The climate debate is still on

 

My critical view of the sidetracking of the climate debate.

Jordan Bernt Peterson and Alex Epstein are in this YouTube-clip debating what they refer to as the Great Climate Con. Mainly this is a pro-fossil fuel argument disguised as a climate debate by polarizing environmentalists and climate change deniers as either good or evil, using those precise moralizing evaluations. Epstein means that the climate change argument to reduce fossil fuels is to a large extent fabricated by elitist capitalists who want the third world to remain poor and die out to reduce the negative human impact on the environment. An argument that is based upon the idea that the human impact on the environment has been wrongly framed as evil by pro-environmentalist, meaning the green house effect is good for all life on the planet, that fruits will grow bigger, crops larger etc. Peterson adds that greenery has increased with 15 % globally in the last 15 years, saying that this contradicts prior research and theories saying the deserts would increase with global warming.  They are not considering long term effects of global warming and the greenhouse effect as Peterson deems it impossible to even predict 10 years into the future. They aim to reframe the climate debate into a moral debate about whether humanity is a benevolent part of nature or not and use the common metaphor of humanity as a cancer of the planet to illustrate the demonizing of humanity. If we are to go further down the rabbit hole with this, then why no claim everything that exists in natural and good, even cancer? Why create a cure for something that is only natural? Why label fossil fuel as pollution even? It only makes the fruits grow bigger and the poor less poor. It’s an interesting discussion though, how to view the purpose of humanity from a semi-ecological perspective. Are we programmed to destroy our own environment as an inherent nihilistic impossible ambition? How come the Earth is [viewed as] overpopulated? As far as I’ve heard the sperm count is going down, so in that sense humanity seems to be self-regulating and proves the overpopulation claim.  There is no way of consolidating that either if everything is to be viewed from a perspective of value. My firm belief is that we are meant to evolve and travel into space and populate other planets. As a fourth scenario, adding to the three suggested in the video, including the crazy positivistic vision that humanity is supposed to flourish and use up all our fossil fuels  and  make all forms of energy free to all without moral concerns about how it affects other lifeforms on the planet then perhaps we could accelerate the human space exploration/population mission and relieve the planet from the apparent strain of 8 billion people and historically about 117 billion that has populated Earth so far. Is it demonizing humanity to label it a strain too?  I think it’s a bit volatile to talk about what is good and evil as they are such arbitrary concepts, particularly in relation to environmental issues, but perhaps it is difficult to elude them as we need to define how we value life.  Is there a way even to weigh different lifeforms against eachother in a manner that would be considered fair for anyone else than humanity? I like Bernt though. Good Swedish name. Haven't caught up with everything he has said, but he likes to be controversial in many aspects, for example denying the existence of patriarchy, but that I will save for another discussion.

Peace & Love

Angelina