When one looks at the suicidal idiocy of Germany's energy policy in which they turn off nuclear plants in favour of coal power plants during an energy crisis and ongoing European war, this point of yours becomes fully tangible: "if climate advocates cannot be trusted to see a policy that is one of the safest, most impactful for emissions, and guarantee of energy independence, right in front of their eyes, can the be trusted with other policies?" However, when one also looks at (1) the myopic Scapegoating of ruminant farming and psychotic calls for herd culling in Netherlands and Ireland during a global food crisis in which increasing millions are starving and undernourished worldwide (2) the relentless fervour of bourgeois activists who don't seem to give a toss about poorer people unless they are far flung "noble savages" (3) the cowardly and arrogant suppression of debate on important topics through the use of slurs like "climate denier" which plays off the emotional weight of "Holocaust denier", a larger trend emerges.
We are living through a quasi-religious moral panic of which alarmist Climatism is but one manifestation. Rainbow Reich Victimism is another. As was totalitarian Covidianism. Just as nature abhors a physical vacuum, human nature abhors a metaphysical one. The God shaped hole will be filled with something. And on this, the successful European right is offering a much brighter vision for life and for the future than the left: a vision based typically on faith, family, and flag. Leftist trope visions for the future involving bug protein, lab grown goo burgers, car-less "15 minute cities", and the indoctrination of children into identifying as asexual ghosts that go on to get surgically mutilated and chemically castrated are not so attractive to normie working people. The left has a lot of work to do. Nice piece again man 👌
It is certainly part of the wider trend of the way Left/liberals seem to go about pursuing relevant causes, which is to say badly, with seemingly little idea of how to persuade and build consensus. There is a form of quasi-Marxist element to the filling of the God-shaped hole, which has long been an issue on the far Left anyway and particularly with communism, i.e., Marxist-Leninist theories as "Science", with its disastrous consequences (e.g., the Holodomor in Ukraine).
Unlike other Left/liberal shibboleths pertaining to more subjectivist issues (e.g., sex/gender theories), my biggest issue with the approach to climate issues is that it is unequivocally a pending disaster. The data supporting an anthropomorphic climate change, beyond natural fluctuations alone, is overwhelming. And the consequences of inaction are beginning to manifest (an example I saw recently from Prof Eliot Jacobson was that the Antarctic sea ice extent is 6 SD's below the 1991-2020 mean).
The fallout will be most calamitous in the Global South and equatorial countries, spilling into a surge of climate refugees that will likely provide the fodder for the further surge of the farther Right in Europe. And as much as I am frustrated by the failings of the Left, the prospect of a Europe under the far-Right is far more worrying to me than eating meat grown in a lab.
The fact that they continue to waste time on the types of identity issues that have no salience with voters is a tragedy of their own making. Ignoring the working class is their major own goal. They're ceding the high ground at a time when we need solutions, and I'll never be able to quite understand how or why this "Left" thinks it is a functioning political movement.
I'll have to meditate on that lab-goo meat vs "far-right" preference 🤔😂
Jokes aside, I largely agree. However, the carbon cat appears to be out of the bag when one sees the reality of increasing numbers of Chinese coal power plants (almost a new one opened each week) alongside Indian and African power demands. What little old Europe does with "renewables" (which are often made by Chinese factories which strengthen the CCP and dependent on African quasi-slavery) or burping ruminants seems to be approaching mere commentary in terms of contribution to global totals. A key component of what will allow the global south to navigate whatever weather changes are coming will be their economic development for which natural gas and other carbon products will be required in the short to medium term (until some awesome new tech in invented or Small Modular Reactors live up to the hype). This is something that lads like Michael Shellenberger, Bjorn Lomborg, and Steve Koonin argue for very well. Huge chunks of Holland, after all, have been underwater for 4 centuries and they are nice and dry 😝.
Bias wise, I am honestly far more concerned in the near-medium term with mass starvation due to nuclear weapon induced sudden global cool--for which NOBODY in power has a plan for--than gradual global warming which gets disproportionate large amounts of attention (when compared to pandemic vulnerability or nuclear war).
But yes, "the Left" need to get their act together and fast.
Also, I'd highly recommend reading Michael Schellenberger's "Apocalypse Never". He makes a really strong case for natural gas and nuclear as well as the need for the economic development of the less well off in the struggle to navigate climate issues.
I think the issue you're raising speaks to a contradiction (or example of cognitive dissonance) at the heart of the post-60s Left: one one hand (or brain sphere) constructing plans for a more fair and compassionate world to raise and benefit those at the bottom of the social pyramid and styling your cohort as the enlightened leaders of the future; but on the other hand, basically saying "I love you, you're perfect—now change" to all those you propose to lead, and never not gazing down in scorn at the tastes, beliefs and arrangements of the lesser orders, who may not know much but know when they're being condescended to.
