The Grip of Culture: The Social Psychology of Climate Catastrophism
by Andy West
My book ‘The Grip of Culture’, subtitled ‘The social psychology of climate change catastrophism’, is now published.
“Climate change catastrophism is a cultural disease haunting Western society. Andy West’s excellent study of this problem explains the different drivers of this disease. It is an important contribution to a debate where reason must prevail.” – Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent
You can find it in paperback on Amazon US, UK and Germany, plus it is also available as a FREE pdf from my publisher, the GWPF, see here.
The rear-cover synopsis reads:
“Attempts to explain attitudes to climate change, and the refusal of large parts of society to accept the idea of an imminent catastrophe, have largely foundered. This ground breaking book overturns the existing literature, developing a powerful new model of public attitudes based on the interaction of traditional religion and a new culture – a new faith – of climate catastrophism, which is instinctively accepted or rejected. At its centre is a series of measurements of public opinion, culled from major international polls, which make a strong case that society is now in the grip of a major new religion. That case is made still more powerful because the model is able to predict real-world outcomes, such as the deployment of renewables and the prevalence of climate protest groups in different countries.
The book ends with a warning. Cultures can bind societies together and cause great civilisations to grow and prosper. But they can also lead them to disaster. If society is truly in the grip of a new cultural entity, we should be very concerned.”
My book overlaps with some social aspects explored in Judith’s book, including the catastrophe narrative, the social nature of consensuses, and the highly tangled territory where group biases interact with, and damage, the enterprise of science. However, regarding the social aspects generally I see my book as exposing the ultimate root cause of the biases and the deep social need for arbitrary consensus.
It does not explore much detail about what specific institutions and efforts are undermined by which biased advocate individuals or organisations, and indeed it does not delve into climate science or the IPCC procedures at all (see the note at the end of this post).
The main presence of climate catastrophism is outside of science, and its culture can be characterised and measured from its footprint in global publics (inclusive of public authorities). However, climate catastrophism works to undermine all institutions that provide ‘rationality at social scale’, including democracy, the law (chapter 14), and science (which is considered generically).
https://cliscep.com/2023/07/14/the-grip-of-culture-the-social-psychology-of-climate-catastrophism/
***************************************Why Global Warming Lawsuits Deserve to Fail
A county in Oregon has filed a lawsuit against a dozen or so oil and coal companies and their trade association, basically repeating the allegations (and lies) of lawsuits filed in other jurisdictions around the country. All these lawsuits deserve to fail.
The plaintiffs in County of Multnomah v. Exxon Mobil Corp. et al. are demanding some $50 billion “for damages and equitable relief for harm caused to Multnomah County by Defendants’ execution of a scheme to rapaciously sell fossil fuel products and deceptively promote them as harmless to the environment, while they knew that carbon pollution emitted by their products into the atmosphere would likely cause deadly extreme heat events….”
This is nonsense.
The argument that “Exxon knew” is based on combing through hundreds of thousands of pages of old corporate documents released by Exxon early on during discovery (at the time, many of us said that was a mistake) and selectively quoting those that seem to make damning concessions.
How many times did bureaucrats in Exxon’s vast hierarchy make just the opposite statements, but those are being hidden by the plaintiffs? Given the size of the database and new AI-assisted search tools, scores or even hundreds of opposing statements could be found.
The defense should demand to know if the plaintiffs searched for such statements, if they did what they discovered, and if they didn’t, why not? And then … the defense should do it themselves.
In truth, there must have been an on-again, off-again debate inside Exxon and other fossil fuel companies over the course of many years regarding how seriously they should take the claims of climate alarmists. Encouraging internal debate and discussion is good management. It is not a crime.
The contention that the climate scientists funded by the fossil fuel industry represent “fringe views” is easily debunked, and not merely by referencing the Global Warming Petition Project, signed by 31,478 American scientists. Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch (both alarmists) found only 48% of the respondents to their 2015 survey of scientists said they agree “very much” with the statement that “most of recent or near future climate change is, or will be, the result of anthropogenic causes.”
Ditto Bart Verheggen’s 2015 survey that found fewer than half of contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) own reports agree with its claim more than half of the warming since the mid-20th century can be attributed to human activity.
In truth, there is no scientific consensus now and there never was. QED, the fossil fuel industry was not backing scientists with “fringe views.”
