The non-economically illiterate can only laugh at the confused jumble of self-contradictions that Klein and her admirers put forward. Suffice to say that if her ideology were followed to its logical conclusion it would cause the deaths of thousands of millions of people.

At base is her assumption that socialism is more physically productive than capitalism: another horse-laugh at her stupid ignorance.

Jonathon, you are contradicting yourself. In a prior thread, you said that the greater simplicity you propose would be voluntary, but in this article, you say it "must" be based on coercion.

But where did you, and Klein, get this idea that you know better than billions of people what their subjective thoughts, feelings, preferences and values should be? Please admit that this is a false pretence of knowledge.

Why don't you just practice what you preach, and stop using fossil fuels?

Any why don't you stop using natural resources, or at least use them only at about the 1 or 2 percent of the current rate, as might satisfy your conception of what is sustainable?

What Klein and her ideological fellow travelers fail to understand, is that she is channelling economic theory that was completely refuted and exploded in the 1870s. She has no answer to these theories, does not understand what they are, and deals only in slogans such as "neoliberal" as if this self-evidently disposes all issues in her favour.

But it doesn't. They themselves must address the issues they raise. The idea that vesting all productive decision-making in government, will result in higher living standards for the workers *and* greater ecological sustainability, is laughable absurdity. But if the solution is a mix of public and private, that's what we've got now that she's criticising!

In reading through this article I wondered if the Author wasn't channeling Santa Maria The well known democratic labor spokesperson.

As for Klein she is more than persuasive, but particularly when keynesian economic invariably lead to a period of unprecedented growth and universal wealth creation.

Only rolled back by the application of reaganism, thatcherism and other extreme right wing ideology!

Simply put, to pursue the ideal of endless growth for its own sake on an already overpopulated planet is sheer lunacy!

WE have other choices to promote general and wide spread economic well being!

And they are attacking and removing poverty, disadvantage and inequality in all its forms and guises everywhere w find it. And in so doing, quite massively increase the discretionary spend and new export markets; and the massive economic improvement that must also confer!

And there's a role for government in this model; namely as the owner operator of energy production and distribution and as the premier source of capital and or its creation.

Thus ensuring unfettered supply and that the cost of both or either can be kept as low as possible as business imposts!

Resulting in downward price/cost spirals throughout the competing FREE market!

After that the entrepreneurs ought to be given as free a hand as possible, but particularly start ups, that are genuine co-ops.

Co-ops being the only free market capitalist business model that largely survived the Great depression intact.

Surely we have had enough of the boom and bust of extreme exploitative capitalism model that gave us the GFC?

I believe everyone should watch and or read Klein's change, if only to see with their own eyes what she says, rather than through the ultra rigid capitalist prism this Author seems to want to create?

If only to understand, there's always always a better way to do everything and a better capitalist model to advance!

We really do only have one planet!
Rhrosty.

Jardine,

I am reluctant to respond to you, since I know from your previous responses to my articles, that you are not interested in serious engagement with my view, but just out to discredit and dismiss. But for the sake of others, a quick thought on complex issues.

First, please actually quote from my article where exactly I referred to 'coercion' - you made that up. The transition we are talking about must be democratic - indeed a far more authentic form of participatory democracy must emerge if the transition is to go well. That said, 'coercion' may well be necessary - but in no sense different from when 'democratic' states today issues laws etc with which people must comply.

And where did you get the idea that we presume to know better what other people want/feel? I certainly never said that. We have has much right as anybody else to seek to PERSUADE others to our view and demonstrate and inspire others that there are alternatives ways we could move to which would enable a sustainable/just world order.

http://thesimplerway.info/

Thank

Interesting essay. Unfortunately there is not much that can be done to turn around the situation that we are in. Especially as everything is now more of less instantaneously inter-connected, and therefore inter-dependent.

Naomi Klein was of course spot on re the situation as it was then, and as it inevitably would be in the future, in her book The Shock Doctrine.

Meanwhile it seems to me that the Adbusters magazine and website gives a superb truth-telling graphic depiction of the state of the humanly created world-mummery in the now time of the "21st century".

As does this website which I came across this morning via this essay:
http://hipcrime.blogspot.ca/2015/11/the-dying-americans.html

It is said that the exiled and lost 10 tribes of Israel are waiting beyond the legendary river of Sambation which they cannot cross because the river spews up stones to prevent them from returning to Israel. Technically they COULD cross it, because that river stops spewing up stones on the Sabbath - but that would require them to break God's commandment that forbids them to travel on that day, so they stay put.

