Patterico's Pontifications

9/23/2019

Making Religion: Two Sides Of The Same Coin

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:03 pm



[guest post by Dana]

I read this thread a few days ago and was reminded that just about anything can become an object of worship, or can have a religion built around it. Such is the insatiable need for fallen man to present his corrupt power as something incorruptible, or even something of the Divine. There are no limitations to man’s imagination:

We’ve had many questions about yesterday’s chapel, conducted as part of @ccarvalhaes’ class, “Extractivism: A Ritual/Liturgical Response.” In worship, our community confessed the harm we’ve done to plants, speaking directly in repentance.

This is a beautiful ritual. We are in the throes of a climate emergency, a crisis created by humanity’s arrogance, our disregard for Creation.

Far too often, we see the natural world only as resources to be extracted for our use, not divinely created in their own right—worthy of honor, thanks and care.

We need to unlearn habits of sin and death. And part of that work must be building new bridges to the natural world.

And that means creating new spiritual and intellectual frameworks by which we understand and relate to the plants and animals with whom we share the planet.

Churches have a huge role to play in this endeavor. Theologies that encourage humans to dominate and master the Earth have played a deplorable role in degrading God’s creation.

We must birth new theology, new liturgy to heal and sow, replacing ones that reap and destroy.

When Robin Wall Kimmerer spoke at Union last year, she concluded her lecture by tasking us—and all faith communities—to develop new liturgies by which to mourn, grieve, heal and change in response to our climate emergency.

We couldn’t be prouder to participate in this work.

And here’s the thing: At first, this work will seem weird. It won’t feel normal. It won’t look like how we’re used to worship looking and sounding.

And that’s exactly the point. We don’t just need new wine, we need new wineskins.

But it’s also important to note that this isn’t, really, that radical a break from tradition. Many faiths and denoms have liturgy through which we express and atone for the harm we’ve caused. No one would have blinked if our chapel featured students apologizing to each other.

What’s different (and the source of so much derision) is that we’re treating plants as fully created beings, divine Creation in its own right—not just something to be consumed.

Because plants aren’t capable of verbal response, does that mean we shouldn’t engage with them?

So, if you’re poking fun, we’d ask only that you also spend a couple moments asking:

Do I treat plants and animals as divinely created beings?

What harm do I cause without thinking?

How can I enter into new relationship with the natural world?

Change isn’t easy: It’s no simple business to break free from comfortable habits and thoughts. But if we do not change, we will perish. And so will plants and animals God created and called “good.”

We must lean into this discomfort; God waits for us there.

Last week, JVW wrote a brilliant little post about activists using their children to push their agenda, and their willingness to exploit them, if necessary. Because sometimes terrorizing one’s offspring is what gets the job done. Hey, small sacrifices, am I right?? Central to his focus was climate activist Greta Thunberg. Young Miss Thungberg spoke before an audience at the UN Climate Action Summit today. She was harshly critical of capitalism, and of the adults who have taken the world to the brink of extinction by their irresponsible behavior, thus leaving Miss Thunberg and her contemporaries with one really screwed up future. And, per Ms. Thunberg, we only have 12 8 1/2 years to get our shit together. So when asked what her message today was to world leaders, Miss Thunberg intoned: “We’ll be watching you”.

“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

While Miss Thunberg then renders judgement: She doesn’t want to believe we are evil but it’s pretty much looking like we are:

“For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.

“You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.

In closing, there will be no mercy for the wicked:

“You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.

(You can read about the “math” upon which she relies to support her claims at the link.)

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

69 Responses to “Making Religion: Two Sides Of The Same Coin”

  1. Where to start? We are good stewards of the earth because we recognize the earth and everything in the natural world is a gift from God and to be treated as such.

    Miss Thunberg makes me feel sad for her, and for young people like her. What a horrible thing to go through such a tumultuous time in life with extra-added fear and worry. Her life is simply worth more than this.

    Dana (05f22b)

  2. What a shrill little beast. If she was born in a different era and place, I could see her eagerly joining the Nazi Youth or the Young Pioneers….

