The Never Ending Climate Hustle

The climatistas and their toadies in the media can’t stop scratching their heads and asking/demanding why conservatives/Republicans refuse to credit “the science” about climate change. Maybe because of articles like the one in the New York Times today, which makes clear that the left sees climate change as an excuse for a massive political power grab:

The Climate Crisis: It’s Capitalism, Stupid

By Benjamin Y. Fong

. . . The real culprit of the climate crisis is not any particular form of consumption, production or regulation but rather the very way in which we globally produce, which is for profit rather than for sustainability. So long as this order is in place, the crisis will continue and, given its progressive nature, worsen. This is a hard fact to confront. But averting our eyes from a seemingly intractable problem does not make it any less a problem. It should be stated plainly: It’s capitalism that is at fault. . .

As an increasing number of environmental groups are emphasizing, it’s systemic change or bust. From a political standpoint, something interesting has occurred here: Climate change has made anticapitalist struggle, for the first time in history, a non-class-based issue.

It will not surprise you to learn that the author, Benjamin Fong, is—wait for it—an academic. He is “a faculty fellow at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University, the author of “Death and Mastery: Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and the Subject of Late Capitalism,” and an editor at Damage Magazine.”

I assume Damage magazine is printed on recycled paper. It certainly is an appropriately named journal from the sound of things, given the damage leftism inflicts on the world. (I can’t seem to find it online—just some old Bay Area punk music magazine.)

What’s remarkable is how unoriginal this line of argument is. I wonder if Naomi Klein is going to sue Fong for plagiarism. We’ve covered how Klein says climate change requires smashing capitalism before here, herehere, and here. Klein is a special kind of hypocrite, as her view reduces to: “I hate capitalism, except for my $10,000 per appearance college lecture tour.”*

The point is simple: As long as leading, celebrated climatistas talk about it as a reason to smash capitalism without any rebuke from the media, from Democratic politicians, or the climate science community, there is every reason for conservatives to reject the whole racket as a hustle for political power.

* I can’t find reliable information about Klein’s lecture fee, which might well be higher than $10,000. I welcome accurate information from her. She’s represented by the Lavin Agency, and agencies like this tend to market their roster for as high a fee as they can. Klein is evidently sensitive about the subject, offering this wimpering apologia for how “Oh poor me—I just have to charge high fees to speak because of the huge demand for my talks! And his helps pay for all of the good I do!” Nevertheless, she doesn’t say what her average speaking fee is.

Actually, if I didn’t know any better, I’d suspect she’s secretly on the payroll of the Koch brothers, for she and people like Fong are the best thing climate skeptics have going for them.

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