The simpler way is wonderful beyond belief, but getting there is not. It would take a huge purification crisis and as Jardine pointed out, thousands of millions of people will die and fail to reach the promised land.

If it takes violence, if it takes coercion to get there - including democratic coercion, then I have no right to actively pursue this path and become the murderer of billions. Nevertheless, nothing stops me from praying to God to hasten that era of renewed simplicity, then let it be the act of God rather than an act of man, at the appropriate time once the generation is deserving.

I have also seen This Changes Everything, and I too found her confused and unpersuasive. The idea that we can and should exploit the environment goes back millennia, not just centuries. And austerity is not the solution to economic stagnation; it's just part of the problem. But I also agree she made some good points.

However, I think the exact same can be said of this article! In fact I find it to be more confused and unpersuasive than Klein was. It seems to be based on a huge underestimate of the potential of renewables, combined with a failure to comprehend the benefits of globalization.

Yuyutsu,

I hadn't heard that myth before. Is there an explanation of why they couldn't go round the river instead of crossing it? And how wide was this river supposed to be? (IIRC the prohibition on travelling excludes journeys of less than a mile).

The claim that t"he Simpler Way is wonderful beyond belief" seems just as illogical. It wouldn't enable us to do anything that couldn't otherwise be done.

MrSimplicity
"First, please actually quote from my article where exactly I referred to 'coercion' - you made that up. The transition we are talking about must be democratic - indeed a far more authentic form of participatory democracy must emerge if the transition is to go well. That said, 'coercion' may well be necessary..."

Well perhaps you can tell me. Will it be based on threatening to physically attack people who don't obey, and submit to having their personal or property rights violated; or will it be voluntary? Threats to attack people don't magically cease to be threats to attack people just because a) you want what they've got, or b) the State is your chosen instrument.

Is that what you were thinking? If so, you're wrong. If not, then you're contradicting yourself.

"And where did you get the idea that we presume to know better what other people want/feel?"

I got it from you saying that you feel justified in FORCING AND THREATENING people to obey your opinions about how natural resources should be used to satisfy human wants.

" We have has much right as anybody else to seek to PERSUADE others to our view and demonstrate and inspire others that there are alternatives ways we could move to which would enable a sustainable/just world order."

So threatening to throw people in prison is "persuading" them and "just", is it?

Yes?

Or no?

Which is it? At present you're equivocating, saying it will be *both* voluntary and coerced.

So which is it?

Voluntary?

Or not voluntary?

MrSimplicity

Do you understand that, if you pursue economic ends - such as economising on the use of resources - but using uneconomic or anti-economic means, you will get results that are
a) more wasteful, not less; and
b) self-defeating?

You take umbrage at me asking such basic questions, but your self-contradictions show that you need your confusion at such a basic level to be dispelled before you have any hope of understanding what you are talking about.

What's your answer to my questions? Spare me the mind-reading, thanks. After all, you've got a planet to save, so obviously you don't have time for diversions such as mere personality. It would be a kind of successful outcome if you merely stuck to the issues and stopped expressing disagreement with your own thoughts, wouldn't it?

Dear Aidan,

Regarding the Sambation, it is just a legend of course and its point is to claim that the ten tribes did not convert (historically most did), but remain extremely observant Jews. Different versions locate the river in Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, as the Ganges, in Nepal, Thailand, China and Chile. One version claims that it becomes very wide on the Sabbath, another claims that it's only 30 feet wide, but because it completely surrounds the tribes they may not cross it. There is even a story about one Rabbi who did cross it because he went on a life-saving mission and it is OK to break the Sabbath in order to save life.

Regarding the Simpler Way, I was always inspired to live that way, but it didn't work out. Had there been no society, or had it at least been more sparse and not consuming practically all the resources, then circumstances would have forced me to go through this inevitable crisis and if I were lucky enough to survive, then I could live the way I always wanted with no interference from society.

Rhostry, Daffy

All you need to know about Naomi Klein is that she refers to a statutory monopoly explicitly charged with, and functioning to manipulate the supply and price of money and credit by official fiat, as "unregulated capitalism", "unrestrained capitalism" and such like.

Considering her topic and theme, she is operating at a level of profound ignorance that is inexcusable.

She, and anyone who agrees with her, are not intellectually qualified to participate in any discussion about the best way to economise resources, simple as that.