    B.A. DuBois (80f588)

  3. Would she look better in a brown shirt or holding a little red book? Why choose, do both instead.

    NJRob (a137be)

  4. What a shrill little beast.

    You sair it, bwana. Also, she’s an Aspie:

    Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger’s, is a developmental disorder characterised by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.[5] As a milder autism spectrum disorder (ASD), it differs from other ASDs by relatively normal language and intelligence.[9] Although not required for diagnosis, physical clumsiness and unusual use of language are common.[10][11] Signs usually begin before two years of age and typically last for a person’s entire life.[5]

    nk (9651fb)

  5. 4. If Greta Thunberg is an aspie, her antifa parents are taking advantage of her pathological obsession with climate change. I’d say that looks like child abuse to me.

    Gryph (08c844)

  6. Oooh! I’m sooo scared! By their own reckoning, by the time they get any power over us to do anything, we’re all gonna be dead anyway. Someone hasn’t factored demographic transition into their doomsday cult strategizing.

    What would be fun, not that I’d live long enough to see it, but imagining a scenario where these deluded children do gain power, live long enough to destroy the greatest prosperity in the history of man, and then THEIR children learn how their parents destroyed their childhood and destroyed prosperity with a doomsday cult.

    PTw (f6ba20)

  7. Be it noted that a whole bunch of aspies (me being one of them) don’t accept the skydragon cult (as Narciso calls it).

    But every parent indoctrinates their child with their own set of beliefs and disbeliefs, and since it started back in the 19th century, the real mission of public school s was to indoctrinate children in the social cultural orthodoxy of the day. So I am not sure I call this abuse.

    Kishnevi (e95dc4)

  8. @3. Or maybe in chinos, hush puppies and a plaid shirt robotically repeating the ‘pledge of allegience?’ Or jut modelling bulletproof backpacks?

    Love this kid.

    You “go” girl!

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  9. Good time to insert this tweet, originally posted in reference to David Hogg and company

    https://mobile.twitter.com/TamSlick/status/965713809141911556
    Although I presume that as smart people, you all have been following the inimitable Ms. K. for some time.

    Kishnevi (e95dc4)

  10. I may surprise some people, but I was actually pleased to watch Greta Thunberg‘s speech today. There are three points on which I find I definitely agree with her:

    1) This was all wrong.

    2) She shouldn’t have been up there.

    3) She should have been back in school, on the other side of the ocean.

    And I, for one, fervently hope that she takes these pearls of wisdom and applies them to her everyday life.

    Demosthenes (8e3e9d)

  11. As for that other thing, they’re Johnnie come-latelies, that’s what they are.

    “The bonzes of Padme — especially we of the Isavest Ordainment — are sworn to altruism. We render constructive service to any living thing, and under certain circumstances to inorganic objects as well. We feel that the principle of life transcends protoplasm; and in fact has its inception with simple — or perhaps not so simple — motion. A molecule brushing past another — is this not one aspect of vitality? Why can we not conjecture consciousness in each individual molecule? Think what a ferment of thought surrounds us; imagine the resentment which conceivably arises when we tread on a clod! For this reason we bonzes move as gently as possible, and take care where we set our feet.”– Vance, Jack. Magnus Ridolph: Coup de Grace (1957).

    nk (9651fb)

  12. @ 3:

    A brown shirt? Sure. A red book? I can see that, too.

    But given the scolding tone of her voice, I can’t help but picture her dressed like someone from, say, Salem circa 1690. A simple white bonnet, and an apron over a plain linen outer gown…

    Thank goodness they didn’t burn witches in those days. I can’t see any way that would be carbon-neutral.

    Demosthenes (8e3e9d)

  13. Arya Stark fascination on part of a significant part of population gave Greta her opening as the girl slayer.

    urbanleftbehind (201f4f)

  14. God forbid that anyone challenge an American to think about the consequences of his or her actions. Doesn’t this kid know that that’s the unforgivable sin?

    Leviticus (67d4dc)

  15. No, she doesn’t. Because she has no empathy with other people. She has herself and her one obsession which everyone must share and it is “all wrong” that they do not.

    nk (9651fb)

  16. Leviticus,

    I don’t like children being used by adults to further a cause. Any cause. Whether it’s about climate change or fighting against abortion, I don’t like it. As a person of faith, actions and consequences are as much a part of my life as are grace and mercy. Nothing goes unseen or unknown or unaccounted for by God.

    This strident “religion” surrounding both scenarios in the post is troubling because losing sight of the correct order of the relationship between man and his Creator always leads to catastrophe. Far more so than the ill effects of climate concerns.

