, which would be a far bigger story for her memoirs than “I dropped the Brexit ball”.
Happily, it seems the House of Lords is none too impressed with her stuffing it through the HoC with no impact assessment.
Hopefully it’s on it’s way back to the Commons for a proper debate in which case the real cost should be exposed, along with May’s duplicity.
I take heart from the several billions who have never heard of the IPCC nor ‘climate change ‘ and couldn’t give a toss about the Paris Agreement. They’ll go on using fossil fuels and building coal fired power stations and the CO2 level will go on creeping up and the planet will cool and all these lefty liberal snowflakes will run for cover somewhere. Btw has anyone seen an alarmist/ lefty on a hard hat? Tell me if you have.
Hmmm . . . is burning dried dung considered ‘net zero?’
This stuff is not original – Maurice Srtong said as much at the Earth Summit in Rio 1992. Mason is just warming it up.
You can’t destroy capitalism just as you can’t destroy the thermodynamic laws.
Even states and governments have to adhere to the principles of capitalism if they wish to survive.
If you ignore capitalism and it’s principles all you are left with is coercion. A recipe for disaster.
Try and wrest Russia’s newly found Capitalism from them and there will be a screaming match.
Mason is a complete, total and utter fruitloop.
There is nothing “left-wing” about taking strategic control of infrastructure, energy and resources to fight a long-range war on a strategic threat. = Paul Mason
https://www.channel4.com/news/by/paul-mason/blogs/needed-radical-plan-deal-turbulent-climate
Has he told the EU?
You can’t destroy what has not existed for nearly 100 years. Capitalsm, in the sense it was applied at the beginning of the Industrial revolution started to die in the 1850s, when the second Companies Act handed limited liability and the right to steal with no fear of punishment to every thief and rogue. We live in a world that has made no significant progress in primary technologies since 1913. Those worthy pioneers that built the canals, railroads and sanitary infrastructure were able to do so, because we had the Joint Stock Acts, unlimited liability and debtor’s prison to control the worst elements in society. Without such sensible regulation of human behaviour you have the current ‘fake’ Capitalism of speculative markets, junk corporations pushing economically worthless products, wasting resource on a monumental scale. The Companies Act of 1856 led directly to the Great Crash of 1873. Europe had recovered by the 1880s but America was still mired in recession in the 1890s, because of its ‘robber baron’ perverted version of ‘capitalism’. This was based not on ‘wealth generation’ but ‘wealth transfer’, monopoly capitalism rooted in asset overvaluation, overvaluation of stock values and the brulal destruction of competitive business by any means.
And it is this brutal version of the ‘capitalist ideal’ largely invented by Karl Marx, that dominates today. It is neither efficient in terms of resource utilisation, nor is it capable of real technical advance. Because, like the ‘communist’ system it is dominated by a largely worthless elite, grown fat and lazy living off the benefits of the ‘markets’ and vastly inflated real estate values.
There is nothing ‘capitalist’ about these people – they are closer to a commercial dictatorship than capitalist and if we wish to escape from this lose-lose condition, then the reintroduction of market regulation is the only thing that will save us.
Good analysis, Mervyn.
It is all OK . Do not panic. Capitalism is going to be saved. To the rescue in the nick of time.
We have the new superhero the CLIMATE BONDS initiative. That is going to inject one Trillion per year and growing. https://www.climatebonds.net
With the support of The UK Foreign Office plus lots of Banks.
Forgot the Junk Bonds or those nasty derivatives and default swaps.
These nice clean and green Climate Bonds will see that the right investments are made and that your tax is well spent. What could possibly go wrong.
So all is well that ends well.
“Forgot the Junk Bonds or those nasty derivatives and default swaps.
These nice clean and green Climate Bonds will see that the right investments are made and that your tax is well spent. What could possibly go wrong.”
AND, gulp! do not pass go, plummet and straight into financial cataclysm and of course to invoking Murphy’s law?
