The history of climatism, Part 20
Crying climate scientist day and the misallocation of capital
“We are effectively redistributing world wealth through climate policy. That the owners of coal and oil are not enthusiastic, is obvious. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy.”
—Ottmar Edenhofer (b. 1961), German economist and one of the world's leading experts on climate change policy [1]
Part 19 ended with a 2023 estimate that climate policy will cost US taxpayers an average of about $2.3m per job per year.
2024
Europe’s highest human rights court ruled that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change, siding with a group of older, Greenpeace-sponsored Swiss women against their government in a landmark ruling. The court ruled that Switzerland “had failed to comply with its duties” to combat climate change and meet emissions targets. The court said that Switzerland violated the women’s rights, noting that the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees people “effective protection by the state authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health, well-being and quality of life.” A group called Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose average age is 74, had argued that they were particularly affected because older women are most vulnerable to the extreme heat that is becoming more frequent. [2]
The legal commission of the upper house in Switzerland recommended ignoring the ruling by a vote of 10 to 3. The Swiss government accepted the advice. The Swiss seem contemptuous of Greenpeace-funded judicial activism.
The Biden Administration launched the American Climate Corps to train young people in clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience skills. Some, including your author, thought the advertisement with Joe Biden, AOC, and Ed Markey was an AI-generated parody because the three were made look silly. It wasn’t a parody.
“When socialism comes into power, the Roman Church will advocate socialism with the same vigor [with which] it is now favoring feudalism and slavery.”
—August Bebel (1840-1913), German socialist politician [5]
Pope Francis told CBS News in an interview that climate change deniers are “stupid” to refute compelling evidence of a climate emergency. (This wasn’t an AI-generated parody either.) He also said that any scepticism regarding an alleged “climate emergency” is “perverse.” (This was an interesting choice of words, given that some psychiatrists claim that from all the sexual perversions known to man, celibacy is the most perverse. Although, in all fairness, the Vatican does not hold a monopoly on paedophilia.) [9]
Pope Francis has been a vocal advocate for the war on climate change, calling global warming “one of the most serious and worrying phenomena of our time” and urging “drastic measures” to combat it. “While the situation is not good and the planet is suffering, the window of opportunity is still open,” he warned. [3]
A study, The economic commitment of climate change, was published in Nature by researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, also known as PIK, a non-profit organization funded by the German government. It claims that loss of productivity because of climate change could result in a 19% reduction in the world economy by 2049. Despite the number being significantly higher than previous studies, the authors claim their numbers are conservative and could be as high 29% of the global GDP. To almost no one’s surprise, climate activists were quick to latch onto the study, calling for more aggressive measures to prevent climate change and government-funded mitigation efforts.
“A lie just needs to be repeated often enough. Then it will be believed.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), German propaganda expert, among other things [4]
A report, Weather extremes in historical context, was published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) that challenges the popular belief that weather extremes are more common and more intense today because of climate change: “The popular but mistaken belief that today’s weather extremes are more common and more intense because of climate change is becoming deeply embedded in the public consciousness, thanks to a steady drumbeat of articles in the mainstream media and pronouncements by world leaders. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose reports had until recently served as the authority on climate science and as a voice of restraint on weather extremes, has shifted its stance.”
“The precise moment at which a great belief is doomed is easily recognisable; it is the moment when its value begins to be called in question. Every general belief being little else than a fiction, it can only survive on the condition that it be not subjected to examination.”
—Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), French polymath [7]
The Guardian in the UK published a survey of 380 of the “world’s leading climate experts”. The title was “They are terrified, but determined to keep fighting.” The “keep fighting” in the title, of course, revealed that the interviewees were activists, not scientists. The newspaper contacted every available lead author or review editor of all IPCC reports since 2018, reaching 380 out of 843 activist-scientists. The main conclusions were:
- 77% believe global temperatures will reach at least 2.5C above preindustrial levels;
- 42% think it will be more than 3C;
- only 6% think the 1.5C limit will be achieved.
The following quotes sum up the tone of the survey well.
“Sometimes it is almost impossible not to feel hopeless and broken. After all the flooding, fires, and droughts of the last three years worldwide, all related to climate change, and after the fury of Hurricane Otis in Mexico, my country, I really thought governments were ready to listen to the science, to act in the people’s best interest…
I got a depression [from a meeting in Singapore]. It was a very dark point in my life. I was unable to do anything and was just sort of surviving.”
—Ruth Cerezo-Mota, an expert in climate modelling at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, The Guardian, 8 May 2024
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools” said another activist who chose not to be named.
One author from whatsupwiththat.com suggested a “crying climate scientist day” as a response to the survey. An academic, writing in Nature, put it best:
“I am concerned by climate scientists becoming climate activists, because scholars should not have a priori interests in the outcome of their studies. Likewise, I am worried about activists who pretend to be scientists, as this can be a misleading form of instrumentalization.”