    Dana (05f22b)

  17. What evidence do you have that this kid is being “used” by anyone?

    Leviticus (67d4dc)

  18. I’m with Leviticus. i think she is blazing her own trail. Remember this is a kid who sailed across the Atlantic by herself. She comes on a bit strong for me, but the science is on her side.

    JRH (52aed3)

  19. Re: the presumption that kids cannot speak for themselves at the age of 16 – I’ve been balking at that presumption on this website for the past 15 years, and I’m not gonna stop now.

    Leviticus (67d4dc)

  20. @18. ok not by herself. one (?) other person I guess. Again I dislike the over dramatization of the climate threat, but I dislike even more the head-in-the-sand routine most conservatives have engaged in for the past couple of decades.

    JRH (52aed3)

  21. 18. What you don’t read in the news is, she’s flying back along with her entire entourage. Hypocrisy, much?

    Gryph (08c844)

  22. 19. Whether kids are able to speak for themselves at the age of 16 is a matter I’d rather not debate right now, given the fact that Greta Thunberg is most certainly NOT speaking for herself regardless.

    Gryph (08c844)

  23. So I’ll reiterate my request for evidence to you, then.

    Leviticus (67d4dc)

  24. I don’t care about Greta Thunberg. I do care and worry deeply about Americans’ intense and reflexive dislike of anyone who criticizes them.

    Leviticus (67d4dc)

  25. 24. I don’t care what Greta Thunberg thinks of me or any of my fellow Americans. I do care that she is being given a platform for criticism in front of policymakers that I don’t have, even though I am a citizen who ought to be able to exercise my right to petition for a redress of MY grievances. I care that she is full of s**t.

    Gryph (08c844)

  26. The mainstream perspective on climate change is a 2-4 degree increase in temperature this century with a 2-5% impact on world GDP. It is a problem, not a crisis….and certainly not an existential crisis. This is about probabilities….and the cold and clinical free market weighs these probabilities….and reflects them in costs. Maybe not perfectly….as some R&D is still most practically done by government labs….but we need as much venture capital money looking toward innovation…..and not so much attention to the heavy hand of government regulation…..which rarely works at the local level let alone at the global level. Why do we waste time listening to a child who we would not bother to listen to about all other matters of importance? Why do adults suggest that we need to listen? It really is quite disturbing in some ways….

    AJ_Liberty (165d19)

  27. 26. It’s because this particular child’s rage fits perfectly with a predetermined agenda. She’s a tool in the most literal sense of the word and she doesn’t care. Most kids wouldn’t. But what her parents are allowing is morally reprehensible.

    Gryph (08c844)

  28. BTW It’s not just crazy young socialist swedes that care about climate change. Young conservatives in this country are starting to care, too. If I were conservative, I’d consider that good news. Why cede the issue to the crazy libs?

    (https://twitter.com/ACC_National)

    These guys are reclaiming the word “conservation.” I like it.

    https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060789485

    JRH (52aed3)

  29. 28. I have yet to see credible evidence, let alone “proof,” that global warming is happening. Even if I concede that it is happening, I have seen no evidence, let alone “proof,” that it is a problem. If I concede that it is a problem, I have seen no evidence that it is caused by humans. Even if I concede that it is caused by humans, I have seen overwhelming evidence that developing nations (China, India, and most of Sub-Saharan Africa among them) are responsible for far more carbon emission than the entirety of North America.

    Gryph (08c844)

  30. C’mon. She’s 16 y/o. She’s not doing anything. She’s READING from a SCRIPT her handlers gave her.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  31. Y’know if we could defeat Trump in 2020, we’d stop this climate change stuff in its tracks. The D’s are totally against it!

    rcocean (1a839e)

  32. Here’s another self-professed rightie climate website. https://rightonclimate.eco/climate-hub

    “67% OF MILLENNIAL GOP VOTERS BELIEVE THAT THE GOP NEEDS TO DO MORE ON CLIMATE CHANGE.” (according to them. forgive the all-caps; I cut and pasted.)

    Engaging on this issue would be a good way for you guys to grow your movement imo. As for the science my default is to listen to the experts, like NASA climate scientists. I find them convincing on this stuff.