Jardine

WUWT virtually agrees with NASA's temperature recordings:

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/charts-and-statistics-on-global-warming-climate-change-2015-12?r=US&IR=T

Where economics has let us down is that many hidden costs are hidden.
...The amount of subsidisation mines receive in a open economy
...The PAYE tax payer and small business tax payers provide all sorts of infra structure such as roads, schools, hospitals and more; yet, there are major companies, including mining companies who do not pay tax.
...Climate change is already causing some communities to move; Fiji and Alaskan Inuit communities being examples. The use of fossil fuels has created that situation; but, major fossil fuel companies take no responsibility. Isn't the free market meant to adjust for major companies to take responsibility for their actions in a free market?
ExxonMobil management have supported their scientists who hold the consensus view on climate change. ExxonMobil have repudiated the views of the Republican Party on climate change; commentary that can be extended to right wing political parties elsewhere.

The Climate Council have indicated that the Arctic is not in good condition, there are an abundance of references in relation to this:

http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/arctic-temperatures-reach-record-breaking-highs

Kevin Anderson makes some interesting comments about the need for a carbon budget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpbfGaKp4K4

Kevin Anderson states that it will be near impossible to hold the average global temperatures to 2C above what was experienced in pre industrial times; he asserts that is a death sentence for innocent poor people.

ant

You know perfectly well are not interested in discussion, you are only interested just endlessly banging on with your religious beliefs about armageddon, and your endless state-worship. You openly accept that your intellectual method is fallacious, and then pop up repeating the fallacy you have just admitted.

Once you have admitted that you understand that your intellectual method is fallacious, which you have done, that's the end of the argument. You have lost. You have nothing but endless circularity and you admit that your method is not scientific.

Your arguments are refuted here:
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/charts-and-statistics-on-global-warming-climate-change-2015-12?r=US&IR=T
and here:
http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/arctic-temperatures-reach-record-breaking-highs

There. How do you like it?

Just read back your last post. Notice how ALL the hidden costs that you complain about are because of state or common ownership of the resources in question? You yourself are telling us that the problem is not a free market. Yet your foregone conclusion is only more and more totalitarian government.

Not once, ever, have you addressed the issues I have raised which completely and totally refute your stupid religious belief system in the God-State. Don't post more links, silly man. Go back, read what I have written, understand it, and answer the questions that disprove you. The reason you haven't is because you know they make a fool of you and you have no answer to them.

You have learnt nothing from the last hundred years of experiments with socialist control of the economy, and now you're stupidly arguing that government should have total power to control the economy *and* the ecology.

Your endless evasion, circularity and blind religious faith are too tedious. I have proved you wrong. You have no answer than just repeating your illogical *beliefs*.

Now shut up and go away.

You don't accept that argumentation could possibly prove you wrong, so SHUT UP!

If you want to continue the discussion ANSWER MY QUESTIONS, fool.

Jardine

Exactly where have I suggested that totalitarian governments are the way to go.
Arguably the GFC was created through the free market in the US stuffing up; the tax payer had to pay the costs of major banks about to collapse.

You say elsewhere "Major Agencies such as NASA, NOAA, CSIRO et al are agreed that your beliefs about anthropogenic climate change are wrong and unscientific. "
Please provide the reference.

Science from an apparent Libertarian view is conducted by an essay using political and religious points of view. Under no circumstances should any matters drawn to our attention by scientists be discussed.

You suggest that climate change is a religion; the corollary must then be that Physics and Chemistry are part of that religion.

WUWT graphs are displayed showing global warming, as shown by:

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/charts-and-statistics-on-global-warming-climate-change-2015-12?r=US&IR=T

The reference provided by the Climate Council discusses temperatures in the Arctic reaching record highs.

From Scientific American (1 December, 2015):

"... there is a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry—pollen, tree rings, ice cores, corals, glacial and polar ice-cap melt, sea-level rise, ecological shifts, carbon dioxide increases, the unprecedented rate of temperature increase—that all converge to a singular conclusion. AGW doubters point to the occasional anomaly in a particular data set, as if one incongruity gainsays all the other lines of evidence. But that is not how consilience science works. For AGW skeptics to overturn the consensus, they would need to find flaws with all the lines of supportive evidence and show a consistent convergence of evidence toward a different theory that explains the data."

ant

You want governments to control every carbon oxidation and reduction reaction in the world = totalitarian. You want to violate people's personal and property rights to make them poorer, sicker and shorter-lived than they would otherwise be, without their consent = totalitarian.

