Saturday, March 29, 2008
Are you hoping for climate change?
One does occasionally get the impression that some of the people who are most passionate on the requirement that we radically transform the global economy to hedge against the risk of anthropogenic global warming are actually hoping for some sort of catastrophe. It is almost as though they dislike the idea of everybody getting richer, buying more gadgets, going more places, and generally leading longer and more stimulating lives.
I must say, I cannot imagine preferring to live in a different time or place (meaning other than a rich country in the early 21st century) than I do now*, and I do not understand people who would resist creating more such places. Indeed, it seems to me that we should relinquish the dream of wealth for everybody with enormous reluctance and sadness.
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*I do allow for the possibility that the future will be even better.
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds.
11 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Mar 29, 10:36:00 AM:
Considering that so many of them believe that we are a virus on the face of the planet, to the point that some suggest the "removal" of 50% of the current population, yes they do hope for an apocolypse. Wether it be a climate driven or terrorist driven cataclysm is unimportant. They fervently hope for the destruction of America, at least, and severe damage to humanity at best. These veiwpoints, more so than any other, demonstrate the psychosis that pervades the left and illustrate their danger. It is the root of their "always a victim" plaint.
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 10:46:00 AM:
I wonder if the Luddites want to give up anti-biotics, open heart surgery, satellite radio or the ability to detect wayward asteroids? In their dream era of declining technological advancement who chooses what get developed, and what gets discarded?
They are making a film of Arthur C. Clark's "Rendezvous with Rama" which starts with an asteroid strike taking out Venice, Italy. Loosing 100 million people and a large slice of mankind's art heritage to a stupid rock leads the nations of the earth to readjust their priorities, and work on the hard sciences increases worldwide. If we do loose 100 million to global warming, I hope we move forward, and not backward. History has shown that many civilizations that move backward never recover. We can have cars that don't pollute and carbon neutral clothes dryers, if they will let us.
By 
Georg Felis, at
Sat Mar 29, 11:20:00 AM:
I for one, look forward sitting around with my great-great-grandchildren and listening to them complain about global warming/cooling because of our giant solar power satellites and how neutrinos from fusion reactors are causing sterility in Albanian rats, and how unfair it is for the New Israel orbital colony not to accept non-Jews as residents, and how it is all our fault.
Just nod and smile.
By Larry Sheldon, at
Sat Mar 29, 11:52:00 AM:
"Are you hoping for climate change? "
That question allows for at least three answers that begin with "Yes, ".
Maybe more.
Yes, I have had quite enough of the cold weather. I grew up and lived in the southern half of the California coast (which is to say, the Los Angeles basin, then the Bay Area) so I have never clearly understood the attraction of "four seasons". Since moving to the central Great Plains, I understand it even less.
Yes, I look forward to the confirmation that the universe works the way it appears to--gets cold when the Sun gets low, gets Hot when the Sun does.
Yes, I hope that once and for all we can learn not to panic every time some idiot learns to use Power Point to distort reality.
And by the way "change" does not mean "get warmer" or "get colder". It means "to become different".
The changes in climate here in flyover country as land came under cultivation, and again when it came under industrialization is pretty well documented, and indeed is visible to the untrained eye. Summers here in western Douglas County are not nearly as hot now as they were in the late 1980's when we moved here.
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Sat Mar 29, 12:06:00 PM:
The worse the better argument or point of view?
Sure, there are some who hold that view; but I don't think it's more prevalent on one side of the political aisle than the other.
The great Sidney Hook pointed out that before one can question a person's motives, respond to his argument (I'm not alleging that you're doing that here).
By SR, at
Sat Mar 29, 12:55:00 PM:
OK, if the argument is presented in a mockumentary by a power hungry college dropout, and if the argument calls for an uprooting of the progress made in living conditions ( that much of the world's population has not yet achieved, but will ultimately desire) throughout the history of man then is it OK to question the motives?
By SR, at
Sat Mar 29, 12:56:00 PM:
The great Marxist Sidney Hook? that great Sidney Hook?
By Andrew X, at
Sat Mar 29, 02:07:00 PM:
I first began encountering this in 2004, when I was not shy about supporting Mr. Bush and was taking on all bettors on November (I won $300!)
But I vividly remember two events.
One was immdiately after the first election in Afghanistan's history. Ever. The FIRST act of representative democracy in that besaddened land ever. The first time women had been able to come out and play a role in anything in years. There was immediately some minor story after about election problems, a story that died in 48 hours. Karzai has been in ever since, and the story was never heard from again.
I mentioned at the time what a glorious event this was to some moonbat, and never can I forget the fire in his eyes as he lept up furiously to denounce the entire process, and "prove" it was all a sham, using that story as a peg. This is AFGHANISTAN, mind you, not Iraq... you know... the "just" war, say our Democrats? The one we got diverted from, etc?
But good news HAD to be assaulted and destroyed. It HAD to be. Mr. Bush was in charge, and thus EVERYTHING depended on uprooting, dismantling, and burying ANY good news whatsoever. Replacement of theocratic tyranny and the advance of freedom upon this planet, in the face of avowed terrorists? NO NO NO NO NO! A thousand times NO! It was not to be borne.
Is there the slightest doubt that this avowed leftist, anti-theocrat, feminist humanitarian would have rejoiced at the victory of the Taliban? Celebrated?
Not one iota of doubt. Not one.
The second event was a similar reaction to a CNN printout of a solid economic jobs report in the early fall of 2004. "Lies!" "I can't believe you buy into that $h1+ !" Etc. Etc.
Lenin's "Worse is Better" come to full fruition. In the age of the Internet, no less.
Who ARE these people? Who in God's name are these people, and what terrible terrible things could have happened to them in the richest and free-est civilization in the history of man to make them like this?
I sometimes wonder if they come from another planet. I can fathom no other explanation.
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Sat Mar 29, 02:15:00 PM:
The great Marxist Sidney Hook? that great Sidney Hook?
Yes, that great Sidney Hook.
Calling Hook a "Marxist" is like calling Reagan a "liberal Democrat."
Both men, indeed, at early stages in their lives were on the left. But both abandoned those worldviews and became stalwart defenders of liberal democracy against communism.
Hook from the left; Reagan from the right.
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Sat Mar 29, 02:27:00 PM:
Both men, indeed, at early stages in their lives were on the left
Hook, of course, remained on the left throughout his life. But he was an anti-communist leftist.
By , at
Sun Mar 30, 09:52:00 AM:
There is no doubt in my mind that some are hoping for catastrophic climate change. It is the vehicle they need to exercise more control over the rest of us. As for TH's assertion about the future getting better, I readily agree that it will be better materially. OTOH the sun is setting on freedom.
