Scientific American continues its descent into partisan polemics with “Wealthy Countries Have Blown Through Their Carbon Budgets”. And “Fast, Deep Cuts in Emissions Are Needed to Avoid ‘Climate Time Bomb’”. And “See How Much Climate Change Has Cost Different Countries”. Oh, and “Fascism’s History Offers Lessons about Today’s Attacks on Education” which, you don’t need to be told, portrays Republican governor Ron DeSantis as Mussolini.
Also Joe Biden’s Trade War III rages on, with “The threat of new US solar tariffs is back”.
Back in March we ridiculed the fantasy “Canadian Northern Corridor”, only to have an alert reader inform us that a similar project was planned with much fanfare back in 1967. Back then it was called the Mid-Canada Development Corridor” and nobody heard of global warming. But just as today, nothing ever happened.
Oh, and on the climate hypocrisy front, the Canadian environment ministry is pretending to mend its ways after the string of high-living travel scandals in our public sector like the Governor-General’s $1.3-million Middle Eastern jaunt complete with “beef wellington, pork tenderloin and carpaccio” on the plane and over $500 for lemons and limes, and the Prime Minister’s $160,000 Christmas vacation (despite spending $20k a month on his government lakeside cottage), turned out also to include “Canadian delegates to a climate change conference booked a luxury resort rated one of the least environmentally-friendly hotels in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, records show. Room rates ranged from $405 to $1,300 a night at the resort with a mediocre Green Star rating but 13 bars.” They do feel your pain at high energy prices… just not personally.
I believe in the principle of charity in interpreting the words of others: you should put the most reasonable possible construction on what they say. But what does charity require when people consistently, over decades, do the exact opposite of what they profess to fervently believe in? Is charitable to insist that they really do believe in what they profess to believe in, they are just delusional idiots? That is a difficult hypothesis to maintain, especially when it comes to the elites who are personally criticized every day for being hypocrites. These aren't stupid people, and it would be uncharitable to assume they are. They can't possibly not know that their behaviour is inconsistent with their words; they simply don't care. The charitable interpretation is that these people are cynical - as only human beings have been, throughout recorded history. They know they are spewing b.s. for political or personal gain; they are virtue-signaling, plain and simple. You don't have to read much literature or history to realize just how full of hubris and virtue the ruling class in every society in all times and places quickly becomes. "Pride cometh before the fall." They know perfectly well that they are fraudsters, hoaxsters, and con-men. That's the charitable view, the most parsimonious account.