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.