Climate change gives life meaning—is it worth it?

From the Daily Skeptic

Author: Dr. James Allen

The religious mindset believes that there is more to life than the physical world of the senses. Some truths transcend the here and now. That which gives human existence non-accidental meaning. This is obvious for monotheistic religions and less obvious for Buddhist and polytheistic faiths. Nonetheless, the appeal of this belief in transcendent truth is quite obvious. This means that not everyone who rejects established religion turns to some kind of David Hume or Bertrand Russell-style skeptical view that what you see is what you get—we’re here because tens of thousands Accidental collisions of billions of atoms, a lot of time, and even more luck. As Hume famously said: “The life of man is no more important to the universe than the life of an oyster.”

This means that countless people with secular views in the world today will invest some diminished but still transcendent value and meaning in other things. This will become a religion for them. “Climate change” is obviously the first evidence. Various people talk about this issue through an explicitly religious type of lens. They attribute to it a transcendent value. Pure cost-benefit type analysis is too tacky and is not allowed because it goes beyond the material world of trade-offs and economic thinking. It becomes the explanation for everything and therefore cannot be falsified (in fact it is not a scientific claim at all). Nor does it matter whether actions taken to further this quasi-religious goal achieve anything. Like religious martyrs, if China and India build a new coal-fired power plant every week (which they do) and the Trump administration withdraws from the Paris net-zero emissions agreement (and it will) — that means Any Australia, UK or other country Canada could possibly do, including going back to the Stone Age tomorrow which would bring future temperatures to almost zero – none of it matters. Moral justice without considering the consequences is the most important and gives life pure meaning. “Whether others follow our example or not, we will be moral beacons. Our actions are in the service of transcendent truth, and so on.

Readers will think I'm overly encouraging this, exaggerating the way many climate change fanatics think. But I don't think I am. Talk to them about former Obama science adviser Steve Koonin's book Undecidedwhich pokes holes in the so-called “established science” on global warming, while Bjorn Lomborg thinks our money could be better spent preparing for a temperature rise of a degree or two , they would dismiss it all out of hand. Point out that extreme weather events have been decreasing, not accelerating (the data is clear on this) and they will ignore you. Every time there is a fire, hurricane or flood, to them it will be a sign of climate change like God has on human behavior. dissatisfied. No mundane human behavior or failure will stop them from saying the all-encompassing explanation of “this is climate change.”

Take the Los Angeles fires, for example. All the usual suspects have jumped on the climate change-as-culprit bandwagon. You'll hear this from Gavin Newsom, from countless Democratic politicians, from Hollywood stars, from the dominant legacy media (even after the recent US election, they don't seem to realize that, absolutely Most voters don't give flying fire trucks what they think the answer is) or what's being sold), Australia's Teals, Bob Carr, the list goes on. Now, a non-religious perspective focused on empirical facts will point to the lack of water management (no water storage, no dams built, in fact dams were removed, so last year's record rainfall ended up in the ocean) voters passed Proposition 1, Spending $7.5 billion to achieve this goal. This shows that failure to engage in proper forest management and burning (respecting the environmental lobby) is also important. In fact, many fire hydrants were out of water. The Los Angeles Fire Department's budget was cut by $18 million last year to fund DEI waste. The same goes for DEI recruiting practices and promotions within the same fire department. So are all the homeless people associated with more arson incidents. So do illegal immigrant gangs – setting fires and then robbing the owners when they have to leave. Did you know, Los Angeles doesn’t have a viable insurance industry because socialist Democrats mandate that insurance premiums — given everything Newsom’s team has done — are too low. So many people don’t have access to insurance.

Victor Davis Hanson summed it up succinctly. These fires were “total system failures.” Store water at no cost. Suffer from an extensive DEI (and therefore, by definition, disinterest in the merits of hiring and managing a fire department) hierarchy. There is no forest management. As Los Angeles burned, “Newsom was fiddling.” It’s like a “DEI Green New Deal hydrogen bomb.” This is despite heavy rainfall 11 months ago. Warnings from the insurance industry went unheeded, forcing many companies to leave. No, Los Angeles cut its fire department budget by nearly $18 million last year.

But hey, if you're Teal or Bob Carr or one of the many Democratic politicians, this is all happening because of “climate change.” Of course, I realize that not all proponents of this interpretation are true believers. Renewable energy rent seekers are liars. As Gavin Newsom watches his political future burn before his eyes, he needs to blame something other than Democratic policies. But we all know that this cult has many true believers. Heck, half the Coalition meeting room probably falls into this category (vomit, vomit). No amount of empirical explanation can diminish these believers’ desire to embrace the god of climate alarmism. They need to morally condemn all who refuse to kneel at the altar of this new false religion.

Since Donald Trump won the election, more has been done to protect and promote free speech than has been seen in all the terms of any establishment Anglophone government over the past two decades – that’s undeniable. Likewise, Don's incoming government will do more to counter this religious worldview on climate change than any existing Anglosphere conservative government has or will do. Because when the costs get too high, companies flee, and everyone else laughs at you for wearing a sweater to heaven, the spell can be broken. Los Angeles voters are getting what they voted for — good and hard.

James Allan is Garrick Professor of Law at the University of Queensland. This article first appeared in Australian audience.

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