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The paradox of Degrowth Communism Left-wing doomerists are empowering global elites

Misanthropic anti-humanism is running wild (AGUSTIN PAULLIER/AFP via Getty Images)

Misanthropic anti-humanism is running wild (AGUSTIN PAULLIER/AFP via Getty Images)


December 5, 2022   7 mins

One might think that the arrival of the planet’s eight-billionth resident — a title symbolically awarded to Vinice Mabansag, a baby girl born in the Philippines — would be cause for celebration. Amid a sharp drop in the global fertility rate, the staggering rise in the world population witnessed over the past 70 years is the result of the extraordinary advancements in public health, nutrition, personal hygiene and medicine that have extended lifespans and dramatically reduced maternal and child mortality rates. Vinice’s birth, in other words, is a testament to the power of human ingenuity to make the world a better place.

And yet, for many in the Western intelligentsia and policymaking circles, little Vinice is a harbinger of doom — a reminder of how “overpopulation” is destroying the planet. The prize for the most miserable response predictably goes to the New York Times. The paper used the occasion to offer a platform to Les Knight, the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, which calls on people to abstain from reproduction to usher in man’s extinction — the only possible solution to the problems facing the Earth. “Look what we did to this planet. We’re not a good species,” Knight is quoted as saying.

At the very least, by opting out of reproduction, couples will avoid “sentencing their offspring to a rapidly deteriorating quality of life and unimaginably horrible death”, according to the movement’s website. This mixture of misanthropic anti-humanism and Malthusian apocalypticism used to be among the fringiest of fringe theories; today, however, wishing for humanity’s extinction is touted as just another form of benign environmentalism. The reaction of other mainstream outlets was less grotesque, but the message was more or less the same: the growing global population, said CNN, represents a serious “challenge” to the environment.

The idea of “overpopulation” is difficult to talk about seriously, since it is inevitably tied to outlandish conspiracy theories about 5G or Covid vaccines being part of a nefarious plan to depopulate the planet; but it’s clear the elites are concerned about the issue, as the Times piece demonstrates. The argument is one we’ve heard a million times: human activity is destroying the planet’s biodiversity, and outstripping its capacity to replenish natural resources, and more people on the planet means more pressure on nature.

The issue is rarely framed in terms of the need to forcibly reduce the world population — though it is becoming increasingly acceptable to talk of the need for tools of population control, such as one-child policies, regardless of the fact that the population growth rate is falling rapidly. Rather we are told of the need to “change the way we live” by reducing our “ecological footprint”. The most important goal of all, according to governments and international institutions, is Net Zero — the need for the world to bring greenhouse gas emissions down to zero as soon as possible.

This might seem like a sensible idea on paper; there’s no denying that fossil fuels have serious drawbacks in terms of climate alteration and pollution. Yet its practical implementation is a different matter entirely. The pressure on developing nations by institutions such as World Economic Forum, the UN and the World Bank to stop subsidising fossil fuels or to ban fertilisers in food production has already caused chaos, political instability and unrest in dozens of countries: in 2019, there were major protests in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Haiti, Lebanon, Ecuador, Iraq, Chile, and Iran.

These protests serve as a reminder that one can be concerned about climate change and the state of the planet while still being sceptical of the idea that these problems can be solved through top-down solutions imposed on nations by the Davos-attending, private jet-flying, corporate-backed (if not corporation-owning) policy-building elites of the world — people at the absolute peak of the global capitalist power pyramid. Yet remarkably, these very elites have found an unlikely ally in the struggle against the evils of anthropogenic activities: radical anti-capitalists known as “degrowthers”.

Degrowthers claim that the problem at the root of humanity’s negative impact on the planet is economic growth itself, which in turn is said to be driven by the logic of the capitalist mode of production. It is, in the words of Jason Hickel, one of the most prominent degrowth advocates, “organised around the imperative of constant expansion, or ‘growth’: ever-increasing levels of industrial extraction, production and consumption”. The solution to the many of the world’s problems, according to degrowthers, is therefore to “go beyond growth” — and ultimately capitalism itself.

Once relegated to the political fringes, degrowth theory has been gaining traction in recent years among environmentalists and Leftists. Who, five years ago, would have bet on an academic book about the relationship between capitalism and the planet becoming a bestseller? Well, Capital in the Anthropocene (English translation forthcoming), a book on degrowth from a Marxist perspective written by Kohei Saito, an associate professor at Tokyo University, appears to be on track to do just that, having sold more than half a million copies in Japan since the book was published in 2020.

Saito’s message is simple: capitalism’s drive for profit is destroying the planet and only “degrowth communism” can repair the damage by slowing down social production and sharing wealth. Humans need to find a “new way of living”, and that means replacing capitalism.

But what does this mean in practice? There seems to be some confusion about this, even among degrowth activists. Growth is generally measured using the concept of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which represents the total value of all the goods and services produced domestically by a nation during a given period, and therefore the size of its economy. If the latter is expanding, we call it economic growth; if it is contracting, we call it a recession or even a depression, depending on the length of the contraction.

Yet while the appeal of turning to GDP seems obvious — a higher GDP tends to be associated with higher incomes and higher standards of living, and studies show it correlates with national happiness — material wealth isn’t everything. Indeed, the concept of GDP has long been criticised as a poor way to measure a country’s well-being. It doesn’t take into account the state of the environment, levels of inequality or human health, or crime rates; neither does it take into account whether a country is growing its GDP by building guns and prisons or by building schools and hospitals. And yes, growth clearly has a negative impact on the natural world — as does any human activity, for that matter.

However, it’s one thing to acknowledge the limitations of economic growth — that is, GDP —  as a measure of national well-being; it’s another to say we should dismiss it altogether, or even that we should “stop growing”, especially when so many countries around the world are striving to industrialise and grow out of poverty. To be fair, degrowthers such as Hickel are keen to note that “degrowth is not about reducing GDP. It is about reducing the material and energy throughput of the [global] economy.” But this is little more than sophistry, as that would almost certainly entail a reduction in GDP.

Hickel says this could be achieved by allowing low-income countries to “increase energy and resource use in order to meet human needs” — which is a welcome distinction from the WEF’s Net Zero-for-all approach — while drastically reducing energy and resource use in high-income countries, by “scal[ing] down ecologically destructive and socially less necessary production (i.e. the production of SUVs, arms, beef, private transportation, advertising and planned obsolescence), while expanding socially important sectors like healthcare, education, care and conviviality”.

I wouldn’t mind living in a society with better parks, schools, hospitals, museums, libraries, and fewer SUVs, Primarks and H&Ms, with good jobs for all in non-polluting industries and sectors. The problem, as far as I’m concerned, isn’t the society envisioned by degrowthers. It’s the unintended consequences of their theory. Most obviously, they erroneously conflate energy and resource consumption, but the two are very different. The production of things inevitably entails the use of finite resources, and therefore cannot be expanded indefinitely. But the same doesn’t go for the production of energy: nuclear energy, for instance, could provide bountiful, clean, carbon-free energy, thus allowing us to potentially expand energy use — ideally to power less resource-intensive industries and sectors — while rapidly phasing out fossil fuels once and for all. And yet, most environmentalists and degrowthers are zealously opposed to nuclear energy.

This highlights the second problem of degrowthism (and environmentalism in general, for that matter): its inescapable Luddite, anti-industrialist bias, which represents a conceptual obstacle to the massive state-sponsored industrial and infrastructure investment that would be needed to make our economies more sustainable — for instance, by rapidly building up nuclear capacity.

And here lies the third problem: even assuming citizens in Western countries did come round to accepting a deliberate reduction in their material wealth in exchange for immaterial benefits, it is highly unlikely they’d consent to the massive expansion of state power that would be required to implement such a programme. The authoritarianism and assault on democracy witnessed during the pandemic has understandably made many fearful of unchecked government power. No programme that requires giving the state even more sweeping powers of intervention in the economy — something which I personally view as necessary — will win the support it needs until we’re able to build a new democratic social contract. This means, among other things, clawing back the only institution that has historically managed to deliver democracy — the nation-state — from the clutches of the globalists and corporate interests that have hijacked it. But this will take time — something degrowthers constantly repeat we don’t have.

This is where the most concerning element of degrowthism and any other form of apocalyptic environmentalism comes in: by constantly engaging in “doomerism” — the idea that either we fix everything or we’re all screwed — they’re effectively saying that anything is justified in order to “save the planet”, including all manner of authoritarian interventions. It’s like Zero Covid on steroids. After all, if the very survival of life on Earth is at stake, surely we can’t allow the complexities of democratic debate and deliberation to stand in the way of doing what’s needed? Indeed, rather ominously, Saito cites the pandemic as proof that “rapid change is possible” — with apparently little concern for the fact that this “change” was achieved by sweeping aside democratic procedures and constitutional constraints, militarising societies, cracking down on civil liberties, and implementing unprecedented measures of social control.

In this sense, doomerism offers a political cover to what is ultimately the easiest way to reduce people’s consumption levels: making ordinary people poorer — which indeed seems to be the solution pursued by elites. This highlights probably the main flaw in degrowth theory: the driving force of capitalism is not growth or even profits, but power. Those sitting at the top of the capitalist pyramid are more than happy to have less growth if this means increasing their influence. How else should one understand our ruling classes’ passion for growth-crushing austerity?

This is the ultimate paradox of degrowth communism: its proponents may want to overthrow capitalism, but their ideology is actually empowering the globalist capitalist elites they claim to be fighting.

***

Order your copy of UnHerd’s first print edition here


Thomas Fazi is an UnHerd columnist and translator. His latest book is The Covid Consensus, co-authored with Toby Green.

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Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

You would think after nearly three centuries of being utterly discredited, this Malthusian garbage would die an ignoble death. Yet it still persists.

Although capitalism needs continual consumption, it’s also driven to produce greater efficiency. We need fewer resources to produce the same amount of goods. The examples are everywhere – less land to produce more food, better fuel mileage for vehicles, less manpower to produce goods.

We are much more concerned about the environment in free-market democracies than authoritarian countries like Russia or China. There’s more trees in North America than 100 years ago. We might think rivers are dirty in the west, but compare that to the Ganges.

Degrowth groups like the Extinction Rebellion are death cults – period. They get zero traction with the general population and will whither away when the kids have to get real jobs.

The most perplexing thing for me is why the political elite and technocrats are so invested in climate alarmism and net zero. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize that wind and solar cannot sustain a modern economy. Yet the political leadership in every country in the west has embraced this ideology.

Might make an interesting subject in the future for some Unherd writer.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

As you say, the whole climate change thing and Net Zero is just pathetic. But.. it is scary when whole generations of school kids are taught about these things as facts, unarguable facts.

We will have the situation in about 30 years when new generations will have a powerful share of the vote, and this vote will only elect those who shout loudest about climate change. Anybody, who wants to talk about realism will not get elected.

So, Net Zero people will be in total control but they won’t have the means to deliver. Disaster and many deaths will follow.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

This article is very important. There are a set of quite terrifying threads of political ideology that are bubbling to the surface and many bear the shadow of Pol Potism. Think of why his brutal ultra eco- communism saw modernity smashed and the cities emptied into labour camps in the countryside. Perfect degrowth! Clear blue skies over no carbon Cambodia. Population degrowth too via totalitarian murder. Keep Pol Pots credo in mind as we look anew at what is happening in a Western world deep in a pyschotic state of hysteria or mania. The Reds have reached for Green to plug the ideological void created by the failure of Socialism. But they are animated first by a deep negative anti industrial/anti capitalist fervour – so degrowth and the further extension of the power of the State (shown to be arbitrary under Bio State) will lead only to mass poverty and ruin. If the enterprise culture is the enemy, we can only head one way – back to the world of Soviet Gosplan and the USSR, minus the cheap energy. The obsessional war on fossil fuels two decades before a reliable nuke and renewal supply has been prepared will trigger starvation in a developed world without fertiliser. Our political and academic leaders do not yet see this danger – they exist in an unhinged bubble and are wholly insulated from the chaos their ignorant wokery inflicts on the poor and strivers. The doomerism they drink in from the zealot BBC (a self declared ‘champion’ of climate change) is sealing their ignorance in. Meanwhile looney progressives in teaching are sickening and indoctrinating the minds of the wild eyed terrified young – all told they will die in the fire before they hit 30. Anti natalism may well take off in a generation or so. The threads have not all connected. It is still early days. But if the near existential dangers of the Doom Credo and Net Zero are not called out and stopped over the next decade, read up on the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot is the logical endpoint of this mania.

Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

Generally I agree with you. However, a bit OTT and fatalistic in other respects,

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

I’m not sure: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/01/anthropocene-anti-humanism-transhumanism-apocalypse-predictions/672230/
It seems like a crazy fringe academic idea at the moment, but then again look at how many fringe ideas have come to be injected into the mainstream lately.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

I’m not sure: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/01/anthropocene-anti-humanism-transhumanism-apocalypse-predictions/672230/
It seems like a crazy fringe academic idea at the moment, but then again look at how many fringe ideas have come to be injected into the mainstream lately.

Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

One interesting thing about the Khmer Rouge is that they didn’t even keep to the idea of a rural workers’ paradise. Farm workers were forced to work 16 hour days, 7 days a week when before the entire needs of the country had been supplied by far fewer workers laboring for far fewer hours. And what happened to all this new agricultural output? It was used to buy foreign arms because Pol Pot’s regime was afraid Cambodia’s neighboring countries would attack him. (There were no signs of that, Viet Nam invaded Cambodia because Pol Pot was encouraging incursions into Viet Nam.)

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Rob C

Good points. I have just realised that the Neo Khmer Extinction Cultists had better hurry up. The countryside the Kulak Londoners will be force marched into fpr work and death will not even exist in 5 years as concrete eagle killing Windfarms take up all the arable land. Madness. On a more serious note, we do need to worry about the national derangement/hysteria and prevailing state credos – and the longer term state failure to deliver stable resilent markets in energy, labour and – the next horror – food.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Rob C

Good points. I have just realised that the Neo Khmer Extinction Cultists had better hurry up. The countryside the Kulak Londoners will be force marched into fpr work and death will not even exist in 5 years as concrete eagle killing Windfarms take up all the arable land. Madness. On a more serious note, we do need to worry about the national derangement/hysteria and prevailing state credos – and the longer term state failure to deliver stable resilent markets in energy, labour and – the next horror – food.

B Emery
B Emery
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

I see you’re at it again, Pol pot today? I see your ‘threads aren’t quite connected,’ that much is obvious. What are you are one man propaganda machine? No miracles today?
Some notes for others up ticking the crazy.
I do not dispute the contents of the article, I think Fazi raises real concerns we should have about these organisations, in a very sensible way and they are a problem, massively corrupt, they need knocking down a peg or two at least.
However, it is also worth noting we are at the moment embroiled in massive geopolitical power struggle between the west and the east. Energy war, commodity war, information war, infrastructure if you count the nord steam. So, we must be very careful not too get too carried away with our rhetoric, as Mr marvel frequently does and recognise this is happening alongside all this other stuff. We will probably need strategies to cope with the consequences, especially if it kicks off over Taiwan, this will disrupt global shipping, the European energy market is all over the place and opec are falling out with America. This stuff is going to affect us, so although these people may have all these plans, there’s a lot of conflicting interests at play at the moment and we need to be careful not to get too hung up on the megaCorp master plan, which if anything represents neither right nor left, just their own variously changing and churning and I dare say at times, conflicting megacorp interests. They may fund different organisations to divide and conquer if you like, but. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be above say pushing a far left agenda one place, and pushing far right elsewhere, will back the most likely winner, regardless of party. If we want to reclaim the state we need both sides for a balanced democracy. So. I’m just here, wanting to urge caution as an armchair expert, which is all I am.
Mr Marvel, no reply required this time 🙂 though it was a lot of fun last time, I leave you in peace.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  B Emery

Marvell by name, Marvell by nature?

Last edited 1 year ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
B Emery
B Emery
1 year ago

Indeed, quite marvellous, I have to hand it to him – I’d give him a job as spin doctor.

B Emery
B Emery
1 year ago

Indeed, quite marvellous, I have to hand it to him – I’d give him a job as spin doctor.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  B Emery

Marvell by name, Marvell by nature?

Last edited 1 year ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
Richard Hart
Richard Hart
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

You hit the nail on the head. It is the West these nutters want to destroy. No reference by them them of the rapidly expanding populations of Africa and Asia.

Last edited 1 year ago by Richard Hart
Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

Generally I agree with you. However, a bit OTT and fatalistic in other respects,

Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

One interesting thing about the Khmer Rouge is that they didn’t even keep to the idea of a rural workers’ paradise. Farm workers were forced to work 16 hour days, 7 days a week when before the entire needs of the country had been supplied by far fewer workers laboring for far fewer hours. And what happened to all this new agricultural output? It was used to buy foreign arms because Pol Pot’s regime was afraid Cambodia’s neighboring countries would attack him. (There were no signs of that, Viet Nam invaded Cambodia because Pol Pot was encouraging incursions into Viet Nam.)

B Emery
B Emery
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

I see you’re at it again, Pol pot today? I see your ‘threads aren’t quite connected,’ that much is obvious. What are you are one man propaganda machine? No miracles today?
Some notes for others up ticking the crazy.
I do not dispute the contents of the article, I think Fazi raises real concerns we should have about these organisations, in a very sensible way and they are a problem, massively corrupt, they need knocking down a peg or two at least.
However, it is also worth noting we are at the moment embroiled in massive geopolitical power struggle between the west and the east. Energy war, commodity war, information war, infrastructure if you count the nord steam. So, we must be very careful not too get too carried away with our rhetoric, as Mr marvel frequently does and recognise this is happening alongside all this other stuff. We will probably need strategies to cope with the consequences, especially if it kicks off over Taiwan, this will disrupt global shipping, the European energy market is all over the place and opec are falling out with America. This stuff is going to affect us, so although these people may have all these plans, there’s a lot of conflicting interests at play at the moment and we need to be careful not to get too hung up on the megaCorp master plan, which if anything represents neither right nor left, just their own variously changing and churning and I dare say at times, conflicting megacorp interests. They may fund different organisations to divide and conquer if you like, but. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be above say pushing a far left agenda one place, and pushing far right elsewhere, will back the most likely winner, regardless of party. If we want to reclaim the state we need both sides for a balanced democracy. So. I’m just here, wanting to urge caution as an armchair expert, which is all I am.
Mr Marvel, no reply required this time 🙂 though it was a lot of fun last time, I leave you in peace.

Richard Hart
Richard Hart
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

You hit the nail on the head. It is the West these nutters want to destroy. No reference by them them of the rapidly expanding populations of Africa and Asia.

Last edited 1 year ago by Richard Hart
Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Whist I generally agree with you I think you (and others ) seem to underestimate the power of people to change their minds. I suspect that in 30 years time people may not think quite the same – of course a lot of damage may be done by then.
Another thing – it seems common to point out how narcissistic and selfish a lot of young people are – you think at the end of the day they will go for “anti-growth”. We are told how “environmentally concerned” they are and yet it took a few days to clear up at the end of the Glastonbury festival because of all the rubbish strewn around…

Last edited 1 year ago by Isabel Ward
John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

I hope you are right – and believe that you may well turn out to be. As a middle-aged man I don’t frequently talk to the kids directly about what they believe, but the odd times I talk to younger people about this stuff I don’t usually get the sense that they’re ideologues. They mostly seem grounded, sensible and kind – and usually quite practically focussed.

The point is that in another 20 years, these are the people who will be making the decisions that determine how and whether everything keeps working. It’s one thing to vent on social media about political concepts: it’s quite another to be the one who signs off on measures that will crush freedom and living standards along with the human cost that this entails.

In a certain sense the pandemic has been a blessing because everyone’s eyes have been opened to the truth that GDP is not some abstract concept that only policy wonks and plutocrats care about: it is a key determinant of how we live and how long we live. The pandemic response was a degrowth strategy and it sowed the socioeconomc seeds which are now leading to the deaths of millions of people globally.

This lesson is in the middle of being learned the hard way right now. It is unlikely to be forgotten.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

People in a brainwashing cult will ‘go for’ anything. It’s because of complacency from people like you that the world is on the mess it’s in.

Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

I’m neither complacent nor in denial I just think its beneficial to be take a more ‘measured’ approach. I am not saying that a lot of damage will be not be done in the process. I think reality will set in and the “brainwashing cult” will dissipate over time.
Personally, I work hard to change people’s minds regularly, I just think that behaving, as in the US, and veering from from one side to the other doesn’t help.
Thanks for the ad hominem though.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

You don’t like what I say so you play the ad-hominem card. Classy. Not quite as effective as the racism card, but no one is perfect.
I said you were complacent, not in denial – was that your attempt at a straw man argument? Your ‘more measured’ approach has achieved what exactly? Two years of lockdown, vaccine clot shot coercion, a UK annual excess death rate approaching 100,000, the race-baiting grifter ‘Ngozi Fulani’ escalating the BLM hatred with impunity, unaffordable energy costs, uniparty politics … I could go on.
As for “veering from one side to the other”, I have no idea what that nonsense is supposed to mean. Whatever it means, what does it have to do with your complacency – to which I will now add the charge of arrogance.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

An excellent evisceration of Ms Isabel Ward and her ‘complacent’ position. It well illustrates how appalling this problem has become.You deserve 100 “thumbs up”.

Incidentally wasn’t the Ngozi Fulani creature ‘wired for sound’ during her completely stage managed ‘confrontation’?

Last edited 1 year ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago

Thank you. As you can see from the outraged and childishly emotional response from ‘Vici C’ though, we have a long way to go.
I fear I may have had one or two thumbs ups negated by thumbs down from her and her misguided ilk?

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago

Thank you. As you can see from the outraged and childishly emotional response from ‘Vici C’ though, we have a long way to go.
I fear I may have had one or two thumbs ups negated by thumbs down from her and her misguided ilk?

Vici C
Vici C
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Ad hominem fits you perfectly. Why would she like what you say? A personal. ill informed insult. A worked through, considered argument would have been better received. Implying her measured approach resulted in the lockdown etc etc is incomprehensible. Or did you mean the government took a measured approach? I would beg to differ, it felt more like a panicked approached, ultimately dictated by WHO. I bet you can’t understand how Hancock did so well in the jungle? Despite his history : one, he was bullied. Two, he didn’t bully.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Vici C

Oh dear. You clearly never passed any kind of English comprehension exam.
Why would I waste time on a “worked through, considered argument” with her, or you, when you are so clearly utterly incapable of understanding what I am saying, or of giving it even the slightest consideration?

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Vici C

Oh dear. You clearly never passed any kind of English comprehension exam.
Why would I waste time on a “worked through, considered argument” with her, or you, when you are so clearly utterly incapable of understanding what I am saying, or of giving it even the slightest consideration?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

An excellent evisceration of Ms Isabel Ward and her ‘complacent’ position. It well illustrates how appalling this problem has become.You deserve 100 “thumbs up”.

Incidentally wasn’t the Ngozi Fulani creature ‘wired for sound’ during her completely stage managed ‘confrontation’?

Last edited 1 year ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
Vici C
Vici C
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Ad hominem fits you perfectly. Why would she like what you say? A personal. ill informed insult. A worked through, considered argument would have been better received. Implying her measured approach resulted in the lockdown etc etc is incomprehensible. Or did you mean the government took a measured approach? I would beg to differ, it felt more like a panicked approached, ultimately dictated by WHO. I bet you can’t understand how Hancock did so well in the jungle? Despite his history : one, he was bullied. Two, he didn’t bully.

Guy Pigache
Guy Pigache
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

Good luck with being reasonable with the small number of Twitterati who inhabit Unherd space

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

You don’t like what I say so you play the ad-hominem card. Classy. Not quite as effective as the racism card, but no one is perfect.
I said you were complacent, not in denial – was that your attempt at a straw man argument? Your ‘more measured’ approach has achieved what exactly? Two years of lockdown, vaccine clot shot coercion, a UK annual excess death rate approaching 100,000, the race-baiting grifter ‘Ngozi Fulani’ escalating the BLM hatred with impunity, unaffordable energy costs, uniparty politics … I could go on.
As for “veering from one side to the other”, I have no idea what that nonsense is supposed to mean. Whatever it means, what does it have to do with your complacency – to which I will now add the charge of arrogance.

Guy Pigache
Guy Pigache
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

Good luck with being reasonable with the small number of Twitterati who inhabit Unherd space

Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

I’m neither complacent nor in denial I just think its beneficial to be take a more ‘measured’ approach. I am not saying that a lot of damage will be not be done in the process. I think reality will set in and the “brainwashing cult” will dissipate over time.
Personally, I work hard to change people’s minds regularly, I just think that behaving, as in the US, and veering from from one side to the other doesn’t help.
Thanks for the ad hominem though.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

We must look for grains of hope. And of course younger generations may change minds. But some major bricks in the Degrowth totalitarian Wall are sliding into place right in front of our eyes. It is unbelievable – but the British State has said nyet to coal nyet to nukes (1 on way in 10 years gee thanks) nyet to fracking and has slapped 75% tax on our North Sea oil and gas producers. There will no be cheap power for maybe a decade. This is economic suicide – enacted by Tories. The State is growing ever more authoritarian after a taste of emergency rule – and simultaneously ever more greedy for tax as its bailouts steer both it and the suffocated enterprise culture onto the rocks. The economic crisis has only just begun. Meanwhile in the arena of policy and thought, I fear all the political establishment is gripped by a new more potent form of digital age groupthink reminiscent of China in 68. Good luck to the kids and students who can defy it. They will not find objective truth on the BBC or media. There is only propaganda as with Covid. Will their unis help them confront this madness?? I dont see any grounds for optimism there either. Where will resistance come from?? I repeat – the Tories are now leading a pro recession degrowth strategy!!! Labour will accelerate it. The die I fear is cast. Give your grandkids hoes and shovels for Xmas.

Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

The resistance will com from reality. Yes, its all very sad and a lot of damage will be done as you say but the resistance is gradually growing. In some ways Putin has drawn attention to all these problems.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

The big difference with this generation of “believers” of doom is that they also seem to possess a complete disdain for basic Western Christian values. Without any moral rudder to steer them while in power, other than their narcissism, they will inflict unspeakable, but not unique, crimes “solutions” to deal with the over-population and over-consumption issues they think are at fault. None of this will happen willingly. I’ve read how they are taught in school how to simply ignore what older people have to say because they are unfamiliar with technology and don’t know the “truth” about things. If you aren’t taught to hate the “excesses” of the older generation, how can you convince the young to pilfer our retirement savings and social security checks in the name of equity and saving the planet?

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

I agree. We must hope that every generation matures into wisdom and sets aside the wild romantic excesses of youth. But the millenials do seem.to face a set of uniquely nasty and new challenges. Exposure to social media – and its mega augmented terror of social ostracism – has triggered a tidal wave of mental ill health, depression and anxiety. This feels abnormal. The young are raised (as you rightly say) in a new super secular faith detached from our christian roots. It is an open global multicultural world – again something new and different. Then at school and uni they get whacked by the nihilistic ravings and apocalyptic doomism of their eco nut teachers.They also get drenched early in the fear-inducing Equality Mania and so imbibe yet more terror of any form of discrimination. And if they seek to challenge any of these heavy State endorsed Orthodoxies, where will they find the Truth? The BBC is a de facto Ministry of Propaganda preaching Newspeak on identity politics, race & BLM, Climate Change, Europe, Brexit and more. They see us adults unsure of what a female is. For sure Kids are resilient. But this generation are being pummelled by a set of appalling new ideological forces. This all feels very different to the far simpler life in the 60s 70 and 80s. And I do not think it will end well.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

I agree. We must hope that every generation matures into wisdom and sets aside the wild romantic excesses of youth. But the millenials do seem.to face a set of uniquely nasty and new challenges. Exposure to social media – and its mega augmented terror of social ostracism – has triggered a tidal wave of mental ill health, depression and anxiety. This feels abnormal. The young are raised (as you rightly say) in a new super secular faith detached from our christian roots. It is an open global multicultural world – again something new and different. Then at school and uni they get whacked by the nihilistic ravings and apocalyptic doomism of their eco nut teachers.They also get drenched early in the fear-inducing Equality Mania and so imbibe yet more terror of any form of discrimination. And if they seek to challenge any of these heavy State endorsed Orthodoxies, where will they find the Truth? The BBC is a de facto Ministry of Propaganda preaching Newspeak on identity politics, race & BLM, Climate Change, Europe, Brexit and more. They see us adults unsure of what a female is. For sure Kids are resilient. But this generation are being pummelled by a set of appalling new ideological forces. This all feels very different to the far simpler life in the 60s 70 and 80s. And I do not think it will end well.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

The big difference with this generation of “believers” of doom is that they also seem to possess a complete disdain for basic Western Christian values. Without any moral rudder to steer them while in power, other than their narcissism, they will inflict unspeakable, but not unique, crimes “solutions” to deal with the over-population and over-consumption issues they think are at fault. None of this will happen willingly. I’ve read how they are taught in school how to simply ignore what older people have to say because they are unfamiliar with technology and don’t know the “truth” about things. If you aren’t taught to hate the “excesses” of the older generation, how can you convince the young to pilfer our retirement savings and social security checks in the name of equity and saving the planet?

Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

The resistance will com from reality. Yes, its all very sad and a lot of damage will be done as you say but the resistance is gradually growing. In some ways Putin has drawn attention to all these problems.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

I hope you are right.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

I hope you are right – and believe that you may well turn out to be. As a middle-aged man I don’t frequently talk to the kids directly about what they believe, but the odd times I talk to younger people about this stuff I don’t usually get the sense that they’re ideologues. They mostly seem grounded, sensible and kind – and usually quite practically focussed.

The point is that in another 20 years, these are the people who will be making the decisions that determine how and whether everything keeps working. It’s one thing to vent on social media about political concepts: it’s quite another to be the one who signs off on measures that will crush freedom and living standards along with the human cost that this entails.

In a certain sense the pandemic has been a blessing because everyone’s eyes have been opened to the truth that GDP is not some abstract concept that only policy wonks and plutocrats care about: it is a key determinant of how we live and how long we live. The pandemic response was a degrowth strategy and it sowed the socioeconomc seeds which are now leading to the deaths of millions of people globally.

This lesson is in the middle of being learned the hard way right now. It is unlikely to be forgotten.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

People in a brainwashing cult will ‘go for’ anything. It’s because of complacency from people like you that the world is on the mess it’s in.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

We must look for grains of hope. And of course younger generations may change minds. But some major bricks in the Degrowth totalitarian Wall are sliding into place right in front of our eyes. It is unbelievable – but the British State has said nyet to coal nyet to nukes (1 on way in 10 years gee thanks) nyet to fracking and has slapped 75% tax on our North Sea oil and gas producers. There will no be cheap power for maybe a decade. This is economic suicide – enacted by Tories. The State is growing ever more authoritarian after a taste of emergency rule – and simultaneously ever more greedy for tax as its bailouts steer both it and the suffocated enterprise culture onto the rocks. The economic crisis has only just begun. Meanwhile in the arena of policy and thought, I fear all the political establishment is gripped by a new more potent form of digital age groupthink reminiscent of China in 68. Good luck to the kids and students who can defy it. They will not find objective truth on the BBC or media. There is only propaganda as with Covid. Will their unis help them confront this madness?? I dont see any grounds for optimism there either. Where will resistance come from?? I repeat – the Tories are now leading a pro recession degrowth strategy!!! Labour will accelerate it. The die I fear is cast. Give your grandkids hoes and shovels for Xmas.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

I hope you are right.

Roger Irwin
Roger Irwin
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

I find disputable ‘facts’ being presented from all sides.
The bit I find alarming is the religious zeal with which these ideals are defended. From both camps.

Ted Ditchburn
Ted Ditchburn
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Everybody knows this because we have so many people who pretend they do not know what deep down we do.

Vici C
Vici C
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Ah, the next generation. They will make their bed, they will lie on it and then realise it is not tenable.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

This article is very important. There are a set of quite terrifying threads of political ideology that are bubbling to the surface and many bear the shadow of Pol Potism. Think of why his brutal ultra eco- communism saw modernity smashed and the cities emptied into labour camps in the countryside. Perfect degrowth! Clear blue skies over no carbon Cambodia. Population degrowth too via totalitarian murder. Keep Pol Pots credo in mind as we look anew at what is happening in a Western world deep in a pyschotic state of hysteria or mania. The Reds have reached for Green to plug the ideological void created by the failure of Socialism. But they are animated first by a deep negative anti industrial/anti capitalist fervour – so degrowth and the further extension of the power of the State (shown to be arbitrary under Bio State) will lead only to mass poverty and ruin. If the enterprise culture is the enemy, we can only head one way – back to the world of Soviet Gosplan and the USSR, minus the cheap energy. The obsessional war on fossil fuels two decades before a reliable nuke and renewal supply has been prepared will trigger starvation in a developed world without fertiliser. Our political and academic leaders do not yet see this danger – they exist in an unhinged bubble and are wholly insulated from the chaos their ignorant wokery inflicts on the poor and strivers. The doomerism they drink in from the zealot BBC (a self declared ‘champion’ of climate change) is sealing their ignorance in. Meanwhile looney progressives in teaching are sickening and indoctrinating the minds of the wild eyed terrified young – all told they will die in the fire before they hit 30. Anti natalism may well take off in a generation or so. The threads have not all connected. It is still early days. But if the near existential dangers of the Doom Credo and Net Zero are not called out and stopped over the next decade, read up on the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot is the logical endpoint of this mania.

Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Whist I generally agree with you I think you (and others ) seem to underestimate the power of people to change their minds. I suspect that in 30 years time people may not think quite the same – of course a lot of damage may be done by then.
Another thing – it seems common to point out how narcissistic and selfish a lot of young people are – you think at the end of the day they will go for “anti-growth”. We are told how “environmentally concerned” they are and yet it took a few days to clear up at the end of the Glastonbury festival because of all the rubbish strewn around…

Last edited 1 year ago by Isabel Ward
Roger Irwin
Roger Irwin
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

I find disputable ‘facts’ being presented from all sides.
The bit I find alarming is the religious zeal with which these ideals are defended. From both camps.

Ted Ditchburn
Ted Ditchburn
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Everybody knows this because we have so many people who pretend they do not know what deep down we do.

Vici C
Vici C
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Ah, the next generation. They will make their bed, they will lie on it and then realise it is not tenable.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

If the elites had themselves to adopt the lifestyle changes they wish to impose on the rest of us they’d pretty quickly shut up about it. They get away with this nonsense because we let them.

Paul K
Paul K
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Head, meet sand.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul K

Head, meet vacuous chamber of climate loony.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul K

Head, meet vacuous chamber of climate loony.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Agreed – except perhaps for your final sentence. ‘Balanced, grow up’ Unherd writers make the same mistake as all the other indoctrinated cultists who don’t even realise they’re indoctrinated cultists.
“… one can be concerned about climate change and the state of the planet while still being sceptical …”
Those who ‘believe’ in the charlatan invention of man-made global climate change are anything but ‘sceptical’.

Rosie Brocklehurst
Rosie Brocklehurst
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

I hardly think Malthusian ideas about population were garbage and nor have they been refuted -not 300 years ago or now. Your argument about consumption is one sided and blinkered. Today, while I can shop with Ocado in England despite 15 per cent food inflation, Somalia and Eritrea people are eating meal if they can get it, and Pacific islands are gradually being flooded. I don’t call inflation or starvation ‘efficiency’, (although some on here would). Authoritarian countries meanwhile have not only re-written history to suit themselves but appropriated science to fit the political needs of the moment. There, ideologically conflicting narratives are increasingly difficult to unravel by anyone in power who have not had the pressures from below yet to make them wake up. For decades, communist economic ideals have been subsumed by an oligarchy and forms of organised state capitalism that require markets. China’s State capitalism requires force and an imperative to imperial expansion and is also dependent on sustaining markets. They are increasingly subject to revolt. How western leaders have embraced climate change has been a hard slog for the scientists and informed activists and is anyway, fafr too little too late, due not in small part to people like you and deluded conspiratorial, unscientific ideologies. No Government of the West will embrace climate change without evidence. Your evidence is partial weak and thin and paid for by big oil.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago

I am a scientist and proud of it. Today, I don’t trust any scientists because they are fighting for research grants and will ‘prove’ that the moon is made of green cheese if they would get more grants.
Science used to teach you to question everything. So, if you believed in AGW you had to fight it and try to show you were wrong. However crazy this sounds today, it does lead to impartiality.
The problem on this site is that everybody believes they are right. Period. Everybody else must be wrong. That analysis includes you and your beliefs.
I have read dozens of books and papers on AGW. At first the ideas were all over the place but governments and media made a decision – to exclude the gainsayers. No more grants unless you say that AGW is the truth. There is absolutely no proof anywhere that AGW is correct. Only beliefs like yours’. So, somebody has instructed you as follows: If anyone tells you that AGW is wrong, just say that Big Oil has paid for them to say it.
And you, in your ignorance, are following instructions.

Guy Pigache
Guy Pigache
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Occasionally somebody shines a light. Thank you

Rosie Brocklehurst
Rosie Brocklehurst
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

I am not ignorant but a medical scientist and well read on this issue too. The gainsayers have had plenty of traction and yes Big Oil did indeed pay for a lot of PR denials and counter-actual research (just as big tobacco did over health harms) and now, even a few in oil are coming round to understanding the causes and consequences of fossil fuel burning. So don’t talk dangerous twaddle. If you really want to go around with a paper bag over your head then go ahead. I quite like some articles on Unherd but mostly its a place for regurgitating stupid conspiracies and it attracts trolls.-hence your ridiculous assumptions about climate scientists and rudeness calling me ignorant.

Last edited 1 year ago by Rosie Brocklehurst
Scott C
Scott C
1 year ago

Rosie – an upvote for Chris W – a down vote for you. I like critical thinkers who know how to navigate through your “dangerous twaddle”.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

Yet another straw man. There is absolutely no money on the skeptical side. Big oil funding some denialist campaign is nothing but a conspiracy theory.

The big cash is on the alarmist side. In addition to an endless trough of grants, the most high profile climate scientists receive straight up cash awards and prizes from a myriad of foundations and programs. The father of alarmism James Hansen has received $2 mill in awards, such as the Heinz Award, the Dan David Prize, Taiwan’s Tang Prize, just to name a few.

Big Oil spends infinitely more money greenwashing than supporting any skeptical science. And it will continue to sell oil, regardless of what we believe. Fossil fuels make up 81% of the energy mix today, a whopping 1% decrease from 82% two decades ago. And if we destroy the fossil fuel industry in the west, they’ll simply move to Asia and Africa, which they are doing already.

Conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen. There’s a bunch of them about Gazprom financing eco groups to cripple fossil fuel production in the west. Meh.

Here are some real numbers from the budgets of eco organizations in 2012. Remember this is 10 years ago:

The Nature Conservancy: $949,132,306

Greenpeace International: $406,000,000

Wildlife Conservation Society: $230,042,654

World Wildlife Fund: $208,495,555

This is just the top of the pyramid. There are hundreds of NGOs promoting fear. A cynical person might argue these groups have a vested interest in promoting climate porn – their budgets and fundraising benefit from it.

Yet we’re supposed to believe the Heartland Institute – a common target accused of taking money from big oil – with its $4 mill budget, is stopping the world from adopting renewable energy.

Go ahead. Keep telling yourself there’s some well-financed cabal of science deniers out there brain washing the masses – that climate alarmists are on the side of angels.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jim Veenbaas
Guy Haynes
Guy Haynes
1 year ago

Well I’m not a scientist and, while well read and educated, can’t pretend to understand every intricacy of climate science.

The reason I have a massive amount of skepticism over the climate change movement (or at least the solutions proposed by it) are in no way scientific and everything to do with 45 years of witnessing human behaviour:

1. Its proponents do not in any way practise what they preach. When they’re telling us all that half the world’s land mass will be underwater if we don’t stop flying, simple folk like me smell a massive rat when these folk each turn up in their private jets before returning to their 3rd beachfront mansion that they’ve just bought.

2. They lie about stuff – witness the lawsuits against Michael Mann and the University of East Anglia emails. If as they say we’re dealing with an inarguable truth, why is there any need to bend the truth? Sounds more like a narrative than a truth to me.

