Climatism vs. Humanism
Posted by rbroberg 8 years, 7 months ago to Philosophy
Alex Epstein covers this in detail, but I would like to ask your permission to muse.
Climatism uses humanism as a stolen concept. It advances the idea that we abort our productive activities in order to live a better life. The claim goes like this: the better life climatism envisions is sustainable. In his book The World Without Us, Alan Weisman shows that a natural world devoid of human beings would result in a matter of a few centuries. Irrevocable damage is, says Weisman, nothing beyond mythical. We can imagine a world without us, or a world where human beings cower in the shadows of caves, digging into dirt with bare hands, fighting for scraps of raw meat, or even conducting incestual relations. How is that for sustainable! Of course, when humans become animals fighting for resources rather than producing them, it is indeed a meager existence. The IRS makes this point clear.
Climatism as a principle cannot be justified. The concept relies on humanism but requires sacrificing production and rationality. It brands as human the thought that nature is some god, that our opponent is anti-nature. But if our ultimate value is life and reality is what it is and nothing else, then only altruism can confuse life with sacrificing oneself. Only the end of altruism can enable a proper humanism, and only rational egoism can provide the antidote to climatism.
Climatism uses humanism as a stolen concept. It advances the idea that we abort our productive activities in order to live a better life. The claim goes like this: the better life climatism envisions is sustainable. In his book The World Without Us, Alan Weisman shows that a natural world devoid of human beings would result in a matter of a few centuries. Irrevocable damage is, says Weisman, nothing beyond mythical. We can imagine a world without us, or a world where human beings cower in the shadows of caves, digging into dirt with bare hands, fighting for scraps of raw meat, or even conducting incestual relations. How is that for sustainable! Of course, when humans become animals fighting for resources rather than producing them, it is indeed a meager existence. The IRS makes this point clear.
Climatism as a principle cannot be justified. The concept relies on humanism but requires sacrificing production and rationality. It brands as human the thought that nature is some god, that our opponent is anti-nature. But if our ultimate value is life and reality is what it is and nothing else, then only altruism can confuse life with sacrificing oneself. Only the end of altruism can enable a proper humanism, and only rational egoism can provide the antidote to climatism.
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Politicians love global warming (or cooling or change or what ever) not because it's good science but because it's a powerful political tool. Jerry Brown is about as well equipped to understand climate dynamics as my dog is to understand how his food gets into cans. Climate dynamics and the detailed mechanisms of the biosphere are extraordinarily complex and can only be understood in terms of multidimensional dynamic models, and these must include such things as the response of vegetation to increases in atmospheric gasses such as carbon dioxide and methane. While NASA analysis of planetary albedo and black body equilibrium temperature has been touted loudly the discoveries of increased forestation growth, which acts as an active carbon sequestration mechanism are ignored because they don't fit the narrative. Politicians may appreciate power and extortion but their understanding of rigorous science is infantile. To the extent that AGW is a real threat, and I am not denying that, are scientifically illiterate politicians equipped to deal with the problem?
But really, that's just the cover for the real agenda. The real agenda is an idyllic world of a few slavish humans supporting the needs and desires of the elites. It's bait-and-switch at its finest.
Can you just imagine a world without human beings...it would be 1000 times more cruel, more chaotic and of no value to anyone...not even the fittest.
I was just trying to understand your point. Maybe I need to be familiar with the references you made, to Epstein Weissman and the IRS.