"Arguably the GFC was created through the free market in the US stuffing up"

The Federal Reserve is a statutory monopoly charged with permanently manipulating the supply and price of money and credit. This disproves both your economically illiterate beliefs about the GFC.

Stop dealing with questions that COMPLETELY DISPROVE you, by evading them. Go back and answer my question:
"Notice how ALL the hidden costs that you complain about are because of state or common ownership of the resources in question?"

Answer it.

Your climatology arguments are refuted here:
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/charts-and-statistics-on-global-warming-climate-change-2015-12?r=US&IR=T
and here:
http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/arctic-temperatures-reach-record-breaking-highs

Since that is your own method and standard of proof, you either
1. accept it as valid, in which case we have just established by agreement that your argument is baseless, or
2. you don't accept it as valid, in which case we have just established by agreement that your argument is baseless.

You prove yourself wrong by rejecting as proof me doing what you yourself are doing for proof.

You still haven't answered: what does it matter to you whether other people share your beliefs about the climate?

If you will not accept that argumentation could possibly prove you wrong, then why are you participating in the argument.

I am giving you the means by which my argument can be falsified. You're not: your argument is unfalsifiable and hence not rational, and therefore not scientific.

Do *not* reply with your demented technique of assuming you have already proved, posting links and simply insisting that everyone must acknowledge you are right.

You, not I, have the onus of proof.

Either answer the questions that you keep evading, or p!ss off.

All

The warmists' intellectual methodology is indistinguishable from that of fundamentalist Islamists, whose argument, like the warmists, is only:

“I am just unquestionably right, everyone must agree with my assumptions and conclusions as a precondition to entering into any discussion, and that is the beginning and end of the entire discussion. If you don’t believe me, go and read the documents I keep referring you to, which conclusively prove that I am right, and have no need to show any further proof or reason.”

When you ask them to prove what they're claiming by evidence or reason, or to answer to the ethics or pragmatics of what they're doing, or their theory of knowledge, back they come again:

“I am just unquestionably right, everyone must agree with my assumptions and conclusions as a precondition to entering into any discussion, and that is the beginning and end of the entire discussion. If you don’t believe me, go and read the documents I keep referring you to, which conclusively prove that I am right and have no need to show any further proof or reason to you.”

Over and over and over again in every post, without exception, and often larded with personal abuse as well to the effect that everyone else is too stupid to understand how clever and superior they are. Real dark ages stuff.

Ant, go back and read all your posts on this subject, and you will see that that's all you're doing, and all you've ever done. Every. Single. Post.

Now either p!ss or get off the pot. Put up or shut up. Answer the questions that I say disprove me, and that you have been too evasive to answer.

And let's just agree now, that if you assume you are right as a precondition of responding, and make your argument hang on referring us off to other people, that means we are all agreed that you are both wrong and dishonest, okay?

Jardine

When writing about the GFC, it was American Banks that had to be supported by tax payers; Australia came out of the GFC quite well. In a pure free market situation tax payers should not need to do that; that is not a totalitarian view, Jardine.

In a science situation the data does not lie. Jardine, you not being able to debunk science becomes clearer and clear with every comment you post. The science of anthropogenic climate change does not fit your view of the world, all you have is verbiage to push your arguments ;but, no science. Science and politics do not mix easily when a conservative or libertarian view is held

Iran has been virtually off limits for some time in relation to news. A very recent New York Times report indicates they have had drought conditions for several years, the quality of water is decreasing, many farms have become unsustainable, and ground water is reaching serious levels in some areas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/world/middleeast/scarred-riverbeds-and-dead-pistachio-trees-in-a-parched-iran.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1

The Amazon Basin is an area of great concern through the change in the water cycle, fire, and loss of biodiversity.

Quote:

"It's been estimated that the Amazon rainforest and surrounding areas are—or once were—home to upwards of 11,000 different tree species. It's also been estimated that those forests have shrunk by about 12 percent, and that human meddling could double or triple that number by 2050. Now, researchers report, the loss of forest cover could threaten the existence of more than half the tree species in the Amazon."

From:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amazon-threatened_56500a64e4b0258edb31b709

ExxonMobil admits to anthropogenic climate change; they had also been involved with funding denier groups.

http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/12/video-reviews-what-exxon-knew-said/

Naomi Kleine has done much research in relation to climate change; as shown by ExxonMobil scientists her views on climate change have been substantiated.

A few more recent references.

