Climate change is the most important issue in the modern western political landscape. It is the ace in the pack against capitalism’s track record of prosperity and success, the ‘scientific’ proof of the evil of the one minority it’s still acceptable to hate – the businessmen. As long as this supposed impending doom is treated as gospel defenders of capitalism will appear like suicidal maniacs, willing to watch the world burn for a few percent off unemployment, a rise in wages or a higher stock market.

The left don’t actually have any unified plan of what they want. All they know is what they don’t want – capitalism. Climate change’s status as ‘settled science’ is hugely important to them because they need something to prove that political freedom is an untenable goal; not just to the extreme of free-market capitalism, but even the amount of freedom we have in mixed economies today. Gone are the days of the late twentieth century, when sundry western leftists viewed Soviet Russia and Red China as political systems to emulate; all they can do now is criticise, undermine, destroy, and say: “What do we want? We’ll figure that out later, all we know is it isn’t capitalism.”

To be clear, the mere fact that the left have a vested interest in believing in climate change doesn’t prove their theories wrong, any more than our vested interest proves us wrong – it merely shows the importance of the issue. Regardless, we must start with the concrete, scientific points that cause climate realists like myself to question the dogma:

(This is merely a brief overview – I will include links to further reading.)

One of cause of the popularity of climate alarmism is its pretence at empiricism. While the devotees of the movement fill up their six different bins and carry their reusable bags to the supermarkets, the climate scientists are producing endless reams of numbers and facts – much of it true, but none of it integrated into the bigger picture, or in some cases even relevant to the debate. Journalists write articles on the increase in wildfires in California, or the shrinking glaciers in one national park, skip the step of proving these are due to human activity, and blame capitalism. Then, when the green zealots hear someone question the dogma, they say: “he’s a science denier – look at all these numbers and graphs.” The sceptics are painted as irrational, science-denying crooks in the pockets of the oil industry – despite the fact that just about every climate alarmist could equally be accused of being ‘in the pockets’ of the government, which funds all their research and is all too happy to agree with the scientific ‘consensus’ if it means they can pass another carbon tax.

The modern belief in climate change is now almost completely faith based. Challenge a typical person on the welfare state, taxes or even healthcare, and they will at least attempt to provide an argument for their position, even if their argument only amounts to ‘what about the poor?’. Question the idea that climate change is on the verge of destroying civilisation and you are likely to be met with laughter or incredulity. Are these types of people all climate scientists who have read all the studies and reached their conclusions based on reason? The vast majority have not – they have simply read the headlines of a few news articles and accepted their premises over those of sceptical arguments on faith. “Trust the experts,” is the mantra, which is nothing more than a blatant appeal to authority.

The motivation of many believers, as mentioned earlier, is their virulent anti-capitalism, but the fundamental behind such a position is even more corrupt. Many alarmists are, as Ayn Rand argued, anti-human; these types gleefully announce how greed and selfishness will bring about our downfall, and they do not regard it a tragedy (assuming it’s true) that civilisation will have to change dramatically due to climate change. They seem to relish the coming disruption, with some past eco-fanatics even celebrating the potential “benefits” of epidemics wiping out much of the population (“As radical environmentalists, we can see AIDS not as a problem, but a necessary solution” – “until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along”). They detest any and all human influence on nature, denouncing even such innocent practices as the stacking of rocks on beaches (a “worrying trend” that “spoils” the landscape – “The first rule of the environment is leave no trace”). To them, nature is a value in and of itself that must be left untouched by man, regardless of any benefit doing so may bring to human life, and regardless of the fact that man’s method of survival is to adapt his environment to his needs. Animals can live as their nature dictates they must, but humans – they must exist as ghosts, never allowing their presence to spoil the perfection of nature.

Should it turn out that there is some truth to the claims of the climate alarmists, what should our response be? As argued by Alex Epstein in his book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, the response must be guided by philosophy, but not just any philosophy; it must be a philosophy that understands that man’s life is the standard of morality, not the unblemished perfection of rivers and forests, and that political freedom is a necessary condition for man to exercise the faculty that allows him to survive – his reason. Morality is nothing more than a guide to action, and such a guide is only needed for beings with a conceptual consciousness; with the ability to form principles and choose how to act. While water and sunlight are ‘good’ for plants, they have no need for a system of morality as they cannot choose their actions, and the existence of these plants, never mind rivers and marshes, is not a metaphysical ‘good’ that humans should preserve without reference to their own needs. To worship untouched nature as a moral goal apart from the needs of man is mysticism, plain and simple – and it should be no surprise to find these mystics arguing for force to be used to achieve their goals, as all mystics must do after abandoning reason. The advocation of political force through laws and regulations should be a last resort, not a knee-jerk response to flimsy data and fuzzy feelings for rocks and trees.

At times Alex Epstein is too focused on the abstract, as he was in his debate against leading climate scientist Bill Mckibben, in which he appeared somewhat like a reality-blind ideologue incapable of seeing the trees from the forest. But it is philosophy which is at the root of this issue, and his insight is important – we just need to fight the factual battle at the same time, never allowing the climate scientists to get away with their out of context data and bogus claims of ‘consensus’.

More than any other issue, it is climate change emboldening the left to become ever more radical. As James Delingpole argues, climate alarmists are like watermelons – green on the outside, but red on the inside. In other words, if you don’t want some kind of horrific eco-socialism taking over the Western world in the near future, this is a fight you must be involved in, and to do so you must be armed with the facts and the philosophy. Nothing less will do.

Arm yourself before it’s too late.

Further reading:

(I do not necessarily support everything contained in these sources)

Blogs:

https://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/

https://wattsupwiththat.com/

https://www.steynonline.com/

Books:

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/24475607-climate-change

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20821049-the-moral-case-for-fossil-fuels

Youtube: