The year 2019 saw the rapid rise of climate hysteria, but as the saying goes: “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.”
Now that the hysteria is firmly established and well organized, it is sure to get bigger and louder. But I see very little coming from it except the noise, as long as skeptics keep up the good fight.
This is especially true in the U.S. Presidential race, which is climate policy-wise by far the biggest thing going on in the world. Many of the Democrat candidates are going to try to ride the hysterical wave to victory. Their winning is not likely.
My take is the further left you go the fewer votes you get, and these folks are going far left on climate.
In my view the only viable candidate in the pack is Biden and he may not be crazy enough to get the nod. Nor can he beat Trump, so things are looking good on that front.
Another big unknown is what the hysterical demonstrators are going to do. Bigger marches? More disruption? (The police now have glue remover.) Or maybe something we have not seen before, hopefully not more violent.
I am sure the advocacy insider email traffic is buzzing over this. (Maybe some new wacky signs. “I don’t want to die!” seems to be catching on.)
For that matter, will the hysterics endorse specific candidates for the Democrat nomination? Or perhaps get active in specific Congressional races? They might even form their own party (but Greta Thunberg cannot run, more’s the pity).
Political action seems like the logical next step for the extremists, which could further destabilize the green movement, given that most of the political action groups are moderates.
There are lots of other climate crunch points in progress as well. In a recent meeting, the EU failed to come up with a more ambitious emission reduction goal for 2030, despite its hysterical leadership calling for one.
The next meeting on this proposal will be in June. No doubt we will see lots of “Action Now!” marches and demonstrations then, but ambition may well be lacking at the EU national member level, which is all that counts.
Several countries are already missing their 2020 target and there are anti-action demonstrations too boot, from yellow vests to farmers and coal miners. The political leaders are running a bit scared of this stuff.
The UN will have several semi-summits, leading up to the grand COP 26 in Glasgow, beginning in November. Given what happened in Madrid’s COP 25 we are likely to witness the progressive collapse of the entire UN climate action process.
The UN’s Paris Accord process is entirely too slow and compromising for the Action Now! hysterics to tolerate. This will be especially certain if the Action Now! hysteria builds in 2020, which is very likely.
That the mythical $100 billion a year promised to the developing countries does not show up in Glasgow will compound the collapse.
Then too there is a lot going on at national levels around the world. Especially promising is the rapid rise of new populist parties that oppose the drastic actions demanded by the Action Now! radicals.
Left-wing hysteria typically generates a conservative reaction. How could it not? Angry mobs are dangerous.
Mind you I expect to see a lot of meaninglessly symbolic green action in response to the hysterical noise-making. This includes toothless declarations of “climate emergency” and pointless promises of zero emissions by far off 2050. Politicians promising the impossible, to be delivered in the far distant future, do no harm. Hence their popularity.
My definition of winning the great climate change debate is that no serious harm is done by the alarmists.
While I expect an escalating crescendo of hysterical shrieking during the course of 2020, the reason will be that my side is winning and the loud side is losing.
As things stand now, skeptics have a chance to win big in 2020, but we must keep the pressure on. Hold your nose, plug your ears, and hit them hard. You ain’t seen nothin yet.
David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology, and policy.
Read more at CFACT
The article mentioned “we are likely to witness the progressive collapse of the entire UN climate action process.” I have been following the climate change fraud closely for 17 years and hoping for a collapse each year. So far there has been no luck. When it does fall apart, it will be over funding. The developing nations have been promised $100 billion a year by Obama. They have no interest in climate change except to get something for nothing. The only thing that keeps them in the process is the hope that there will be a large amount of money coming. If they conclude this isn’t going to happen, then the process of the COP meetings will fall apart.
Household prosperity is where the rubber meets the road. Polls show us that Americans are not willing to make significant financial sacrifices for ‘climate’.
Assuming that the Republicans win everything in 2020, the rest of the Western World will get to watch the USA pull further ahead of them into 2024. They might feel morally superior, but that won’t fill their fridge. Meanwhile, they pretend that they’re saving the planet, while Mother Earth goes about her business, oblivious
Nailed it, Sonny. Most normals are for sensible and realistic measures to help the environment but whenever the eco fascists really try to impose serious measures that hit our pockets, they get kicked out. The bottom line is that, for all the hysteria and bullying, no-one (not even the greens) are doing anything serious to change their lifestyles.
All those annying Animal Rights Activists who are demanding we all go vegan thinking(If the Can)that animal agriculter is destroying the Earth they need to be reminded that Livestock have been on this earth since Creation and now according to their low IQ opion the cows sheep and pigs are causing Global Warming/Climate Change i guess the study that claimed strict vegans may have shrinking brains is true
Beef and pork for our elites and cockroaches for the rest of us. That’s the plan, isn’t it?
I’d like to believe that reality eventually sinks in and the alarmists find useful roles in society. I’d also like to believe that our 70 mph windshields will eventually wipe out flies and mosquitoes.
Reality is that the swamp never gives up, it keeps on giving us more virulent parasites.
It would be nice if the climate masturbating lunatics
would copy the good example of the Buddhist monks
during the French-Indochinese war
( which was called the Vietnam war in USA )
and publically immolate themselves in protest.
I think a lot of people would pay to see it.
You could even have judges holding up 5.9, 5.8, etc.
And a panel of so-called intellectuals pondering the philosophic import….