3. They brutally silence dissent. I know that this is all the rage in the 21st century but I still can’t get my little head around the idea that people who claim to have the facts on their side are completely unwilling to debate those facts openly, or even allow contrary facts the light of day. For what it’s worth there are alternative points of view out there (e.g. Watts up with that) but never covered in the mainstream.

4. Nobody involved has the slightest interest in tackling the worst offenders – China and India – when it comes to the environment.

5. This has been going for decades, so plenty of time for some evidence to build up, yet every prediction, and I mean EVERY SINGLE prediction has gone wrong. As a keen skier I’m pretty glad they have, but seriously, for something where the science was settled you’d think they could point to one thing, somewhere, anywhere, that’s been predicted and has actually come to pass?

6. A disproportionately large number of its proponents just happen to have become much richer and much more powerful over the past couple of decades.

I wonder whether we are all being scammed because the people involved are ACTING like it’s a scam.

And BTW I’m all for doing stuff to help the environment. I’m just not sure that there’s enough there to justify halving our standard of living, doubling the cost and sending the difference to the politicians to get richer.

But that’s just me I guess.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Guy Haynes

Nice post.
BTW, you “wonder whether we are all being scammed”. Take it from me – we are.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Guy Haynes

Nice post.
BTW, you “wonder whether we are all being scammed”. Take it from me – we are.

Scott C
Scott C
1 year ago

Rosie – an upvote for Chris W – a down vote for you. I like critical thinkers who know how to navigate through your “dangerous twaddle”.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

Yet another straw man. There is absolutely no money on the skeptical side. Big oil funding some denialist campaign is nothing but a conspiracy theory.

The big cash is on the alarmist side. In addition to an endless trough of grants, the most high profile climate scientists receive straight up cash awards and prizes from a myriad of foundations and programs. The father of alarmism James Hansen has received $2 mill in awards, such as the Heinz Award, the Dan David Prize, Taiwan’s Tang Prize, just to name a few.

Big Oil spends infinitely more money greenwashing than supporting any skeptical science. And it will continue to sell oil, regardless of what we believe. Fossil fuels make up 81% of the energy mix today, a whopping 1% decrease from 82% two decades ago. And if we destroy the fossil fuel industry in the west, they’ll simply move to Asia and Africa, which they are doing already.

Conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen. There’s a bunch of them about Gazprom financing eco groups to cripple fossil fuel production in the west. Meh.

Here are some real numbers from the budgets of eco organizations in 2012. Remember this is 10 years ago:

The Nature Conservancy: $949,132,306

Greenpeace International: $406,000,000

Wildlife Conservation Society: $230,042,654

World Wildlife Fund: $208,495,555

This is just the top of the pyramid. There are hundreds of NGOs promoting fear. A cynical person might argue these groups have a vested interest in promoting climate porn – their budgets and fundraising benefit from it.

Yet we’re supposed to believe the Heartland Institute – a common target accused of taking money from big oil – with its $4 mill budget, is stopping the world from adopting renewable energy.

Go ahead. Keep telling yourself there’s some well-financed cabal of science deniers out there brain washing the masses – that climate alarmists are on the side of angels.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jim Veenbaas
Guy Haynes
Guy Haynes
1 year ago

Well I’m not a scientist and, while well read and educated, can’t pretend to understand every intricacy of climate science.

The reason I have a massive amount of skepticism over the climate change movement (or at least the solutions proposed by it) are in no way scientific and everything to do with 45 years of witnessing human behaviour:

1. Its proponents do not in any way practise what they preach. When they’re telling us all that half the world’s land mass will be underwater if we don’t stop flying, simple folk like me smell a massive rat when these folk each turn up in their private jets before returning to their 3rd beachfront mansion that they’ve just bought.

2. They lie about stuff – witness the lawsuits against Michael Mann and the University of East Anglia emails. If as they say we’re dealing with an inarguable truth, why is there any need to bend the truth? Sounds more like a narrative than a truth to me.

3. They brutally silence dissent. I know that this is all the rage in the 21st century but I still can’t get my little head around the idea that people who claim to have the facts on their side are completely unwilling to debate those facts openly, or even allow contrary facts the light of day. For what it’s worth there are alternative points of view out there (e.g. Watts up with that) but never covered in the mainstream.

4. Nobody involved has the slightest interest in tackling the worst offenders – China and India – when it comes to the environment.

5. This has been going for decades, so plenty of time for some evidence to build up, yet every prediction, and I mean EVERY SINGLE prediction has gone wrong. As a keen skier I’m pretty glad they have, but seriously, for something where the science was settled you’d think they could point to one thing, somewhere, anywhere, that’s been predicted and has actually come to pass?

6. A disproportionately large number of its proponents just happen to have become much richer and much more powerful over the past couple of decades.

I wonder whether we are all being scammed because the people involved are ACTING like it’s a scam.

And BTW I’m all for doing stuff to help the environment. I’m just not sure that there’s enough there to justify halving our standard of living, doubling the cost and sending the difference to the politicians to get richer.

But that’s just me I guess.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

I have some understanding of how scientists cheat to make few quid. The trouble is economists are worse

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Chris W you would not believe how many times I have questioned my skepticism of climate alarmism. If everyone thinks the world is doomed, why do I persist in thinking this is so overblown? And I always come to the same conclusion; the solutions to climate change are much worse than the problem they are trying to solve. This is the utter disconnect that I can’t wrap my head around.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

She is what we on the enlightened team of true science generally like to call a “useful idiot”.
All unevidenced wild assertions and calls to authority. Convincing, not.

Guy Pigache
Guy Pigache
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Occasionally somebody shines a light. Thank you

Rosie Brocklehurst
Rosie Brocklehurst
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

I am not ignorant but a medical scientist and well read on this issue too. The gainsayers have had plenty of traction and yes Big Oil did indeed pay for a lot of PR denials and counter-actual research (just as big tobacco did over health harms) and now, even a few in oil are coming round to understanding the causes and consequences of fossil fuel burning. So don’t talk dangerous twaddle. If you really want to go around with a paper bag over your head then go ahead. I quite like some articles on Unherd but mostly its a place for regurgitating stupid conspiracies and it attracts trolls.-hence your ridiculous assumptions about climate scientists and rudeness calling me ignorant.

Last edited 1 year ago by Rosie Brocklehurst
Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

I have some understanding of how scientists cheat to make few quid. The trouble is economists are worse

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Chris W you would not believe how many times I have questioned my skepticism of climate alarmism. If everyone thinks the world is doomed, why do I persist in thinking this is so overblown? And I always come to the same conclusion; the solutions to climate change are much worse than the problem they are trying to solve. This is the utter disconnect that I can’t wrap my head around.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

She is what we on the enlightened team of true science generally like to call a “useful idiot”.
All unevidenced wild assertions and calls to authority. Convincing, not.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

I started to write a detailed response, but realised you’re a propagandist either in thrall of the ‘narrative”, or a pollinator of it. Doesn’t matter. “Climate change”, we were already told, was going to be the next panic after the Covid bullsh*t ran out of the power to terrify. But I’ve been fed the climate emergency crap since the Age of Aquarius when I was in grade school – all of it utter, provable nonsense Air travel then was still a fairly expensive and rare family endeavor (we used to dress up to fly from New York to Switzerland). It’s so commonplace now, people wear pajamas and slouch off to a climate protest in a waiting Uber without noticing the absurdity of their stance (we were on the way to LA with a woman who was flying out to protest the Keystone XL Pipeline a few years ago. I asked her why she wasn’t riding her bike from New England to Nebraska. She asked the flight attendant to move her seat. He didn’t). It’s all just ludicrous theater for people looking for a tribe in which to belong.

John Brown
John Brown
1 year ago

Whilst satellite measurements are showing a global increase in sea level of 1.6mm/year, hundreds of Pacific islands are actually growing in size. More importantly, not only is CO2 not the driver of the small and benign one degree C increase in global temperature (as shown by the Antarctic Vostok Ice Core Data) over the last 100 years since the Little Ice Age but is plant food and hence necessary for all life on earth. We need more CO2 not less.to promote plant growth and prevent famines. In fact if the whole world followed the Communists’ net zero CO2 religion, then life on earth would be extinguished. For the last 150 million years the CO2 level has dropped from many times its current value as a result of shelled marine animals using CO2 to build their shells, as evidenced by the existence of 100 million billion tons of carbonaceous rocks. In fact over the last 800,000 years the CO2 has dropped nine times to 180 ppm, just 30 ppm above the minimum level below which plants cannot survive. The last occasion being the most recent ice age which ended just 11,000 years ago. So unless himans release this captured CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels or unless volcanoes emit sufficient CO2, then shelled marine animals will continue to deplete the atmosphere of CO2 until plant, and hence, all life on the planet, will die.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

Interesting comment. Never have I denied that climate change is real or that we should not try to address it. I’m totally on board with nuclear energy. My beef is with overwrought alarmism and the delusion of net zero.

I always love it when informed alarmists make verifiably incorrect statements. Pacific islands are not gradually flooding. In fact, 80% of them have grown in size over the last 50 years. We know this for certain because of aerial photographs taken since WWII.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

“Never have I denied that climate change is real or that we should not try to address it”
And that’s your big mistake, if I may say so. Of course the climate changes, but that isn’t what the loony neo-Marxists globalists mean by ‘climate change’. Surely you know this?
By conceding that the delusional brainwashed fools have a point – by giving them an inch – they take a mile. We now have a fake cLiMaTe EmErGeNcY declared by moronic bureaucrats across the country, farms being requisitioned by the government, constant illegal interference with traffic in and around London, a serious risk of looming blackouts, and Oxford about to be divided into “15 minute zones”.
As for “trying to address it”; it seems rather strange to ‘address’ something which does not exist. Even were it to exist, how should we ‘address’ it?

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

“Never have I denied that climate change is real or that we should not try to address it”
And that’s your big mistake, if I may say so. Of course the climate changes, but that isn’t what the loony neo-Marxists globalists mean by ‘climate change’. Surely you know this?
By conceding that the delusional brainwashed fools have a point – by giving them an inch – they take a mile. We now have a fake cLiMaTe EmErGeNcY declared by moronic bureaucrats across the country, farms being requisitioned by the government, constant illegal interference with traffic in and around London, a serious risk of looming blackouts, and Oxford about to be divided into “15 minute zones”.
As for “trying to address it”; it seems rather strange to ‘address’ something which does not exist. Even were it to exist, how should we ‘address’ it?

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago

The issue is not embracing climate change or not. Everyone on the planet seems to agree that our climate has changed on this planet for the entirety of the 4.5 billion (4,500,000,000 for the uninitiated) years it has been in existence. The issue is whether our world and society should be tossed up like a garden salad over something humans have no answer for. Humans, by the way, that have only occupied this planet for a minuscule amount of time and even less time in an industrial age. And even less time measuring our climate, leading to an extraordinarily minute data set that would be utterly laughable if applied to any other serious study.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago

I am a scientist and proud of it. Today, I don’t trust any scientists because they are fighting for research grants and will ‘prove’ that the moon is made of green cheese if they would get more grants.
Science used to teach you to question everything. So, if you believed in AGW you had to fight it and try to show you were wrong. However crazy this sounds today, it does lead to impartiality.
The problem on this site is that everybody believes they are right. Period. Everybody else must be wrong. That analysis includes you and your beliefs.
I have read dozens of books and papers on AGW. At first the ideas were all over the place but governments and media made a decision – to exclude the gainsayers. No more grants unless you say that AGW is the truth. There is absolutely no proof anywhere that AGW is correct. Only beliefs like yours’. So, somebody has instructed you as follows: If anyone tells you that AGW is wrong, just say that Big Oil has paid for them to say it.
And you, in your ignorance, are following instructions.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

I started to write a detailed response, but realised you’re a propagandist either in thrall of the ‘narrative”, or a pollinator of it. Doesn’t matter. “Climate change”, we were already told, was going to be the next panic after the Covid bullsh*t ran out of the power to terrify. But I’ve been fed the climate emergency crap since the Age of Aquarius when I was in grade school – all of it utter, provable nonsense Air travel then was still a fairly expensive and rare family endeavor (we used to dress up to fly from New York to Switzerland). It’s so commonplace now, people wear pajamas and slouch off to a climate protest in a waiting Uber without noticing the absurdity of their stance (we were on the way to LA with a woman who was flying out to protest the Keystone XL Pipeline a few years ago. I asked her why she wasn’t riding her bike from New England to Nebraska. She asked the flight attendant to move her seat. He didn’t). It’s all just ludicrous theater for people looking for a tribe in which to belong.

John Brown
John Brown
1 year ago

Whilst satellite measurements are showing a global increase in sea level of 1.6mm/year, hundreds of Pacific islands are actually growing in size. More importantly, not only is CO2 not the driver of the small and benign one degree C increase in global temperature (as shown by the Antarctic Vostok Ice Core Data) over the last 100 years since the Little Ice Age but is plant food and hence necessary for all life on earth. We need more CO2 not less.to promote plant growth and prevent famines. In fact if the whole world followed the Communists’ net zero CO2 religion, then life on earth would be extinguished. For the last 150 million years the CO2 level has dropped from many times its current value as a result of shelled marine animals using CO2 to build their shells, as evidenced by the existence of 100 million billion tons of carbonaceous rocks. In fact over the last 800,000 years the CO2 has dropped nine times to 180 ppm, just 30 ppm above the minimum level below which plants cannot survive. The last occasion being the most recent ice age which ended just 11,000 years ago. So unless himans release this captured CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels or unless volcanoes emit sufficient CO2, then shelled marine animals will continue to deplete the atmosphere of CO2 until plant, and hence, all life on the planet, will die.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

Interesting comment. Never have I denied that climate change is real or that we should not try to address it. I’m totally on board with nuclear energy. My beef is with overwrought alarmism and the delusion of net zero.

I always love it when informed alarmists make verifiably incorrect statements. Pacific islands are not gradually flooding. In fact, 80% of them have grown in size over the last 50 years. We know this for certain because of aerial photographs taken since WWII.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago

The issue is not embracing climate change or not. Everyone on the planet seems to agree that our climate has changed on this planet for the entirety of the 4.5 billion (4,500,000,000 for the uninitiated) years it has been in existence. The issue is whether our world and society should be tossed up like a garden salad over something humans have no answer for. Humans, by the way, that have only occupied this planet for a minuscule amount of time and even less time in an industrial age. And even less time measuring our climate, leading to an extraordinarily minute data set that would be utterly laughable if applied to any other serious study.

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

There was a time when the Marxists insisted we should move to Communism because it was a better, more productive economic system. Now they’re arguing we should move to it because it’s literally the opposite.

Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel Lee

Wow, I never thought about it that way. Good point!

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel Lee

A tyrant will always find a way to justify his tyranny.

Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel Lee

Wow, I never thought about it that way. Good point!

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel Lee

A tyrant will always find a way to justify his tyranny.

Emre S
Emre S
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Why do elites support his? I believe it has to do with AI. Human economic worth will drop to zero for most individuals quite soon with machines taking over most tasks including white collar jobs. When humans aren’t needed to do things, they won’t have jobs, and any money other than what the state gives them in lieu of the political power they wield. When these billions become primarily an unnecessary cost for the powers that be that must be fed it’s not a coincidence degrowth becomes a solution.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Emre S

Interesting. Most humans will simply become pests or vermin. I don’t see the economic advantage to that, however.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Emre S

Interesting. Most humans will simply become pests or vermin. I don’t see the economic advantage to that, however.

JJ Barnett
JJ Barnett
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

“The most perplexing thing for me is why the political elite and technocrats are so invested in climate alarmism and net zero.”

The simple answer is in 2 parts:
The originators of this idea were steeped in an ideology called ‘technocracy’ that started becoming very popular among the rich during the 1920s and 30s. They really believe that there are ‘better humans’ (and their great wealth is a testament to that superior nature and talent, in their view). They do believe that the world should be organised by the superior/smarter people, for the sake of everyone. [Pathological Narcissism …may I introduce you to my dear friend God Complex]They worked out that this narrative would make it possible to monopolise and take control of all the world’s resources and power, and that they could achieve using ‘catastrophe’ narratives what might otherwise require force.
All of the ideas that underpin the UN’s ‘Agenda 21 / 2030’ and the WEF’s ‘Great Reset’ (aka ‘4th Industrial Revolution’) are actually the frameworks and ideas from earlier private clubs of the uber-wealthy technocrats. The most notable of these is the Club of Rome. A really good article on some of that history is here.

…The Greta Thunberg’s and the XR muppets chaining themselves to things around London, they’re simply the useful idiots and shock troops for an agenda that they can’t even comprehend. That agenda is an energy-based economy, centrally administered by a global governance structure which is ‘partnered’ with private business interests. The fundamental plan (of Technocracy… and the Club of Rome.. to the WEF and the Trilateral Comm. and the Bilderberg Grouping …to the UN, and the ISD etc) it actually hasn’t changed much at all. If you look at what’s happening systematically all over the world, it’s a dismantling of local structures (with democratic feedback mechanisms) and then that power is being funnelled upwards into opaque quasi-government structures that are supra-national and impervious to citizen feedback. It’s the privatisation of governance.

A point which is rarely made, but very important, is this: If you read Agenda 2030 and the WEFs website/white papers they make it clear that the system they are pushing is a new mode of governance called “Public / Private Partnerships”.

“Public / Private Partnerships” is the centrepiece of the agenda. It’s all over the websites, it’s headlining the conference programmes, it’s on billboards, they’re throwing events about it, and they’re forcing ESG into the lending market to coerce participation across the private sector. Klaus boasts about “penetrating the cabinets” and placing their people directly into the government side of the equation.
“Public / Private Partnerships” = the merger of the twin power bases of State and Private Capital/Business. That is a literal dictionary definition of fascism. In fact, Mussolini wrote that fascism should more rightly be called Corporatism because it was the State acting in concert [and in service of] the Private Capital [the billionaire oligarch class]. Quite so.
So we should call it what it is… They’re trying fascism again, but with new branding. And this time they want to impose it globally, instead of in 1 country.

Last edited 1 year ago by JJ Barnett
Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

I don’t see a way to comment on the article, only a way to reply to other comments. Am I missing it?
Anyway, my comment would be that the elite and deepstaters are very concerned about the declining rate of population growth. Just do an engine search on “Is overpopulation a problem?” and you’ll see all the deepstate entities saying that not only is overpopulation not a problem but population decline is the problem.

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
1 year ago
Reply to  Rob C

I wonder about this, too, but have been recognizing a particular pattern for decades, now. One way for the deepstate to conquer the general populace is to subtly (and not so subtly at times) manipulate and encourage deep rifts between people -including racial and sexual ones- in order to provoke chaos. Uprisings are perfect scenarios for locking down a populace utilizing military tactics… basically a divide and conquer psyop on a multitude of levels

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
1 year ago
Reply to  Rob C

I wonder about this, too, but have been recognizing a particular pattern for decades, now. One way for the deepstate to conquer the general populace is to subtly (and not so subtly at times) manipulate and encourage deep rifts between people -including racial and sexual ones- in order to provoke chaos. Uprisings are perfect scenarios for locking down a populace utilizing military tactics… basically a divide and conquer psyop on a multitude of levels

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

‘We might think rivers are dirty in the west, but compare that to the Ganges.”
That’s the other part of why these doomsday predictions are off the mark – different countries are at different levels of development, and often it’s just a matter of timr.

You really need to compare the Ganges to the Thames a 100 years back. Or, for instance, slums in Mumbai to those in London 19th century. And you will realise that things aren’t so bad, there are already programs underway to clean the Ganges incidentally, and birth rates are close to replacement levels in most Indian states, and increasing levels of energy generation capacity in India is green.

