March 25, 2024 - 6:00pm
For a policy that requires sacrifice, at least for the masses, the climate agenda lacks one critical element: public support. Even in ultra-green Europe, there is a growing resistance among politicians and the public towards extreme climate policies. In America, too, climate scepticism is growing. Given that Joe Biden rolled out new pollution standards for non-electric cars last week, this public shift should provide discomfort among the Democratic establishment.
While most Americans concede that climate change is real, it’s not much of a priority: only 2% rate it as their major concern, according to Gallup, well below the figures for immigration, inflation, government competence and reducing poverty. These sentiments are even more pronounced among working-class voters: even as the Biden administration expends hundreds of billions in taxpayer funds to “green projects”, the average American doesn’t want to spend more than $2.50 a week to combat climate change.
Now, instead of mobilising the masses, the climate lobby increasingly rejects the idea of popular consent. In the EU, the US and individual states such as California, vague legislative goals are left to “experts” for implementation. Aware they are unlikely to get public backing for such things as electric car mandates, consistently higher energy prices or the removal of gas stoves, the climate lobby seeks to employ the bureaucracy — in concert with academics and nonprofits — to impose policies which lack public support.
Some climate activists see the Covid-19 lockdowns as a “dry run” for future action. Officials at the United Nations endorse this concept, embracing the pandemic as a “fire drill” for what must happen to meet climate goals.
But perhaps the more relevant model may be that of the “corporate state”, most associated with the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. Some might see Donald Trump as the poor man’s Il Duce, but the powerful alliance of the executive branch with a handful of ultra-rich, ultra-powerful companies is more reminiscent of the corporate state.
In 2020, Biden raised record sums from the corporate elite, notably the tech oligarchs and their Wall Street allies. This year will likely bring unprecedented financial support from these same players to the President’s campaign. This interplay between big corporate interests and activist bureaucracies now constitutes what Bjørn Lomborg has labelled the “climate-industrial complex”.
Once re-elected, Biden (or his advisers) may try to push this agenda without much concern for public opinion. He could implement what Eric Heymann, a senior executive at Deutsche Bank, calls “a certain degree of eco-dictatorship”. This reflects a change in elite opinion towards what two German observers describe as a “political ideology that questions the foundations of pluralism and democracy”, and which instead favours a post-national “politics of identity and minority entitlements” and a global green regime.
To achieve their goal, climate activists can employ technological weapons not available to Mussolini in his failed efforts to get Italians in line with his appetite for war. Already some websites censor or discredit even the most credentialed and moderate climate sceptics, who question the climate change narrative much as they did during the pandemic. Climate activists, funded by billionaires, are even pressuring television stations to censor ads criticising Biden’s electric car mandate.
In the future, people could find themselves in violation of the law if, for example, their cars report too much mileage, while their energy use will be both closely monitored and rationed. Such policies would require a permanent mobilisation of executive power, making democracy necessary roadkill on the road to an imagined green utopia.
Joel Kotkin is a Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute, the University of Texas at Austin.
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SubscribeIDK. I’m as skeptical of climate alarmism as it gets, but I don’t see it as the catalyst for an authoritarian regime. You can implement all the censorship you like, but when my heating bill doubles in two years – in Alberta, Canada of all places – people can do the math. When you are forced to buy an expensive EV that is not fit for purpose, you can put the puzzle pieces together. If anything, net zero and open borders are the two biggest factors fueling the populist revolt across the west.
Just because you as an educated guy on the center-right can do the Math doesn’t mean your fellow voters won’t be gaslit.
Spend some time reading “Mainstream” economic theorists. They blame inflation on everything but excessive central planning. In fact, these theorists opine that the solution is actually more subsidies, price controls and expansion of government programs…which often have to be implemented by the government’s preferred corporate contractors.
Populist reactions don’t equate to votes. If valid, they may heighten awareness but even the people that become aware won’t necessarily ascribe to the reasoning of the populists. I know lots of educated people on the Center-Left that find inflation to be a “Bipartisan cause” and think its “divisive” to hold one side responsible for soaring cost of living. All the Left needs is to make every issue a confusing wash and then just run on abortion and expanded social safety net programs.
I would agree. Mr. V. is being naive here. All the signposts are flashing bright red yet being passed by regularly by most folks. They will wake up one day and wonder how we got here.
...“political ideology that questions the foundations of pluralism and democracy”... sounds very familiar to me.
Jim, the trees seem to be obscuring your view of the forest…
You and your neighbor both can do the math, then stand at the fence in the evening and gripe to each other about bad government, but that government and their servants in media will never let your complaints reach any larger audience. Indeed, the media will publish lie upon lie about the convenience and popularity of eating bugs, not to mention the health benefits of having to ride a stationary bike to power the lights.
I think we will literally have to man the barricades as refusal will be considered hate speech. Trudeau just announced an $8.4M initiative to research how climate change ‘interacts with democratic decline’ and help protect the human rights of environmental defenders.
Agreed. I think I’ll need help though, I live in Edmonton.
Hi Peter:
I read that story in the National Post yesterday and was aghast. No mention of it in the Globe and Mail or CBC. While Canada burns, Trudeau continues to perpetuate the largest gaslighting scheme ever developed; our standard of living, by any measurable metric, is dropping like a stone. How could this. happen?
All part of the plan. You will have nothing and be happy.
I think the point you’re failing to appreciate is that your democratic reaction to these emergent problems won’t be sufficient to overcome them.
We in Britain may be somewhat spoiled in our belief in democracy because we’ve recently proved we still have it by voting to leave the EU, and to the shock and rage of our elites, got our way in the teeth of their opposition. The global climate-industrial complex is going to be a damn sight harder to beat than Brussels ever will be. This is pretty serious.
I suspect it will be more difficult but eventually more extreme-as climate emergency scepticism becomes more widespread as the real costs and impact of net zero policies become evident, the more it will be supressed-but eventually the dam will break-witness the European farmers who have just woken up to the reality that direct action is both available to them and works.It won’t be through the ballot box.
Net zero will destroy the economy and crush our standard of living. People will notice. When Ford is forced to build 200,000 EVs they can’t sell, business will notice.
Wow, what a desperate piece by this author, quoting zerohedge and Lomborg as sources with apparent integrity. How is it that Unherd publish so many decent intellectual articles then crap like this that doesn’t deserve to get beyond the manosphere. It’s the equivalent of your dog taking a dump on the carpet in your nice lounge.
Which sources do you recommend that challenge the political orthodoxy on climate change?
Why would one do this? It’s like challenging the theory of gravity. In years to come sceptics will be lumped together with flat earthers.
Man made climate change most certainly is not ‘settled science’ you’re just not exposing yourself to the highly respected scientists who hold a different point of view. The climate has fluctuated constantly over the past millennia. Highest temperatures ‘since records began’ we hear constantly but most people don’t realise that the records they’re referring to only began in the late 1800’s, hardly a broad enough window i would say.
The argument about particular policies such as Net Zero, which is what we are talking about here, has absolutely nothing like debating the theory of gravity. You do, I hope, see this distinction don’t you?
However even the theory of gravity isn’t a fixed dogma the one must accept despite developing evidence for example in quantum physics.
Science has nothing to do with consensus. It is based on evidence. Einstein’s last plea was that Science remain an open book and that distinguished critiques and questions be examined on merit and let the evidence prevail. There are no eminent or distinguished voices supporting flat earth theory. None. However the list is a very long one when it comes to climate change skepticism. It includes Dr John Clauser 2022 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Richard Lindzen retired Professor of Meteorology at MIT and the late Freman Dyson, esteemed the world over and a contemporary of Oppenheimer. To mention just a few. Real Science has always and will always hear such men out. Zealots like you always want to silence everyone, you trade in insults not evidence, you have nothing of substance to offer and never will.
Try to get federal funding in the States to research global warming if you’re not already in the tank of orthodoxy.
Your continued smears of Bjorn Lomborg are absurd and fantastical. He clearly thinks climate change is a problem. He simply argues that issues like malnutrition and education deprivation are more serious and fixable.
Agree. I am closely involved with some policy inputs on sustainability and Lomborg has been an advocate of sensible pragmatism in his solutions. He doesn’t appear to me in his latest writing to be as much of a climate sceptic. He advocates prioritising and not ticking all the boxes at once. Net zero tyranny is clearly a pathway which only suits the glamorous activist conversation and those Big tech big- bucks who fund them.