    JRH (52aed3)

  33. @29. Stand in a swimming pool by yourself with the filter on full; pee… in time, take in a gulp of water and you’ll likely not notice a thing… then cut the filter back 25% or more- and invite 150 people into the pool to pee along side you… then take a gulp. You and the others with you might taste just a twang of a difference- and you and 50 others might have no problem with it… OTOH, the other 100 just might.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  34. Thou shall not mock the climate change deity. It’s very jealous and blames all Westerners for evil in this world.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  35. What’s different (and the source of so much derision) is that we’re treating plants as fully created beings, divine Creation in its own right—not just something to be consumed.

    Because plants aren’t capable of verbal response, does that mean we shouldn’t engage with them?

    So, if you’re poking fun, we’d ask only that you also spend a couple moments asking:

    Do I treat plants and animals as divinely created beings?

    Because the AIDS virus, the polio bacillus and Ebola aren’t capable of verbal response, does that mean we shouldn’t engage with them?

    So, if you’re poking fun, we’d ask only that you spend a couple moments asking:

    Do I treat virulent pathogens as divinely created beings?

    Dave (1bb933)

  36. The little biotch needs her mouth washed out with soap. Pull her passport and gtfoh. Stupid little prop.

    mg (8cbc69)

  37. Miss chicken little is a bad actor, she sounds like an ill informed antifa punk.

    mg (8cbc69)


  38. dW🦄
    @SmailliwNitsud
    Tons of coal fired power plants going up in China, Philippines, Vietnam, South Africa, and many other developing places.

    Meanwhile America’s CO2 emissions are at 1995 levels. And yet I keep hearing we need socialism to save us.
    __ _

    Ivan Kolev
    @igkolev
    ·
    The social engineers behind Greta know very well they’re not getting money from China. The whole Greta stance is a push to governments to pour more public money into “green” whatever… I am sure the subject countries were carefully selected by being susceptible to such bullsh**t

    __ _

    Btw – who is ignoring the problem again?

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFNEZEGXkAAQ08_?format=jpg&name=large

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFK3cALXoAAGPUB?format=jpg&name=900×900

    You go girl!! lol
    _

    harkin (58d012)

  39. People who are genuinely worried about climate change shouldn’t be having children or eating meat. I see so-called environmentalists doing a lot of both.

    norcal (eec1aa)

  40. never trumpers are out of ammo, sending in a spoiled brat to do the dirty work. lmao.

    mg (8cbc69)

  41. Stand in a swimming pool by yourself with the filter on full; pee… in time, take in a gulp of water and you’ll likely not notice a thing… then cut the filter back 25% or more- and invite 150 people into the pool to pee along side you…

    Good point, DCSCA. One Theda Grunberg may not seem like much. Get a bunch of them together and you get Sweden. Not to mention Minnesota.

    nk (9651fb)

  42. @ 41:

    A better indication of being “out of ammo,” I think, is to style a Swedish teenager as an appointed representative for an American political movement.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  43. @ 42:

    I’m not sure that’s the best example. Minnesota probably doesn’t even have swimming pools.

    Demosthenes (7fae81)

  44. @29: “I have yet to see credible evidence, let alone “proof,” that global warming is happening. Even if I concede that it is happening, I have seen no evidence, let alone “proof,” that it is a problem. If I concede that it is a problem, I have seen no evidence that it is caused by humans.”

    How hard have you actually looked…..and have you looked beyond sources that are naturally and ideologically skeptical? It is plausible to say that some climate scientists are ideologically driven and incentivized to hype a crisis…..it’s less plausible to say that most are — evidence still reigns supreme in science. We are perfectly fine accepting that an abundance of CFC’s in the atmosphere was creating a hole in the ozone layer, but when it comes to CO2, we willfully believe that there is no limit….and we can simply “burn baby burn”….because it eye gouges the Left. There is nothing wrong with conservatives saying that there is a limited role for government to play in dealing with green house gasses….

    AJ_Liberty (165d19)

  45. Why do lichens and scrub pine have more of a right to live in the northern latitudes than Venus flytraps and rosewoods? Don’t the tropical plants have a right to a hospitable climate everywhere on Earth? That’s how it used to be for hundreds of millions of years, you know.

    nk (9651fb)

  46. I can’t believe the number of people that think they are qualified to have an opinion on climate change when they know nothing about it. I believe in science. The government said it, I believe it, that settles it. I believe that GMO crops are perfectly safe, vaccines do not cause autism, glyphosate does not cause cancer, that nuclear power plants are a safe alternative to fossil fuel power plants, a low-fat, high-carb diet is the healthiest diet for human beings, that organic foods are no healthier than non-organic foods, and that low-flow toilets you have to flush three or four times use less water than the older toilets you only had to flush once. It’s science, people! How can you doubt it?