If the future of society/politics depends upon the upscale globalist Left dropping their scorn for anyone not like them, then we're all truly fucked: as much as these people want to hog assets and accolades, they want to hog virtue even more.
History is filled with episodes of various priests and true believers preferring to go down with the ship and jump in the fire rather than renounce the holy cause (and the halo of being god's chosen one aka moral superiority), and I see no reason to think this will be any different.
That contradiction is precisely the worm at the core for the post-60's Left. We could probably attribute it to the dynamic shift in the counterculture revolution, where the Left shifted from a movement of labour and class, to a movement of intellect and institutions. What Thomas Piketty termed the "Brahmin Left", a new priestly caste of the enlightened. And I share your lack of optimism for why this will be any different, I don't see any sort of trajectory on the Left that makes me think otherwise. They'll just shout at the Plebs while the world, literally, begins to burn.
Such an awesome read again, Alan, thanks a lot for sharing your astute and comprehensive thoughts in such a masterful and thought-provoking way! Could not agree more on each and every detail, all of which can definitely be observed e.g. in Germany (where I am from), where the rise of a far-right, xenophobic, mostly pro-Russian AfD, rejecting the climate crisis, and, as you astutely observed, looking for "strong leadership" (heard all this before :( ), is deeply worrying and dangerous! And yet, Conservatives seem to concentrate on tearing down the firewall against AfD, rather than providing any solutions, the Greens as well as climate activists unfortunately tend to leave the social question out of the equation (as you described so well), while Liberals are blocking each attempt, crying for "individual freedom (to drive faster than 100km/h)", "no more prohibitions", etc. (very simply put, of course). What all of them seem to have in common, and I love that you bring this up here, is the way they use TheScience™ for their own narratives and means, for marketing, taking science and "evidence" ad absurdum, instead of concentrating on the burning issues right in front of us.
"How have we learned nothing from the past 3 years about the limits of TheScience™ as means of persuasion?" and also, "That requires dismounting the very high horse, dropping TheScience™ browbeating, and speaking directly to the discontents seething among the strata of Europe shattered by nearly two decades of failed economic theorising and faltering politics." Yes, so much yes! Thank you, definitely already recommended this brillant piece (as well as your Substack profile)!
When one looks at the suicidal idiocy of Germany's energy policy in which they turn off nuclear plants in favour of coal power plants during an energy crisis and ongoing European war, this point of yours becomes fully tangible: "if climate advocates cannot be trusted to see a policy that is one of the safest, most impactful for emissions, and guarantee of energy independence, right in front of their eyes, can the be trusted with other policies?" However, when one also looks at (1) the myopic Scapegoating of ruminant farming and psychotic calls for herd culling in Netherlands and Ireland during a global food crisis in which increasing millions are starving and undernourished worldwide (2) the relentless fervour of bourgeois activists who don't seem to give a toss about poorer people unless they are far flung "noble savages" (3) the cowardly and arrogant suppression of debate on important topics through the use of slurs like "climate denier" which plays off the emotional weight of "Holocaust denier", a larger trend emerges.
We are living through a quasi-religious moral panic of which alarmist Climatism is but one manifestation. Rainbow Reich Victimism is another. As was totalitarian Covidianism. Just as nature abhors a physical vacuum, human nature abhors a metaphysical one. The God shaped hole will be filled with something. And on this, the successful European right is offering a much brighter vision for life and for the future than the left: a vision based typically on faith, family, and flag. Leftist trope visions for the future involving bug protein, lab grown goo burgers, car-less "15 minute cities", and the indoctrination of children into identifying as asexual ghosts that go on to get surgically mutilated and chemically castrated are not so attractive to normie working people. The left has a lot of work to do. Nice piece again man 👌
It is certainly part of the wider trend of the way Left/liberals seem to go about pursuing relevant causes, which is to say badly, with seemingly little idea of how to persuade and build consensus. There is a form of quasi-Marxist element to the filling of the God-shaped hole, which has long been an issue on the far Left anyway and particularly with communism, i.e., Marxist-Leninist theories as "Science", with its disastrous consequences (e.g., the Holodomor in Ukraine).
Unlike other Left/liberal shibboleths pertaining to more subjectivist issues (e.g., sex/gender theories), my biggest issue with the approach to climate issues is that it is unequivocally a pending disaster. The data supporting an anthropomorphic climate change, beyond natural fluctuations alone, is overwhelming. And the consequences of inaction are beginning to manifest (an example I saw recently from Prof Eliot Jacobson was that the Antarctic sea ice extent is 6 SD's below the 1991-2020 mean).