My problem with Lomborg is that he actually believes in anthropogenic global warming. It’s hogwash not supported by the data.
He may in his heart be a true skeptic, only putting on the belief so that his suggestions aren’t immediately given short shrift with cries of “Denier!!”.
You are right. He strikes me as being overall a realist. Besides if you consider the SDGs which he sees as the actual milestones for developing nations he’s being practical. Many of them contain actual deliverables – clean water, sewage management, flood control etc
Not the luxury beliefs of jet- setting celebrity activists whizzing from Conference to Conference.
I think the evidence for man-made global warming is now pretty clear and he’s very well supported by the data. I’m surprised that you take this line, which apart from anything else is a losing political one. First of all have known for 150 years that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. And human activity is producing much more CO2. Yes, this gasalso emitted from volcanoes but this source isn’t on a relentless upward trend. And yes, water vapour a more effective greenhouse gas we are not directly increasing water vapour concentrations, although they are increasing as a result those very increasing global temperatures
Secondly, temperatures across the globe are increasing. We now have vast amounts of data on this, taking from satellites. We could anecdotally look at the glaciers retreating everywhere in the mountains, not just in certain regions are not others. We also know that average Earth temperatures hundreds of millions of years ago were many degrees higher – all that carbon was in the atmosphere and not then buried in the Carboniferous coal seams.
https://clintel.org/ – worldwide organization of skeptical scientists. I am sure Lomborg has signed on but he is in the company of many other distinguished scientists.
This is how little we know about the complexities of climate, and how little we control the environment. An underwater volcanoe erupted in 2022, sending massive amounts of heat trapping water into the atmosphere without any ash, which cools the environment.
https://www.nasa.gov/earth/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere/
We’ve had satellites up since the 1970s. Accurate themometers since the 1700s when Fahrenheit invented them. Detailed records maybe 100-150 years and even then many destroyed by World Wars. No great records for e.g Africa. Ocean records also patchy and scattered, dependant on shipping routes until satellites came along
We’re talking numerical temperatures here now (temperature “records” after all) not climate “trends” from ice core sampling etc.
Modern humans have been here for 200,000 years plus. So a sampling interval (I hope you know basic stats!) of a tiny sliver of time, just 0.08% of human history. And you’re going to predict the future based on that? It is like saying hey it was really hot for the last minute so it’s going to stay that way, who cares that for the several hours preceding it we don’t know what the temperature was at all !!!.
Let me get this straight…YOU are attacking Bjorn Lomberg?
For sure. Lomborg is nothing more than a grifter, I’m amazed you can’t see it. He’s got himself a nice little niche peddling reasonably sounding publications that appeal to the sceptic market. It’s so cringingly obvious it’s absurd.
It’s so cringingly obvious that you are a complete fool!
Got it. He’s a grifter for peddling reasonably sounding publications – as opposed to unreasonable sounding publications.
They sound reasonable to those indoctrinated by the misinformation peddled by the petro-chems since the 1980’s. It’s a multi-million dollar industry created to protect their profits – and you folks have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
“…you folks have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.”
Time to ramp up the nuclear fission.
Totally agree tbf.
So when BL says something like society benefits more by investing in third world education and food programs, rather than solar panels and wind projects, this is some big oil racket. Radical ideas like this cannot possibly be true because BL is controlled by big oil – even though he strongly support nuclear energy, which is a bigger threat to fossil fuels than renewables. Of course, BL doesn’t argue against climate change projects, he simply says relieving poverty and improving education have more value to society. When you have lost the argument, you pound the table.
People like Lomborg are the most dangerous because of this kind of cuddly appeasement that doesn’t actually deal with the problem but feels like something positive has taken place.
Robbie if you mean reducing CO2 levels, no, we we are not “solving” the problem. You seem absolutely capable of any rational argument or just indulge in as hominem attacks have you actually read Bjorn Lomborg?
You are trying to square a circle. I am guilty as well at times.