—Ulf Büntgen, Nature, 8 May 2024 [8]
The funny thing about the quote above is that the author, Ulf Büntgen, co-authored an alarmist paper published in Nature claiming that the summer of 2023 was the warmest in the Northern Hemisphere in over two millennia (based on Michael Mann-like tree-ring data) and emphasizing the urgency of implementing international agreements to reduce carbon emissions, framing recent temperature extremes as clear evidence of anthropogenic climate change. The BBC, of course, picked up on the latter of Büntgen’s papers:
Charles Rotter from whatsupwiththat.com, the climate change sceptic website, in an article titled Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Ulf Bünten, wrote in May 2024: “This ideological capture of academia has fueled the narrative of an urgent need to address climate change. This urgency is more about political agendas than scientific necessity. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for instance, has been criticized for overstating the certainty of anthropogenic warming relative to natural climate variability. The IPCC’s summaries for policymakers often present a simplified and sometimes alarmist view of climate science, which can distort public perception and policy debates. This tendency to “sell” climate science as a crisis requiring immediate and drastic action can lead to the implementation of policies that are not justified by the underlying science.”
Bill McGuire (b. 1954), the British volcanologist, had an idea to solve climate change.
The idea circles back to Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb from 1968. The tweet was deleted shortly after publication but found its way into the public domain anyway. It’s consistent with Prince Philip’s 1980s wish to be reincarnated as a virus to “solve” population bomb problems and all other like-minded “ideas” by deep-ecologists and ecocide-fanatics. A view that climate change is really about overpopulation is not that uncommon among climate activists, intellectuals, and royals alike. The topic is regularly brought up in Davos in January.
“No one should ever listen to John Kerry. He has an uncanny ability to never be in doubt but to always be wrong.”
—US Oil & Gas Association, X, 5 December 2023
The World Bank published a report titled Recipe for a Livable Planet: Achieving Net Zero Emissions in the Agrifood System. From the abstract: “The global agrifood system has been largely overlooked in the fight against climate change. Yet, greenhouse gas emissions from the agrifood system are so big that they alone could cause the world to miss the goal of keeping global average temperatures from rising above 1.5 centigrade compared to preindustrial levels. Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood must be cut to net zero by 2050 to achieve this goal.”
The paper promotes a troubling confidence in the efficacy of sweeping regulatory changes, disregarding the diverse agricultural practices that have been honed by local farmers over centuries. Dutch farmers will not be pleased. Charles Rotter, a contributor to whatsupwiththat.com, concluded his assessment of the report as follows: “At the very least the pursuit of such grandiose plans should be viewed with skepticism and caution, as history has repeatedly shown that the road to disaster is often paved with well-intentioned global initiatives.”
“Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools.”
—August Bebel (1840-1913), German socialist politician [6]
Keffiyeh-wearing Greta Thunberg was arrested at the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Sweden. It turned out that she not only despises capitalists but Jews too.
The people of Mexico thought it was a good idea to elect an IPCC lead author to run the country. Shareholders of Mexican shares thought differently:
Shell shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a climate resolution filed by an activist group. The resolution was filed by activist shareholder Follow This and was backed by 27 investors that collectively have about $4 trillion under management. The resolution only received 18.6% support, compared with just over 20% in 2023. In March, Shell watered down its energy transition targets. It also dropped its goal of a 45% reduction by 2035, citing “uncertainty in the pace of change in the energy transition”.
The practical relevance for investors is that “peak ESG” might be behind us, and we are now entering some “ESG unwind” phase. This would mean ideology is replaced with reason. It could mean that favouring efficient energy sources over inefficient energy sources reduces the cost of capital, while any form of greenwashing ideology increases it.
Antonio Guterres, UN’s fearmonger-in-chief, outed himself as an AC/DC fan by starting his speech at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in June with the following sentence: “We are playing Russian roulette with our planet and we need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell.”
The Heritage Foundation published a report titled Global Warming: Observations vs. Climate Models. It found that the warming of the global climate system over the past half-century has averaged 43 per cent less than that produced by computerized climate models used to promote changes in energy policy.
British cartoonist Josh described the day of a BBC climate journalist in just one cartoon:
The government of New Zealand rolled back its environmental reforms in a bid to boost the flailing economy and fulfil promises made to voters. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s centre-right coalition announced it would reverse a ban on oil and gas exploration, push the pricing of agricultural emissions back five years and encourage more mining. The farmers said the environmental policies that are being reversed would have made dairy and meat too expensive to produce.
The AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), a relatively new right-wing political party in Germany, where some members openly espouse ethno-nationalist and xenophobic views, won 33% of the votes in an election in Thuringia and 31% in Saxony, both federal states formerly in East Germany. While the victory is mainly a response to the government's failing the Merkel-induced-more-the-merrier immigration policies, it is also related to climatism. Most Germans know by now that their energy policy is not the pinnacle of energy policy wisdom. Degrowth ideology and the de-industrialisation that goes with it are not to everyone’s liking in Germany. The Green Party, the party of 7-meter-sea-level-rise Annalena Baerbock, got 3% and 5% of the votes, respectively.
