Over the weekend, British media has been filled with footage of climate ‘activists’ from various tantrum groups (Animal Meltdown, Extinction Freakout, Just Stop Reality) defacing famous works of art, spoiling food in supermarkets and blocking roads. At the time of writing, another set of brave Jemimas and Ruperts have scaled the QE2 bridge, shutting down the Dartford Crossing, a key London commuter and transportation link.
It is a testament to the strength of the delusion these young people suffer from that they believe the way to shift public opinion on these issues in their favour is to prevent ordinary people from getting to work, destroying food and defacing world-renowned works of art.
We should, of course, acknowledge that, to some extent, it’s not their fault - they have been failed by an education system which indoctrinated them with the belief that the world is about to end, as well as their parents who neglected to explain to them that we live in a democracy where the path to achieving your political goals lies in persuading your fellow citizens to support your views, not in destroying things whose value you do not understand. Most of all, they have been let down by all manner of supposed adults who encouraged this ridiculous, counterproductive behaviour by worshipping at the feet of St Greta, instead of telling her to pipe down and go back to school.
One does not need to be a “climate denier”, and I certainly am not, to see that these tactics will do more to alienate ordinary people from the cause of environmentalism, including its legitimate and much-needed elements, than any “climate disinformation” ever could. But to focus on their posh accents, emotional incontinence and ignorance of reality is to miss the point.
The pandering to climate extremists in the pursuit of our sacred dream of Net Zero is not just silly or even costly - it’s suicidal. As Michael Shellenberger has repeatedly explained, the so-called “energy crisis” most Western countries are living through is entirely self-inflicted.
As he details in this brilliant thread, Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas is not the result of the fact that we have no gas. We have natural gas, and lots of it. Our dependence on Russia is a product of the fact that we refuse to produce it ourselves so that we can pretend to be green.
The fact that Vladimir Putin felt able to invade Ukraine in the knowledge that Germany and other European countries would be forced to weaken their stance due to his energy blackmail is a direct consequence of European countries foolishly shutting down their nuclear power stations, refusing to frack or engage in other activities that would provide our nations with energy security because this violates the sacred mantra of Net Zero.
I am not a climate scientist and have no wish to engage in the climate change debate. The issue of climate change is irrelevant to this discussion because even if climate change is the disaster we are being told, shipping the coal, oil and gas we use in from other countries instead of producing it ourselves will make the problem worse, not better. Even if ending the consumption of coal, oil and gas is an urgent priority, letting Russia and China take over the world will only make things worse because it is these countries that have absolutely no problem with burning coal, oil and gas. And, most of all, even if climate change is the risk we are being asked to believe it is, shutting down our nuclear power stations to go green seems as counterproductive as destroying food in a supermarket to “save the planet”.
The conversation we urgently need to have is not about climate change, it’s about the doomsday cult we are rapidly seeing unfold before our eyes. There is a reason that these ideas have taken root in the West, while governments in the rest of the world concentrate on things that actually matter to their citizens like boosting economic growth, reducing poverty, improving the quality of healthcare, scientific progress, food production, energy security and defence.
The malaise which has afflicted the minds of many Westerners is a familiar one. The End of Days narrative has so much macabre appeal that it has been predicted so many times throughout history it is impossible to count. At some level, many of us have been persuaded that our best days are behind us, and what’s more, we deserve it.
We have been too rich, too powerful, too colonial for too long. The time of reckoning is upon us. The footage of white people kneeling to BLM activists in the summer of 2020 which is doing the rounds on social media is a useful reminder of what this is all about.
The idea of “white guilt”, which is really Western guilt, has lodged itself firmly in our collective psyche and is blinding us to an obvious truth:
It is extraordinarily arrogant to think that we are the first generation of humans who cannot solve their own problems. No, our natural resources are not remotely running out. No, the changing climate isn’t going to end all life on earth and no, the solution to the issue of climate change is not to punish ourselves with poverty and insecurity.
We must shape a positive vision of our future which sees new human beings as potential sources of the solution, not a problem, a culture which recognises the vastness of human ingenuity in dealing with challenges and a society that is hellbent on human flourishing, not one that seeks to manage its own decline.
This Wednesday, we are releasing an interview with Marian Tupy on TRIGGERnometry which is extremely persuasive and inspiring on this subject. I hope you’ll join us.
Thank goodness for people like you, KK who are knowledgeable and down to earth about this. Greta and the complete morons demonstrating in the most childishly stupid and destructive way seem to fill the media with some kind of unwritten and unspoken right to frighten the hell out of us and indoctrinate everybody at their will. Why aren't more people like yourself on the news and so on, giving proper sensible, erudite reasons why this is a lot of bollocks?
Said perfectly KK. And people should follow Micheal Shellenberher too.