The fallout will be most calamitous in the Global South and equatorial countries, spilling into a surge of climate refugees that will likely provide the fodder for the further surge of the farther Right in Europe. And as much as I am frustrated by the failings of the Left, the prospect of a Europe under the far-Right is far more worrying to me than eating meat grown in a lab.
The fact that they continue to waste time on the types of identity issues that have no salience with voters is a tragedy of their own making. Ignoring the working class is their major own goal. They're ceding the high ground at a time when we need solutions, and I'll never be able to quite understand how or why this "Left" thinks it is a functioning political movement.
I'll have to meditate on that lab-goo meat vs "far-right" preference 🤔😂
Jokes aside, I largely agree. However, the carbon cat appears to be out of the bag when one sees the reality of increasing numbers of Chinese coal power plants (almost a new one opened each week) alongside Indian and African power demands. What little old Europe does with "renewables" (which are often made by Chinese factories which strengthen the CCP and dependent on African quasi-slavery) or burping ruminants seems to be approaching mere commentary in terms of contribution to global totals. A key component of what will allow the global south to navigate whatever weather changes are coming will be their economic development for which natural gas and other carbon products will be required in the short to medium term (until some awesome new tech in invented or Small Modular Reactors live up to the hype). This is something that lads like Michael Shellenberger, Bjorn Lomborg, and Steve Koonin argue for very well. Huge chunks of Holland, after all, have been underwater for 4 centuries and they are nice and dry 😝.
Bias wise, I am honestly far more concerned in the near-medium term with mass starvation due to nuclear weapon induced sudden global cool--for which NOBODY in power has a plan for--than gradual global warming which gets disproportionate large amounts of attention (when compared to pandemic vulnerability or nuclear war).
But yes, "the Left" need to get their act together and fast.
Also, I'd highly recommend reading Michael Schellenberger's "Apocalypse Never". He makes a really strong case for natural gas and nuclear as well as the need for the economic development of the less well off in the struggle to navigate climate issues.
I think the issue you're raising speaks to a contradiction (or example of cognitive dissonance) at the heart of the post-60s Left: one one hand (or brain sphere) constructing plans for a more fair and compassionate world to raise and benefit those at the bottom of the social pyramid and styling your cohort as the enlightened leaders of the future; but on the other hand, basically saying "I love you, you're perfect—now change" to all those you propose to lead, and never not gazing down in scorn at the tastes, beliefs and arrangements of the lesser orders, who may not know much but know when they're being condescended to.
If the future of society/politics depends upon the upscale globalist Left dropping their scorn for anyone not like them, then we're all truly fucked: as much as these people want to hog assets and accolades, they want to hog virtue even more.
History is filled with episodes of various priests and true believers preferring to go down with the ship and jump in the fire rather than renounce the holy cause (and the halo of being god's chosen one aka moral superiority), and I see no reason to think this will be any different.
That contradiction is precisely the worm at the core for the post-60's Left. We could probably attribute it to the dynamic shift in the counterculture revolution, where the Left shifted from a movement of labour and class, to a movement of intellect and institutions. What Thomas Piketty termed the "Brahmin Left", a new priestly caste of the enlightened. And I share your lack of optimism for why this will be any different, I don't see any sort of trajectory on the Left that makes me think otherwise. They'll just shout at the Plebs while the world, literally, begins to burn.
Such an awesome read again, Alan, thanks a lot for sharing your astute and comprehensive thoughts in such a masterful and thought-provoking way! Could not agree more on each and every detail, all of which can definitely be observed e.g. in Germany (where I am from), where the rise of a far-right, xenophobic, mostly pro-Russian AfD, rejecting the climate crisis, and, as you astutely observed, looking for "strong leadership" (heard all this before :( ), is deeply worrying and dangerous! And yet, Conservatives seem to concentrate on tearing down the firewall against AfD, rather than providing any solutions, the Greens as well as climate activists unfortunately tend to leave the social question out of the equation (as you described so well), while Liberals are blocking each attempt, crying for "individual freedom (to drive faster than 100km/h)", "no more prohibitions", etc. (very simply put, of course). What all of them seem to have in common, and I love that you bring this up here, is the way they use TheScience™ for their own narratives and means, for marketing, taking science and "evidence" ad absurdum, instead of concentrating on the burning issues right in front of us.
"How have we learned nothing from the past 3 years about the limits of TheScience™ as means of persuasion?" and also, "That requires dismounting the very high horse, dropping TheScience™ browbeating, and speaking directly to the discontents seething among the strata of Europe shattered by nearly two decades of failed economic theorising and faltering politics." Yes, so much yes! Thank you, definitely already recommended this brillant piece (as well as your Substack profile)!