Medicosnext
Nowadays it isn’t too difficult to find a statement, whether that be on the internet or in a casual dialogue, that “human beings are a parasite and a cancer to this beautiful world”, or something to that effect. This statement comes with a lot of virtue signalling. An ornamental argument, that puts forth ones ‘goodness’ and tries to gain popularity amongst those who wish to—in theory—solve the world’s problems.
Declinism as a belief, is usually associated to a conservative philosophy; while the conservative focuses solely on the decline of society and the structure by which they once lived and found familiar, the climate declinist is concerned with the devastation of the overall environment.
Misanthropy is the general hatred towards people; distrust and belief that people are all out to dupe one another and there can be no salvation for us. Not really a dramatisation. The misanthrope, from the climate perspective, believe that people’s interest in free trade and pursuit of hedonism is what’s causing the depletion and the slow degradation of nature. This tree-hugging religion believes that nature comes first and that we are an obstacle to a perfect ecology. Often seen as progressive, this belief—or rather movement, I should say—is what I have often referred to as the ‘regressive progressive’.
Looking at the data of climate related deaths, we see significantly lower deaths than a 100 years ago, and the decrease is continuous. Whilst there have been civilisations such as Uruk, Mesopotamia and Mahenjo Daro that did face climate related issues that ended their civilisation, it is not true that we will share the same fate. Weather uncertainty is in our past now, while there is heated arguments on what is the best model to follow when it comes to climate related predictions, we have an understanding that climate change is an uncertain phenomena that is something we can do very little about without harming our standard of living, and much of our interest should be adapting to the climate that changes.
While the climate misanthrope is transfixed in the idea of humanity’s delinquencies, their failure to recognise that there are other facets of human interests that needs to be taken in to consideration. The progressive view of centralising one’s view solely with the purpose of fixing the climate, inevitably ends up catastrophic for the ones who need to get themselves out of poverty. Currently we have a lot politicians (at least in the west) blaming non correlated and uncaused events on climate change. Their arguments represent their own short coming as politicians or activists. What is more, a belief that sticks with a person will have a dramatic effect in the world they navigate; they end up being accustomed to it so much that the intricacies mean nothing more than excuses to avoid the the problem they hold dearly.
Lets take the example of energy. There is no other energy today that can provide us with sufficient power to fuel our cities, developmental programs and the rest of our wants and demands, like fossil fuel. To eradicate this energy would mean the eradication of the modern world as we know it; it would mean teleporting back centuries into the past, where we would be ravaging the eco system in order to obtain any sort of energy (most likely wood). This would mean that electricity would be in such a central control that it would need to be distributed based on hours and time of the day; something that I will not have to remind my fellow Nepalese. As we know, electricity, in the contemporary world, is not just something that is used to light up our houses at night. It has become a means by which we do everything. It has become a necessity, and a necessity should not be a matter of compromise. I would much rather have an abundance of electricity, than have shortages of it; the same way it is better to have a country that grows obese with time, than have a country’s people that slowly die of starvation; hotter climates than colder ones, more people die due to cold than they do in hotter climates. All of these are problems, that need to be solved, but not so dire that people are morbidly suffering.
In the topic of food, the contemporary notion from (some) progressives have been that of a hardcore vegan diet is a case to be made for the protection of the environment. Where this is true in certain respects, it also goes too far and forgets that as nations grow in wealth, they become much more likely to consume meat. One can—to an extent— make the case for red meat being problematic to the environment, same cannot be said for meat that swims and (quasi) flies; unless the argument is that of morality. If we want to maximise morality that is. But considering our omnivorous nature, and our antecedents being traced backed to omnivorous animals, meat consumption still being recommended by doctors and not to mention paediatricians, we can have the moral discussion some other time. However, cutting out ones intake and persuading others to follow the path is not immoral, but using despotic means—especially towards, for instance, pets—to have it be implemented, certainly is.