The dollar amounts contributed to conservative and libertarian think tanks reported in these suits are always exaggerated, partly by describing amounts given over the course of a decade or longer and partly because oil companies, like virtually all public companies, contributed large amounts to both liberal and conservative public interest groups during this time.
Only a small fraction of those amounts (or none at all) went to studying or advocating on climate change. The defense team should demand to know how much of Exxon’s and API’s largess actually was spent on the climate issue, and if the plaintiffs can’t say, stipulate that it was less than 5%. Then demand to know how that amount compares to the income of ideologically driven groups on the other side of the issue. If they can’t say, stipulate that is less than 5%.
In truth, money contributed to nonprofit groups by the fossil fuel industry to address climate change was trivial compared to the vast amounts spent by other groups engaged in the climate debate.
As independent investigator Russell Cook repeatedly points out, there is no evidence that any of the scientists and policy analysts who accepted money either directly or indirectly from the fossil fuel industry were “paid to lie.” There are no letters or contracts, just innuendo and libels spread by leftist activists.
Probably 99% of the money spent by the fossil fuel companies went to organizations, not to individuals, as was the case when the much-maligned Willie Soon was paid by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and those organizations had policies in place to protect the integrity and independence of their staff.
In truth, most of the scientists and experts engaged in the climate debate benefit financially in some way for the work they do (otherwise they couldn’t do it!) but very few think they are shading the truth in return for that support. They never agreed to do that. They believe they are speaking the truth.
And what about those dollars given to academics and environmental advocacy groups, including those affiliated with the United Nations, to make the opposite argument? Were those contributions made before there was solid evidence that a problem existed? In that case, was the motive to mislead the public into supporting public policies that financially benefited those groups?
Did the funding persist even in the face of compelling evidence that the global warming scare is based on junk science? In that case, was the motive to cover-up their earlier crimes? How much did Greenpeace, Sierra Club, MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers, etc. know, and when did they know it?
In truth, the climate alarmism industry was engaging in the very unethical and fraudulent practices that it is accusing the fossil fuel industry of performing.
The actual statements produced and ads run by the defendants and their “front groups” reproduced in this lawsuit are invariably reasonable, compelling, accurate, and data-based. I always chuckle when the plaintiffs reproduce these statements or ads in full since they remain fair and convincing even today, decades later.
The defense in these cases ought to eagerly present more of them, especially the Mobil ads, Patrick Michaels’ excellent newsletter, and Willie Soon’s peer-reviewed research, no less than 100 or 200 pages, and let the judge or the jury decide how credible they are. Then display those articles and ads opposite fundraising appeals from Greenpeace, Environmental Defense Fund, etc. The difference could hardly be more striking.
In truth, the environmental groups are engaged in propaganda and made false claims to advance the agendas of their funders while groups funded by the fossil fuel industry did not.
Lastly, I always look for references in these lawsuits to the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change and its five-volume “Climate Change Reconsidered” (CCR) series. I didn’t find a single reference to it in this lawsuit (but I didn’t search the document for it).
Attorney Peter Ferrara liked to say CCR was to climate alarmists “like holy water and a crucifix are to demons.” When he cited CCR in contentious debates online or in email, the other side invariably went silent, unable to admit that such a reference work even exists.
The most recent volume (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels) lists 117 scientists, economists, engineers, and other experts as authors, contributors, or reviewers. Just the fringe? Maybe, but the previous four volumes each typically listed just as many contributors and thousands of peer-reviewed articles.
In truth, global warming skeptics have just as much intellectual fire power as the alarmists, maybe even more. That’s just a fact.
One hopes the defense teams and the judges (or their clerks) hearing these cases are smart and honest enough to recognize all this.
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2023/07/commentary-why-global-warming-lawsuits-deserve-to-fail/
*****************************************UN report on growing world hunger criticised for climate hype
Net Zero Watch has criticised the UN and news media for claiming that 'climate change is pushing millions of people into hunger,' a claim widely reported in the media.
A new UN report, “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023”, claims that 122 million more people are facing hunger than in 2019, and that global food insecurity has worsened in recent years due to the pandemic and repeated weather shocks and conflicts, including the war in Ukraine.
Whilst Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have both disrupted food supplies and pushed up energy and food inflation, it is not true that food production is declining because of extreme weather events.
Even Pakistan, which was affected by severe flooding last year, has just reported a record harvest.