    Jerryskids (702a61)

  47. 45. Then let’s start by addressing carbon emissions where they’re the worst: In third-world s**thole countries which are 100 years behind the time in electrification; NOT the United States of America. If everything that Little Greta is saying is true about “climate change,” America is the least bad offender in the world.

    Gryph (08c844)

  48. 29. Gryph (08c844) — 9/23/2019 @ 9:00 pm

    28. I have yet to see credible evidence, let alone “proof,” that global warming is happening.

    This is actually the wrong question, Usually the claim is made that people are denying that it is man made, at least in part. But this is the wrong question.

    Even if I concede that it is happening, I have seen no evidence, let alone “proof,” that it is a problem.

    This is the right question, or one of them.

    Now what is happening is not precisely global warming – its a small touch of global warming, more near the poles, combined with a greater variability of weather. And there seem to be fewer hurricanes, but there are more very strong hurricanes. And the greater standard deviation of the weather applies also to rainfall. If I concede that it is a problem, I have seen no evidence that it is caused by humans. The basis for that is that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been rising, and the proportion of carbon dioxide that is Carbon 12 and Carbon 14 has been shrinking – or was except for the rise caused by atomic bomb explsions mainly in the period 1945-1962 – and that can only be man made.

    A better question is whether it makes sense to try to do anything about it. And the answer is clearly: NO!

    Notice the weasel wrds “man made” but not specifying as to how. Man made but not specifying the time scale – it’s very little year to year, If anything was changed the difference wold be even less between doing anything and not doing anything different.

    here is so much nonsense. Now we have “climate refugees” Except that people run away from dictatorships and war, not changing weather and peole have been leaving the farm for 200 years.
    Even if I concede that it is caused by humans, I have seen overwhelming evidence that developing nations (China, India, and most of Sub-Saharan Africa among them) are responsible for far more carbon emission than the entirety of North America. Oh of course.

    And there is way to reduce temperature – spewing sulfer over the Arctic or fertilizing the Pacific Ocean with iron, but that is opposed as geo-engineering whic both I suppose tampers wth nature (bad!) and is unpredictable.

    But what they propose – cutting back on emisisons, is not only economically destructive, it’s guaranteed not to work!

    By their own climate models.

    So they say, it’s a first step.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  49. * Errata: The proportion of carbon dioxide that is Carbon 13 and Carbon 14 has been shrinking since at least 1890s.

    Nobody seems to have done any mathematical estimaes by sources of how CO2 is added each year. So you don’t even know that if less oil and natural gas from underground was burned, it would reduce the level of CI2 in the atmosphere. Because here;s alot of CO2 in the oceans. Also water.

    Did you know the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is up by about 5% over the past century?

    And di-hydrogen monoxide is a much more potent greenhouse gas. Also is not evenly distributed in the atmosphere and sometimes cools and sometimes heats. And it is prodced by burning oil and natural gas but not coal.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  50. *Lot* of attention being paid to this girl, but she was not the only one who testified the other day. There were conservative voices testifying as well, advocating for limited govt, market driven solutions to climate change and asserting that conservatives — especially young conservatives on college campuses — should not be excluded from the conversation. Did the liberal media ignore him? Yep ofc, but why should conservatives ignore him?

    https://www.acc.eco/blog/2019/9/19/benji-backers-full-testimony-before-congress

    JRH (52aed3)

  51. 51. To say there is a “conservative case for” climate change is conceding the point and letting liberals argue on their premise, something I refuse to do as a matter of principle.

    Gryph (08c844)

  52. All right then back to freaking out about the girl . sorry to interrupt :p

    JRH (52aed3)

  53. Gryph,

    The climate is either heating up or it isn’t, and this is either due to what we pump into the atmosphere, or it is not. That’s neither a Conservative thing or a Liberal thing. When it’s another day in the 90s in late September in Atlanta, I do feel like something is going on, particularly, since we had the same phenomenon last year.

