2019 saw the rapid rise of climate hysteria. But as the saying goes, “You ain’t seen nothin yet.” Now that the hysteria is firmly established and well organized, it is sure to get bigger and louder. I see very little coming from it except the noise, as long as skeptics keep up the good fight.
This is especially true in the U.S. Presidential race, which is climate policy-wise by far the biggest thing going on in the world. Many of the Democrat candidates are going to try to ride the hysterical wave to victory. Their winning is not likely.
My take is the further left you go the fewer votes you get, and these folks are going far left on climate. In my view the only viable candidate in the pack is Biden and he may not be crazy enough to get the nod.
Another big unknown is what the hysterical demonstrators are going to do. Bigger marches? More disruption? (The police now have glue remover.) Or maybe something we have not seen before, hopefully not more violent. I am sure the advocacy insider email traffic is buzzing over this. Maybe some new wacky signs. “I don’t want to die!” seems to be catching on.
For that matter, will the hysterics endorse specific candidates for the Democrat nomination? Or perhaps get active in specific Congressional races? They might even form their own party (Greta Thunberg cannot run, more’s the pity). Political action seems like the logical next step for the extremists, which could further destabilize the green movement, given that most of the political action groups are moderates.
There are lots of other climate crunch points in progress as well. In a recent meeting the EU failed to come up with a more ambitious emission reduction goal for 2030, despite its hysterical leadership calling for one.
The next meeting on this proposal will be in June. No doubt we will see lots of “Action Now!” marches and demonstrations then, but ambition may well be lacking at the EU national member level, which is all that counts. Several countries are already missing their 2020 target and there are anti-action demonstrations too boot, from yellow vests to farmers and coal miners. The political leaders are running a bit scared of this stuff.
The UN will have several semi-summits, leading up to the grand COP 26 in Glasgow, beginning in November. Given what happened in Madrid’s COP 25 we are likely to witness the progressive collapse of the entire UN climate action process.
The UN’s Paris Accord process is entirely too slow and compromising for the Action Now! hysterics to tolerate. This will be especially certain if the Action Now! hysteria builds during 2020, which is very likely. That the mythical $100 billion a year promised to the developing countries does not show up in Glasgow will compound the collapse.
Then too there is a lot going on at national levels around the world. Especially promising is the rapid rise of new populist parties that oppose the drastic actions demanded by the Action Now! radicals. Left wing hysteria typically generates a conservative reaction. How could it not? Angry mobs are dangerous.
I expect to see a lot of meaninglessly symbolic green action in response to the hysterical noise-making. This includes toothless declarations of “climate emergency” and pointless promises of zero emissions by far off 2050. Politicians promising the impossible, to be delivered in the far distant future, do no harm. Hence their popularity.
My definition of winning the great climate change debate is that no serious harm is done by the alarmists. While I expect an escalating crescendo of hysterical shrieking during the course of 2020, the reason will be that my side is winning and the loud side is losing.
— David Wojick. Wojick is a long-time energy and environmental analyst and principal of the Climate Change Education Debate Project.