CNN’s insane town hall posse

It used to be that those who peddled apocalypse sporting their placards in the service of some cult on a flyblown city corner were an object of amusement. One could compile a book of cartoons with variations on the theme. Now the theme has become Democratic Party orthodoxy. The Democratic presidential candidates must all bow before it, as they did earlier this week in the course of CNN’s “climate change town hall.”

They only sound nuts. The mania is the latest excuse to demand our money and our freedom. Not funny. Not funny at all. David Harsanyi capably captures the mania in his Federalist column “CNN’s Presidential Climate Change Town Hall Was Insane.”

William Jacobson collects three tweeted videos from the CNN town hall in “CNN’s 7-Hour ‘Climate Change’ Town Hall was a man-made disaster for Democrat presidential candidates.” Jacobson includes the one below in his collection. (John has a good compilation here.)

Time lends a certain perspective. There is a fashion to visions of the apocalypse. Paul Ehrlich is still with us. Remember him? The guy who lost the bet to the late Julian Simon? Listening to Bernie Sanders in the town hall, one had the distinct impression that Ehrlich’s time has come around again.

I’m so old that I recall when the deep thinkers were peddling our imminent extinction by global cooling and proposing to paint the poles black. It helps me keep my cool in the face of the current mania.

The prophet Isaiah held that a little child shall lead them. I don’t think he was talking about Greta Thunberg to this particular crowd of believers, but Niall Ferguson prompts me to think of the end times in “Beware Greta Thunberg’s Science Fiction — The End Of The World Is Not Nigh.” Ferguson observes: “Now children warning of an impending climate catastrophe are the ones that have to be propitiated. Now it is they who demand sacrifices.” And he’s not even talking about the Democratic Party presidential candidates.

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