I am not saying this to pretend everything is hunky dory right now. Just that there is a good chance the majority of the world would see declining populations, clean environments, high levels of clean energy etc in just a few decades.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Excellent comment. I honestly believe India is the only democracy with any economic muscle that has adopted a rational and balanced approach to climate change.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Excellent comment. I honestly believe India is the only democracy with any economic muscle that has adopted a rational and balanced approach to climate change.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

You are correct to call Extinction Rebellion/VHEM death cults, because that’s what they are. I’ve made the point before that Malthusianism was created by a cleric and hits the same emotional buttons as every other apocalyptic religion/cult does. First, it introduces an original sin. In original Malthusianism, the sin was reproduction, or in other words, sex is bad. In modern times, consumption replaces sex because technology has rendered sex more or less irrelevant and because a lot of the prophets of the new religion were former free love hippy types. Second, it warns of the coming apocalypse. Overpopulation, climate change, ecosystem destruction. Our entire civilization will collapse into anarchy and we’ll be fighting over scraps in the streets while we all slowly die alone in the wasteland our sin has wrought. This is the fire and brimstone part of the sermon, where we’re supposed to tremble like sinners in the hands of an angry God. Then, once the congregation is sufficiently terrified of the coming apocalypse, the preacher throws out the lifeline. Ah, but if you repent of your sins, you can be saved. Repent of your sins and change your evil ways and here’s how you do it….. This is where, of course, the preacher asks for money, obedience, self-flagellation, personal worship, volunteers for suicide bombings, or whatever else is needed for ‘the cause’. It’s religious fundamentalism disguised by the trappings of scientific rhetoric and propped up by the usual profiteers, politicians, and false prophets that utilize the religious zeal to enrich and empower themselves. Fazi, unfortunately, seems to be less interested in calling out the environmentalist movement for what it is than in trying to graft it onto his clearly left populist/nationalist ideology. He seems like a Bernie Sanders type socialist who simply wants to get the environmentalist left to abandon the corporate overlords (which they won’t because those corporate overlords represent their best, and only realistic, chance at enforcing their puritanical worldview beyond their small congregation) in order to defeat the oligarchs by any means necessary. I’m not particularly interested in indulging dangerous zealotry for any particular cause. It has a habit of coming back to bite whoever supports it regardless of the reason (see the Americans and the mujahedeen).

Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Jolly
Richard Hart
Richard Hart
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

The only adherents amongst this daft cult are to be found in the already depopulation West. I note that that doomers are in no hurry to evangelize their ideology in Africa, Asia or the Middle East.

Jeff Chambers
Jeff Chambers
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

The most perplexing thing for me is why the political elite and technocrats are so invested in climate alarmism and net zero.
The “climate emergency” is a social control project, not an environmental protection project. Our post-democratic elites are so invested in it because it’s a method of dissolving democracy, and introducing the total-control state.

Ted Ditchburn
Ted Ditchburn
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

We had de-growth…that was the nasty, brutish and short life we had on a planet that has been far hotter than even the doomsters envisage, and also far colder, than it is today.
As the article says the ideas extreme eco believers propound, are just neo-Marxism dressed up in nice guy clothes for the irredeemably ‘kind’, mwah! mwah! generation.

Carmel Shortall
Carmel Shortall
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

“The most perplexing thing for me is why the political elite and technocrats are so invested in climate alarmism and net zero. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize that wind and solar cannot sustain a modern economy. Yet the political leadership in every country in the west has embraced this ideology.

Might make an interesting subject in the future for some Unherd writer.”

Short answer: the green agenda was basically invented by the Club of Rome.

Two books, The Limits to Growth (1972) and more especially, The First Global Revolution (1991) set out their desire for both depopulation and the means by which they hope to achieve this end – namely to convince the masses of “the threat of global warming” – what many now hysterically refer to as the ‘Climate Emergency’.

In anticipation of the carbon bollocks of Net Zero etc, we now have the paying off of farmers and government purchasing of farms in the Netherlands and Ireland. Similar happening in the UK and rest of Europe. Famine for the plebs in the short term is the desired outcome. Then vat-grown biosludge™️ with additional insects for the survivors. Not a conspiracy theory! Just a conspiracy.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

As you say, the whole climate change thing and Net Zero is just pathetic. But.. it is scary when whole generations of school kids are taught about these things as facts, unarguable facts.

We will have the situation in about 30 years when new generations will have a powerful share of the vote, and this vote will only elect those who shout loudest about climate change. Anybody, who wants to talk about realism will not get elected.

So, Net Zero people will be in total control but they won’t have the means to deliver. Disaster and many deaths will follow.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

If the elites had themselves to adopt the lifestyle changes they wish to impose on the rest of us they’d pretty quickly shut up about it. They get away with this nonsense because we let them.

Paul K
Paul K
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Head, meet sand.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Agreed – except perhaps for your final sentence. ‘Balanced, grow up’ Unherd writers make the same mistake as all the other indoctrinated cultists who don’t even realise they’re indoctrinated cultists.
“… one can be concerned about climate change and the state of the planet while still being sceptical …”
Those who ‘believe’ in the charlatan invention of man-made global climate change are anything but ‘sceptical’.

Rosie Brocklehurst
Rosie Brocklehurst
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

I hardly think Malthusian ideas about population were garbage and nor have they been refuted -not 300 years ago or now. Your argument about consumption is one sided and blinkered. Today, while I can shop with Ocado in England despite 15 per cent food inflation, Somalia and Eritrea people are eating meal if they can get it, and Pacific islands are gradually being flooded. I don’t call inflation or starvation ‘efficiency’, (although some on here would). Authoritarian countries meanwhile have not only re-written history to suit themselves but appropriated science to fit the political needs of the moment. There, ideologically conflicting narratives are increasingly difficult to unravel by anyone in power who have not had the pressures from below yet to make them wake up. For decades, communist economic ideals have been subsumed by an oligarchy and forms of organised state capitalism that require markets. China’s State capitalism requires force and an imperative to imperial expansion and is also dependent on sustaining markets. They are increasingly subject to revolt. How western leaders have embraced climate change has been a hard slog for the scientists and informed activists and is anyway, fafr too little too late, due not in small part to people like you and deluded conspiratorial, unscientific ideologies. No Government of the West will embrace climate change without evidence. Your evidence is partial weak and thin and paid for by big oil.

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

There was a time when the Marxists insisted we should move to Communism because it was a better, more productive economic system. Now they’re arguing we should move to it because it’s literally the opposite.

Emre S
Emre S
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Why do elites support his? I believe it has to do with AI. Human economic worth will drop to zero for most individuals quite soon with machines taking over most tasks including white collar jobs. When humans aren’t needed to do things, they won’t have jobs, and any money other than what the state gives them in lieu of the political power they wield. When these billions become primarily an unnecessary cost for the powers that be that must be fed it’s not a coincidence degrowth becomes a solution.

JJ Barnett
JJ Barnett
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

“The most perplexing thing for me is why the political elite and technocrats are so invested in climate alarmism and net zero.”

The simple answer is in 2 parts:
The originators of this idea were steeped in an ideology called ‘technocracy’ that started becoming very popular among the rich during the 1920s and 30s. They really believe that there are ‘better humans’ (and their great wealth is a testament to that superior nature and talent, in their view). They do believe that the world should be organised by the superior/smarter people, for the sake of everyone. [Pathological Narcissism …may I introduce you to my dear friend God Complex]They worked out that this narrative would make it possible to monopolise and take control of all the world’s resources and power, and that they could achieve using ‘catastrophe’ narratives what might otherwise require force.
All of the ideas that underpin the UN’s ‘Agenda 21 / 2030’ and the WEF’s ‘Great Reset’ (aka ‘4th Industrial Revolution’) are actually the frameworks and ideas from earlier private clubs of the uber-wealthy technocrats. The most notable of these is the Club of Rome. A really good article on some of that history is here.

…The Greta Thunberg’s and the XR muppets chaining themselves to things around London, they’re simply the useful idiots and shock troops for an agenda that they can’t even comprehend. That agenda is an energy-based economy, centrally administered by a global governance structure which is ‘partnered’ with private business interests. The fundamental plan (of Technocracy… and the Club of Rome.. to the WEF and the Trilateral Comm. and the Bilderberg Grouping …to the UN, and the ISD etc) it actually hasn’t changed much at all. If you look at what’s happening systematically all over the world, it’s a dismantling of local structures (with democratic feedback mechanisms) and then that power is being funnelled upwards into opaque quasi-government structures that are supra-national and impervious to citizen feedback. It’s the privatisation of governance.

A point which is rarely made, but very important, is this: If you read Agenda 2030 and the WEFs website/white papers they make it clear that the system they are pushing is a new mode of governance called “Public / Private Partnerships”.

“Public / Private Partnerships” is the centrepiece of the agenda. It’s all over the websites, it’s headlining the conference programmes, it’s on billboards, they’re throwing events about it, and they’re forcing ESG into the lending market to coerce participation across the private sector. Klaus boasts about “penetrating the cabinets” and placing their people directly into the government side of the equation.
“Public / Private Partnerships” = the merger of the twin power bases of State and Private Capital/Business. That is a literal dictionary definition of fascism. In fact, Mussolini wrote that fascism should more rightly be called Corporatism because it was the State acting in concert [and in service of] the Private Capital [the billionaire oligarch class]. Quite so.
So we should call it what it is… They’re trying fascism again, but with new branding. And this time they want to impose it globally, instead of in 1 country.

Last edited 1 year ago by JJ Barnett
Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

I don’t see a way to comment on the article, only a way to reply to other comments. Am I missing it?
Anyway, my comment would be that the elite and deepstaters are very concerned about the declining rate of population growth. Just do an engine search on “Is overpopulation a problem?” and you’ll see all the deepstate entities saying that not only is overpopulation not a problem but population decline is the problem.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

‘We might think rivers are dirty in the west, but compare that to the Ganges.”
That’s the other part of why these doomsday predictions are off the mark – different countries are at different levels of development, and often it’s just a matter of timr.

You really need to compare the Ganges to the Thames a 100 years back. Or, for instance, slums in Mumbai to those in London 19th century. And you will realise that things aren’t so bad, there are already programs underway to clean the Ganges incidentally, and birth rates are close to replacement levels in most Indian states, and increasing levels of energy generation capacity in India is green.

I am not saying this to pretend everything is hunky dory right now. Just that there is a good chance the majority of the world would see declining populations, clean environments, high levels of clean energy etc in just a few decades.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

You are correct to call Extinction Rebellion/VHEM death cults, because that’s what they are. I’ve made the point before that Malthusianism was created by a cleric and hits the same emotional buttons as every other apocalyptic religion/cult does. First, it introduces an original sin. In original Malthusianism, the sin was reproduction, or in other words, sex is bad. In modern times, consumption replaces sex because technology has rendered sex more or less irrelevant and because a lot of the prophets of the new religion were former free love hippy types. Second, it warns of the coming apocalypse. Overpopulation, climate change, ecosystem destruction. Our entire civilization will collapse into anarchy and we’ll be fighting over scraps in the streets while we all slowly die alone in the wasteland our sin has wrought. This is the fire and brimstone part of the sermon, where we’re supposed to tremble like sinners in the hands of an angry God. Then, once the congregation is sufficiently terrified of the coming apocalypse, the preacher throws out the lifeline. Ah, but if you repent of your sins, you can be saved. Repent of your sins and change your evil ways and here’s how you do it….. This is where, of course, the preacher asks for money, obedience, self-flagellation, personal worship, volunteers for suicide bombings, or whatever else is needed for ‘the cause’. It’s religious fundamentalism disguised by the trappings of scientific rhetoric and propped up by the usual profiteers, politicians, and false prophets that utilize the religious zeal to enrich and empower themselves. Fazi, unfortunately, seems to be less interested in calling out the environmentalist movement for what it is than in trying to graft it onto his clearly left populist/nationalist ideology. He seems like a Bernie Sanders type socialist who simply wants to get the environmentalist left to abandon the corporate overlords (which they won’t because those corporate overlords represent their best, and only realistic, chance at enforcing their puritanical worldview beyond their small congregation) in order to defeat the oligarchs by any means necessary. I’m not particularly interested in indulging dangerous zealotry for any particular cause. It has a habit of coming back to bite whoever supports it regardless of the reason (see the Americans and the mujahedeen).

Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Jolly
Richard Hart
Richard Hart
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

The only adherents amongst this daft cult are to be found in the already depopulation West. I note that that doomers are in no hurry to evangelize their ideology in Africa, Asia or the Middle East.

Jeff Chambers
Jeff Chambers
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

The most perplexing thing for me is why the political elite and technocrats are so invested in climate alarmism and net zero.
The “climate emergency” is a social control project, not an environmental protection project. Our post-democratic elites are so invested in it because it’s a method of dissolving democracy, and introducing the total-control state.

Ted Ditchburn
Ted Ditchburn
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

We had de-growth…that was the nasty, brutish and short life we had on a planet that has been far hotter than even the doomsters envisage, and also far colder, than it is today.
As the article says the ideas extreme eco believers propound, are just neo-Marxism dressed up in nice guy clothes for the irredeemably ‘kind’, mwah! mwah! generation.

Carmel Shortall
Carmel Shortall
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

“The most perplexing thing for me is why the political elite and technocrats are so invested in climate alarmism and net zero. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize that wind and solar cannot sustain a modern economy. Yet the political leadership in every country in the west has embraced this ideology.

Might make an interesting subject in the future for some Unherd writer.”

Short answer: the green agenda was basically invented by the Club of Rome.

Two books, The Limits to Growth (1972) and more especially, The First Global Revolution (1991) set out their desire for both depopulation and the means by which they hope to achieve this end – namely to convince the masses of “the threat of global warming” – what many now hysterically refer to as the ‘Climate Emergency’.

In anticipation of the carbon bollocks of Net Zero etc, we now have the paying off of farmers and government purchasing of farms in the Netherlands and Ireland. Similar happening in the UK and rest of Europe. Famine for the plebs in the short term is the desired outcome. Then vat-grown biosludge™️ with additional insects for the survivors. Not a conspiracy theory! Just a conspiracy.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

You would think after nearly three centuries of being utterly discredited, this Malthusian garbage would die an ignoble death. Yet it still persists.

Although capitalism needs continual consumption, it’s also driven to produce greater efficiency. We need fewer resources to produce the same amount of goods. The examples are everywhere – less land to produce more food, better fuel mileage for vehicles, less manpower to produce goods.

We are much more concerned about the environment in free-market democracies than authoritarian countries like Russia or China. There’s more trees in North America than 100 years ago. We might think rivers are dirty in the west, but compare that to the Ganges.

Degrowth groups like the Extinction Rebellion are death cults – period. They get zero traction with the general population and will whither away when the kids have to get real jobs.

The most perplexing thing for me is why the political elite and technocrats are so invested in climate alarmism and net zero. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize that wind and solar cannot sustain a modern economy. Yet the political leadership in every country in the west has embraced this ideology.

Might make an interesting subject in the future for some Unherd writer.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

There may be individuals who are genuinely altruistic, but there is no class that is.

Every time one of these people, whether it’s Gary Lineker or Jeff Bezos, starts telling the rest of us we must give up our comforts, we must reply by telling them we’ll do so five years after they move to a small house, surrender all their excess wealth and stop driving, flying and eating in restaurants. We should crowdfund a commission to conduct surveillance and regular inspections to ensure there is no backsliding.

Then we’ll hear no more of it.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Not 5 years. Quite a few of them might happily do a 5 stretch in a bungalow if it meant purchasing a gilded lifestyle for ever afterwards. Make it for life and with a lead time of 25 years and that’ll do the job, probably.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Not 5 years, not ever. Slap the lot of ’em in jail and let ’em rot.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

“When a man knows he is to be hanged…it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”*

(* Dr SJ.)

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Not 5 years, not ever. Slap the lot of ’em in jail and let ’em rot.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

“When a man knows he is to be hanged…it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”*

(* Dr SJ.)

Emma Baillie
Emma Baillie
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

If only we still had one of those sort of political parties that believed in rich people paying high taxes…

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Not 5 years. Quite a few of them might happily do a 5 stretch in a bungalow if it meant purchasing a gilded lifestyle for ever afterwards. Make it for life and with a lead time of 25 years and that’ll do the job, probably.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Emma Baillie
Emma Baillie
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

If only we still had one of those sort of political parties that believed in rich people paying high taxes…

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

There may be individuals who are genuinely altruistic, but there is no class that is.

Every time one of these people, whether it’s Gary Lineker or Jeff Bezos, starts telling the rest of us we must give up our comforts, we must reply by telling them we’ll do so five years after they move to a small house, surrender all their excess wealth and stop driving, flying and eating in restaurants. We should crowdfund a commission to conduct surveillance and regular inspections to ensure there is no backsliding.

Then we’ll hear no more of it.

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago

The whole point of politics is to force people.
Back in the day Marx said that the workers would be “immiserated” unless the capitalists were forced to de-immiserate them under Communism. But instead we got two centuries of growth. Who knew?
Now, with growth the normal, the Commies are saying that growth will kill us all, because climate and fossil fuels unless the growthers were fored to degrowth under neo-Communism.
Here’s a breathtaking thought. Politics and force and Commies is almost never the answer.

Greta Hirschman
Greta Hirschman
1 year ago

Yet, it would be hard to blame the Commies for WWI and WWII. Commies were a bunch of fellows before Lenin was sent back to Russia from Switzerland with the aim of helping German war efforts. Another German had the ‘brilliant’ idea of recreating Islamists to fight the Commies during WWII. An idea some Americans made their own. Let’s see what brilliant idea they can figure out to fight Islamism – another ‘solution’ based on we-are-all-equal-above-all-the-others.
History has plenty of such great ideas. Empires were happy with their growth policies until they collapsed, much often from their inner contradictions.
Politics is about persuasion more than force. Force often leads to resistance and setbacks.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago

Don’t agree. Politics is about persuasion for the <1% who can bother to be persuaded. For the 99+%, it is about force.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago

Don’t agree. Politics is about persuasion for the <1% who can bother to be persuaded. For the 99+%, it is about force.

Mr Sketerzen Bhoto
Mr Sketerzen Bhoto
1 year ago

To be fair to the original practical communists they were very much in favour of economic growth, just not that good at it, not for consumers anyway.

The green Marxists want unlimited immigration and degrowth, which can’t but make everybody poorer. Income is related to consumption anyway, to create a society with less possible consumption is to create one with less actual real income. If I can’t buy a car, or a beef sandwich, or a trip to France, I’m poorer than if I can. Despite the claims of equality here they seem to want to make everything more expensive, which rather than delivering communism would diver feudalism. You will have nothing and be happy, they won’t.

Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago

Were the original practical communists *really* in favor of growth or was that just deception? We make fun of the state capitalist countries for being incompetent at supplying their citizens with a consistent supply of the basics, even, but I think this may have been deliberate. If my theory that Leftism is basically Jesus’s moral beliefs taken to their ultimate, logical, extreme, then everybody must be allowed no more than the minimum required to survive.

Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago

Were the original practical communists *really* in favor of growth or was that just deception? We make fun of the state capitalist countries for being incompetent at supplying their citizens with a consistent supply of the basics, even, but I think this may have been deliberate. If my theory that Leftism is basically Jesus’s moral beliefs taken to their ultimate, logical, extreme, then everybody must be allowed no more than the minimum required to survive.

Roger Irwin
Roger Irwin
1 year ago

Who knew? Adam Smith.

Rosie Brocklehurst
Rosie Brocklehurst
1 year ago

Commies? Who exactly do you mean? As to force, I am so cold and tired I need to be forced to get out of bed some days. There is force and force. And there are ways to encourage that don’t feel like force. It is possible. But change is difficult. Like going on a diet. Foregoing cream cakes. Raising of consciousness by experience of others suffering. Caring for the starving over ones own greed. Politics and force was Capitalisms’ trajectory as well as Communisms. Both have been imperialist and expansionist.

Greta Hirschman
Greta Hirschman
1 year ago

Yet, it would be hard to blame the Commies for WWI and WWII. Commies were a bunch of fellows before Lenin was sent back to Russia from Switzerland with the aim of helping German war efforts. Another German had the ‘brilliant’ idea of recreating Islamists to fight the Commies during WWII. An idea some Americans made their own. Let’s see what brilliant idea they can figure out to fight Islamism – another ‘solution’ based on we-are-all-equal-above-all-the-others.
History has plenty of such great ideas. Empires were happy with their growth policies until they collapsed, much often from their inner contradictions.
Politics is about persuasion more than force. Force often leads to resistance and setbacks.

Mr Sketerzen Bhoto
Mr Sketerzen Bhoto
1 year ago

To be fair to the original practical communists they were very much in favour of economic growth, just not that good at it, not for consumers anyway.

The green Marxists want unlimited immigration and degrowth, which can’t but make everybody poorer. Income is related to consumption anyway, to create a society with less possible consumption is to create one with less actual real income. If I can’t buy a car, or a beef sandwich, or a trip to France, I’m poorer than if I can. Despite the claims of equality here they seem to want to make everything more expensive, which rather than delivering communism would diver feudalism. You will have nothing and be happy, they won’t.

