In the New York Times “Climate Forward” columnist David Gelles denounces “The dissonance of climate promises at Davos”. OK. Good to have you moving away from the WEF there on the bench. But dare we suggest you switch benches entirely? His objection is that “I’ve been coming to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum for a decade now. I’ve heard presidents pledges [sic] to ‘keep 1.5 alive,’ a reference to the dangerous global warming threshold. I’ve heard institutional investors say they will pursue net zero goals. And I’ve heard Marc Benioff, the billionaire and chief executive officer of Salesforce, promise to plant a trillion trees. All the while, emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, which are the main cause of global warming, have continued their inexorable rise.” Great. Come over here and ponder whether the whole scare might be based on faulty premises. Or not, since he then lashes out at the WEF for being the executive committee of global capitalism or something: “The World Economic Forum promotes free market capitalism, free trade and economic growth – values that many scientists, economists and even some politicians believe are fundamentally at odds with the preservation of a livable planet.” Yikes. No rethinking here, then. Just Communism forward.
It’s especially disappointing because the piece appeared to be working its way toward an acknowledgement that the whole problem is much more complicated than it seems or at least that fixing it was going to take more than a few pretty promises. He kicked off with:
“Each January, business and political leaders descend upon the Swiss ski town of Davos to warn against urgent threats to the global order. Each year, they identify climate change as a one [sic] of the top risks that the world faces. And then, for a few days, they make pledges, speeches and impassioned calls to take rapid action and save the planet. But does it do any good?”
Obviously not. Did you think it would? Emissions continue to climb, non-democratic non-Western nations thumb their noses at GHG reductions, and to hear alarmists tell it, the weather has become unspeakably foul once the avenging angel carbon with its flaming smokestack banished us from Eden where every day was pleasant and mild.
That this imaginary past without bad weather is indeed imaginary, and preposterous, is not relevant to the question whether, if you believe it, you think something has been done to get it back. But it has some relevance to the question of practicalities. Or so we hoped.
It didn’t work. After the bit cited at the very outset, Gelles instead seems to wonder whether he and he alone cares. “This year, the dissonance in Davos is particularly acute”, he declares, before lamenting that Donald Trump “withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement” and then gave a speech to the WEF about as respectful of its sensitivities as that bishop who deliberately poked Trump in the eye in her Inauguration Day sermon by praising unity before sowing division, though at least he didn’t then play the innocent victim. But of course nobody thought Trump was on side, either with climate alarmism or the WEF.
No, the real problem is that:
“Meanwhile, the shops and restaurants on the Davos main drag have been taken over by corporations promoting their artificial intelligence offerings. Amazon, Microsoft and other companies that have made ambitious climate goals are this year touting A.I., a technology that is forcing them to walk back their emissions reduction targets and consuming vast quantities of electricity, much of it generated with fossil fuels. And the fossil fuel industry itself was well represented, too. Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil and gas company, hosted a private party. Oil and gas executives are striking deals on the sidelines. JPMorgan, the biggest funder of fossil fuel projects in the world, rented out a museum for a cocktail party. So, given all of this, what are we to make of the perennial pledges at Davos about global action to slow climate change?”
That they never knew what they were talking about, including the supposedly settled science? Ah but nay. That it was all a plot of the sort you’re more likely to hear from MAGA types than the Times, at least about Davos:
“‘It makes you wonder, “Is this all a charade?”’ said Fatou Jeng, climate adviser to the United Nations Secretary General. ‘The hypocrisy has gone on for a long time, and enough is enough.’”
Whereupon Gelles unleashed his mighty blast against capitalism as though Leon Trotskii had risen from the grave to which Stalin’s assassin sent him. Or as though he were Greta Thunberg.
Some people are becoming disenchanted with the Swedish Scold as she sinks into the fever swamps, for instance declaring in October 2024, shortly after the anniversary of Hamas/Islamic Jihad atrocities against Israelis for being Jews, that:
“The climate justice movement must be a decolonial, anti capitalist, antifascist movement that fights against genocide as well as ecocide, that demands liberation and justice for all, and a system that puts people and planet over profit.”
But while others are indeed shuffling away from her there on the bench, Gelles is evidently shuffling closer. After telling us “many scientists, economists and even some politicians” believe capitalism is the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, Gelles snarls:
“that hasn’t stopped those in attendance from trying to reconcile their aspirations for a cleaner planet with their appetite for profits.”
So never mind all that market-friendly, we can go green and prosper talk. Instead we need what the Soviets used to call “voluntarism” where after babbling about the iron laws of history you suddenly seize your destiny in a triumph of the will:
“‘We can’t wait years for solutions, because the climate crisis is not waiting for anyone,’ Jeng, of the United Nations, said. ‘We know the solutions. We have the manpower. We have the resources. It’s about whether we want to do it or not.’”
Gee. Really? We know the solutions? Pity you didn’t tell us what they were. And here we interrupt ourselves to add that he also wrote:
“Many countries say they are still committed to reducing emissions, leaving the U.S. as an outlier, as Somini Sengupta reported this week. But the sudden disappearance of American climate leadership left a chill in Davos.”
Except the U.S. is one of the very few countries in the world that has actually reduced its emissions. Which leaves it an “outlier” indeed but not because the sudden disappearance of its climate leadership left a chill in Davos (as if a “chill” was bad if you think the planet is overheating). No. It’s because everyone else has been failing to follow, not least because they are wedded to big-government solutions of a sort that almost never work anywhere for anything.
Back to Jeng’s absurd pieties. We have the manpower? Where? In Davos? Or the Chinese laogai? What are you prating about? We have the resources. So there’s no critical minerals shortage for alternative energy? No need to keep oil, gas and nuclear and even coal while we wait on the windmills?
Heck no. “It’s about whether we want to do it or not.” As everyone at Davos has been insisting they do for decades and then stumbling not over practical difficulties but their own sinister capitalist plot.
Imagine spending decades rubbing shoulders with Davos Man, and coming away with the deep insight that all you need is political will, and the impression that all these people you knew and trusted were as cynical as they are shallow.
The LA fires were basically urban structure and Chaparral (brush) not trees. But the idea of planting 1 trillion flammable trees sees a bit odd, doesn't it??
The global hegemony of the climate hysteria-inspired green theocracy is collapsing with the two superpowers, China, never committed, and now with Trump, the US, gone. Throw in India and the only ones remaining are global outliers and has-beens' continuing on their futile economic self flagellation rituals including Canada for the next few weeks.
The World Economic Forum has always advertised iteslf as a means to rise above sordid capitalism into a brighter, cleaner world, while the annual Davos meetings have in reality been little more than a convenient way for the aforementioned sordid capitalists to get together to make deals which will help them make those sordid profits. Thus does the world go round.
AI really is the Achilles Heel of renewables and the Old Green Deal(because it has been cancelled in the US and soon-to-be elsewhere).The staggering amounts of energy demand these AI systems put on the grid make renewables more vulnerable than ever.Indeed,if renewables aren't scaled back,cancelled or replaced with reliable,cheap fossil fuel or nuclear power plants,we will see more and more brownouts,blackouts,just chronic shortages of power,period.