Climate Change Alarmism & Religion
Reading a recent post from Bryan Caplan about Alex Epstein’s book Fossil Future reminded me of a couple points regarding climate change that have always bothered me. At the moment I don’t have a set of data that I’m interested in digging into, so this post will be free of numbers, charts, etc. My “About” page states the following: Trying to make sense of the world through data, analysis and logic, so consider this a post focusing on the final word of that sentence.
Point 1: How do we know that a warming trend will be a net-negative for the world? In terms of impact on the world, one would expect any deviation in climate to have both positive and negative effects. Clearly all of the media, activists, and politicians who tell us that climate change is an impending catastrophe only focus on potential negative impacts. Folks who are more skeptical will often cite possible benefits of a warmer planet, but I have never heard or seen a debate in popular media on whether a warming of the planet would be a net positive or negative. I have some vague memory of some folks (Bjorn Lomborg?) trying to do this accounting, but let’s be honest, the true answer is we have no idea. Trying to calculate such a hypothetical, with all of the uncertainties, second and third order effects on a world that we can’t even imagine right now (compare 1972 to 2022, then try to tell me you know what 2072 is going to look like), is the fool’s errand of all fool’s errands.
Point 2: If climate change is a critical issue, why does it matter what is causing it? There is always an emphasis on proving that the climate change we are seeing is caused by human activity. Why does that matter? If tomorrow the scientific consensus changed and we were told that indeed the climate was changing in the manner they have been telling us and we can expect the current projected rate of warming, but it had nothing to do with human activity, would all the activists still care? Would people be proposing other geoengineering ideas to cool the planet to reverse the upcoming warming? I suspect not, but if climate change caused by humans is a problem, why wouldn’t climate change caused by something else be a problem?
Climate change alarmism is a religion. I am not saying this in a disparaging way, but I can’t come up with answers to the two points above without viewing it as essentially a religious belief structure. If one is to believe that a rise in temperatures is necessarily a negative for the planet (rather than neutral or positive) and consider it something to worry/take action only when it is caused by human activity, then I can only conclude folks have the following beliefs:
There is a “natural” climate of the earth that provides optimal conditions for life on the planet.
Any disruption caused by humans to the natural climate must be harmful.
Those two beliefs to me say that you believe God created the Earth (whether God from an organized religion point of view, Mother Gaia, or some other form of spirituality) and humans’ sins against this God will necessarily be met with negative consequences. While this is not my belief structure, I could understand if someone told me it was theirs. What I don’t understand is how people who claim to have THE SCIENCE on their side would address the two points above using only science.
I love me some T Coddington in the afternoon! Let's talk about your points:
1) Life flourishes better in heat rather than cold. We're much closer to 'freezing to death' than we are 'burning to death'. Recently I heard Justin Trudeau, dependable WEF lackey, claim that climate change was one of the biggest issues facing Canadians, though Canada in particular would LOVE to warm up enough to grow food like the midwest does. Your overarching point is completely correct -- government has no idea what Earth's "optimum" temperature even is, and the idea that with enough money and power they could somehow get the planet to that temperature AND MAINTAIN IT is literally insane.
2) Climate change HAS to be caused by humans because otherwise humans can't do anything about it, therefore the climate bullies can't force you into changing behavior. As you say, it's a religion, and as most religions, it's all about CONTROL. You will stop flying. You will stop driving. You will own nothing. You will eat the bugs. All that control disappears if humans aren't 'causing' the climate change.
99% of scientist paid to disagree with you, disagree with you.
Also whether rising CO2 is a net-negative for the world. Many studies show it is actually a necessity.