The UN's climate claims are also contradicted by its own data, which shows worldwide food production continuing to climb. New records were set in 2021 for cereal output and the value of agricultural production. Last year recorded the second highest cereal production on record, and this year is now forecast to set yet another new record for wheat.
According to the new report's methodology, the UN's claims are not based on actual data at all. Their index for hunger is derived from computer modelling, while their measure for food insecurity is calculated from household surveys.
Climate researcher, Paul Homewood, comments:
“The Director of the UN's Food & Agriculture Organisation has remarked that the world's food systems could entirely collapse. This is grossly irresponsible and a complete denial of the remarkable success of the world's agricultural industry.
If the UN is concerned about world hunger, maybe they should call a halt to all of the agricultural Net Zero and rewilding projects being undertaken in Europe and elsewhere, all in the name of climate change”
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Australia: Labor’s net zero fantasy will wreck our future
When it comes to energy costs and climate change, too many Australians have come to believe the lies peddled for the best part of two decades by both sides of politics. We’ve been told that there’s a climate emergency so therefore the economy must be decarbonised at breakneck speed.
But that there’s no need for worry because doing so will actually save us money, as wind and solar (supposedly) are now the cheapest way to generate electricity.
Peak deception was Labor’s pre-election modelling purporting to show that meeting its emissions reduction targets would create 604,000 jobs by 2050, and spur $76 billion in investment, as well as reduce household power bills by $275 a year by 2025.
Last week, it was revealed that some customers’ power bills had soared by 45 per cent from July 1, to cover the costs of building new generation and infrastructure, plus the rising cost of gas.
The reality in NSW is that all the big three electricity retailers have just increased their average charges by over 20 per cent, or about $500 per household per year.
This is what happens when our power grid is run to reduce emissions rather than to produce affordable and reliable electricity.
Also last week, it was revealed that the cost of meeting the Albanese government’s net zero target, including 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030 with 82 per cent of electricity from renewable sources, would be $1.5 trillion – that’s TRILLION – within the current decade, rising to $9 trillion by 2060.
To put these truly gargantuan figures into perspective, Australia’s annual GDP is currently about $2 trillion. So achieving the 2050 emissions reduction – which both sides of politics have signed up to – will cost about four years of our total economic production. And achieving Labor’s 2030 target will cost almost one year of production within the current decade.
What’s more, these cost estimates aren’t from sceptics trying to scare Australians out of the policies supposedly needed to combat climate change.
They were published this week by an expert climate advocacy group, Net Zero Australia, a collaboration of interdisciplinary teams from the universities of Melbourne and Queensland, plus Princeton University in the US, led by Professor Robin Batterham, a former chief scientist.
He says that the magnitude of what’s necessary and desirable (at least in his mind) would be “in line with the US-led Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II”.
Labor has now legislated to enshrine its 2030 target in law, but making something legally mandatory doesn’t mean that it will happen in practice.
As the former boss of Snowy Hydro, Paul Broad, said recently, achieving Labor’s emissions goals “is not just looking impossible, it IS impossible, it cannot be done”.
He said that we are “blindly charging on, simply because of political ideology” and that “to suggest that all of this is going to be at a price point that reflects past prices is absolutely false”.
Other experts, such as former Energy Security Board chair Kerry Schott, Engie Australia boss Rik De Buyserie, and Origin Energy boss Frank Calabria essentially agreed with Broad, only in more restrained language, doubtless due to the fear of retribution from a minister and a government that’s still insisting that the impossible is achievable.
Meanwhile, an Ipsos poll, showing that cost of living should trump climate, highlights the government’s political quandary.
Concern about cost of living is now at the highest level in the past decade.
Yet even though it’s the cost of power that’s rising fastest, largely driven by climate policy, Ipsos found that 65 per cent believe Australia should be “doing more to address climate change” and 61 per cent say that Australia should be “a global leader in emissions reduction”.
Go figure.
When reality collides with the myth assiduously created by weak or fearmongering politicians over decades, sooner or later a crisis ensues. Even people inclined to subscribe to the “need to do something about climate” view now think we face a slow-motion train wreck – a power system that is neither affordable nor reliable but that is inevitable under current government policy.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is slowly trying to draw attention to the looming disaster but is still not prepared clearly to state the obvious, at least not yet: namely; that no more coal-fired power stations can close until there’s a reliable alternative, that new gas fields need to be developed as a matter of extreme urgency, and that – if achieving net zero really is necessary – the only way to get there without wrecking our prosperity is via nuclear energy.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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