(Illustration: UPSTREAM/RYTIS DAUKANTAS)
Ed Miliband (b. 1969), the UK’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, made quite a splash with his green energy policies. His agenda includes plans to quadruple offshore wind power, triple solar energy, and double onshore wind by 2030. He also approved massive solar farms and called for a "rooftop revolution," urging homeowners to install solar panels to cut bills and combat climate change.
Some accuse Miliband of having a "green crusader" complex, recklessly throwing the UK into a whirlwind of expensive policies. But Miliband insists that his plan will lead to long-term savings for the British public by weaning the nation off volatile fossil fuel markets.
Biden-worshipping Rachel Reeves, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, plans to raise overall taxes on UK’s North Sea oil and gas producers to 78%, the highest of any sector, and strip the industry of tax allowances. In recent years, the House of Clowns has achieved what Hugo Chavez did for Venezuela: become an oil-rich importer of oil.
Someone on the internet did this shortly after the new administration in the UK started applying their wisdom:
The US House of Representatives passed a package of bills targeting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing in retirement accounts as Republicans rail against so-called “woke” policies.
The House voted 217-206 on the RETIRE Act (H.R. 5339) against ESG consideration in retirement plans. The legislation, a response to Biden administration policies that made it easier for conscious investing in 401(k) plans, would reinstate Trump-era policies by putting restrictions on those investments…
“Financial institutions have become more brazen in professing partisan and ideological preferences while investing Americans’ hard-earned retirement savings,” said Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.), the bill’s sponsor, during a House floor debate. “The last thing hardworking taxpayers need is for their retirement savings to be depleted due to politically motivated mismanagement.” [10]
A group of climate activists, including Michael Mann from Climategate fame, predicted the busiest hurricane season in the US with 33 storms in 2024.
There were 7.
Joe Biden reiterated that, among other things, climate remains a risk at the UN General Assembly in NY on 24 September 2024:
“I recognize the challenges from Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan and beyond: war, hunger, terrorism, brutality, record displacement of people, a climate crisis, democracy at risk, strains within our societies, the promise of artificial intelligence and its significant risks. The list goes on.”
—Joe Biden (b. 1942), American politician currently running the United States
Shortly after Biden’s speech, Javier Milei, the Argentine PM, called the end of climatism at the UN General Assembly:
“The 2030 Agenda, although well-intentioned in its goals, is nothing more than a supranational government program with a socialist slant…
If the 2023 Agenda failed, as its own promoters acknowledge, the answer should be to ask ourselves if it was not an ill-conceived program to begin with.”
—Javier Milei (b. 1970), Argentinian economist currently running Argentina
The series of the history of climatism ends here. For now. Thank you for reading.
[1] Ottmar Edenhofer, "Klimapolitik verteilt das Weltvermögen neu," NZZ am Sonntag, 14 November 2010. Translation is my own. Edenhofer holds prestigious positions at multiple leading climate research institutes, including the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). He previously co-chaired Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international body for assessing climate change. This group's work directly informed the Paris Agreement. His research centres on the economic aspects of climate change mitigation strategies. His research is highly cited and demonstrably influences policymakers at national and international levels.
[2] Judith Curry, There is no human right to a safe or stable climate, Clintel Foundation, 11 April 2024.
[3] Thomas Williams, Unchristian: Pope Francis Says Climate Deniers Are ‘Stupid’, Skepticism ‘Perverse’, climatechangedispatch.com, 26 April 2024.
[4] “Eine Lüge muss nur oft genug wiederholt werden. Dann wird sie geglaubt.” written in his personal diary on 12 January 1941.
[5] Pinpointing the exact date when Bebel made this statement is challenging due to the lack of specific references in easily accessible historical records. The quote is often mentioned in discussions of his criticism of the Church, but the primary source or exact context in which Bebel made this statement is not commonly cited in historical texts. Bebel's work, “Women and Socialism" (originally published as "Die Frau und der Sozialismus" in 1879), might contain such sentiments.
[6] It’s difficult to find the occasion where Bebel said this first. An often-cited place for this statement is a speech by Bebel in the Reichstag in 1893. In this speech, he pointed out that anti-Semitism was a means of concealing the true social and economic problems of the time and that it was used by those who did not want or could not get to the bottom of the real causes of these problems. The exact wording and context of the statement may vary slightly in different sources, but the core of the statement remains the same: Bebel criticized anti-Semitism as a misguided and dangerous ideology, particularly held by less educated or less reflective people.
[7] Le Bon, Gustave (1895, 1982) “The Crowd – A Study of the Popular Mind,” Second edition, Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Company, p. 143, First published in 1895 in French (“Psychologie des Foules”).
[8] Büntgen, U. The importance of distinguishing climate science from climate activism. npj Clim. Action 3, 36 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-024-00126-0
[9] Amnesty International has criticized the Catholic Church, particularly regarding its handling of sexual abuse cases involving clergy members. The organization's concerns have focused on the Church's failure to adequately address the abuse, hold perpetrators accountable, and offer justice to victims. Various investigative reports, such as those conducted in different countries (e.g., Ireland, the United States, Australia), have highlighted widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and institutional failures to respond effectively.
[10] Bloomberg Law, 19 September 2024.