Letters To Troubled Youth - Excerpt 3: Climate Extremism: A Waste of Energy

One of my little ‘work in progress’ side projects is an epistolary called Letters To Troubled Youth. It’s a mix of good cop, bad cop letter writing, aimed at the younger generation, warning them about all the highly damaging nonsense they are letting in to their souls, and encouraging them of the greater rewards found in more rigorous truthseeking. I might share the occasional excerpt as a blog post on its own stranding.

Excerpt 3 - taken from Letter 17: Climate Extremism: A Waste of Energy:

“My definition of a climate extremist is someone who doesn’t understand the straightforward cost-benefit analyses associated with climate change. These days there are probably more climate extremists than not. My definition of a climate alarmist is someone who does the selfish, immoral and ridiculous things we see associated with groups like Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil. Under the above definitions, all climate alarmists are climate extremists, but not all climate extremists are climate alarmists.

The cost-benefit analyses associated with climate change are easy to comprehend from an economist’s perspective. There are costs and benefits to our industrial activity, and there are costs of both action and inaction to climate change. It’s only by assessing these costs and benefits that we should decide the right balance between action and inaction. Alas, as far as I can see, almost nobody in politics, in the media or in the general populace is doing this properly.

What makes this neglect even worse is that, a lot of the time, people calling for climate action seem to confuse costs with benefits and benefits with costs. For example, cheap energy should be seen as a benefit, not as cost; and green jobs should be seen as a cost not a benefit. Green taxes are more of a cost than a benefit, and most of our use of carbon energy up to the present day has been a benefit not a cost. Virtually all taxpayer-funded or public climate action is a cost not a benefit, and virtually all climate inaction is a benefit not a cost. In economics, calling something a cost does not mean we think it shouldn’t happen. But confusing a cost with a benefit (and vice-versa) only confuses the problems we are attempting to solve – a problem that’s exacerbated when groups involved in the discussion begin with perverse and skewed incentives.

I’ve never believed that the majority of people who are extremists on a particular matter really care about that matter deep down; the cause, I believe, is merely a proxy for other incentives around group identity, a sense of purpose and belonging, and the self-congratulation associated with virtue signalling. For example, proclaimed socialists tend to overlook the economic principles that do most for poor people; proclaimed feminists tend to remain silent on things in society (like Islam) that oppress women most strongly; and climate extremists are uninterested in almost everything that doesn’t involve the absurd train wreck of net zero.

If climate extremists really did care about reducing carbon emissions in a way that wasn’t catastrophic for the global economy, they would have much more regard for the rapidly expanding technological innovations (like AI, digital, carbon capturing, ambient air capture, ocean fertilisation, afforestation, space reflectors, etc) that are helping solve carbon problems, more regard for current alternative energy options (like nuclear and gas), and more concern about the carbon footprint of the renewable technologies they purport to advocate. Geoengineering is still in its relative infancy, and that, and numerous other technological and scientific advancements, are going to do more to solve the problems of climate change than any of us can currently foresee.

People who are willing to cause harm and misery to citizens going about their business on a daily basis, but who are wholly uninterested in the above, show you everything you need to know about their real motives, I would humbly suggest.”