by Alan Moran at spectator.com.au
The environmentalist creed in context
Environmentalism, more particularly its prevalent global warming strain, dominates politics. It is the fourth such banner raised by the disgruntled that has conditioned politics since Medieval times.
Earlier eras saw politics underpinned by a struggle against government taxation which in the anglosphere can be marked by Magna Carta (1215), the English Civil War, and the American War of Independence. France experienced the ‘Fronde’ in 1648, which placed restraints on the king’s ability to levy new taxes, eventuating in the French Revolution a hundred and forty years later when the king was forced to convene a Parliament to seek new revenue sources.
Later, we saw nationalism as a clarion call for a new breed of activists to overturn established rulers thereby creating a new tapestry of sovereign states.
Then we saw socialism, often allied with nationalism but gradually, for the most part, overshadowing it.
Elites spearheaded all these movements, but they also had wide support.
Modern-day environmentalism has embraced forms of socialism – newly re-credited following its demise after the fall of the Soviet bloc – as well as having been reinforced by huckster self-interest in subsidies for politically correct energy supplies.
However, we have now seen a decade during which the projected increase in overall global temperatures failed to occur. The first chart below shows global temperature trends falling since 2015 (with CO2 continuing to grow) and the second chart shows a flat temperature trend for Australia since 2012.
It is no coincidence that the environmentalist catch-cry, the prevention of ‘global warming’, has morphed into ‘prevention of climate change’, which focuses on climate events that are portrayed as unusual and growing in intensity and frequency due to human-induced emissions of CO2 and other ‘greenhouse’ gases. Predictably, the latest IPCC report hysterically claims, ‘Climate change is bringing multiple different changes in different regions – which will all increase with further warming. These include changes to wetness and dryness, to winds, snow and ice, coastal areas and oceans.’
Global evidence of increasing severity and intensity of extreme weather events
Tropical storms and hurricanes cause considerable damage and loss of life. They have been meticulously recorded. Although many such events are accompanied by great publicity and claims of increased incidence and severity, the evidence for this is lacking.