I recall a quote by computer designer Charles
Babbage that has stuck with me over the years, about having an opponent who
strikes him as so confused that he is difficult to understand - "I am not
able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke
such a question", Babbage said.
After eco vandals threw soup on great works of art last week, the weekend got me thinking about what it must be like to be one of those Just Stop Oil members who committed such an act. Like Babbage, I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke an individual to believe they have no future because of climate change - much less, cause misery to innocent people as a result.
Consider the journey you'd have to make to go from ordinary citizen in society, to someone who behaves like that. Just imagine how divorced from reality you'd have to be, to be willing to damage private property and works of art while being filmed, cause misery to holidaymakers, put lives at risk through mass congestion, and rob yourself of your own freedom by being thrown into prison for such acts - all for the distinction of being puppets having your strings pulled by corrupt organisations and self-serving narcissistic cult leaders.
I guess you might point out that they don't know they've been ensnared by a cult, and that most people never do - but if they’re willing to risk prison for their beliefs, then it seems surprising that they haven't up to this point undertaken the relatively simple task of thinking things through with more care and consideration. I actually find it hard to even conceive of the journey downwards one would need to take from sane analysis to the depths of madness we are seeing with climate alarmism and hysteria-driven criminal activity.
What would a sane analysis of climate change reveal? I am almost certain it would reveal that there are problems we are going to have to solve - but that we don't have, and will not have, a climate crisis or a climate catastrophe to deal with. With climate change, we are not talking about a massive change in the short term (which might constitute a crisis), we are talking about gradual changes over a long period of time. Over the course of the next century, we are likely to see climate change necessitating small changes in behaviour, alongside which our technological advancements will be far more substantial. Human ingenuity will enable us to adjust to gradual climate change, where we make tweaks to correct for gradual temperature rises when we need to.
The insistence that we are facing a climate crisis is not one that someone committed to a sane analysis would easily arrive at once they'd factored in the full suite of considerations at play. Consequently, falling for the 'climate crisis' narrative as a bystander is an act of moderate failure. But falling for it to the extent that you are willing to cause harm to others, get yourself locked up in prison, and think that you are a force for good in doing so, is an act of such absurd madness, attention-seeking and selfishness that I really do find it hard to imagine what it's like to arrive at that place, or be such a person.