Instead of being green during short summers, areas of brown are being found in the Arctic.

http://climatenewsnetwork.net/rapid-warming-brings-arctic-changes/

Article from British MET office:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/2015/global-average-temperature-2015

Apart from permafrost thawing, a shift from snow to rain other matters discussed in relation to Arctic:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/common-thread-at-2015-agu-conference--the-big-melt

ExxonMobil express a different view on climate change than Republicans

Quote:

"It’s a Through-The-Looking-Glass world. The Washington Post reports Sunday that ExxonMobil has a far saner view of global warming than the national Republican party.
Fred Hiatt, the paper’s centrist editorial page editor, drops this bombshell:
With no government action, Exxon experts told us during a visit to The Post last week, average temperatures are likely to rise by a catastrophic (my word, not theirs) 5 degrees Celsius, with rises of 6, 7 or even more quite possible."

From:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/12/07/3728921/exxonmobil-warns-catastrophic-global-warming/

ant

Your endless incantation of religious liturgy is quite tedious.

All your appeals to authority cannot get around the inconvenient truth: the data do not support your theory. Carbon dioxide levels have gone up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up. And temperatures have not. End of case. You are wrong. The rest is religious zealotry on your part.

As for your back-to-front economic theory, your idea that a government statutory monopoly is "free market capitalism" is just stupid. So is your idea that governments confiscating trillions from the productive class, and handing it out to their pet favourites, is "free market capitalism". You are only demonstrating that you either don't know, or don't care, that you are talking complete bullsh!t.

So go away, grow a brain, learn some intellectual dishonesty, and when you are able to deal honestly with the actual data and evidence in logical fashion, you can start to learn about the subjects you are opining about, and not before.

Til then, the rest of us are justified in regarding your persistence in error as both illogical and dishonest

Learn some intellectual honesty, I meant. Evading questions that prove you wrong either way you answer them is just dishonest, ant. You need to understand it's not science, you are not supported by science, your illogic is not science, your appeal to authority is not science, your support of lies and propaganda is not science, your assumptions are incorrect and not science, your circularity is not science. . You are just a sad religious zealot following a sad religious fashion and mindlessly worshipping the State, that's all.

Jardine makes personal attacks but provides no evidence through providing any science.

ant

That's a bit rich, from someone who entire theory is that anyone who challenges your religious beliefs in global warming is a "denier". At no stage have you ever engaged with the issues or proved when challenged. The onus is on you, not me, fool.

The fact that you think a statutory monopoly is a "free market", means you are intellectually disqualified from any public policy discussion.

Your idea that "science" means what you admit is a logical fallacy proves that you are intellectually disqualified from any discussion of global warming.

In any event, your claims about global warming are disproved to your own standard here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/world/middleeast/scarred-riverbeds-and-dead-pistachio-trees-in-a-parched-iran.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1

here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amazon-threatened_56500a64e4b0258edb31b709

here:

http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/12/video-reviews-what-exxon-knew-said/

here:

http://climatenewsnetwork.net/rapid-warming-brings-arctic-changes/

here:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/2015/global-average-temperature-2015

here:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/common-thread-at-2015-agu-conference--the-big-melt

and here:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/12/07/3728921/exxonmobil-warns-catastrophic-global-warming/

Your own fellow-alarmist, Aidan, has described your intellectual method as "fraudulent dishonesty".

Jardine

You are beginning to post even more troll like posts than previously.

Hopefully other readers will go to the references you have provided; originally sent in by me.

Jardine

A couple more references for you to re-refer.

The first is about how temperatures have been excessively high in Russia.

Quote:

"“Climate change leads to growth of dangerous meteorological phenomena,” the ministry said in a comment to the report published Friday.

There have been 569 such phenomena in Russia in 2014, “the largest since monitoring began,” the ministry said, including last year’s ravaging floods and this year’s “water deficit” east of Lake Baikal, which led to a “catastrophic rise in fires.”"

From:

http://nation.com.pk/international/25-Dec-2015/russia-warming-more-than-twice-as-fast-as-rest-of-the-world

The second is about warming in the US, as with Russia, exceptionally unusual for their winter period.

Quote:

"AccuWeather is forecasting “record setting warmth up and down the entire Eastern Seaboard from Florida to Maine” on Thursday. It is not expected that New York and the rest of the East Coast will cool down before the end of the year. And the warmth and humidity are expected to cause storms, flooding and the potential for isolated tornadoes in the Midwest and South."

From:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/24/science/climate-change-record-warm-year.html?smid=fb-share&_r=2