Roger Irwin
Roger Irwin
1 year ago

Who knew? Adam Smith.

Rosie Brocklehurst
Rosie Brocklehurst
1 year ago

Commies? Who exactly do you mean? As to force, I am so cold and tired I need to be forced to get out of bed some days. There is force and force. And there are ways to encourage that don’t feel like force. It is possible. But change is difficult. Like going on a diet. Foregoing cream cakes. Raising of consciousness by experience of others suffering. Caring for the starving over ones own greed. Politics and force was Capitalisms’ trajectory as well as Communisms. Both have been imperialist and expansionist.

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago

The whole point of politics is to force people.
Back in the day Marx said that the workers would be “immiserated” unless the capitalists were forced to de-immiserate them under Communism. But instead we got two centuries of growth. Who knew?
Now, with growth the normal, the Commies are saying that growth will kill us all, because climate and fossil fuels unless the growthers were fored to degrowth under neo-Communism.
Here’s a breathtaking thought. Politics and force and Commies is almost never the answer.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

“This might seem like a sensible idea on paper; there’s no denying that fossil fuels have serious drawbacks in terms of climate alteration and pollution.”

Well there is, actually, at least in terms of the climate alteration part, which is not backed by serious science to the point where we can confidently declare that the proposition isn’t controversial. There is a large body of evidence and expert opinion that says that human activity is simply not having any dangerous near-term effects on the climate, for the simple reason that CO2 emissions whether natural or anthropogenic, don’t control atmospheric temperature. (This is not the same as claiming that CO2 has no effect at all. It does indeed have the effect of trapping radiation at certain wavelengths and thereby providing a warming effect, but beyond a certain concentration the effect is saturated).

However, the part relating to pollution is of course correct: the total global effort to use fossil fuels in all forms including coal is extremely polluting. An interesting factoid here is that the most radioactively-polluting energy source is not, as many would imagine, nuclear power, but coal, because the trace amounts of radioactive elements in coal when it is burnt are emitted in the exhaust from power stations, and this easily exceeds the tiny amounts of radioactive emissions from the nuclear power industry itself.

On the final point:

“This is the ultimate paradox of degrowth communism: its proponents may want to overthrow capitalism, but their ideology is actually empowering the globalist capitalist elites they claim to be fighting.”

There is no paradox here: most hard-left activists are really nothing more than disenfranchised would-be aristocrats themselves. Their aim, if successful, is not to rejoin the newly impoverished masses, but to share power with the established elites. This may make them scumbags, agreed, but sadly for the rest of us it is at least a strategy that has some chance of actual success.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

“This might seem like a sensible idea on paper; there’s no denying that fossil fuels have serious drawbacks in terms of climate alteration and pollution.”

Well there is, actually, at least in terms of the climate alteration part, which is not backed by serious science to the point where we can confidently declare that the proposition isn’t controversial. There is a large body of evidence and expert opinion that says that human activity is simply not having any dangerous near-term effects on the climate, for the simple reason that CO2 emissions whether natural or anthropogenic, don’t control atmospheric temperature. (This is not the same as claiming that CO2 has no effect at all. It does indeed have the effect of trapping radiation at certain wavelengths and thereby providing a warming effect, but beyond a certain concentration the effect is saturated).

However, the part relating to pollution is of course correct: the total global effort to use fossil fuels in all forms including coal is extremely polluting. An interesting factoid here is that the most radioactively-polluting energy source is not, as many would imagine, nuclear power, but coal, because the trace amounts of radioactive elements in coal when it is burnt are emitted in the exhaust from power stations, and this easily exceeds the tiny amounts of radioactive emissions from the nuclear power industry itself.

On the final point:

“This is the ultimate paradox of degrowth communism: its proponents may want to overthrow capitalism, but their ideology is actually empowering the globalist capitalist elites they claim to be fighting.”

There is no paradox here: most hard-left activists are really nothing more than disenfranchised would-be aristocrats themselves. Their aim, if successful, is not to rejoin the newly impoverished masses, but to share power with the established elites. This may make them scumbags, agreed, but sadly for the rest of us it is at least a strategy that has some chance of actual success.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Bryan Dale
Bryan Dale
1 year ago

Free markets are the best means ever invented for the efficient use of scarce resources. Any government imposed system will not only make us poorer but increase the impact of humans on the environment.

Bryan Dale
Bryan Dale
1 year ago

Free markets are the best means ever invented for the efficient use of scarce resources. Any government imposed system will not only make us poorer but increase the impact of humans on the environment.

Frank Ott
Frank Ott
1 year ago

We cannot have perpetual growth on a finite planet. If one doesn’t believe in anthropogenic climate change, could one be swayed by the fact that we’ve lived at a time when fossil fuels boosted growth beyond imagination? These are dwindling resources. From this perspective, business as usual doesn’t seem wise.
This said, it is apparent that world elites are seeking more power and control and that this narrative excuse their technocratic and fascist endeavour. From CBDC’s to ‘health pass’, to banning fertilizers, to crashing the economy, they want to ‘save the world’ by enslaving all the rest of us. We must resist these psychopathic would be gods. They must not lord over us.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank Ott

We do not have “perpetual growth”, any more than we had perpetual “exponential growth” of Covid. And “finite planet” is so vague and laden with eco-emotion as to be entirely meaningless.
So the rest of your post, which appears superficially rational, is invalidated.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank Ott

We do not have “perpetual growth”, any more than we had perpetual “exponential growth” of Covid. And “finite planet” is so vague and laden with eco-emotion as to be entirely meaningless.
So the rest of your post, which appears superficially rational, is invalidated.

Frank Ott
Frank Ott
1 year ago

We cannot have perpetual growth on a finite planet. If one doesn’t believe in anthropogenic climate change, could one be swayed by the fact that we’ve lived at a time when fossil fuels boosted growth beyond imagination? These are dwindling resources. From this perspective, business as usual doesn’t seem wise.
This said, it is apparent that world elites are seeking more power and control and that this narrative excuse their technocratic and fascist endeavour. From CBDC’s to ‘health pass’, to banning fertilizers, to crashing the economy, they want to ‘save the world’ by enslaving all the rest of us. We must resist these psychopathic would be gods. They must not lord over us.

Jim Jam
Jim Jam
1 year ago

Limit CO2 emmisions and kill hundreds of millions – if not billions – in the process.

A win win then, as far as the elites are concerned.

And as the nightmare unfolds, those citizens in the west most sheltered from the consequences of their imaginings will continue to obfuscate and distract while secretly cheering the process on.

Jim Jam
Jim Jam
1 year ago

Limit CO2 emmisions and kill hundreds of millions – if not billions – in the process.

A win win then, as far as the elites are concerned.

And as the nightmare unfolds, those citizens in the west most sheltered from the consequences of their imaginings will continue to obfuscate and distract while secretly cheering the process on.

Malvin Marombedza
Malvin Marombedza
1 year ago

The people making the most noise about de-growth never seem to want to give up their own private jets and SUVs…

Malvin Marombedza
Malvin Marombedza
1 year ago

The people making the most noise about de-growth never seem to want to give up their own private jets and SUVs…

Emre S
Emre S
1 year ago

This is good old Eugenics once again justified by a Malthusian scare. It’s the same kind of movement that gave birth to Planned Parenthood by progressive liberals from the Democrat Party a century ago who sought to sterilise or otherwise stop the growth of “unwanted races”. Only this time it comes with a western Marxist twist, so it’s not mainly about controlling some races, but poor people in general. We make sure that minorities of all kinds are treated with uttermost respect – as long as they can afford to exist in the society. The poor in turn are being told to eat insects, own nothing, and not to procreate under which conditions the state is willing to sustain them. We’re entering a neo-Victorian age.

Last edited 1 year ago by Emre S
Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago
Reply to  Emre S

Not at all this is emotional maturity in the face of an emergency. The WWF Living Planet report 2022 reads more like a ‘Dying planet’ report. Many people are now finding the moral courage to accept that we have been very unwise to persist so long with the ecocidal economic model of GDP growth. This Preface in this paper from the UN Commons Cluster explains the scientific justification for equitable ecological Degrowth.

Stoater D
Stoater D
1 year ago

No.
Don’t ever take anything supported by The WWF seriously. Like the WEF and the UN, they are just another anti capitalist, doom mongering outfit that wants CCP style government imposed on the entire globe.
Climate change is the usual excuse.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Stoater D

Precisely, well said Sir.

Josh Woods
Josh Woods
1 year ago
Reply to  Stoater D

Well there is one kind of capitalism they implicitly support here- disaster capitalism, the type that brings profits to the elite by creating a crisis that exploits everyone else while unaware, just like robbing the house while it’s on fire during a house party. Or what the elites refer to as “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” And when disaster capitalism combines with the heavy-handed regime of communism, you get something like the last 3 years, or the WEF, or f****sm.
PS Despite Naomi Klein’s(who came up with the term ‘disaster capitalism’) anti-capitalist stances, she’s actually been on the ball with the whole COVID mass-hysteria: andrew-cuomo-eric-schmidt-coronavirus-tech-shock-doctrine

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Stoater D

Precisely, well said Sir.

Josh Woods
Josh Woods
1 year ago
Reply to  Stoater D

Well there is one kind of capitalism they implicitly support here- disaster capitalism, the type that brings profits to the elite by creating a crisis that exploits everyone else while unaware, just like robbing the house while it’s on fire during a house party. Or what the elites refer to as “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” And when disaster capitalism combines with the heavy-handed regime of communism, you get something like the last 3 years, or the WEF, or f****sm.
PS Despite Naomi Klein’s(who came up with the term ‘disaster capitalism’) anti-capitalist stances, she’s actually been on the ball with the whole COVID mass-hysteria: andrew-cuomo-eric-schmidt-coronavirus-tech-shock-doctrine

Stoater D
Stoater D
1 year ago

No.
Don’t ever take anything supported by The WWF seriously. Like the WEF and the UN, they are just another anti capitalist, doom mongering outfit that wants CCP style government imposed on the entire globe.
Climate change is the usual excuse.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago
Reply to  Emre S

Not at all this is emotional maturity in the face of an emergency. The WWF Living Planet report 2022 reads more like a ‘Dying planet’ report. Many people are now finding the moral courage to accept that we have been very unwise to persist so long with the ecocidal economic model of GDP growth. This Preface in this paper from the UN Commons Cluster explains the scientific justification for equitable ecological Degrowth.

Emre S
Emre S
1 year ago

This is good old Eugenics once again justified by a Malthusian scare. It’s the same kind of movement that gave birth to Planned Parenthood by progressive liberals from the Democrat Party a century ago who sought to sterilise or otherwise stop the growth of “unwanted races”. Only this time it comes with a western Marxist twist, so it’s not mainly about controlling some races, but poor people in general. We make sure that minorities of all kinds are treated with uttermost respect – as long as they can afford to exist in the society. The poor in turn are being told to eat insects, own nothing, and not to procreate under which conditions the state is willing to sustain them. We’re entering a neo-Victorian age.

Last edited 1 year ago by Emre S
Northern Observer
Northern Observer
1 year ago

Malthusism has been the fashionable idee fixe of Western Elites since the early 60s. But the idea has definitely been proven false and our leaders are slow to readjust their thinking. Everything that was supported by the Malthusian premise – sexual revolution, feminism, economic growth, net zero, immigration – has lost backing for its continued validity and needs to be reassessed. Which explains massive elite resistance to this change; it’s disrupts their comfort entirely.

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago

”definitely been proven false”

Do you actually ‘get’ how science and ‘proof’ work?

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

It appears that he does. If he was claiming that a proposition had been proven definitely true, then that would be a mistake.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

It appears that he does. If he was claiming that a proposition had been proven definitely true, then that would be a mistake.

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago

”definitely been proven false”

Do you actually ‘get’ how science and ‘proof’ work?

Northern Observer
Northern Observer
1 year ago

Malthusism has been the fashionable idee fixe of Western Elites since the early 60s. But the idea has definitely been proven false and our leaders are slow to readjust their thinking. Everything that was supported by the Malthusian premise – sexual revolution, feminism, economic growth, net zero, immigration – has lost backing for its continued validity and needs to be reassessed. Which explains massive elite resistance to this change; it’s disrupts their comfort entirely.

Josh Woods
Josh Woods
1 year ago

“Indeed, rather ominously, Saito cites the pandemic as proof that ‘rapid change is possible’ — with apparently little concern for the fact that this ‘change’ was achieved by sweeping aside democratic procedures and constitutional constraints, militarising societies, cracking down on civil liberties, and implementing unprecedented measures of social control.”
And in addition to all this, all the very real and serious collateral damage that these rapid changes entail- Skyrocketing poverty, demise of countless small businesses, severe deterioration of human wellbeing & welfare and how it could ultimately have the opposite effect for the cause of improving whatever situation they claim to care about. It’s not so much a quest for the best solution, but a unilateral effort to impose a rigid doctrine that serves to pontificate a figure, group, agenda or ideology.
PS note that Saito appears to be much-immersed in both communist as well as Japanese sociocultural views(though also common in other East Asian cultures, one of which I grew up in and now left)- the latter of which often deems honest individual thoughts to be expendable and shouldn’t be openly expressed, but to replaced by redacted opinions that conform to the crowd’s. In other words, as George Carlin put it:”Your beauty as an individual you have to surrender the sake of group thought.” And I recall Klaus Schwab stating in his book The Great Reset that this sort of hyper-submission and conformity is what he envisioned for the rest of the world’s population according to his grandiose fantasy, and we ought to be concerned.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago
Reply to  Josh Woods

The proponents for equitable ecological Degrowth are talking about voluntary socio-economic change. For ideas about how this might be inspired, checkout this roadmap for the Ego to Eco Journey in Leadership and Governance.

Stoater D
Stoater D
1 year ago

No thank you.
By supporting this type of misanthropy, you are asking to be starved and eventually wiped out by the global elites.
Wake up.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Stoater D

“you are asking to be starved and eventually wiped out by the global elites”
Yep, just like all the other useful idiots.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Stoater D

“you are asking to be starved and eventually wiped out by the global elites”
Yep, just like all the other useful idiots.

Josh Woods
Josh Woods
1 year ago

“The proponents for equitable ecological Degrowth are talking about voluntary socio-economic change.”
Voluntary as with manufactured consent, nudged, misled, mob-pressured and coerced? Because that’s what I’ve been seeing around. Whether you decide have kids or not is your own choice, and if you are competent enough to raise kids. But it ought NOT be coerced or swayed by some unsolicited external influence, no matter eco, cultural or satisfying an outsider’s demands!

Last edited 1 year ago by Josh Woods
Stoater D
Stoater D
1 year ago

No thank you.
By supporting this type of misanthropy, you are asking to be starved and eventually wiped out by the global elites.
Wake up.

Josh Woods
Josh Woods
1 year ago

“The proponents for equitable ecological Degrowth are talking about voluntary socio-economic change.”
Voluntary as with manufactured consent, nudged, misled, mob-pressured and coerced? Because that’s what I’ve been seeing around. Whether you decide have kids or not is your own choice, and if you are competent enough to raise kids. But it ought NOT be coerced or swayed by some unsolicited external influence, no matter eco, cultural or satisfying an outsider’s demands!

Last edited 1 year ago by Josh Woods
Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago
Reply to  Josh Woods

The proponents for equitable ecological Degrowth are talking about voluntary socio-economic change. For ideas about how this might be inspired, checkout this roadmap for the Ego to Eco Journey in Leadership and Governance.

Josh Woods
Josh Woods
1 year ago

“Indeed, rather ominously, Saito cites the pandemic as proof that ‘rapid change is possible’ — with apparently little concern for the fact that this ‘change’ was achieved by sweeping aside democratic procedures and constitutional constraints, militarising societies, cracking down on civil liberties, and implementing unprecedented measures of social control.”
And in addition to all this, all the very real and serious collateral damage that these rapid changes entail- Skyrocketing poverty, demise of countless small businesses, severe deterioration of human wellbeing & welfare and how it could ultimately have the opposite effect for the cause of improving whatever situation they claim to care about. It’s not so much a quest for the best solution, but a unilateral effort to impose a rigid doctrine that serves to pontificate a figure, group, agenda or ideology.
PS note that Saito appears to be much-immersed in both communist as well as Japanese sociocultural views(though also common in other East Asian cultures, one of which I grew up in and now left)- the latter of which often deems honest individual thoughts to be expendable and shouldn’t be openly expressed, but to replaced by redacted opinions that conform to the crowd’s. In other words, as George Carlin put it:”Your beauty as an individual you have to surrender the sake of group thought.” And I recall Klaus Schwab stating in his book The Great Reset that this sort of hyper-submission and conformity is what he envisioned for the rest of the world’s population according to his grandiose fantasy, and we ought to be concerned.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

These various cults always attract the social misfits, the awkward, the lonely, the emotionally fragile. They find meaning and power in joining these “causes”, but, as I’ve said on this subject before, they aren’t serious about any of it on a personal level (just ask them about Final Fantasy XVI to see what they’d be willing to give up for their convictions). Like the pathetic kid illustrating this article, it’s cosplay, it’s Road Warrior, it’s fun scaring the parents who subsidize their lives. The thing that terrifies me is, like commenter Walter Marvell notes, that these children are being deliberately miseducated in public schools with the goal of creating a obedient, violent, inhumane army for the globalist elites, who, like Cronus, will eat them alive without a thought. Can they be gotten through to? Maybe Professor Saito and Jason Hickel should be made to endure a month of their theories in, say, North Korea and Haiti, and write about their experiences – provided they survive.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago

In fact, it is only people who can think outside the box who can see the desirability of equitable GDP Degrowth. It requires emotional maturity to challenge the ecocidal economic model of GDP growth. Check out the Framework for Maximum Mitigation https://poemsforparliament.uk/framework

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago

Obviously, I am a failure because I can’t believe that AGW or non-AGW can be solved by poetry.
I don’t believe in AGW because it has never been proved. I do, however, believe that people have had it too easy for too long. How many have to have a 10-minute hot shower every day, or even a bath? How many have a large house with every room heated to 22C? How many have four televisions and one person watching in each room? How many high street shops have open doors to attract customers, those shops heated to 22C? How many people travelled to London to see the Christmas lights?
I repeat, I do not believe in AGW. But I do believe that cheap energy has made us very wasteful. Maybe we have a wake-up call.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago

Obviously, I am a failure because I can’t believe that AGW or non-AGW can be solved by poetry.
I don’t believe in AGW because it has never been proved. I do, however, believe that people have had it too easy for too long. How many have to have a 10-minute hot shower every day, or even a bath? How many have a large house with every room heated to 22C? How many have four televisions and one person watching in each room? How many high street shops have open doors to attract customers, those shops heated to 22C? How many people travelled to London to see the Christmas lights?
I repeat, I do not believe in AGW. But I do believe that cheap energy has made us very wasteful. Maybe we have a wake-up call.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago

In fact, it is only people who can think outside the box who can see the desirability of equitable GDP Degrowth. It requires emotional maturity to challenge the ecocidal economic model of GDP growth. Check out the Framework for Maximum Mitigation https://poemsforparliament.uk/framework

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

These various cults always attract the social misfits, the awkward, the lonely, the emotionally fragile. They find meaning and power in joining these “causes”, but, as I’ve said on this subject before, they aren’t serious about any of it on a personal level (just ask them about Final Fantasy XVI to see what they’d be willing to give up for their convictions). Like the pathetic kid illustrating this article, it’s cosplay, it’s Road Warrior, it’s fun scaring the parents who subsidize their lives. The thing that terrifies me is, like commenter Walter Marvell notes, that these children are being deliberately miseducated in public schools with the goal of creating a obedient, violent, inhumane army for the globalist elites, who, like Cronus, will eat them alive without a thought. Can they be gotten through to? Maybe Professor Saito and Jason Hickel should be made to endure a month of their theories in, say, North Korea and Haiti, and write about their experiences – provided they survive.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

Thomas Fazi has written a poor article erecting many strawman arguments which he then carelessly destroys.
You can certainly argue that ‘the World’ seems to be coping with a population of 8 billion, although you should provide some statistical verification. But then you need to establish if there is an upper limit… or perhaps acknowledge that many of our current concerns (climate change, endangered species, levels of inequality) would be easier to manage if there were fewer people. If fewer people would be beneficial then you could argue how best to go about achieving that, and the political perils of that choice.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Your objections do seem to amount to creating a set of boundaries within which your own prejudices could remain unchallenged, quite frankly.

Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

No – its a good article. I don’t doubt that overall it would be better if there were fewer people its certainly how you do it that its problematic and “de-growth” certainly isn’t the answer.
Incidentally, what straw man arguments is he erecting and destroying?

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

Degrowth is voluntary and equitable, and it is the only route from chronic ecological overshoot to sustainability. You might to consider my suggestions to achieve voluntary, equitable ecological Degrowth https://poemsforparliament.uk/framework

Jim M
Jim M
1 year ago

If you still use electricity, you are a hypocrite. Screw sustainability. It’s never been attained and never will be. It’s your Eden or Promised Land.

Jim M
Jim M
1 year ago

If you still use electricity, you are a hypocrite. Screw sustainability. It’s never been attained and never will be. It’s your Eden or Promised Land.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

Paragraph 2 – quoting the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement as if his extreme views characterise the idea of ‘degrowth’.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

Degrowth is voluntary and equitable, and it is the only route from chronic ecological overshoot to sustainability. You might to consider my suggestions to achieve voluntary, equitable ecological Degrowth https://poemsforparliament.uk/framework

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

Paragraph 2 – quoting the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement as if his extreme views characterise the idea of ‘degrowth’.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Again, over population is not a long-term problem. Depopulation will be the real challenge facing the world in the future. Birth rates are declining in every nation in the world with an even moderately advanced economy.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Well said AC, you might to consider my suggestions to achieve voluntary, equitable ecological Degrowth https://poemsforparliament.uk/framework

Jim M
Jim M
1 year ago

Take your religion somewhere else. You’re like that girl who jumped to her death on Conan the Barbarian at the prompting of Thulsa Doom. By the way, Equity sucks.

Jim M
Jim M
1 year ago

Take your religion somewhere else. You’re like that girl who jumped to her death on Conan the Barbarian at the prompting of Thulsa Doom. By the way, Equity sucks.

Stoater D
Stoater D
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Climate Change is not an issue. It is all about power and control.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Your objections do seem to amount to creating a set of boundaries within which your own prejudices could remain unchallenged, quite frankly.

Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

No – its a good article. I don’t doubt that overall it would be better if there were fewer people its certainly how you do it that its problematic and “de-growth” certainly isn’t the answer.
Incidentally, what straw man arguments is he erecting and destroying?

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Again, over population is not a long-term problem. Depopulation will be the real challenge facing the world in the future. Birth rates are declining in every nation in the world with an even moderately advanced economy.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Well said AC, you might to consider my suggestions to achieve voluntary, equitable ecological Degrowth https://poemsforparliament.uk/framework

Stoater D
Stoater D
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Climate Change is not an issue. It is all about power and control.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

Thomas Fazi has written a poor article erecting many strawman arguments which he then carelessly destroys.
You can certainly argue that ‘the World’ seems to be coping with a population of 8 billion, although you should provide some statistical verification. But then you need to establish if there is an upper limit… or perhaps acknowledge that many of our current concerns (climate change, endangered species, levels of inequality) would be easier to manage if there were fewer people. If fewer people would be beneficial then you could argue how best to go about achieving that, and the political perils of that choice.

Greta Hirschman
Greta Hirschman
1 year ago

In old times, people depleting their environment had the options of invading or colonise other lands to avoid starvation. Once the whole world is colonised and deforestation is almost completed, which is not yet the case, it might be too late to give some credit to degrowth.
Anybody with some experience in tropical lands have seen the side effect of overpopulation and deforestation. It is more difficult to make a connection between economic growth in one territory and the effects of such growth in territories far away.
The author should care more about imbalances. Marx pointed out some imbalances based on other people’s research. Although he did not provide any good solution, lack of attention to such imbalances resulted in failure to foresee global conflicts including world wars.
Degrowth theory is no different. Immigration might be partly caused by the idea of bringing people from other countries to keep real estate prices up, provide cheaper labour (qualified or not), and compensate demographic degrowth in developed countries. What is behind the waves of immigrants and the unwelcome effects of such immigration are often regarded as conspiracy theories, as the mainstream economic theory only sees the benefits of economic growth until a big crash occurs.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

” What is behind the waves of immigrants and the unwelcome effects of such immigration are often regarded as conspiracy theories, as the mainstream economic theory only sees the benefits of economic growth until a big crash occurs.”

I think you’ll find that a crash is when the benefits of economic growth are most sharply felt – and missed – by all concerned.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

What are you talking about deforestation? Poor people burn and cut down forests – period. Rich people don’t. This isn’t the olden days. Wealthy nations grow way more food on less land. They don’t need trees for fuel and heating. There are more trees in North America today than 100 years ago. Look at an aerial photograph of the island that makes up Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

I’m truly dumbfounded by the overpopulation arguments. This is not an issue. Population decline is the real long-term issue. Birth rates are declining in every nation in the world with an even moderately advanced economy.

Ray Andrews
Ray Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

… with even a moderately advance economy.
And then there’s Africa. How are we going to feed their burgeoning billions?

Stoater D
Stoater D
1 year ago
Reply to  Ray Andrews

It may have escaped your attention, but Africa has vast resources both in terms of agricultural potential and minerals.
The problem is that these resources are not managed properly.
There is no way Africa should be poor.
The Chinese know this.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Ray Andrews

This is a real problem. We need to support them in a way that truly helps them progress economically.

Stoater D
Stoater D
1 year ago
Reply to  Ray Andrews

It may have escaped your attention, but Africa has vast resources both in terms of agricultural potential and minerals.
The problem is that these resources are not managed properly.
There is no way Africa should be poor.
The Chinese know this.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Ray Andrews

This is a real problem. We need to support them in a way that truly helps them progress economically.

Vici C
Vici C
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Wholesale deforestation is caused by big business, whether it be beef, palm oil or other forms of food production. Deforestation has a direct effect on climate not to mention the biodiversity of its erstwhile fauna and flora.

Ray Andrews
Ray Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

… with even a moderately advance economy.
And then there’s Africa. How are we going to feed their burgeoning billions?

Vici C
Vici C
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Wholesale deforestation is caused by big business, whether it be beef, palm oil or other forms of food production. Deforestation has a direct effect on climate not to mention the biodiversity of its erstwhile fauna and flora.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

” What is behind the waves of immigrants and the unwelcome effects of such immigration are often regarded as conspiracy theories, as the mainstream economic theory only sees the benefits of economic growth until a big crash occurs.”

I think you’ll find that a crash is when the benefits of economic growth are most sharply felt – and missed – by all concerned.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

What are you talking about deforestation? Poor people burn and cut down forests – period. Rich people don’t. This isn’t the olden days. Wealthy nations grow way more food on less land. They don’t need trees for fuel and heating. There are more trees in North America today than 100 years ago. Look at an aerial photograph of the island that makes up Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

I’m truly dumbfounded by the overpopulation arguments. This is not an issue. Population decline is the real long-term issue. Birth rates are declining in every nation in the world with an even moderately advanced economy.

Greta Hirschman
Greta Hirschman
1 year ago

In old times, people depleting their environment had the options of invading or colonise other lands to avoid starvation. Once the whole world is colonised and deforestation is almost completed, which is not yet the case, it might be too late to give some credit to degrowth.
Anybody with some experience in tropical lands have seen the side effect of overpopulation and deforestation. It is more difficult to make a connection between economic growth in one territory and the effects of such growth in territories far away.
The author should care more about imbalances. Marx pointed out some imbalances based on other people’s research. Although he did not provide any good solution, lack of attention to such imbalances resulted in failure to foresee global conflicts including world wars.
Degrowth theory is no different. Immigration might be partly caused by the idea of bringing people from other countries to keep real estate prices up, provide cheaper labour (qualified or not), and compensate demographic degrowth in developed countries. What is behind the waves of immigrants and the unwelcome effects of such immigration are often regarded as conspiracy theories, as the mainstream economic theory only sees the benefits of economic growth until a big crash occurs.

Fred Paul
Fred Paul
1 year ago

Let’s put this in straight English and thought without the bells and whistles of the likes of “Malthusian?” Really? Someone actually used it in their opening sentence.
Greed is the one and only human characteristic that is killing us and the planet. Think not? Look at history. I want… I want more… I want more from you. This opinion simply skirted around it.
We have two worlds, not one. You cannot say that poorer countries are struggling to emerge from poverty. That would imply that the governing strata are seriously searching for a way out. They are not. Poorer countries have a different culture, education, and political system, much more open corruption, run by the haves and are not interested in the slightest about the have-nots. And their population is booming. The ruling society is driven by greed. The “rich” countries live in an illusion of democracy. The supper rich, the one-percenters, have accrued wealth unimaginable. They have power. And they have greed. The person reading this media is not one of them. The person reading this opinion is their puppet. They manipulate the political system for their benefit. They promote propaganda for their benefit. They manipulate society for their benefit. Their greed knows no boundary. As a result, the population is becoming poorer, the middle class is shrinking, the idea of democracy is fading, the zeal of making the country great again at all costs by electing the right corrupted leader is growing stronger, the youth have become lazy and don’t give a damn about anything except video games, and the jobs are disappearing along with childbirth. On childbirth: To generate maximum input with minimum output resulting in a higher percentage of personal discretionary spending (greed), the family size is two. Two incomes, one homestead. Adding children erodes this equation. Greed is king in reducing family size…. but the one percenters are getting richer!
If you are knowledgeable about economic performance, you would know that the GDP is a pile of poop. As an indicator identifying growth and prosperity, it fails. It is a tool the one percenters use to fool the masses.
This society is driven by greed; honestly, capitalism is greed, and communism is the ultimate of the one percenter, and both have created technology that is not environmentally friendly. And please, let’s not talk about promoting efficiency to do more with less, as one person said in defence of capitalism vs unsustainable growth. It is to generate more wealth by lowering the cost of production. There are no benefits to the ecology.
We, greedy humans, are doomed. We are killing ourselves with the technology we created to promote greed. Our children will not see the likes of the seventies ever. There will be social/economic/political instability as greed drives the strong to take from the weak. There will be wars. There will be famine. And all this talk about the lefties killing the goose that lays the golden egg will be forgotten.
Nice opinion, though.

Last edited 1 year ago by Fred Paul
Liam Keating
Liam Keating
1 year ago
Reply to  Fred Paul

Greed is defined by ingroup identity. People make sacrifices for their loved ones. A rich dad who enslaves a million but let’s his daughter have all the cake doesn’t look greedy to her.

So the problem of greed is a problem of different ingroups and affections. I don’t think we can change the natural tendency to differential affection. However, I think it’s also natural to care about the outer rings of ingroup, although caring less. There is hope in this.

Democracy came about in Britain and independence in India by the masses reassuring the powerful that they wouldn’t wield their power against the latter, so the latter felt safe to hand power over. A small degrowth for the rich in return for safety.

I think we need to reassure the new elite, and each other, that we won’t let anyone go hungry or homeless without wealth. As machines take over most work, we will soon need some type of communism in developed countries.

Most of us already have the mindset to help the rest but instead we spend our time working for monetary security. We need a social guarantee to free us from this defensive pressure. A source of resistance to free hand-outs is that the recipients are work-shy, but as jobs disappear this resistance will too.

As for degrowth, we could let go of so much consumerism with no loss except GDP. AI bots fed by nuclear generated electricity could make do and mend things. We could have multi storey farms growing by artificial light, so that land could return to wilderness. It could be a nice world.

How are going to reassure each other that we won’t try to outcompete to benefit our smaller ingroup circles over each other? And will the Chinese individuals who resent their century of humiliation even want to give us the same reassurance? Can we even have a discussion about a benign type of world communism with them? Ironic if not, and it would compel us to keep competing defensively.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Fred Paul

Very very nihilistic. People are greedy no doubt. I agree with a lot of what you say here, but it’s way too fatalistic.

Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago
Reply to  Fred Paul

Well, since we are greedy, shouldn’t we be happy we are doomed?

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Fred Paul

You sound like a grumpy old man who never achieved his goals. Greed has been around since Cain and Abel, my friend. The history of mankind can be summed up in one word….war. War is simply greed played out.

Liam Keating
Liam Keating
1 year ago
Reply to  Fred Paul

Greed is defined by ingroup identity. People make sacrifices for their loved ones. A rich dad who enslaves a million but let’s his daughter have all the cake doesn’t look greedy to her.

So the problem of greed is a problem of different ingroups and affections. I don’t think we can change the natural tendency to differential affection. However, I think it’s also natural to care about the outer rings of ingroup, although caring less. There is hope in this.

Democracy came about in Britain and independence in India by the masses reassuring the powerful that they wouldn’t wield their power against the latter, so the latter felt safe to hand power over. A small degrowth for the rich in return for safety.

I think we need to reassure the new elite, and each other, that we won’t let anyone go hungry or homeless without wealth. As machines take over most work, we will soon need some type of communism in developed countries.

Most of us already have the mindset to help the rest but instead we spend our time working for monetary security. We need a social guarantee to free us from this defensive pressure. A source of resistance to free hand-outs is that the recipients are work-shy, but as jobs disappear this resistance will too.

As for degrowth, we could let go of so much consumerism with no loss except GDP. AI bots fed by nuclear generated electricity could make do and mend things. We could have multi storey farms growing by artificial light, so that land could return to wilderness. It could be a nice world.

How are going to reassure each other that we won’t try to outcompete to benefit our smaller ingroup circles over each other? And will the Chinese individuals who resent their century of humiliation even want to give us the same reassurance? Can we even have a discussion about a benign type of world communism with them? Ironic if not, and it would compel us to keep competing defensively.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Fred Paul

Very very nihilistic. People are greedy no doubt. I agree with a lot of what you say here, but it’s way too fatalistic.

Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago
Reply to  Fred Paul

Well, since we are greedy, shouldn’t we be happy we are doomed?

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Fred Paul

You sound like a grumpy old man who never achieved his goals. Greed has been around since Cain and Abel, my friend. The history of mankind can be summed up in one word….war. War is simply greed played out.

Fred Paul
Fred Paul
1 year ago

Let’s put this in straight English and thought without the bells and whistles of the likes of “Malthusian?” Really? Someone actually used it in their opening sentence.
Greed is the one and only human characteristic that is killing us and the planet. Think not? Look at history. I want… I want more… I want more from you. This opinion simply skirted around it.
We have two worlds, not one. You cannot say that poorer countries are struggling to emerge from poverty. That would imply that the governing strata are seriously searching for a way out. They are not. Poorer countries have a different culture, education, and political system, much more open corruption, run by the haves and are not interested in the slightest about the have-nots. And their population is booming. The ruling society is driven by greed. The “rich” countries live in an illusion of democracy. The supper rich, the one-percenters, have accrued wealth unimaginable. They have power. And they have greed. The person reading this media is not one of them. The person reading this opinion is their puppet. They manipulate the political system for their benefit. They promote propaganda for their benefit. They manipulate society for their benefit. Their greed knows no boundary. As a result, the population is becoming poorer, the middle class is shrinking, the idea of democracy is fading, the zeal of making the country great again at all costs by electing the right corrupted leader is growing stronger, the youth have become lazy and don’t give a damn about anything except video games, and the jobs are disappearing along with childbirth. On childbirth: To generate maximum input with minimum output resulting in a higher percentage of personal discretionary spending (greed), the family size is two. Two incomes, one homestead. Adding children erodes this equation. Greed is king in reducing family size…. but the one percenters are getting richer!
If you are knowledgeable about economic performance, you would know that the GDP is a pile of poop. As an indicator identifying growth and prosperity, it fails. It is a tool the one percenters use to fool the masses.
This society is driven by greed; honestly, capitalism is greed, and communism is the ultimate of the one percenter, and both have created technology that is not environmentally friendly. And please, let’s not talk about promoting efficiency to do more with less, as one person said in defence of capitalism vs unsustainable growth. It is to generate more wealth by lowering the cost of production. There are no benefits to the ecology.
We, greedy humans, are doomed. We are killing ourselves with the technology we created to promote greed. Our children will not see the likes of the seventies ever. There will be social/economic/political instability as greed drives the strong to take from the weak. There will be wars. There will be famine. And all this talk about the lefties killing the goose that lays the golden egg will be forgotten.
Nice opinion, though.

Last edited 1 year ago by Fred Paul
jonathan carter-meggs
jonathan carter-meggs
1 year ago

Seen from a physics perspective the universe works on energy transformations achieved at maximum efficiency and with increasing entropy. The best we can work for at the current state of development is to mimic this. Thus converting our available energy into useful forms at maximum efficiency is the dream of all business. Reducing availability will create short term efficiencies but inevitably will lead to decline where what we already have succumbs to decay. If you are not moving forward you are moving backwards. The present is much belter than the past for any individual measured over any time frame (with a few short term exceptions), and so it will be in the future if we do not listen to the death cults.

jonathan carter-meggs
jonathan carter-meggs
1 year ago

Seen from a physics perspective the universe works on energy transformations achieved at maximum efficiency and with increasing entropy. The best we can work for at the current state of development is to mimic this. Thus converting our available energy into useful forms at maximum efficiency is the dream of all business. Reducing availability will create short term efficiencies but inevitably will lead to decline where what we already have succumbs to decay. If you are not moving forward you are moving backwards. The present is much belter than the past for any individual measured over any time frame (with a few short term exceptions), and so it will be in the future if we do not listen to the death cults.

Duane M
Duane M
1 year ago

Well, it’s nice to see that human population can again be discussed in polite circles. Reaching a population size of 8 Billion may be viewed as a marvel of human ingenuity and technological control, or as a monster of good intentions gone sideways and a prime example of social disregulation it its failure to balance population with the environmental requirements for human health, social stability, and recognition of the place of Homo sapiens as just one species among millions of others.
For all that, the population issue has really very little to do with economics, whether capitalist, socialist, or other. And it has very little to do with political organization, whether democratic, dictatorial, tribal council, or other. Human population can rise or fall under any of these systems.
Furthermore, human population has little to do with the goodness or badness of human nature. Population has risen and fallen over and over through prehistory and history, in all kinds of societies, regardless of their social conventions about property, sex, religion, or hedonistic tendencies.
Population increases or decreases according to biological conditions, such as fertility, availability of nutrients and calories, climate, weather, presence or absence of disease, especially contagious disease, and war, to name a few of the most potent.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether the world is presently overpopulated, underpopulated, or populated just right.
At the same time, I hope that reasonable people will not disagree that the world is a finite planet with finite resources in all of the areas necessary for human life (and that of other species), and that uncontained human population growth will exceed the capacity of those resources.
Human population in the year 1900 was about 1.6 Billion (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/). It was twice that after 63 years (3.2 Billion). After another 40 years, the population doubled again, to 6.4 Billion. And now, after another 20 years, we are at 8 Billion. Note that: during the past 20 years the human population has grown by an amount equal to the entire world population 120 years ago. And the population continues to rise at greater than 1% per year.
If you believe the world is now underpopulated then I would like to know, How many more billions you would like to add? At what point will the world be overpopulated? And how will you recognize that and what will be done about it? And those are not rhetorical questions, just practical inquiries from a practical person.

Last edited 1 year ago by Duane M
Duane M
Duane M
1 year ago

Well, it’s nice to see that human population can again be discussed in polite circles. Reaching a population size of 8 Billion may be viewed as a marvel of human ingenuity and technological control, or as a monster of good intentions gone sideways and a prime example of social disregulation it its failure to balance population with the environmental requirements for human health, social stability, and recognition of the place of Homo sapiens as just one species among millions of others.
For all that, the population issue has really very little to do with economics, whether capitalist, socialist, or other. And it has very little to do with political organization, whether democratic, dictatorial, tribal council, or other. Human population can rise or fall under any of these systems.
Furthermore, human population has little to do with the goodness or badness of human nature. Population has risen and fallen over and over through prehistory and history, in all kinds of societies, regardless of their social conventions about property, sex, religion, or hedonistic tendencies.
Population increases or decreases according to biological conditions, such as fertility, availability of nutrients and calories, climate, weather, presence or absence of disease, especially contagious disease, and war, to name a few of the most potent.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether the world is presently overpopulated, underpopulated, or populated just right.
At the same time, I hope that reasonable people will not disagree that the world is a finite planet with finite resources in all of the areas necessary for human life (and that of other species), and that uncontained human population growth will exceed the capacity of those resources.
Human population in the year 1900 was about 1.6 Billion (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/). It was twice that after 63 years (3.2 Billion). After another 40 years, the population doubled again, to 6.4 Billion. And now, after another 20 years, we are at 8 Billion. Note that: during the past 20 years the human population has grown by an amount equal to the entire world population 120 years ago. And the population continues to rise at greater than 1% per year.
If you believe the world is now underpopulated then I would like to know, How many more billions you would like to add? At what point will the world be overpopulated? And how will you recognize that and what will be done about it? And those are not rhetorical questions, just practical inquiries from a practical person.

