Tony Benn once said that governments have two ways of controlling people: fear and demoralisation. What the pandemic showed is that fear works best with demoralisation a natural concomitant anyway.
This timely article is a good reminder that 'project fear', or projects fear in fact, is now the preferred method across a range of subjects. Vested interests wanting to ensure continuing profit from green technology, ramp up a project fear about a climate catastrophe. Labour party losing votes, ramp up fear of the 'far-right'. The country is awash with Nazis aome of whom are "literally Hitler". Jeez. I live in this awful country that is destroying the planet all by itself.
It is getting tiresome to say the least. But, the harm to our children is unconscionable.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
The trouble is: a lot of people now use the climate narrative as a way of virtue signalling and gaining status, while many others are afraid to demur because of implications for their careers. Like the whole Diversity industry, it has acquired a whole corrupt life of its own, quite apart from any questions of its credibility or ultimate helpfulness. So, I think we really just need more people saying No, I don't believe that, and refusing to dance along to the music. Trying to persuade people by reason and facts alone simply will not work in most cases.
I completely agree Laura. Here in Forest Hill, South-East London, the Horniman Museum is a case in point. Under its current leadership it is peddling a never-ending slew of climate-catastrophic pronouncements that are likely put the fear of god into young kids. This is fear-mongering and indoctrination of the very worst and most irresponsible kind.
Well said, Laura. I am old enough to remember how poor David Bellamy had his TV wildlife expert career destroyed because he dared to speak out against the climate change orthodoxy.
After 6 months of our dismal, cold, wet British winter and spring, personally I am overjoyed at finally getting a WHOLE WEEK of sunshine, and am out in it, in the park with a book for a couple of hours every day.
After Greta & the school marches about 7 years ago a primary aged child I know was regularly taken out of school by his mum - a member of Extinction Rebellion. She was a lovely, well meaning woman but became really unwell. She tried to her family live on a bucket a water a week to prep them for coming droughts. Her son would talk about the coming doom to his friends - and did a school assembly! When he became so anxious (aged about 7) and picked off the skin around his fingernails to her credit - she stopped talking about it altogether. But it gave me such an insight into the damage being done to younger children - it's not their responsibility to fix any societal problem - so why lump anything like this on them.
"The climate will do what it does. What we choose to do with fear is on us." Yes indeed, and as the geological record has shown, CO2 from much volcanic activity millions of years ago was accompanied by a much warmer climate. This time it is an explosion of humankind and their dependence on fossil fuels to power their desired lifestyles that is changing the chemistry of the atmosphere. People who believe that there is nothing to worry about have been sucked in by by the malicious propaganda of fossil fuel industries who are interested in only protecting their vested interests, much like the tobacco industry did with regard to the health dangers from using their products.. Mobil Exon commissioned their own scientists in the mid 1970s to study the matter of inadvertent climate modification and were not pleased with the results and hid them and then invested in debunking such climate science findings. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/
Well said, Laura. Why are so many people so delusional about so many matters so much of the time? Fewer and fewer people seem to be capable of establishing a simple grasp on reality, which usually is in the "plain as a pikestaff" end of the scale. Example: "Does the weather in your garden look like a GLOBAL CATASTROPHE, right now?"
On a more cheerful note, my favourite quip about British weather is this: "Summer is nine months of anticipation, followed by three months of disappointment." However, today, that adage is wrong.
Or, as Colin Brazier has said: "I love summer. It's my favourite day of the year!"
Tony Benn once said that governments have two ways of controlling people: fear and demoralisation. What the pandemic showed is that fear works best with demoralisation a natural concomitant anyway.
This timely article is a good reminder that 'project fear', or projects fear in fact, is now the preferred method across a range of subjects. Vested interests wanting to ensure continuing profit from green technology, ramp up a project fear about a climate catastrophe. Labour party losing votes, ramp up fear of the 'far-right'. The country is awash with Nazis aome of whom are "literally Hitler". Jeez. I live in this awful country that is destroying the planet all by itself.
It is getting tiresome to say the least. But, the harm to our children is unconscionable.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
The trouble is: a lot of people now use the climate narrative as a way of virtue signalling and gaining status, while many others are afraid to demur because of implications for their careers. Like the whole Diversity industry, it has acquired a whole corrupt life of its own, quite apart from any questions of its credibility or ultimate helpfulness. So, I think we really just need more people saying No, I don't believe that, and refusing to dance along to the music. Trying to persuade people by reason and facts alone simply will not work in most cases.
I completely agree Laura. Here in Forest Hill, South-East London, the Horniman Museum is a case in point. Under its current leadership it is peddling a never-ending slew of climate-catastrophic pronouncements that are likely put the fear of god into young kids. This is fear-mongering and indoctrination of the very worst and most irresponsible kind.
Museums have been utterly ruined.
Climate catastrophists have the death wish...their own, barely suppressed...and everyone else...the sooner the better...
They have far too much time on their hands...
Well said, Laura. I am old enough to remember how poor David Bellamy had his TV wildlife expert career destroyed because he dared to speak out against the climate change orthodoxy.
After 6 months of our dismal, cold, wet British winter and spring, personally I am overjoyed at finally getting a WHOLE WEEK of sunshine, and am out in it, in the park with a book for a couple of hours every day.
That sounds delightful!
After Greta & the school marches about 7 years ago a primary aged child I know was regularly taken out of school by his mum - a member of Extinction Rebellion. She was a lovely, well meaning woman but became really unwell. She tried to her family live on a bucket a water a week to prep them for coming droughts. Her son would talk about the coming doom to his friends - and did a school assembly! When he became so anxious (aged about 7) and picked off the skin around his fingernails to her credit - she stopped talking about it altogether. But it gave me such an insight into the damage being done to younger children - it's not their responsibility to fix any societal problem - so why lump anything like this on them.
"The climate will do what it does. What we choose to do with fear is on us." Yes indeed, and as the geological record has shown, CO2 from much volcanic activity millions of years ago was accompanied by a much warmer climate. This time it is an explosion of humankind and their dependence on fossil fuels to power their desired lifestyles that is changing the chemistry of the atmosphere. People who believe that there is nothing to worry about have been sucked in by by the malicious propaganda of fossil fuel industries who are interested in only protecting their vested interests, much like the tobacco industry did with regard to the health dangers from using their products.. Mobil Exon commissioned their own scientists in the mid 1970s to study the matter of inadvertent climate modification and were not pleased with the results and hid them and then invested in debunking such climate science findings. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/
Well said, Laura. Why are so many people so delusional about so many matters so much of the time? Fewer and fewer people seem to be capable of establishing a simple grasp on reality, which usually is in the "plain as a pikestaff" end of the scale. Example: "Does the weather in your garden look like a GLOBAL CATASTROPHE, right now?"
On a more cheerful note, my favourite quip about British weather is this: "Summer is nine months of anticipation, followed by three months of disappointment." However, today, that adage is wrong.
Or, as Colin Brazier has said: "I love summer. It's my favourite day of the year!"
Happy Bank Holiday, everyone!