Hot wet pussies make them go gooey

Amongst the ordinary Latte sippers, the  underbelly of the tendency in fact, it is the vague ideas that are attractive. So if you ask them about the issue de jour they will regurgitate the the general talking points and give you the usual talking points of the topic but its soon becomes clear that they have not really thought about the repercussions of the things that they  “believe” in. Thus they will say that we have to do something about climate change. If you press them on the details or point out that the ways suggested  to do this won’t actually make a difference they are a bit like a Roo in the headlights, unable to get themselves out of a diabolical  position. What soon becomes clear is that they are working on a purely emotional level and the intellectual understanding of the issue is largely absent.

There are however quite a number of more Machiavellian Latte sippers who have thought about how to put their schemes into action on a larger scale. If you make the effort to read their own bibles, like the UK’s Guardian,  you can begin to appreciate what the Profits  of the Green religion are actually all about. It soon becomes evident that there is more at stake here than the thermometer’s long term trend:

click for source

 First, the link between economic growth and carbon dioxide must be broken. The world’s economy runs on energy, and while most of that power continues to comes from coal, oil and gas, global GDP and carbon emissions will be bound together in lockstep. The latest data show a near perfect correlation, and that shows how little impact, in a worldwide context, renewable and nuclear power is making.

Second, the rich industrialised world and the poor developing world must align their hopes and fears: they inhabit the same planet. All nations are united in understanding that unchecked climate change poses a grave threat in every part of the world.

Citizens in London, New York and Tokyo have grown rich from a century or more of fossil-fuelled industrialisation. They have the most wealth to lose and are, with notable exceptions, the keenest to cut carbon fast. But for those in Delhi, Rio and Beijing, where economic growth surges onwards, the improvement of living standards, from electricity to education, is even more pressing than reducing emissions.

Bridging that global gap between rich and poor requires a major transfer of wealth. That money, spent on low-carbon development, would fund the clean emergence of the developing world from deprivation. Put starkly, it is nothing less than using the engine of the world economy, energy, to tackle the world’s poverty. It could be done by agreeing binding, global goals for cash and carbon: a top-down approach. But that would require unprecedented political leadership. Can the heating-up of the global economy thaw the diplomatic freeze at the UN talks and reignite the urgency needed?

(my bold)

To my mind this looks decidedly like a sort of Marxist utopianism to me and frankly its just not going to work.

How the Latte sippers see the poor

The Latte sippers that I began with  talking about certainly care about the world’s poor, but it is a patronising sort of compassion, much like the way we all feel when we see that picture of a poor drenched kitten: Its a simple way of thinking that is innately patronising and it underestimates the object of their pity. with even a small kitten you have to appreciate that you are dealing with a well honed killing machine and when it comes to the world’s poor you can’t just assume that the objects of your pity are just going to be the sort of noble victims that will appreciate you trying to lift them out of their misery or that they will remain eternally grateful and forever deferential to the authors of their salvation. The experience of the many years aid to help the poor in the countries of Africa and elsewhere is that no matter how much money is funnelled into theses places the poverty remains (well except for the minions of the ruling cliques who do seem to do rather well from foreign aid). It will take a great deal more that wishful thinking to “solve” the poverty that inspires so much Latte sipper angst and to be honest I don’t think that a great deal of it can actually be “solved”.

From a purely environmental point of view most of the world’s most poverty stricken countries are entirely capable of feeding their people, or even doing better than mere subsistence agriculture (not that there is anything wrong with just being able to grow enough to sustain your self) what is lacking is not money or technology, it is the sort of stable society and sense of social cohesion that makes western society successful. Frankly the Neo-Marxism of the deep green eco-warriors who are driving the climate debate don’t have  a clue how to make this happen, apart from wanting to redirect the wealth of the industrialised world towards it.Now as much as I appreciate the urge to alleviate poverty and suffering I am tending towards thinking that it will be all be rather futile in the end. Because instead of giving the poor nations of the world a hand up all that sees to be the result is even more poverty and an eternal mendicant mentality.

The classical Marxists wanted to sell their model for utopia through world revolution and the communists of the old Soviet union and the Peoples Republic of China  did a fine trade in exporting the ideology of  revolution and the destructive  hardware to make it happen. Now their spiritual successors want to export their utopian vision wrapped in the vestments of the Green religion and on the pretext that the planet has to be saved from global warming. When it comes to any utopian vision though you just have to ask the obvious questions of are they achievable and if they are will they actually be a good thing if the Profits can make it happen?

The history of Communism should perhaps tell us that all we will see is more death destruction and eventual disillusionment the only question is how long will it take and will the death toll from the Green revolutions  match or exceed those inspired by Marx and Lenin?

Cheers Comrades

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