Last edited 1 year ago by Duane M
Madhavi Swamy
Madhavi Swamy
1 year ago

Clearly neither the author nor any of the commentators has ever been to India.

Last edited 1 year ago by Madhavi Swamy
Madhavi Swamy
Madhavi Swamy
1 year ago

Clearly neither the author nor any of the commentators has ever been to India.

Last edited 1 year ago by Madhavi Swamy
Ray Andrews
Ray Andrews
1 year ago

> neither does it take into account whether a country is growing its GDP by building guns and prisons or by building schools and hospitals.

Right. The bigness of the economy is only partially related to any measure of human wellbeing.

>its inescapable Luddite, anti-industrialist bias

Quite the contrary, degrowth means achieving more wellbeing with smarter and more advanced tech that consumes fewer resources.

> making ordinary people poorer — which indeed seems to be the solution pursued by elites.

Then again, ‘your’ elites have been doing very well making ordinary people poorer for the last several decades.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ray Andrews
Ray Andrews
Ray Andrews
1 year ago

> neither does it take into account whether a country is growing its GDP by building guns and prisons or by building schools and hospitals.

Right. The bigness of the economy is only partially related to any measure of human wellbeing.

>its inescapable Luddite, anti-industrialist bias

Quite the contrary, degrowth means achieving more wellbeing with smarter and more advanced tech that consumes fewer resources.

> making ordinary people poorer — which indeed seems to be the solution pursued by elites.

Then again, ‘your’ elites have been doing very well making ordinary people poorer for the last several decades.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ray Andrews
Torbjörn Andersen
Torbjörn Andersen
1 year ago

Greed is the root cause of our problems. And its in every single human being. So everyone needs to look within and tame it before we devour our own habitat. It’s going to take a long time

Last edited 1 year ago by Torbjörn Andersen
Torbjörn Andersen
Torbjörn Andersen
1 year ago

Greed is the root cause of our problems. And its in every single human being. So everyone needs to look within and tame it before we devour our own habitat. It’s going to take a long time

Last edited 1 year ago by Torbjörn Andersen
S Bursby
S Bursby
1 year ago

The elites with their corporations and institutions with all their economic capacities, are the ones that could have done something to preserve the earth in a better shape. But is becoming clearer and clearer that their greed, dressed in the façade of “improving our quality of life” is absurd and a big lie. One example closer to home: they will justify the use and commercialization of the GM mRAN technology drugs, that are so against nature with uncertain and most provably devastating consequences to the fabric of our bodies, as “new cures” to many physical and mental deceases they cause through their corporations (GM crops, pesticides, mobile phones, the www, to name just a few) in the first place. “Advances” that have been proven somehow counterproductive after years of promoting them to encourage us to take, use and abuse them (antibiotics, the www, GM food and now medicines, etc) . Every single great discovery has been highjacked by their corporations, to become money making machines to feed their greed and use as a weapon against the human body and nature itself. After centuries, the majority of us are still so oblivious to their evil schemes, to the point that still believe them when they said that the solution to all our problems, like climate change, is in our hands under their terms. Time to wake up!

S Bursby
S Bursby
1 year ago

The elites with their corporations and institutions with all their economic capacities, are the ones that could have done something to preserve the earth in a better shape. But is becoming clearer and clearer that their greed, dressed in the façade of “improving our quality of life” is absurd and a big lie. One example closer to home: they will justify the use and commercialization of the GM mRAN technology drugs, that are so against nature with uncertain and most provably devastating consequences to the fabric of our bodies, as “new cures” to many physical and mental deceases they cause through their corporations (GM crops, pesticides, mobile phones, the www, to name just a few) in the first place. “Advances” that have been proven somehow counterproductive after years of promoting them to encourage us to take, use and abuse them (antibiotics, the www, GM food and now medicines, etc) . Every single great discovery has been highjacked by their corporations, to become money making machines to feed their greed and use as a weapon against the human body and nature itself. After centuries, the majority of us are still so oblivious to their evil schemes, to the point that still believe them when they said that the solution to all our problems, like climate change, is in our hands under their terms. Time to wake up!

daniele vecchi
daniele vecchi
1 year ago

Most of the themes that the article is critically tackling are dogmatic and part of a “laic religion”. there is not a single piece of data supporting “new communism” thesis. we live longer, healthier, richer, better fed, in a cleaner environment, to an extent that our worries are about wishes and not needs. We live in societies that favour equality of permission, where everybody has access to school, work or try to do something (i can play tennis but i will never be Roger Federer and i must accept inequality of outcome and opportunities because he has the immense talent i don’t have). But they keep promoting rubbish that history has proven to be dramatic failures and human tragedies with millions of deaths due to famine, violence.

Chris England
Chris England
1 year ago

I wouldn’t get too worried – within a generation the degrowthers will die out

LCarey Rowland
LCarey Rowland
1 year ago

Thanks for your report. No matter which way this juggernaut turns, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
Probably the best course forward, industrially speaking, is to put people to work building solar collectors. This project would be patterned after Henry Ford’s strategy for selling Model T’s: a car in every garage.
In this case, the strategy would be. . . wait for it . . .a solar collector on every roof.
Added effectively to that development would be. An organic garden, nourished by home-generated compost, in every back .40 acre back yard.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  LCarey Rowland

“a solar collector on every roof”
You do know it gets dark at night?

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  LCarey Rowland

“a solar collector on every roof”
You do know it gets dark at night?

LCarey Rowland
LCarey Rowland
1 year ago

Thanks for your report. No matter which way this juggernaut turns, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
Probably the best course forward, industrially speaking, is to put people to work building solar collectors. This project would be patterned after Henry Ford’s strategy for selling Model T’s: a car in every garage.
In this case, the strategy would be. . . wait for it . . .a solar collector on every roof.
Added effectively to that development would be. An organic garden, nourished by home-generated compost, in every back .40 acre back yard.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago

Children are generally born because of love. The love between a man and woman. That couple then commit their adult lives to bring that child to adulthood and independence.

I can’t imagine that there is a better mechanism for decisions than love.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago

Children are generally born because of love. The love between a man and woman. That couple then commit their adult lives to bring that child to adulthood and independence.

I can’t imagine that there is a better mechanism for decisions than love.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago

In the Wikipedia entry for biocapacity there is this paragraph, just before the ‘contents’:
For example, there were roughly 12.2 billion hectares of biologically productive land and water areas on this planet in 2016. Dividing by the number of people alive in that year, 7.4 billion, gives a biocapacity for the Earth of 1.6 global hectares per person. These 1.6 global hectares includes the areas for wild species that compete with people for space.
Under the entry for ‘global hectare’
“Global hectares per person” refers to the amount of production and waste assimilation per person on the planet. In 2012 there were approximately 12.2 billion global hectares of production and waste assimilation, averaging 1.7 global hectares per person.[3] Consumption totaled 20.1 billion global hectares or 2.8 global hectares per person, meaning about 65% more was consumed than produced. This is possible because there are natural reserves all around the globe that function as backup food, material and energy supplies, although only for a relatively short period of time. Due to rapid population growth, these reserves are being depleted at an ever increasing tempo. See Earth Overshoot Day.
The Wikipedia article on ecological overshoot is also very helpful to understand our current dangerous trajectory in escalating ecological collapse – Ecological overshoot – Wikipedia

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago

In the Wikipedia entry for biocapacity there is this paragraph, just before the ‘contents’:
For example, there were roughly 12.2 billion hectares of biologically productive land and water areas on this planet in 2016. Dividing by the number of people alive in that year, 7.4 billion, gives a biocapacity for the Earth of 1.6 global hectares per person. These 1.6 global hectares includes the areas for wild species that compete with people for space.
Under the entry for ‘global hectare’
“Global hectares per person” refers to the amount of production and waste assimilation per person on the planet. In 2012 there were approximately 12.2 billion global hectares of production and waste assimilation, averaging 1.7 global hectares per person.[3] Consumption totaled 20.1 billion global hectares or 2.8 global hectares per person, meaning about 65% more was consumed than produced. This is possible because there are natural reserves all around the globe that function as backup food, material and energy supplies, although only for a relatively short period of time. Due to rapid population growth, these reserves are being depleted at an ever increasing tempo. See Earth Overshoot Day.
The Wikipedia article on ecological overshoot is also very helpful to understand our current dangerous trajectory in escalating ecological collapse – Ecological overshoot – Wikipedia

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago

Couldn’t bother to read it as – well… just seemed silly rambling on… but some poster below says Malthus is utterly discredited – but the thing is just because something did not used to be true does not mean it never will.

This article is very worth reading, it is basically a well done argument for peak oil being past, and thus the world economy must shrink from now on.

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/professional-area/

This is his thesis

”As regular readers will know, this site is driven by the understanding that the economy is an energy system, and not (as conventional thinking assumes) a financial one.” ”The economy is an energy system – on which money is a claim”
and thus money is what is a token for surplus energy.

surplus energy – whenever energy is accessed, some energy is always consumed in the access process, and surplus energy is what remains after theenergy cost of energy (ECoE) has been deducted from the total”
”Where oil, natural gas and coal are concerned, these positive factors have been exhausted, so the dominating driver of ECoE now is depletion, a process which occurs because we have, quite naturally, accessed the most profitable (lowest ECoE) resources first, leaving costlier alternatives for later.”

He does a great job of showing how the concentration and ease of exploiting energy, coal, oil, gas…has gone up and up till very recently, thus money ‘growth’ as Surplus Energy always grew as easier amounts to exploit, and innovation increased. (CofE)(energy remaining after cost or extraction, processing, transportation)

But from here on to the future all the oil, gas, coal, are in ‘Depletion’ state. It costs more per given unit to get’ Surplus Energy’ as we are in the stage of ‘Depletion. The early wells you just drove in and it gushed out, the huge coal deposits one merely had to uncover with bulldozers and then scoop out… But Now they are deeper, less big, harder to reach, – say Arctic, deep under water, narrow seams, smaller masses..,..

And YES – there is a huge amount left, but each year it takes more of the energy – more to extract, process, transport – and thus – LESS per unit as Surplus Energy remains. And Surplus Energy IS Money – so the growth of money, and thus the economy, is NEGATIVE.

And as we as a society are entirely based on a GROWING Economy – well now we are in permanent decline of growth. He discounts all ‘Renewables’ and Nuclar as not being the freebee Carbon is.

But you would have to read it….he expresses it well. I have gone with this theory always – And to what this means is declining real GDP (one not increasing by debt, but by producing) From here to infinity is a declining standard of living. ipso facto, as it were. It is an interesting concept – as I love economics and the entire financial and Monetary thing – but this way of looking at economics as intersting – some holes you can pick in it – but it is very sound for the great part.

I like it because the Green side of things in this argument is fun.

”Money and the economy is Always and Everywhere an Energy Phenomenon.” (To paraphrase Friedman)

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

Hmm. I seem to recall these same arguments during the ‘70s energy crisis. Of course, new technology and better extraction methods unlocked even more supplies. There’s still plenty of reserves out there to be tapped. Right now the biggest impediment to extraction, and one of the factors driving up costs, is govt regulations.

I wouldn’t discount nuclear either. The biggest costs associated with this are govt regulations as well.

There is no external reason for an energy shortage, now or in the future.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Please stop confusing the ignorant with facts.

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

I will spare you that, as you wish

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

I will spare you that, as you wish

Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

He didn’t say there wasn’t plenty of carbon energy left. In fact he specifically pointed out that there is. His point is that the cost of getting it is more. (I don’t know if that is true but I suspect it is). Therefore the growth rate of the economy is decreasing.

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

My post was not saying there was decreasing energy – it was saying this cost of surplus energy is de-facto decreasing money, even if you produce more, because energy is money.

Simple examples is if Debt to GDP is under 30% then each dollar of debt will produce $1 of GDP growth, and at 100% debt to GDP each dollar of more debt produces $0.25 of GDP growth. You can still get GDP growth – but bankrupt the economy doing it – same thing with the economic concept of ‘Surplus Energy Cost’. It is technical finance, not money as you understand it….

SO – one has to borrow more than is returned, even though you get a return. One is caught in the debt death spiral – see it is esoteric. My whole post was changing energy for $, and so as the cost of producing ‘Surplus Energy’ goes up ‘GDP’ by definition decreases – so one is in decline even if more energy is produced – hard to understand concept as it is esoteric, not practical – but does mean the global economy will decline from this point – read the article if you disagree…,.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Please stop confusing the ignorant with facts.

Rob C
Rob C
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

He didn’t say there wasn’t plenty of carbon energy left. In fact he specifically pointed out that there is. His point is that the cost of getting it is more. (I don’t know if that is true but I suspect it is). Therefore the growth rate of the economy is decreasing.

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

My post was not saying there was decreasing energy – it was saying this cost of surplus energy is de-facto decreasing money, even if you produce more, because energy is money.

Simple examples is if Debt to GDP is under 30% then each dollar of debt will produce $1 of GDP growth, and at 100% debt to GDP each dollar of more debt produces $0.25 of GDP growth. You can still get GDP growth – but bankrupt the economy doing it – same thing with the economic concept of ‘Surplus Energy Cost’. It is technical finance, not money as you understand it….

SO – one has to borrow more than is returned, even though you get a return. One is caught in the debt death spiral – see it is esoteric. My whole post was changing energy for $, and so as the cost of producing ‘Surplus Energy’ goes up ‘GDP’ by definition decreases – so one is in decline even if more energy is produced – hard to understand concept as it is esoteric, not practical – but does mean the global economy will decline from this point – read the article if you disagree…,.

Colin MacDonald
Colin MacDonald
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

I’ve delved into surplus energy a bit too. It’s not a new thing, ECoE is usually referred to as EREI, energy returned on energy invested. Back in the 1980’s we knew a lot of Soviet oil took more energy to extract than could be realized by burning it, they did this because they needed hard currency more than energy. My main disagreement is whether this will crash the economy short term. If the available energy starts decreasing by 5 percent a year from here on now, then indeed we’re screwed. I think more likely we’ll see the same cost increase we’ve seen over the past 50 years and we’ll just become more efficient. Compare Switzerland and America. The Swiss use about half the energy as Americans but seem richer. Energy may correlate to economic activity but the two aren’t the same thing.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

All of which entirely ignores the fact that, as technology advances, so growth becomes increasingly about doing more with less.

koby.gg
koby.gg
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

We may do more with less but we are also more so all the investments in green energy did not reduce our demand for fossil fuels. It has increased our demand for rare earth. We live on a finite earth. We will learn this at our peril.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  koby.gg

I fear you may be the sort of person who learns nothing, ever.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  koby.gg

I fear you may be the sort of person who learns nothing, ever.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

I assume you mean population growth. If there is another kind, then what is it.

koby.gg
koby.gg
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

We may do more with less but we are also more so all the investments in green energy did not reduce our demand for fossil fuels. It has increased our demand for rare earth. We live on a finite earth. We will learn this at our peril.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

I assume you mean population growth. If there is another kind, then what is it.

Jim Jam
Jim Jam
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

An interesting counter-argument if a little unconvincing. Thanks

John Ramsden
John Ramsden
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

It’s baffling that Jonas’s post received so many downvotes, unless he has been axe-grinding and posting the same all over the place; but as don’t recall seeing it either here or elsewhere, that seems unlikely.

There must be some very weird and deluded angry people reading Unherd! No doubt this post will be downvoted too.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Ramsden
Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago
Reply to  John Ramsden

His post was interesting and not what UnHerd contributors like to read. Apparently, there is something called ‘growth’ and we have to strive for it, or else…
The problem for me with Jonas’ comment was that it came out and sounded like a religious belief. He said himself that he hadn’t bothered to read the article above and then came out with something which seemed like a quote from his bible. This is dangerous. A clever person, who has a belief and will not change it. It sounds like fanaticism.

Last edited 1 year ago by Chris W
Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago
Reply to  John Ramsden

His post was interesting and not what UnHerd contributors like to read. Apparently, there is something called ‘growth’ and we have to strive for it, or else…
The problem for me with Jonas’ comment was that it came out and sounded like a religious belief. He said himself that he hadn’t bothered to read the article above and then came out with something which seemed like a quote from his bible. This is dangerous. A clever person, who has a belief and will not change it. It sounds like fanaticism.

Last edited 1 year ago by Chris W
Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

Hi Jonas, you might like my ideas to achieve maximum mitigation from the predicament that we find ourselves in https://poemsforparliament.uk/framework The Scientists Warning organisation have invited me to write an article on the ‘Cultural causes of Climate Injustice’ to add to their growing list of advisory papers.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

“Cultural causes of Climate Injustice.”

Truly, no offence and not to be disrespectful, but this made me laugh. You’re hitting all the trendy talking points in literally five words.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

The problem with projects labelled ‘Climate Injustice’ is that should you oppose them, you are then, of course, deemed ‘unjust’ and unworthy of being listened to.

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

A secular Humanism disaster, always is when utilitarianism is invoked. Sounds good, always produces greater suffering.

”utilitarianism

yoo͞-tĭl″ĭ-târ′ē-ə-nĭz″əm
nounThe belief that the value of a thing or an action is determined by its utility.The ethical theory proposed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.The quality of being utilitarian.
I could write on this for days – but why bother…..people now days cannot get the issue – the road to hell is paved with secular Humanism utility to do what is best….All the causes of the greatest suffering in history came from exactly this philosophy.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

The problem with projects labelled ‘Climate Injustice’ is that should you oppose them, you are then, of course, deemed ‘unjust’ and unworthy of being listened to.

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

A secular Humanism disaster, always is when utilitarianism is invoked. Sounds good, always produces greater suffering.

”utilitarianism

yoo͞-tĭl″ĭ-târ′ē-ə-nĭz″əm
nounThe belief that the value of a thing or an action is determined by its utility.The ethical theory proposed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.The quality of being utilitarian.
I could write on this for days – but why bother…..people now days cannot get the issue – the road to hell is paved with secular Humanism utility to do what is best….All the causes of the greatest suffering in history came from exactly this philosophy.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago

From Barbara William’s link:

Socio-economic Transformation to Voluntary, Equitable Degrowth
By replacing the popular benchmark of Gross Domestic Product with the data available from the Global Footprint Network about biocapacity and ecological footprint, we soon realise that financial profitability builds ecological debt. This data can guide us to determine the quickest route to eliminating our chronic global ecological overshoot. Only once we eliminate global ecological overshoot can we slow the ‘emergency’ Degrowth phase and transition to a ‘steady state’ economic model, e.g. ‘Doughnut Economics’. The socio-economic transition will be underway when we see the evidence described below:
Changing Attitudes to Affluence – This will happen as we acquire awareness that all financial profit comes with an ecological cost. Knowing this, an affluent person will be keen to redeem the ecological cost of their affluence by spending it in ways which help towards restoring ecological balance. We shall also realise that existing financial markets are increasingly jeopardised as ecological collapse plays out.
Empowerment and the Overton8 window –‘Freedom of speech’ currently has to work within the Overton window, this prevents candid discussions about: collapse, overpopulation, overconsumption, growth economics, I=PAT, the Jevons paradox and ecological overshoot. When we are allowed to discuss all these matters, we can begin to solve them. When there are politicians openly offering Degrowth, then citizens will be empowered to vote for a civilisation which can address the underlying causes of climate and ecological collapse.
Advertising and Packaging – We shall be making progress when the suppliers of the many eco-costly and non-essential products and services on the commercial market, begin to seriously consider taking a totally new direction with a view to help to soften the collapse. As we become more aware and resilient to advertising, the influence of coercive consumerism is further weakened, and we shall increasingly choose only essential goods and services.
Family Planning – The transition will be progressing when the global community recognises that everyone needs to be empowered to limit childbirth, by having free access to all the relevant aspects of education and healthcare. As diverse cultures begin to reject pronatalism, this will free adults in emotional terms to choose smaller families or to go childless.
Eco-costly Healthcare – In affluent countries huge sums are spent on eco-costly healthcare which prolongs lives beyond their natural span. We are maturing emotionally when we embrace ecological ethics which see Death as a natural process and an important facet in voluntary and equitable Degrowth.
Work and Income – At the moment people working in ecologically damaging industries may have little choice. If the global community can provide basic rations to help all those people who cannot subsist from the land and wish to reskill and change direction, this would break the joint stranglehold that poverty and commerce currently wield, and lift everyone to a subsistence level. Local self-sufficiency, and working on the land will become the priority, as we work to achieve eco-restoration and regeneration, in order to rapidly replace industrial agriculture with ecologically mindful methods of land-use. The evolution of our work focus is further elaborated in the section entitled ‘Evolving the Maximum Mitigation Framework’.

