Why are climate change fanatics on the left?

Tom Harris MP asks an interesting question on his blog "Why are climate change sceptics almost always on the right wing of politics?"

Let's turn that around; "Why are fanatical climate change believers on the left?"

I blame the French - Rousseau especially.  The modern environmental movement is, like the left itself, largely a product of his memes;  pre-industrial good, modern meaning bad.  And with experts divining the "general will". 

It's Rousseau that explains why environmentalists like Bjørn Lomborg, who dare to suggest that the world is, thanks to technology, getting cleaner, are treated like traitors to the cause.  Far from being primarily interested in things like cleaner water, less polluted landscapes and preserving the wilderness, many leftie environmentalists are in fact more intent on repudiating the notion that Western nations are more advanced.  The idea of man-made climate change allows them to beat up the big, bad nasty Western polluters (ooops, got to include China now, but no matter).  Forget the fact that most environmental degradation today is happening elsewhere, it's all the fault of the West, ok?!

The second reason why the left is so obsessed with climate change is that man-made climate change provides a rationale not just for Big Government, but Big Supranational Government.  More taxes.  More rules.  More unelectable people making decisions that they could never win a democratic mandate for.

I've no doubt whatever that the climate is changing.  But I know the science shows that climate change happens entirely naturally, too.  Many scientists now have serious doubts that the climate change that is happening is in any way man-made.

For a century the rationale for Big Government was, so the left kept telling us, economic a la Marx.  Once it became self-evident that that was not the case, the left fell apart.  Now the left is reaching back even further, to Rousseau, to find an environmental justification for more government.  

Alas, Tom, these contortions of the left have little to do with preserving our environment, and nothing to do with science.

Posted on 21 April 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

"Now observe that in all the propaganda of the ecologists-amidst all their appeals to nature and pleas for "harmony with nature"-there is no discussion of man's needs and the requirements of his survival. Man is treated as if he were an unnatural phenomenon. Man cannot survive in the kind of state of nature that the ecologists envision-i.e., on the level of sea urchins or polar bears . . . ."

Ayn Rand answers this question in her book, Return of the Primitive: The anti-industrial revolution

Posted on 21 April 2009 19:09 by Roberto Sarrionandia

http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/

Please see the above site, which gives links to speeches / presentations of those Scientists that do not believe in AGW who attended the recent Heartland conference in New York.(Click on the names of the speakers to see their video presentation)

In particular, try and look at the speech of Dr John Theon ,one of NASA's key climate scientist's and who was also James Hansens (Al Gores chief climate alarmist!) boss at NASA for many years. Theon is scathing about the flawed science and scaremongering of Hansen and gives an insightful background to Hansen's behaviour and political links that brought him to prominence.

Other speakers st the conference in Vaclav Klaus (EU President) who is also a sceptic. (I notice the EU didn't "raise awareness" of this speech. Typical!)

Every MP in the commons ought to see these speeches for a reality check !!

Posted on 21 April 2009 19:29 by Yorkshireman, Yorkshire

Its very simple...the left hate capitalism and will do anything to destroy it. Enviromentalism provides an easier way to take it down than anything they have ever had before in their arsenal.

Posted on 21 April 2009 19:34 by Andrew Ian Dodge

The left has become drained of legitimacy after the end of the cold war and the rise of the 'triangulating' centre left - multiculturalism and the plague that is post modernism have destroyed it's old universalist themes - Environmentalism is a focus for all that pent up moralizing and reforming zeal, the dear old C of E are at it too having emptied Anglicanism of any meaning or substance. It's a perfect, all purpose cult for the directionless, anxious and defunct.

Posted on 21 April 2009 21:58 by Apostate Guardianista

Several reasons I would suppose, but mainly because being very gullible is a major part of the character of the individuals of the left.

Posted on 22 April 2009 05:23 by Mike Spilligan

Andrew Ian Dodge,

It is even more simple than that; control CO2 and you control life - of all of natures economic currencies this, oxygen and water are perhaps its base commodity.

Posted on 22 April 2009 08:13 by Thom

"Several reasons I would suppose, but mainly because being very gullible is a major part of the character of the individuals of the left."

Classic

Posted on 22 April 2009 08:46 by DominicJ

There are no facts proving global warming - none, zero, zilch & nada. There is a theory but no real evidence & sometimes the more scientific alarmists will admit it.

The reason why leftists support it should be obvious. Any "solution" to this non-problem must, of necessity, involve more government which leftists support & that part of the "right" which is actually libertarian opposes.

I think a more intriguing question is why do both leftists & believers in catastrophic warming generally oppose nuclear power? Warmist, if they actually believe their scare should be rioting for more nuclear as the only practical way of cutting CO2. Socialists should be following Lenin's line that "communism will be achieved by Soviet power 7 the electrification of the whole country".

I am sad to see the "left" which could once claim to stand for progress & even sometimes for dredom has lost all faith in these (& therefore in itself) & embraced Luddism & ever more bureaucracy.
(I put this on Harris's site too)

Posted on 22 April 2009 13:02 by Neil Craig

"Why are fanatical climate change believers on the left?"

Because warmist beliefs provide an excuse to boss people about and take their money, which is also what leftwing politics generally means.

Natural bedfellows.

Posted on 22 April 2009 16:55 by Andrew Duffin

I consider myself conservative (partly because I love what's left of the British countryside so much) but am concerned about climate change, because of what I have read (as a layman) by scientists like James Lovelock, who could hardly be described as a lefty. I'm disturbed that the consensus at the moment seems to be that one can only either be a green socialist or an anthropogenic climate change-denying conservative: I am neither. David Cameron professes to care about the environment, and I take him at his word: are you suggesting, Douglas, that I ought not to and that he'll ditch the green rhetoric when he comes to power, or that you fundamentally disagree with your leader on a policy issue which has been at the centre of his rebranding of your party? Presumably one or the other must be the case.

Posted on 31 May 2009 04:12 by N J Mayes

"Now observe that in all the propaganda of the ecologists ...there is no discussion of man's needs and the requirements of his survival".

Au contraire. The whole point about the ecological philosophy is that it sees us in our proper place, sustained by the biosphere. The first law of tree surgery is "Do not cut off the branch on which you are standing".
The green or ecological view is a new political philosophy which transcends, and can reconcile, both socialism and individualism, since both society and individual are dependent on the biosphere for their healthy existence.

Posted on 16 November 2009 14:40 by Richard Lawson

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