And perhaps you and your ilk that are peddling mis- and dis-information. Perhaps you should look at the NOAA reference temperature dataset which shows no warming in the 50 US states since it’s inception in 2005. This reference set was setup to avoid things like heat island effects which are impossible to correct for properly and ensure that the thermometers are properly and often calibrated. Unfortunately the datasets put out by the met and NASA are so corrupt and have been subject to so many corrections that they are completely worthless. Before reorganizing one’s entire economy and impoverishing most of the population except the uber rich, perhaps it’s a good idea to really take a careful and hard look at the data and make sure it’s correct. What is for sure is that every modeling projection has proven to be wrong.
typical sceptic dogma.
Can you provide a link for some info about this dataset. The whole project appears to be memory holed.
We don’t need the petro chemical industry to provide us with the history of our planet, which has gone through massive climate change over eons without a single human being alive. You have fallen for the hysterical plot hook, line and sinker.
face/palm
Robbie- The phrase “Sceptic Dogma” is literally an oxymoron. “Sceptic” implies a rejection of Orthodoxy. What you’re saying is that the Consensus of the Climate Orthodoxy is unassailable. It can’t be questioned even around the edges.
Orthodoxy is a Faith Principle. If your Faith requires you to rely on “Experts” than you had better be certain that those experts are credible. So back to Julian’s original comment, who are your specific experts that you rely on for “truth claims.”
Nothing substantive, no detailed engagement or rebuttal of Lomberg’s arguments. Why? because that would take actual effort. So resort to the ad hominem attack, the smear tactic. You won’t convince anyone who believes in actual thought and reason and examining the opposing argument. You know, the questioning,probing and debate that is the bedrock of everything we hold dear in western civilization.
Robbie I’m not really quite sure why you even bother to post on UnHerd because you fundamentally appear to accept the elite establishment orthodoxy on almost every subject.
The world is NOT being weaned off fossil fuels and Net Zero policies are not working. However the attempt to do so is going to come a huge cost to consumers in the West.
Lomborg is the most reasonable of all the skeptics of Net Zero orthodoxy. He isn’t a climate skeptic. He supports spending much more on research. However the government’s picking particular, worse, technologies and forcing people to use them is not the way forward, the irrational rush to mandate electric vehicles being one of the most obvious examples. The market for these vehicles by the way is collapsing.
Perhaps he has a fetish for red thumbs pointing downward.
Oh dear, did I disrupt your comfortable echo chamber with a little reality?
Tripe.
If weaning the West off of the fossil fuels of Theocrats and Autocrats is a threat to ‘democracy’ then the Author needs to go and look up the definition again.
Ironically, this story appeared immediately after “‘Christ is King’ row deepens divide on religious Right, Candace Owens’s Israel commentary has angered Jewish conservatives” which is another story about knee-jerk belief in magical thinking and the problems it is causing. People’s inability to think clearly and analytically is destroying the West. Too many are sheep believing government diktats on faith … remember masks, lockdowns, bats as a source of Covid? The dumbing down of the populace can be laid at the feet of the MSM, inspired by leftist do-gooder self-congratulatory virtue signalling.
The MSM and the US public schools where frightening children about climate change begins in kindergarten.
The world isn’t being weaned off fossil fuel Mr Watson!. You are completely mistaken here. The West hobbling its own oil and gas production and handing it over to that of Saudi, Gulf States and to Russia of course empowers and enabling those very autocrats! In a way having arguments about this subject is pointless – except that it affects ordinary citizens directly in the pocket. CO2 emissions are rising despite the numerous climate conferences and the hysterical “global warming, no climate change, no climate crisis, no climate emergency” discourse.
Match of what the West has been doing of course is to simply offshore the CO2 production to other countries..Secondly net zero is simply technically in unfeasible for many decades. The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow therefore you need backup therefore you need two energy production systems, gas being by far the best. Politicians mandating particular technologies has never been the way that energy or any other technical transition has happened in the whole of human history. “Stop burning wood and start burning coal” said Henry the 8th (NOT!). They won’t get it right!.
Electric vehicles, as one example, are worse amongst any metric than their internal combustion equivalence. They “work” to a fashion now because there’s only a small niche market for them. Just think of the vast areas given to charging stations the enormous queues for them etc. Green activists are dishonest – or perhaps they are mostly just idiots:.they will of course oppose the huge increase in mining and industrialisation of the countryside that will be required to quadruple the necessary electrification. They have already done in US states such as Maine.