    Where Conservative and Liberal comes in is what we do about it. If the Left is willing to tell the rest of the world to stop developing, you have no right to a better life because this Sweedish schoolgirl is mad — well, the Left will be frustrated. If the Left can get past their own religion, and embrace nuclear because their video game fueled life depends on it, well, we might really get somewhere.

    A lot of rhetorical wind is expended on manufacturing a crisis atmosphere –a Flight 93 electorate, shall we say. That isn’t going to yield good results or sensible policy.

    Appalled (d07ae6)

  54. 53. I’m not freaking out about s**t. Don’t assume that I am just because she’s the only person giving testimony who the dinosaur media is freaking out about.

    Gryph (08c844)

  55. 54. That’s kind of my point. Whatever else you want to say, however you think policy should address this, the climate is not a crisis. When you come right down to it, the burden is on those making the proposals to convince me that we should enact them. It’s a burden they aren’t meeting.

    Gryph (08c844)

  56. It is to snorfle:

    Thunberg sailed to New York to attend a UN summit on zero emissions next month after refusing to fly there because of the carbon emissions caused by planes.

    She was offered a ride on the Malizia II racing yacht skippered by Pierre Casiraghi, the son of Princess Caroline of Monaco, and the German round-the-world sailor Boris Herrmann.
    ….
    The 18-metre [60 feet] yacht features solar panels on its deck and sides, and two hydro-generators provide its electricity.

    Her voyage sparked controversy, however, after a spokesman for Herrmann, the yacht’s co-skipper, told the Berlin newspaper TAZ that several people would fly into New York to take the yacht back to Europe.

    Herrmann will also return by plane, according to the spokesman.

    Team Malizia’s manager insisted, however, that the young activist’s journey would be carbon neutral, as the flights would be offset.

    • This article was amended on 2 September 2019 to clarify a reference to the yacht being solar powered. The main power source is wind.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/28/greta-thunberg-arrival-in-new-york-delayed-by-rough-seas

    nk (9651fb)

  57. I agree with Leviticus, BTW. Sixteen-year olds should be held responsible for their fatuousness and there’s no call to blame adults for putting them up to it. They’re perfectly capable of being dipsticks all by themselves.

    nk (9651fb)

  58. Back in 2010, when they were a little less cagey on their goals:

    (NZZ AM SONNTAG): The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.

    (OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.

    (NZZ): That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.

    (EDENHOFER): Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet – and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 – there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.

    (NZZ): De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.

    (EDENHOFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

    https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/noel-sheppard/2010/11/18/un-ipcc-official-admits-we-redistribute-worlds-wealth-climate

    It’s all about the money and who has the right to exploit and who doesn’t based on policy from people who think they know best how to spend it.

    harkin (58d012)

  59. Thunberg cannot be both a shield and a sword:

    I do not know whether the people who are trying to inoculate Greta Thunberg from criticism genuinely believe that we’re too stupid to see the game that is being played, or whether they know that we can see it, but imagine that they can win it by brute force. Either way, they are wrong. What is being attempted with Thunberg is one of the oldest tricks in the book. First, you find a young person who shares your politics and cast them as the uncorrupted prophet of a new generation. Second, you have them argue their case as often and as loudly as possible. Third, you cast all pushback as “inappropriate” or “bullying” or “punching down.” “Why,” you ask, “are you criticizing this sweet little girl who is just trying to help us in our quest to reorder the entire world?”

    This process is not only transparent; it is grotesque. There exists no universe in which one can simultaneously cast a person as a brave truth-teller whose words must be heeded, and as an innocent, fragile child who is beneath the notice of any well-rounded adult. A sword is not a shield and a shield is not a sword. One must pick one. If Thunberg’s tears are notable on one side of the political ledger, then they are notable on the other. If her anger and fear and instability are the key to her message and appeal, then they may be referenced by her critics, too. If her age makes her different, then . . . well, her age makes her different: “Gosh, she’s only sixteen!” “Yes, exactly, she’s only sixteen.” To indulge any other approach than this is to permit one group within our raucous political conversation to short-circuit it completely.

