H.L. Mencken in his usual blunt way in 1926 put it succinctly about democracy: “Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” “Individual ignorance” runs up and down the social pyramid. Frequently, clichés, banalities, pandering, sloganeering, and no real debate dominate much of the public discourse. Mencken’s right. For proof, look no further than our 2024 choices for president.
The tendency is no truer than in the discussion about “climate change”. The fad-thought making the rounds is that the “debate is settled”; there’s no need to have one because “97% of scientists agree”. But that’s not the debate. You might get 97% agreement on a paper-thin subset of the “climate change” issue such as the belief that man’s production of greenhouse gases has warmed our atmosphere. But that’s not what we’re debating. No bill or policy is just about that.
Let’s be clear. We’re debating whether to turn our lives inside out and upside down. Fundamental technologies and entire ways of life that took decades, over a century to develop are being scheduled for the ash heap in less than 30 years. Their efficiencies and cost-effectiveness are to be discarded in a frenzied dash to . . . nothing, or the incoherent, incongruent, or the menacingly weaker. That’s what we’re debating, whether we should even go down this path.
If you go beyond the “97%” banality, you’ll run into questions like, “Is it really catastrophic?” Or, “Is it really out of alignment with other periods in the earth’s geologic history?” Or, “Would it be better to adapt rather than force mitigation in gargantuan measures that’ll ruin the lives of millions if not billions of people?” Or, “Ought we to really ‘decarbonize’?” Or, “Is that the only choice?” Or, “Is it even feasible?” I could go on.
Just looking at the economic aspects of the faddish treatment of the issue, trouble slaps you in the face. To my friends who see economics as mere rank materialism, think again. Poverty is an economic condition, and one to be avoided, if rotting teeth, malnutrition, disease abatement, clean water, widespread emphysema from the burning of candles and animal dung at the family hearth, etc., matters. Bad economics lead to bad conditions for our fellow human beings.
Let’s face it, eco-obsessions are a luxury for the well-off. And these people show just as much ignorance as the poor mother unknowingly drawing polluted water from the same infected well in East Africa. They might care about her plight, while they throw up roadblocks to her people developing beyond the charity of those denizens of the Google campus in California, or the half-wits occupying beachfront estates in Malibu and Martha’s Vineyard.
Buttressing the roadblocks are inane arguments about the economic costs of global warning. But everything has a cost. Think about this: What are the costs of averting the costs? One facile model sets a decline of 2% in GDP from global warming. Well, what are costs to GDP of the mitigations to “decarbonize”? If it’s in the 5-7% range as one study put it, we avoid 2% by paying 5-7%. Mmmmm, interesting.
If you want a real debate, have one. Access views beyond the ignorant thought police. They exist. Here’s one from the Hoover Institution. You might find it enlightening. Check it out below.
RogerG