Useful Deceits

The Short Answer is No

The "Climate Change" catastrophe has become boring.  It's hard for folk to maintain a sense of deadly danger, as if perpetually perched on the edge of a cliff, adrenaline pumping through twitchy veins, whilst a maw of jagged rocks below awaits our flailing descent.   That kind of fear cannot be sustained.  Exhaustion quickly follows.  

So it has come to pass that the world finds itself exhausted over the "catastrophe" of climate change.  To be sure, the climate isn't helping us.  There's plenty of ice at both polar caps.  Temperatures are all over the place.  Meanwhile life goes on.

We are now entering the theatrical phase of the fight against anthropogenic global warming.  Governments all around the world are reduced to going through the motions of trying to get rid of carbon dioxide.
 Many countries have signed up to the Paris accord; every country (apart from the dwindling zealots) privately confess they are merely players on a pantomime stage.  Every government has now become a nominal believer in global warming.  They say the words; they are unable to do anything of significance about it--nor do they intend to.  They are "doing enough" just to maintain a scintilla of credibility in case neighbouring countries accuse them of hypocrisy.

And then there are the zealots.  These folk are playing a helpful role in that they are telling us how useless and pathetic we all are.  We offer you Exhibit A--George Monbiot, the Guardian's resident Chicken Little.  The UK government has been considering the extension of the runway at Heathrow Airport, and alternatives.  Monbiot insists that the only right solution is to shorten every runway in the world.

There is only one way to prevent aviation from wrecking the planet. We need to fly much less.  The inexorable logic that should rule out new sources of oil, gas and coal also applies to the expansion of airports. In a world seeking to prevent climate breakdown, there is no remaining scope for extending infrastructure that depends on fossil fuels. The prime minister cannot uphold the Paris agreement on climate change, which comes into force next month, and permit the runway to be built.  [Emphasis, ours.]

There you have it.  Not much wriggle room in George's world.  But the irony is that George sees things pretty clearly.  He has looked into the future.  He realises that the UK is involved in a gargantuan sham, a mass con.  George knows that the dumb rubes (the general population) are simply not prepared to pay the price for climate perfection.  But that will not stop the government's charade going on.

The alternative strategy [to reducing air travel] is a carbon tax. The commission is remarkably evasive about what this entails, and its reckonings are opaque, contradictory and buried in remote annexes. Perhaps that’s unsurprising. An analysis by the Campaign for Better Transport suggests that the tax required to reconcile a new runway with our carbon commitments is somewhere between £270 and £850 for a return flight for a family of four to New York. . . .

As the commission doubtless knows, no government would impose such charges, or shut down northern airports to allow Heathrow to grow. Having approved the extra capacity, the government will discover that it’s incompatible with our commitments under the Climate Change Act, mull the consequences for a minute or two, then quietly abandon the commitments. It’s this simple: a third runway at Heathrow means that the UK will not meet its carbon targets. Hold me to that in 2050.

Yup.  The commitment to the Paris Accord is a con.  George finally gets it.   And what the UK government is doing, every other government is, and will be, doing.  That's the charade.  That's the pantomime.

George's cynicism has even got to the point of acknowledging the gods have deserted us.  He has looked into the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Dagon.  Lo, and behold, there is nothing there.  Only sham, make-believe, and tricksy tricksyness.

As for the international framework, forget it. Two weeks ago 191 nations struck the world’s only agreement to regulate aviation emissions. It’s voluntary, it’s pathetic, and it relies on planting trees to offset aircraft emissions, which means replacing a highly stable form of carbon storage (leaving oil in the ground) with a highly unstable one vulnerable to loggers, fires and droughts. The meeting at which the deal was done probably caused more emissions than it will save.

The Potemkin fight against global warming is entirely understandable because global warming is itself a Potemkin threat.  Virtually every nation state in the world understands this.  It is a faux threat: a faux cause, requiring a faux fight.  Government folk have been prepared to play along because it represented globalism, internationalism, and the lust for Babel's rebuilding.  But at another level, they all know it's a charade.

But George--well, spare a thought for him.  Whilst he well knows the attempts to roll back global warming are deceits and pretences, he himself is a genuine acolyte, a true believer.  And so, like a secular Jeremiah, he pours forth  his lamentation:

But reason has taken flight. The moral compass spins, greed and desire soar towards the stratosphere, and our conscience vanishes in the clouds. Will anyone confront this injustice?

The short answer, George, is, "No!"   Thank goodness.