    Were Thunberg merely emoting, there would indeed be a case for ignoring her. But then, were she merely emoting, she wouldn’t have an audience. Her audience has grown because she is making concrete claims: The world will end in eight-and-a-half years; my future has been ruined; the economy can’t grow indefinitely; nuclear power is bad; the following countries are guilty, etc. To sit this one out would be to permit the adult advocates of those presumptions to smuggle them into the media, the United Nations, the European Union, and so on, and to do so without evaluation, pushback, or discussion. That will not stand — and it shouldn’t.

    Dana (05f22b)

  60. Sam Stein
    @samstein
    It takes an intense amount of personal insecurity to get as bothered by Greta Thunberg as some people are.
    __ _

    Gabriel Malor
    @gabrielmalor
    Replying to
    @samstein
    I would like to hear your explanation of the media coverage of the 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation if you’re gonna be this smug.

    Go on.
    _

    harkin (58d012)

  61. “I agree with Leviticus, BTW. Sixteen-year olds should be held responsible for their fatuousness and there’s no call to blame adults for putting them up to it. They’re perfectly capable of being dipsticks all by themselves.”

    – nk

    Agreed.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  62. I was frequently held responsible for my own fatuousness at the age of sixteen, and I believe that was just.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  63. I agree regarding 16 year olds being held responsible, however, in Thunberg’s case, she clearly didn’t end up speaking before the UN all on her own. That she is able to speak before an exclusive audience in an exclusive setting is no small feat, and clearly, there are adults with sway involved in her cause that have facilitated this. This seems pretty obvious. And if they can use her to their gain, they will. And have.

    Dana (05f22b)

  64. Fox News is apologizing to the kid and banishing a guest for truthfully pointing out that the left is exploiting a child with mental illness:

    “Knowles had been discussing the absurdity of “meatless” diets and environmentalism. “The climate hysteria movement is not about science,” Knowles said. “If it were about science, it would be led by scientists rather than by politicians and a mentally ill Swedish child who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left.” This didn’t go over well with the show’s liberal guest.

    Fellow guest and Democrat Chris Hahn audibly remarked “how dare you” as Knowles continued and said this is a “political movement and a religious movement” on the left, to which Hahn responded, “You’re a grown man and you’re attacking a child. Shame on you.”
    “I’m not, I’m attacking the left for exploiting a mentally ill child,” Knowles said.

    “Relax, skinny boy!” Hahn shot back. “I got this, okay? You’re attacking a child, you’re a grown man. Have some couth.”

    Thunberg and her family have long been open about her Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a “developmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.”

    Hahn refused to let Knowles’ comments go and demanded he apologize for calling Thunburg “mentally ill.”

    “She is mentally ill,” Knowles responded. “She has autism, she has obsessive-compulsive disorder, she has selective mutism, she had depression…”

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/fox-news-cuts-ties-with-michael-knowles-over-greta-thunberg-comments/

    You go girl!
    _

    harkin (dc1411)

  65. Well, the guy who brought her over on his racing yacht is a jet setter. Literally. He’s the son of Princess Caroline of Monaco and majority owner of Monacair, a private helicopter and plane transport company, and eighth in line to the (snicker) throne of Monaco which has a seat in the UN. In addition to racing yachts, he also races cars. I don’t know how dedicated to socialism he is, but I can see how he wouldn’t mind the people of the northern countries freezing in the dark as long as it keeps the Riviera from losing a foot of beach.

    nk (9651fb)

  66. I was frequently held responsible for my own fatuousness at the age of sixteen, and I believe that was just.

    I was frequently not, and I believe that was fortunate.

    Dave (1bb933)

  67. About that ‘eco-friendly yacht:

    “Malizia II, like the rest of the yachts in the Imoca 60 class, is constructed from high-tech carbon fiber composites to make it ultra light and fast. It is the ultimate play thing of the wealthy elite. These boats are made of hydrocarbons, not to mention all the energy it took to make them.

    Carbon fiber composites are primarily made from propane and petroleum. This boat was pumped out of the ground.

    The Monaco Yacht Club is among the sponsors paying for the trip. They removed all the corporate sponsor logos from the yacht so as not to be associated with the capitalist prosperity that built it.”

    https://www.climatedepot.com/2019/07/31/climate-kid-greta-protesting-oil-on-elite-racing-yacht-made-of-hydrocarbons/
    _

    harkin (58d012)

  68. It’s not a sham. That word is inadequate. It’s an obscenity.

    nk (9651fb)


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