You do realize that these grand ideas of yours, if ever carried out, will most likely result in the deaths of millions of people? Or will you perchance be one of the many who will have to ‘reskill and change direction’? Are you ’emotionally mature’ enough to embrace ‘death as a natural process’?
I’m sorry, but I’d rather take my chances with cataclysmic climate change than be a part of your genocidal agenda.

Last edited 1 year ago by Julian Farrows
Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago

I tried to read your paper but could not as it presupposes that humanity is not humanity, but some kind of Marx ideal of all out to maximize what is best – In short Utilitarianism.

In cases Utilartarism ends up producing either evil, or Existentialism. This is pure WEF kind of ideology, and is the same philosophical basis Fasc ism arose from – as did Mao’s china with 50,000,000 killed by their own people, and almost all the rest forced into inhuman suffering.

Utilitarianism just is not ‘Good’ it is a-moral, and so the immoral always take over.

Good luck with that all – it is flawed from conception.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

Don’t forget the poor old Sparrows.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

Don’t forget the poor old Sparrows.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

“Cultural causes of Climate Injustice.”

Truly, no offence and not to be disrespectful, but this made me laugh. You’re hitting all the trendy talking points in literally five words.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago

From Barbara William’s link:

Socio-economic Transformation to Voluntary, Equitable Degrowth
By replacing the popular benchmark of Gross Domestic Product with the data available from the Global Footprint Network about biocapacity and ecological footprint, we soon realise that financial profitability builds ecological debt. This data can guide us to determine the quickest route to eliminating our chronic global ecological overshoot. Only once we eliminate global ecological overshoot can we slow the ‘emergency’ Degrowth phase and transition to a ‘steady state’ economic model, e.g. ‘Doughnut Economics’. The socio-economic transition will be underway when we see the evidence described below:
Changing Attitudes to Affluence – This will happen as we acquire awareness that all financial profit comes with an ecological cost. Knowing this, an affluent person will be keen to redeem the ecological cost of their affluence by spending it in ways which help towards restoring ecological balance. We shall also realise that existing financial markets are increasingly jeopardised as ecological collapse plays out.
Empowerment and the Overton8 window –‘Freedom of speech’ currently has to work within the Overton window, this prevents candid discussions about: collapse, overpopulation, overconsumption, growth economics, I=PAT, the Jevons paradox and ecological overshoot. When we are allowed to discuss all these matters, we can begin to solve them. When there are politicians openly offering Degrowth, then citizens will be empowered to vote for a civilisation which can address the underlying causes of climate and ecological collapse.
Advertising and Packaging – We shall be making progress when the suppliers of the many eco-costly and non-essential products and services on the commercial market, begin to seriously consider taking a totally new direction with a view to help to soften the collapse. As we become more aware and resilient to advertising, the influence of coercive consumerism is further weakened, and we shall increasingly choose only essential goods and services.
Family Planning – The transition will be progressing when the global community recognises that everyone needs to be empowered to limit childbirth, by having free access to all the relevant aspects of education and healthcare. As diverse cultures begin to reject pronatalism, this will free adults in emotional terms to choose smaller families or to go childless.
Eco-costly Healthcare – In affluent countries huge sums are spent on eco-costly healthcare which prolongs lives beyond their natural span. We are maturing emotionally when we embrace ecological ethics which see Death as a natural process and an important facet in voluntary and equitable Degrowth.
Work and Income – At the moment people working in ecologically damaging industries may have little choice. If the global community can provide basic rations to help all those people who cannot subsist from the land and wish to reskill and change direction, this would break the joint stranglehold that poverty and commerce currently wield, and lift everyone to a subsistence level. Local self-sufficiency, and working on the land will become the priority, as we work to achieve eco-restoration and regeneration, in order to rapidly replace industrial agriculture with ecologically mindful methods of land-use. The evolution of our work focus is further elaborated in the section entitled ‘Evolving the Maximum Mitigation Framework’.

You do realize that these grand ideas of yours, if ever carried out, will most likely result in the deaths of millions of people? Or will you perchance be one of the many who will have to ‘reskill and change direction’? Are you ’emotionally mature’ enough to embrace ‘death as a natural process’?
I’m sorry, but I’d rather take my chances with cataclysmic climate change than be a part of your genocidal agenda.

Last edited 1 year ago by Julian Farrows
Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago

I tried to read your paper but could not as it presupposes that humanity is not humanity, but some kind of Marx ideal of all out to maximize what is best – In short Utilitarianism.

In cases Utilartarism ends up producing either evil, or Existentialism. This is pure WEF kind of ideology, and is the same philosophical basis Fasc ism arose from – as did Mao’s china with 50,000,000 killed by their own people, and almost all the rest forced into inhuman suffering.

Utilitarianism just is not ‘Good’ it is a-moral, and so the immoral always take over.

Good luck with that all – it is flawed from conception.

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

I answer myself to say almost all replying totally failed to understand my post.

My point is Esoteric Economics – the point is that the Economy is ENERGY, not finance. Finance is merely a way of tokenizing ‘surplus energy’ which is a very particular concept.

What I am saying is there is a lot of energy, but as the ECoE is changing through marginal depletion that means a reduction in ‘Money’ as money is merely tokens of surplus energy. You can produce more energy – BUT it still is a declining economy tautologically, and we are based on growth – and so must be in decline, and therefore the future is not going to be like the past.

This is an esoteric concept, like say Quantitative Easing is producing Bank Reserves, not money printing as most would call it – Or Repo and Reverse Repo are way beyond the understanding of most, although they are huge factors in economics, or a thing called ‘Euro-Dollars’ which almost no one understands….

You all did not read the article I linked, so do not get the concept – as it is complex in the sense it is a paradigm shift from all classic economics as we think them.

Basically depletion = reduced CoE = still lots of energy – can boost recovery volumes, but the fact of per unit reduction in surplus energy recovered is IPSO FACTO declining GDP as Surplus Energy is the unit of the economy – not finance…

It is over the heads of people I guess…I just found it a fascinating concept, if a bit esoteric

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

Idiot.
We ‘understood’ your post the first time round. It’s clearly inconceivable to you that there are smarter people in the world than you, who can grasp – and internally debunk – nonsense ‘esoteric’ arguments as fast as you can type them.
So why do none of these people ‘engage respectfully’ with you?
Why would they waste their time?

Last edited 1 year ago by John Sullivan
B Emery
B Emery
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Following the oil and gas news websites honestly has served me better than any other news source for straight up, no nonsense Geopolitics, people shunning msm realised this quite a long time ago, this is not a new phenomenon. There’s something in what this bloke is saying. The energy market is the lifeblood of our economy, the peak oil argument has been around as long as I’ve been on the Internet, (it used to be linked to old fringe theory shall I say, not allowed to say conspiracy on here everyone shits a brick) the need to force go green through the un and such, ie in that let’s make people feel good about it and mask the impending peak oil catastrophe. It’s a thought worth keeping an eye on anyway. I’ve seen it talked about in business news, so that normally means its legit enough to consider the argument at least.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  B Emery

“There’s something in what this bloke is saying”
It’s simplistic reductionist nonsense. The (energy) cost of recovering some fossil fuels (*not* all “energy”) is increasing. Big deal. And *why* is the (overall) cost increasing?
As for “Surplus Energy is the unit of the economy”. Err, no. An important component of the economy, for sure.
One swallow does not a summer make. A broken clock is right twice a day. Etc.

B Emery
B Emery
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

From the first source I linked underneath, taken from oilprice.com:
From this chart, it appears that world conventional oil production leveled off after 2005. Some people (often referred to as “Peak Oilers”) were concerned that conventional oil production would reach a peak and begin to decline, starting shortly after 2005.

The thing that seems to have kept production from falling after 2005 is the steep rise in oil prices in the 2004 to 2008 period. Figure 3 shows that oil prices were quite low between 1986 and 2003. Once oil prices began to rise in 2004 and 2005, oil companies found that they had enough revenue that they could start adopting more intensive (and expensive) extraction techniques. This allowed more oil to be extracted from existing conventional oil fields. Of course, diminishing returns still set in, even with these more intensive techniques.

These diminishing returns are probably a major reason that conventional oil production started to fall in 2019. Indirectly, diminishing returns likely contributed to the decline in 2020, and the failure of the oil supply to bounce back up to its 2018 (or 2019) level in 2021
Intro from the second article:
It’s been two years since British oil and gas supermajor BP Plc. (NYSE: BP) dramatically declared that the world was already past Peak Oil demand. In the company’s 2020 Energy Outlook, chief executive Bernard Looney pledged that BP would increase its renewables spending twentyfold to $5 billion a year by 2030 and “… not enter any new countries for oil and gas exploration”. That announcement came as a bit of a shocker given how aggressive BP has been in exploring new oil and gas frontiers……

There’s another article also linked that discusses peak oil, come back when you’ve read them, you should then read the article the original poster put up and you will find he is not an idiot, but making a valid point that at least deserves consideration. It is a hotly contested issue. But all the big firms talk about it:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2022/11/30/peak-oil-the-perennial-prophecy-that-went-wrong/amp/

Last edited 1 year ago by B Emery
B Emery
B Emery
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

From the first source I linked underneath, taken from oilprice.com:
From this chart, it appears that world conventional oil production leveled off after 2005. Some people (often referred to as “Peak Oilers”) were concerned that conventional oil production would reach a peak and begin to decline, starting shortly after 2005.

The thing that seems to have kept production from falling after 2005 is the steep rise in oil prices in the 2004 to 2008 period. Figure 3 shows that oil prices were quite low between 1986 and 2003. Once oil prices began to rise in 2004 and 2005, oil companies found that they had enough revenue that they could start adopting more intensive (and expensive) extraction techniques. This allowed more oil to be extracted from existing conventional oil fields. Of course, diminishing returns still set in, even with these more intensive techniques.

These diminishing returns are probably a major reason that conventional oil production started to fall in 2019. Indirectly, diminishing returns likely contributed to the decline in 2020, and the failure of the oil supply to bounce back up to its 2018 (or 2019) level in 2021
Intro from the second article:
It’s been two years since British oil and gas supermajor BP Plc. (NYSE: BP) dramatically declared that the world was already past Peak Oil demand. In the company’s 2020 Energy Outlook, chief executive Bernard Looney pledged that BP would increase its renewables spending twentyfold to $5 billion a year by 2030 and “… not enter any new countries for oil and gas exploration”. That announcement came as a bit of a shocker given how aggressive BP has been in exploring new oil and gas frontiers……

There’s another article also linked that discusses peak oil, come back when you’ve read them, you should then read the article the original poster put up and you will find he is not an idiot, but making a valid point that at least deserves consideration. It is a hotly contested issue. But all the big firms talk about it:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2022/11/30/peak-oil-the-perennial-prophecy-that-went-wrong/amp/

Last edited 1 year ago by B Emery
John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  B Emery

“There’s something in what this bloke is saying”
It’s simplistic reductionist nonsense. The (energy) cost of recovering some fossil fuels (*not* all “energy”) is increasing. Big deal. And *why* is the (overall) cost increasing?
As for “Surplus Energy is the unit of the economy”. Err, no. An important component of the economy, for sure.
One swallow does not a summer make. A broken clock is right twice a day. Etc.

Paul Boizot
Paul Boizot
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Many of your posts on here seem merely to be insulting, and do not deal with any of the arguments made in the posts to which you are replying. Perhaps you can help enlighten those of us who are not as smart as you clearly know yourself to be, by refuting some of the actual points made, so that we do not let ourselves be brainwashed by the false arguments.

B Emery
B Emery
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Following the oil and gas news websites honestly has served me better than any other news source for straight up, no nonsense Geopolitics, people shunning msm realised this quite a long time ago, this is not a new phenomenon. There’s something in what this bloke is saying. The energy market is the lifeblood of our economy, the peak oil argument has been around as long as I’ve been on the Internet, (it used to be linked to old fringe theory shall I say, not allowed to say conspiracy on here everyone shits a brick) the need to force go green through the un and such, ie in that let’s make people feel good about it and mask the impending peak oil catastrophe. It’s a thought worth keeping an eye on anyway. I’ve seen it talked about in business news, so that normally means its legit enough to consider the argument at least.

Paul Boizot
Paul Boizot
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Many of your posts on here seem merely to be insulting, and do not deal with any of the arguments made in the posts to which you are replying. Perhaps you can help enlighten those of us who are not as smart as you clearly know yourself to be, by refuting some of the actual points made, so that we do not let ourselves be brainwashed by the false arguments.

B Emery
B Emery
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

Hello, I actually thought you made an interesting point, haven’t had time to read the report but I read both these articles the other day that mention peak oil, have to say I’m far from an expert on this stuff and don’t have a full understanding, but thanks for the link, don’t think everyone dismissed it!
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Todays-Energy-Crisis-Is-Unlike-Anything-Weve-Ever-Seen-Before.html
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Biggest-Argument-For-Peak-Oil.html

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

Idiot.
We ‘understood’ your post the first time round. It’s clearly inconceivable to you that there are smarter people in the world than you, who can grasp – and internally debunk – nonsense ‘esoteric’ arguments as fast as you can type them.
So why do none of these people ‘engage respectfully’ with you?
Why would they waste their time?

Last edited 1 year ago by John Sullivan
B Emery
B Emery
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

Hello, I actually thought you made an interesting point, haven’t had time to read the report but I read both these articles the other day that mention peak oil, have to say I’m far from an expert on this stuff and don’t have a full understanding, but thanks for the link, don’t think everyone dismissed it!
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Todays-Energy-Crisis-Is-Unlike-Anything-Weve-Ever-Seen-Before.html
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Biggest-Argument-For-Peak-Oil.html

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

Hmm. I seem to recall these same arguments during the ‘70s energy crisis. Of course, new technology and better extraction methods unlocked even more supplies. There’s still plenty of reserves out there to be tapped. Right now the biggest impediment to extraction, and one of the factors driving up costs, is govt regulations.

I wouldn’t discount nuclear either. The biggest costs associated with this are govt regulations as well.

There is no external reason for an energy shortage, now or in the future.

Colin MacDonald
Colin MacDonald
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

I’ve delved into surplus energy a bit too. It’s not a new thing, ECoE is usually referred to as EREI, energy returned on energy invested. Back in the 1980’s we knew a lot of Soviet oil took more energy to extract than could be realized by burning it, they did this because they needed hard currency more than energy. My main disagreement is whether this will crash the economy short term. If the available energy starts decreasing by 5 percent a year from here on now, then indeed we’re screwed. I think more likely we’ll see the same cost increase we’ve seen over the past 50 years and we’ll just become more efficient. Compare Switzerland and America. The Swiss use about half the energy as Americans but seem richer. Energy may correlate to economic activity but the two aren’t the same thing.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

All of which entirely ignores the fact that, as technology advances, so growth becomes increasingly about doing more with less.

Jim Jam
Jim Jam
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

An interesting counter-argument if a little unconvincing. Thanks

John Ramsden
John Ramsden
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

It’s baffling that Jonas’s post received so many downvotes, unless he has been axe-grinding and posting the same all over the place; but as don’t recall seeing it either here or elsewhere, that seems unlikely.

There must be some very weird and deluded angry people reading Unherd! No doubt this post will be downvoted too.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Ramsden
Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

Hi Jonas, you might like my ideas to achieve maximum mitigation from the predicament that we find ourselves in https://poemsforparliament.uk/framework The Scientists Warning organisation have invited me to write an article on the ‘Cultural causes of Climate Injustice’ to add to their growing list of advisory papers.

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

I answer myself to say almost all replying totally failed to understand my post.

My point is Esoteric Economics – the point is that the Economy is ENERGY, not finance. Finance is merely a way of tokenizing ‘surplus energy’ which is a very particular concept.

What I am saying is there is a lot of energy, but as the ECoE is changing through marginal depletion that means a reduction in ‘Money’ as money is merely tokens of surplus energy. You can produce more energy – BUT it still is a declining economy tautologically, and we are based on growth – and so must be in decline, and therefore the future is not going to be like the past.

This is an esoteric concept, like say Quantitative Easing is producing Bank Reserves, not money printing as most would call it – Or Repo and Reverse Repo are way beyond the understanding of most, although they are huge factors in economics, or a thing called ‘Euro-Dollars’ which almost no one understands….

You all did not read the article I linked, so do not get the concept – as it is complex in the sense it is a paradigm shift from all classic economics as we think them.

Basically depletion = reduced CoE = still lots of energy – can boost recovery volumes, but the fact of per unit reduction in surplus energy recovered is IPSO FACTO declining GDP as Surplus Energy is the unit of the economy – not finance…

It is over the heads of people I guess…I just found it a fascinating concept, if a bit esoteric

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago

Couldn’t bother to read it as – well… just seemed silly rambling on… but some poster below says Malthus is utterly discredited – but the thing is just because something did not used to be true does not mean it never will.

This article is very worth reading, it is basically a well done argument for peak oil being past, and thus the world economy must shrink from now on.

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/professional-area/

This is his thesis

”As regular readers will know, this site is driven by the understanding that the economy is an energy system, and not (as conventional thinking assumes) a financial one.” ”The economy is an energy system – on which money is a claim”
and thus money is what is a token for surplus energy.

surplus energy – whenever energy is accessed, some energy is always consumed in the access process, and surplus energy is what remains after theenergy cost of energy (ECoE) has been deducted from the total”
”Where oil, natural gas and coal are concerned, these positive factors have been exhausted, so the dominating driver of ECoE now is depletion, a process which occurs because we have, quite naturally, accessed the most profitable (lowest ECoE) resources first, leaving costlier alternatives for later.”

He does a great job of showing how the concentration and ease of exploiting energy, coal, oil, gas…has gone up and up till very recently, thus money ‘growth’ as Surplus Energy always grew as easier amounts to exploit, and innovation increased. (CofE)(energy remaining after cost or extraction, processing, transportation)

But from here on to the future all the oil, gas, coal, are in ‘Depletion’ state. It costs more per given unit to get’ Surplus Energy’ as we are in the stage of ‘Depletion. The early wells you just drove in and it gushed out, the huge coal deposits one merely had to uncover with bulldozers and then scoop out… But Now they are deeper, less big, harder to reach, – say Arctic, deep under water, narrow seams, smaller masses..,..

And YES – there is a huge amount left, but each year it takes more of the energy – more to extract, process, transport – and thus – LESS per unit as Surplus Energy remains. And Surplus Energy IS Money – so the growth of money, and thus the economy, is NEGATIVE.

And as we as a society are entirely based on a GROWING Economy – well now we are in permanent decline of growth. He discounts all ‘Renewables’ and Nuclar as not being the freebee Carbon is.

But you would have to read it….he expresses it well. I have gone with this theory always – And to what this means is declining real GDP (one not increasing by debt, but by producing) From here to infinity is a declining standard of living. ipso facto, as it were. It is an interesting concept – as I love economics and the entire financial and Monetary thing – but this way of looking at economics as intersting – some holes you can pick in it – but it is very sound for the great part.

I like it because the Green side of things in this argument is fun.

”Money and the economy is Always and Everywhere an Energy Phenomenon.” (To paraphrase Friedman)