Anyone who spends much time in public policy of any sort soon realizes that radicals and revolutionaries tend to share a malevolent hostility to the normal enjoyment of life. They see everyday benign sources of happiness as dangerous, if not overtly wicked, from the traditional family to private enterprise to celebrating holidays, and they can’t resist taking every special occasion as an opportunity for grim polemics. Many years ago Joseph Epstein of Northwestern University complained that radicals’ “leaflets... resemble not so much political argument as a ransom note.” And Green parties and environmental groups across the globe seem to have a fatal attraction for Hamas and its fellow travellers that is difficult to account for on rational grounds. So we were not surprised on Valentine’s Day to be emailed, not that they were taking time off from the polemics to cuddle on the couch and we should too, but instead from Climate Home News that “Love in the time of climate change 💕” means we’re killing all the chocolate. As they tell us every year, almost as if spoiling the mood were the point, and the specifics of the polemics just a convenient hammer. As with a piece in The Conversation that tells us roses are red and planet destroying they spew pollution and we are annoying or something.

BTF

The piece the CHN email teased to, though not in a romantic way, has the usual weird flaws of much alarmist argument. For instance it kicks off:

“For those readers who indulge in Valentine’s Day treats, you’ve very likely paid more than you did last year for anything made of chocolate, after the price of its main ingredient – cocoa – quadrupled in the last two years.”

Given that climate change is meant to be this slow inexorable process over decades, a sudden spike in the price of one commodity is unlikely to be directly linked to it in reality as opposed to dreary polemics. And if they spent a bit of their time studying economic history instead of climate grimness, they might have discovered that commodity prices have been notoriously volatile since the invention of money if not before. (Imagine the cost of wheat in Egypt during Joseph’s seven fat years then lean ones.)

Of course climate throws everything at you including the kitchen sink:

“What’s driving these record-high prices is a combination of extreme heat, erratic and heavier rainfall, disease – and producers’ limited resources to adapt to shifting climate conditions in West Africa, the source of some 70% of the global cocoa supply.”

Disease? Noooooo! Unfair. But again either all this stuff really broke loose in the last two years or we’re just conflating things that don’t belong together, like putting chocolate on pesto. But a bit of pseudo-science will blend the flavours harmoniously:

“New research out this week shows that, over the past decade, climate change added on average at least three weeks with temperatures above 32C each year, and as many as six in 2024 – outside the optimal range for cacao trees to flourish, reducing harvests.”

New research out this week. Just in time to spoil the mood. Though it’s not quite clear how:

“Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at Climate Central, which released the analysis, urged Valentine’s Day sweethearts to consider the impact of climate change on the global value chain.”

By doing what exactly? Giving that special someone wine gums? The piece doesn’t say. But it does quote Dahl that:

“These heat extremes, driven by burning fossil fuels, are not just affecting the environment – they’re directly impacting the farmers and communities who rely on cacao production for their livelihoods”.

And as you know, when the world ends, women and minorities are hardest hit:

“Often it’s the people at the so-called bottom of the pyramid who are suffering the worst impacts of a warming planet, but get the least help to deal with it.”

Don’t send flowers, though. A characteristic Washington Post piece last year on, gosh, February 12 warned “Why giving roses on Valentine’s Day – or any day – is really a bad idea” complete with graphic of an airplane apparently farting CO2.

If you’re really lucky they’ll tell you climate change is ruining the holiday rather than the holiday ruining the climate, as for instance with this December 21, 2022 item in “Atmos” saying “Across the world, Christmas trees are becoming increasingly more susceptible to pests and pathogens due to climate change.” But of course it rather serves them right:

“Though Christmas tree farmers are victims of climate change, some do have a history of harming their local environments by overusing pesticides and herbicides that can run into waterways and growing monocrops that hurt biodiversity.”

Pine forest? We don’t want no stinkin’ pine forest.

So go ahead. Whatever special occasion is coming up that you especially value, do an online search for how bad it is for the climate, vice versa or both. They won’t be disappointed. As in that Christmas tree piece that also snarls: “The holidays are a time of waste and consumption”, channeling Ebeneezer Scrooge. And Valentine chocolates make you fat anyway. And love stinks. And so does life.

P.S. After writing that last paragraph we Googled an upcoming special occasion, St. Patrick’s Day, and sure enough “Widespread warming is not only an indicator of climate change. It’s also affecting the unofficial drink of St. Patrick’s Day: beer.”

P.P.S. Climate Central turns out to be a weird hybrid news-advocacy-research thingy that:

“is an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing climate and how it affects people’s lives. We are a policy-neutral 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Climate Central uses science, big data, and technology to generate thousands of local storylines and compelling visuals that make climate change personal and show what can be done about it.”

And like the Thing With Two Heads, or maybe more, it:

“is the only climate communications group that produces and disseminates localized and visual content weekly and at national scale; co-houses scientists, journalists, and technologists; and conducts and catalyzes original, peer-reviewed scientific research to fill critical communication gaps.”

Cohousing scientists and journalists sounds like a recipe for a conflict of interest not a box of strawberry creams to us. As for “policy-neutral”, this hydra boasts out of all its mouths that:

“At Climate Central, we envision a world where public will to address the climate challenge is robustly deep, broad, and sustained – where it becomes a core element of culture everywhere.”

Just following the science wherever it leads, you understand. Now hand over the chocolates and nobody gets hurt. Much. But enough to make us smile a cruel smile.