Poverty, War and Climate Change

    I recently responded to a climate change alarmist who claimed that the greatest threats to humanity are “poverty and war.” At first blush this may seem to have nothing to do with climate change. However, this perception is a clear indication of the overall homocentric viewpoint of climate alarmism.

Poverty and war are symptoms of self-destructive social systems based on imperialism, industrialism, patriarchy, class division, and consumerism. Cultures maladapted to present environmental conditions perpetuate dysfunctional social systems until they can no longer support exponentially growing human populations. Cultures and societies are transitory human emergent structures, that change frequently and are subject to human action and control.

What is most important to the future of all life on this planet are the impacts of present human cultures and societies on the non-human world. Air and water pollution, topsoil loss, species extinction, biodiversity loss, and habitat destruction destroy the viability of all non-human species.

Human domination of natural ecosystems has resulted in functional disruption of the intricate web of interrelationships among species. What we consider “normal” Nature is in reality a depauperate shadow of once thriving ecosystems, in much of the world completely overrun with asphalt, concrete, glass and steel. Industrial monocrop agriculture has eliminated many ecosystems altogether, aggravated by the over-application of petroleum based fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides and exploitation of finite aquifers.

These very real and immediate impacts of unlimited human population and economic growth far overshadow any speculative and poorly understood human influences on natural climate variation. Though human societies depend on unnatural conditions of climate stasis, the non-human world has evolved with constantly varying weather and climates for millennia. Climate variation is only a threat to humans.

The present global “climate change/global warming” obsession is an economic and political result of the same cultural and societal systems that result in poverty and war. The Climate Change industry is an attempt to maintain those social systems that have resulted in such devastating impacts on the non-human world.

 

Climatism is Industrialism, not Environmentalism

The Eco-Alternative – R. Crumb

In a recent post, Climatist Manifesto, Ron Clutz gave me a hat-tip (Thanks, Ron!) for my earlier expression of the “dismay many environmentalists feel at the damage climatists have done both to science and to efforts to protect the planet from real pollution.”

In his Climate Manifesto post, Ron expresses concerns that climatism (belief in human caused climate change and its solutions) threatens present industrial society.

“Political leaders are willing, even enthusiastic dupes, while climatist tactics erode the foundations of industrial society.”

However, climatism derives from and defends that very same industrial society. It is the foundations of industrial society, industrialism, that are the ultimate cause of the myriad impacts on the non-human world, and that must be changed if humans are to reduce these impacts on all life on Earth. Climatism is the industrial approach to natural climate variation, assuming that climate change is caused by human action and is therefore subject to human control and technocratic solutions.

Industrialism is more than the technological results of the Industrial Revolution, ca. 1800. Industrialism is characterized by hierarchical social organization, the concept of progress, and technocracy based on science, technology and bureaucracy.

Industrialism embraces efficiency and expediency above all values, including the appropriation and exploitation for human use of raw materials, defined as “resources,” including living beings and the very air, water and soil on which all life depends. Industrialism goes beyond the dualities of capitalism/socialism, North/South, East/West, science/religion. Industrialism portrays technological change as progress, regardless of negative impacts on natural environments or human communities. Industrialism portrays economic and technocratic growth as desirable and inevitable and views lack of growth as stagnation. Industrialism is the basic assumption of all western societies, and, increasingly, those of Eastern traditions.

It is not the mission, nor even the intent of climatists to deindustrialize civilization. On the contrary, climatists seek means by which industrial society can continue unchanged, and define that as “sustainability.”

It is environmentalists who seek to move away from industrialism to reduce human pollution and destruction of natural habitats. It is environmentalists who propose non-hierarchical, decentralized human societies built on ecological principles, accommodating to natural cycles of resource availability and climate variation. It is environmentalists who threaten industrial society.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein