Bill Ponton, Princeton Venture Advisory (Sept ’24)
We often attribute the longevity of communist states in the 20th century to the repression practiced by those regimes. This is undeniably true, but we grossly underestimate the fact that many people living under those repressive regimes derived meaning from being part of those socialist experiments. To just say that those people were brainwashed too easily dismisses why people might feel the need to be part of something bigger than themselves. Darryl Cooper does a good job trying to explain the mindset of those wedded to a socialist ideology in his recent Martyr Made podcast series, God’s Socialist: The Rise and Fall Of People’s Temple.
Towards the end of the 20th century, passion for environmental causes displaced much of the socialist fervor of an earlier period. Environmental poisoning has been the overarching theme of the environmental movement, but the targets chosen for demonization changed over the years. The list of targets includes DDT, asbestos, nuclear power, CFCs, acid rain and more. In retrospect, the struggle against these things may not have satisfied fully the quest by movement members for self-meaning in the way that socialism had for a previous generation. The movement craved for an existential environmental threat that would infuse more passion and meaning to their fight. However, there was already an existential threat of global annihilation from nuclear war that hung over mankind. The environmental movement was going to find it hard to come up with an existential threat that topped nuclear armageddon, but with the introduction of climate catastrophism they were on their way to success.
Starting in the 1970s, there emerged two competing versions of climate catastrophism. One was man-made global-warming and the other was man-made global-cooling. According to the theories, the world was to be consumed either by fire or ice. For the environmental movement, it was important to emphasize the man-made nature of the threat. If it had not been man-made, it would not have fit their preferred narrative that man is evil and poisoning the environment by his greedy capitalist endeavors. They were not interested in being in the vanguard of movement that would spread fear about the end of Holocene period and the advent of an ice age if it were just a natural happening.
Both man-made global-warming and man-made global-cooling theories held sway with environmentalists during this early period. Activists, masquerading as scientists, got to work providing justification for their pet fears using computer models that simulated their preferred outcome. By the mid 1980s, the man-made global-cooling theory had been discarded in favor of man-made global-warming by the right-thinking people within the environmental movement. In the 1990s, in a move that both George Orwell and Karl Popper would have found amusing, anthropogenic global warming was rechristened as climate change, an ambiguous term that gave no indication of which direction the climate would change.
Today, climate catastrophism has adherents spread throughout all western institutions. The list of institutional bodies that they influence, or control is lengthy. They have embarked on a program to decarbonize the industrial world in a quest to avoid climate catastrophe. They deny to others, and themselves, that their program will have any deleterious side effects on the economy in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They display the same fervor that an earlier generation of socialists and communists showed in the 20th century. One should not forget about the social experiments that these earlier group of true believers ran on a global scale and the misery that they brought to millions.
When does the fantasy end for them? It doesn’t. They derive life’s meaning from this endeavor. They will try to implement evermore convoluted net zero schemes in the hope that one will work. It won’t. Their bossiness and show of moral superiority will become intolerable and like an earlier generation of socialists and communists they will leave misery in their wake.
2
A Short Political History of Climate Change
Bill Ponton, Princeton Venture Advisory (Sept ’24)
We often attribute the longevity of communist states in the 20th century to the
repression practiced by those regimes. This is undeniably true, but we grossly
underestimate the fact that many people living under those repressive
regimes derived meaning from being part of those socialist experiments. To
just say that those people were brainwashed too easily dismisses why people
might feel the need to be part of something bigger than themselves. Darryl
Cooper does a good job trying to explain the mindset of those wedded to a
socialist ideology in his recent Martyr Made podcast series, God’s Socialist: The
Rise and Fall Of People’s Temple.
Towards the end of the 20th century, passion for environmental causes
displaced much of the socialist fervor of an earlier period. Environmental
poisoning has been the overarching theme of the environmental movement,
but the targets chosen for demonization changed over the years. The list of
targets includes DDT, asbestos, nuclear power, CFCs, acid rain and more. In
retrospect, the struggle against these things may not have satisfied fully the
quest by movement members for self-meaning in the way that socialism had
for a previous generation. The movement craved for an existential
environmental threat that would infuse more passion and meaning to their
fight. However, there was already an existential threat of global annihilation
from nuclear war that hung over mankind. The environmental movement was
going to find it hard to come up with an existential threat that topped nuclear
armageddon, but with the introduction of climate catastrophism they were on
their way to success.
Starting in the 1970s, there emerged two competing versions of climate
catastrophism. One was man-made global-warming and the other was man-
made global-cooling. According to the theories, the world was to be consumed
either by fire or ice. For the environmental movement, it was important to
emphasize the man-made nature of the threat. If it had not been man-made, it
would not have fit their preferred narrative that man is evil and poisoning the
environment by his greedy capitalist endeavors. They were not interested in
being in the vanguard of movement that would spread fear about the end of
Holocene period and the advent of an ice age if it were just a natural
happening.
Both man-made global-warming and man-made global-cooling theories held
sway with environmentalists during this early period. Activists, masquerading
as scientists, got to work providing justification for their pet fears using
computer models that simulated their preferred outcome. By the mid 1980s,
the man-made global-cooling theory had been discarded in favor of man-made
global-warming by the right-thinking people within the environmental
movement. In the 1990s, in a move that both George Orwell and Karl Popper
would have found amusing, anthropogenic global warming was rechristened
as climate change, an ambiguous term that gave no indication of which
direction the climate would change.
Today, climate catastrophism has adherents spread throughout all western
institutions. The list of institutional bodies that they influence, or control is
lengthy. They have embarked on a program to decarbonize the industrial world
in a quest to avoid climate catastrophe. They deny to others, and themselves,
that their program will have any deleterious side effects on the economy in the
face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They display the same fervor
that an earlier generation of socialists and communists showed in the 20th
century. One should not forget about the social experiments that these earlier
group of true believers ran on a global scale and the misery that they brought
to millions.
When does the fantasy end for them? It doesn’t. They derive life’s meaning
from this endeavor. They will try to implement evermore convoluted net zero
schemes in the hope that one will work. It won’t. Their bossiness and show of
moral superiority will become intolerable and like an earlier generation of
socialists and communists they will leave misery in their wake.
2
A Short Political History of Climate Change
Bill Ponton, Princeton Venture Advisory (Sept ’24)
We often attribute the longevity of communist states in the 20th century to the
repression practiced by those regimes. This is undeniably true, but we grossly
underestimate the fact that many people living under those repressive
regimes derived meaning from being part of those socialist experiments. To
just say that those people were brainwashed too easily dismisses why people
might feel the need to be part of something bigger than themselves. Darryl
Cooper does a good job trying to explain the mindset of those wedded to a
socialist ideology in his recent Martyr Made podcast series, God’s Socialist: The
Rise and Fall Of People’s Temple.
Towards the end of the 20th century, passion for environmental causes
displaced much of the socialist fervor of an earlier period. Environmental
poisoning has been the overarching theme of the environmental movement,
but the targets chosen for demonization changed over the years. The list of
targets includes DDT, asbestos, nuclear power, CFCs, acid rain and more. In
retrospect, the struggle against these things may not have satisfied fully the
quest by movement members for self-meaning in the way that socialism had
for a previous generation. The movement craved for an existential
environmental threat that would infuse more passion and meaning to their
fight. However, there was already an existential threat of global annihilation
from nuclear war that hung over mankind. The environmental movement was
going to find it hard to come up with an existential threat that topped nuclear
armageddon, but with the introduction of climate catastrophism they were on
their way to success.
Starting in the 1970s, there emerged two competing versions of climate
catastrophism. One was man-made global-warming and the other was man-
made global-cooling. According to the theories, the world was to be consumed
either by fire or ice. For the environmental movement, it was important to
emphasize the man-made nature of the threat. If it had not been man-made, it
would not have fit their preferred narrative that man is evil and poisoning the
environment by his greedy capitalist endeavors. They were not interested in
being in the vanguard of movement that would spread fear about the end of
Holocene period and the advent of an ice age if it were just a natural
happening.
Both man-made global-warming and man-made global-cooling theories held
sway with environmentalists during this early period. Activists, masquerading
as scientists, got to work providing justification for their pet fears using
computer models that simulated their preferred outcome. By the mid 1980s,
the man-made global-cooling theory had been discarded in favor of man-made
global-warming by the right-thinking people within the environmental
movement. In the 1990s, in a move that both George Orwell and Karl Popper
would have found amusing, anthropogenic global warming was rechristened
as climate change, an ambiguous term that gave no indication of which
direction the climate would change.
Today, climate catastrophism has adherents spread throughout all western
institutions. The list of institutional bodies that they influence, or control is
lengthy. They have embarked on a program to decarbonize the industrial world
in a quest to avoid climate catastrophe. They deny to others, and themselves,
that their program will have any deleterious side effects on the economy in the
face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They display the same fervor
that an earlier generation of socialists and communists showed in the 20th
century. One should not forget about the social experiments that these earlier
group of true believers ran on a global scale and the misery that they brought
to millions.
When does the fantasy end for them? It doesn’t. They derive life’s meaning
from this endeavor. They will try to implement evermore convoluted net zero
schemes in the hope that one will work. It won’t. Their bossiness and show of
moral superiority will become intolerable and like an earlier generation of
socialists and communists they will leave misery in their wake.
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