Encounter with an Alarmist
Climate Change is a ‘political football’. The ‘offensive team’ - governments and their crony partners - have easily advanced the ball due to a weak ‘defensive team’ - the taxpayers.
“I have unacceptable views”
On Sunday, I bought a black toque from the Ontario Libertarian Party that has the above message embossed boldly in gold thread on it. I wear it proudly because I have a long history (since 1979) as a advocate for Less Government which is not a popular stance amidst people who like their governments big.
What to do about Climate Change - a Libertarian proposal
Last night, I was given the opportunity to speak about my soon-to-be-released eBook:
Before talking about the eBook, I told the audience that the proposal it contained is fully consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It enables all citizens to freely choose to support or reject the Climate Change crisis premises without suffering any repercussions.
I then presented the proposal which is a free market, free choice way for Climate Change Alarmists to donate directly to projects within companies that emit high levels of CO2 as a bi-product of their manufacturing processes. I argue that Canadians don’t need a massive Climate Change Governmental Complex monopoly to tax and regulate us if a free market alternative can deliver much fairer and more cost-effective mechanisms to address the alleged problem of excessive industrial greenhouse gas emissions voluntarily.
The Bigfoot Show is the name I gave to private a visual for an innovative, non-governmental approach to enable significant “industrial” emitters to reduce their large carbon footprints while also increasing their production productivity.
The funding will come from Alarmists who should be very excited by The Bigfoot Show. They will see their donations go directly towards financing actual projects with targeted and measurable objectives. The Show will also feature follow ups that will prove that the donations actually achieved the desired results - to significantly reduce the emissions of “Bigfoot” emitters.
The transparency and accountability built into The Bigfoot Show will be vastly superior to the alleged uses of our taxes by the Climate Change Governmental Complex. The CCGC exists today as little more that a massive tax grab and a political football to expand the size, cost and authority of ‘the state” and its crony partners.
I am a Climate Change Skeptic.
I opened my talk my identifying myself as a Skeptic. I do not believe that there is any justification for governments to tax and regulate everyone in the name of “saving the planet” from the Alarmist-alleged global warming crisis and its consequences.
During the Q&A session, a known local Alarmist objected to my statement that no scientific evidence exists to prove that a genuine Climate Change crisis exists. When handed the microphone, she did not ask a question but, instead, went into a rant which can be summarized by her claim that the alleged CO2 culprit is a diversion tactic (perpetrated by government ‘actors’ and/or well-funded NGOs?) to draw attention away from the real problem - pollution. She pointed out as proof that we can see the pollution every day as smog hanging over Toronto. After an audience member pointed out that CO2 is an invisible atmospheric gas, she then claimed that carbon monoxide (CO), also an invisible gas, is one of several killer gases coming from emissions.
I asked the Alarmist to come to the podium to join me in a conversation about the topic. She did so only to continue her passionate rant. She cut off any attempt for me to ask her questions so that I, and the audience, could better understand her claims. After a few attempts, I realized that no discussion would be possible and I left that podium to allow her to continue to elaborate on her point of view. As I sat down, I learn he say that I had embarrassed her in public as she too returned to her seat.
I tell this story as an example of the kinds of encounters that I have experienced many times with Alarmists. It’s as if their emotions have been hi-jacked by such a powerful conviction that they must protect it at all costs. They almost always deflect any attempt to use logic to unpack their claims. They also seek to control any attempt at discussion so that only their views are allowed to be heard and considered.
From my past encounters with Alarmists, I have concluded that most of them possess very little academic background or formal trading in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields of study. As such, they outsource their critical thinking on complex, related topics to “the experts” and/or “the authorities” who will make such unsubstantiated claims as “the science is settled” and “97% of scientists agree…”. It’s sad that these Alarmists can’t perform informed critical thinking for themselves and must depend on strangers with dubious credentials and unknown motives to do the “thinking” for them.
The Psychology of Totalitarianism by Dr. Mattias Desmet
Dr. Desmet does a brilliant job of explaining “mass formation’ psychosis in this recently published book. In it, he describes how large populations of citizens can be brainwashed into adopting ‘crisis’ beliefs that cannot be challenged rationally. Similar to hypnosis, some people are susceptible (Alarmists who are captured emotionally) and others (Skeptics who seek a rationale understanding) are not easily captured by this form of mass hypnosis.
My eBook goes into greater details on these topics. It is undergoing final edits and should be available within a few weeks.
Remember back in 2008's financial crisis, when much of the automobile industry was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy? The solution back then was to bail out the industry and provide artificial supports like the "Cash for Clunkers" program. Whether one agrees that automobiles are good or not, we have repeated the economic imperative of propping up sacred industries for decades. The result is that consumers and industry are encouraged to dispose of durable goods and replace them with newer ones, whether the goods are at the end of their useful life cycle or not.
Now since the signing of the Paris accord, the manufacture of anything will become prohibitively expensive, regardless of its benefit to consumers or society, because the foundation on which we produce is based on energy. That extends to other necessities like the need for heating our homes and businesses in our northern climate for close to half of the year (at least until the mythical spectre of global warming solves that problem).
Somewhere in between these two paradigms is a happy medium, where people of modest means can afford the goods needed for a decent life., without forcing them to over-consume.
Lastly, I would ask the alarmisits to imagine what our atmosphere would look like if billions of people went back to using firewood and dung to cook their meals instead of natural gas and electricity.