This isn’t much support for third world nations however, but much of our information on climate change—along said hysteria and irrationality—comes from the same countries that are rich and have far less problems than the poorer nations. Indeed, if the first world does focus on cutting its emissions, this allows countries like ours to start taking much more radical approaches to create energy. This energy, and this is my conjecture, can only come from the private sphere, and not from something that is governmentally driven. The need for energy is always the first step to development. The entrepreneurs, investors and general public that understand this, will do anything to get the opportunity to invest in the technology. The government support can only be by protecting the right of citizens to choose freely on what they wish to do with their money. In other words a free market approach.
The retrograde progressive, upon reading the words “free market”, has already lambasted this article. The narrative most of the time, is that capitalism is a force that has started all our problems from the beginning. Yet it is in these markets where most of our greatest innovations occur. Capitalism is a driver of high living standards, but at the same time bringing a baggage of problems—emissions and waste. But these are matters to be solved and not something to detest. The fear of leaving behind a world that is “destroyed” or “broken” to the next generation has fretted newer parents and would be parents as well. The whole—false—narrative behind having fewer children as it is better for the environment has made its way to most educated parts of the world. While fertility rates are going down for all sorts of reasons, such as housing expenses and child care costs all across the globe. The one very pernicious and factually incorrect one, is the idea that the globe is on the verge of engulfing your children, or drowning them (take your pick). By all means not wanting children is on the individual, but if the reason for the anti-natalist stance is that it makes for a better world, it is a misguided one.
No other animal on this planet can comprehend beauty the way we can. In fact we give nature its beauty. No animal has developed language as sophisticated as ours to communicate and to solve problems.The misanthrope fails to take a good look at what we have accomplished and how far we have come. From merely being considered as hairless biped apes, to something completely—but not really—distinguishable from animals. The misanthrope fears good kind of conflict and change, as this would mean work; rather than simply being an armchair problem solver. That is why they take the easy and often the intellectually lazy side arguments —nothing really matters and we are all doomed, unless we can all structure society the way I want it to be structured; if only people were more like me.
You, the reader, probably are not this person. This is a small, but often vitriolic personality which can often be found making comments and posts on the internet. These fringe groups of radical nobodies, tend to scare us into submission to their ideology. Ideology should have nothing to do with climate change, this is scientific, and there is still much to do, much more to know. They may not come off as entirely people hating, but they certainly place nature above everything else, and their policies are that which regresses, rather than propounds. As Steven Pinker once asked “why do progressives hate progress?”. The answer to that is simple, we not only place people with negative views on a high pedestal, but also deem them to be smarter. As John Stuart Mill once remarked: “I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, is admired by a large class of persons as a sage.”
The gloom-doom narrative is well and alive; some of which is as true as the yeti, others as real as the Taliban. People are too quick to claim that they have lost hope in humanity while they themselves are not too bad at dissecting good and evil. We have the luxury to hope for a better future, as we are more educated than ever; free(er) from the constraint of social and political coercions than ever; we—if done correctly—have the opportunity to live a healthier and more fruitful life than ever before. We are much less superstitious than previous generations and we don’t need to wait for the next Newton or Einstein, as discoveries and innovations happen in a continuous flow, making the wait for the next big genius a thing of the past (though it wouldn’t hurt to have a few more). But when it comes to tackling issues, this comfort weakens us, and we turn fatalistic. I reckon in the next 100 years we will be much better off than we are now; the people screaming and shouting that our earth is on the verge of collapse will have been forgotten, till someone else takes their place— The next Greta Thunberg or the next AOC. No progress can occur until and unless it involves moving forward by solving our mistakes along the way. There is this quote, often attributed to George Bernard Shaw: “both the optimists and the pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute”. This may be true to an important degree, but it is often the case that the—rational— optimist invents both the aeroplane and the parachute, the pessimist then points out that the aeroplane will not fly, and the parachute will not open.
