This is really where it all starts: the Elites, who then convince the peasants that this stuff is uber-important, so they should think that Something Must Be Done. I’m actually rather shocked that Newsweek allowed this piece to be published
Climate Activism Isn’t About the Planet. It’s About the Boredom of the Bourgeoisie | Opinion
The downfall of capitalism will not come from the uprising of an impoverished working class but from the sabotage of a bored upper class. This was the view of the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. Schumpeter believed that at some point in the future, an educated elite would have nothing left to struggle for and will instead start to struggle against the very system that they themselves live in.
Nothing makes me think Schumpeter was right like the contemporary climate movement and its acolytes. The Green movement is not a reflection of planetary crisis as so many in media and culture like to depict it, but rather, a crisis of meaning for the affluent.
The writer, Ralph Schoellhammer, spends a few paragraphs on the utter and complete failure of Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich, who has since doubled down and not been called out by the media for his failed prognostications, to
The best answer to this question comes courtesy of New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who in 2019 famously said that, “I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually and semantically correct than about being morally right.” In other words, no matter what nonsense one spews, as long as it is “morally right,” it does not matter what the facts show.
Like the prophet of any religion, Ehrlich is not there to explain the world but to reinforce the upper class’s favorite worldview of the imminent end of the world, something that can only be prevented if we fundamentally change the way we live. Of course, by “we,” they actually mean “you.” It’s not the Tesla driving AOC or the jet-setting Stanford professor Ehrlich who will adapt their lifestyles, but the rubes of the working- and middle-class who supposedly eat too much meat, drive too many miles on gas-guzzling cars, or even book the occasional flight to go on vacation.
How long have I been saying this? 15+ years?
Even supposed grass-roots movements like “Just Stop Oil” or “Last Generation” (of “tomato soup on paintings” fame) are in fact funded by millionaires, like Aileen Getty, the granddaughter of legendary oil-tycoon Jean Paul Getty, and the Climate Emergency Fund.
Just like Kerry, Ehrlich, and these other groups are not really interested in solving the problem of climate change—for example, promoting research in technologies like nuclear energy, carbon capture technologies, and means of adaptation. Instead, they wish to elevate their struggle to an ersatz-religion that allows them to simultaneously enjoy their wealth and lecture the rest of the world from a position of moral superiority.
And do virtually nothing in their own lives, right? Just force you to change yours via government law. At the end of the day, an argument I have made many, many times is “let’s hypothesize that the current warm period is being driven mostly by the activities of Mankind, such as fossil fuels: why is almost every single policy to fix this revolve around more taxes and fees, and way, way more government control of our lives?”