Score one for the masters of the universe PTII, the wet dream of the investment banksters and another crazy ponzi scheme but this one’s green – manky and rotten, already I can smell the stink of a very putrid ‘green deal’ – the return. And the other problem, we the investors NB taxes impost! are enforced to fund it.
It’s going to be a ‘howl’, in scream of pain, pretty what Munch was trying to depict.
“It’s going to be a ‘howl’, in scream of pain, pretty what Munch was trying to depict.”
It has ever been moot as to whether Munch was depicting someone screaming or reacting to hearing a scream. However it exactly captures my dual response of both screaming at, and in response to hearing any more of, all the alarmist bullshit.
One point that no one has mentioned is that the state controlled communist countries already exist and they are not saving us from CO2 emissions. For example China currently emits 28% of world emissions and has no intention of slowing down.
Watermelons. Green on the outside, red on the inside.
This has been the actual strategy from day one. Seize government control of energy, and you control industrial output and the entire economy.
I’m only glad to see someone finally admit what we’ve long known to be true.
Seems more like fascism to me. Fascism is state control of the means of production. Communism (red) is workers’ control of the means of production.
As stated earlier, Ariane, both degenerate into control by a self-elected elite who consider themselves fitted by education and belief to govern. Both are doomed to fail. There was little sign of ‘communism’ in the USSR in the 1980s when I watched an ‘apparatchik’ followed by three baggage carts of boxed Western electronic ‘goodies’ march through the ‘dignitaries’ channel at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow… Workers in the USSR had as little control of the means of production as those in the West. But everyone had a ‘job’ – our friends form Latvia were astounded at unemployment in Thatcher’s (‘fascist’) Britain. ‘What! Not even a little job??’. The shops were empty, but a large loaf was 25 kopecs. And education was free, public transport very cheap and museums and art galleries excellent. But the means of production was completely under state control, controlled by GOSPLAN, which followed the management philosophy of F.W.Taylor who Henry Ford worshipped… So, there was not the thickness of a piece of paper between the two systems except where the output was focused. And even here, both poured huge resource into a ‘cold war’ which neither side could win – witness the stand-off today and the rising threat of a return to the fascist posturing of the 1930s. And we all know how that ended…..
Who is he to say what we “need”?
He confuses what he wants with some impossible objective stat emendations of need, like any common or garden fascist.
Free markets and democracy are under concerted attack by the Left using a spurious “Climate Emergency” as cover, and the hopeless, craven Tories help them. I
I should like to say “Baizuo” to Mr. Mason.
Baizuo（白左，White Leftists）is a popular Mainland Chinese term coined for a specific subset of Westerners who are despised by most Chinese for their pretentiousness, hypocritical behavior and an overbearing sense of entitlement.
Baizuos are mostly characterized by their heavy use of political correctness and double standards to covertly advance their own material or emotional interests at the expense of others, while claiming otherwise from a self-assumed superior moral position. Some are truly non-malicious, but are too naive or lack the worldview to provide useful opinions or solutions to real societal problems.
Since most of these group is white （白）and left-(liberal) leaning（左）, and thus the name.
See: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=baizuo Def. (2)
Pronunciation
bái
白
zuǒ
左
“Bye ZhooO”
https://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/pinyin.html
Lenin himself was very critical of many leftists. See his short book ‘Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder.’
A lot of this talk about capitalism is irrelevant. Fact is that about fifty percent of (certainly white western) humanity has the “god gene” which demands a faith. Since the spiritual religions have been exposed as meaningless, involuntary human behaviour is driving those with this gene (I forget its number, but just google “god gene”) to find a substitute and climate change worship ticks all the boxes. Paul Mason is visibly and audibly a carrier of the gene and sees himself as a high priest (previously shaman). There’s a long way to go yet.
It’s been the goal from inception (eradicating capitalism), why are people surprised by this comment?