As the years go by Darren Allen has become more dogmatic, less funny, really quite combative and an outright miserable misanthrope to tell the truth.
My kinda guy.
Here, in a piece from almost a year ago that I missed at the time, he suggests that all attempts to mitigate a global system spinning out of control are futile.
I’d be delighted to read any comments contradicting his argument.
Hi @KarenEliot ,
I suggest most people need to stop absorbing their news from their current provider and lift their eyes up enjoy the natural world with others where they can and seek answers from within.
cheers
Hi @KarenEliot
I thought that was an excellent article and basically 100% correct. Sadly the vast majority of the hard evidence lines up on Darren’s side with very little counter evidence to speak of. Jem Bendell’s book, Breaking Together goes into all of this in great detail with a ton of references. His conclusion is exactly the same. Basically anyone who has really engaged with the physical evidence comes to similar conclusions.
It’s undeniable that the world is heating up. This is true even if you want to try and quibble about this particular thermometer here, it that particular news story there. Or even if you reject thermometer readings altogether. The world is heating up and there are many ways of seeing that without looking at a thermometer at all.
It’s undeniable that global CO2 emissions continue to rise.
It’s undeniable that there is over a century of well-understood, well-researched, much replicated science, that shows that C02 will trap heat on our planet. This might not be the only mechanism that is trapping heat, but it’s unarguably one of them. Any other additional source of heat will only compound the CO2 effects and make our situation worse.
I totally agree with Darren’s points about Rancourt, Monckton and Zhakarova. I’ve looked at all three and their efforts on climate change are riddled with basic errors. I’ve already posted a few of those to this board. I’m not a great believer in peer review, but that’s not the reason that these folks are not being published in this area. It’s because they are clearly wrong.
Others have been published - McIntyre for example. Although Darren’s point about the hockey stick saga was also correct, and shows that McIntyre is not a serious critic either, more focused on the Mann the the subject (I’ll get my coat)
The era of cheap oil is coming to an end. The era of cheap coal likewise. We have overshot the capacity of the earth to provide mineral resources at a rate that we now need them. There is ample evidence to support all this. Our civilization will not survive this. Our population will not survive this. The economic system we have will not survive this.
Chris Martensen, Simon Michaux, Jem Bendell, Paul Kingsnorth, Dougald Hind, Nate Hagens and many others are carefully looking through the data and sharing these results. The list of people who are coming to the same conclusions is very long.
The big question to my mind is what kind of collapse can we aspire towards? What can be built on the ruins? What kind of civilisation can we put together in the long shadow of our current collapse?
Those are open questions and I can’t think of more important ones at the moment.
If we don’t step up, take this issue seriously and answer these questions, the WEF, the global MIC, and elites like Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg and Altman will answer them for us.
Cheers
Cheap coal and oil are still out there. We’ve just been denied access to them. Russians were happy to sell cheap energy on long term contracts. As for coal, we have loads of it. Who took that game away and decimated the country in the process?
The sun makes up over 98% of the solar system. CO2 makes up less than 1% of our atmosphere. It’s utter baloney span by grifters out to shaft you, me and everyone else with their climate shenanigans.
You cannot evade the fact that every prediction has been wrong. Totally wrong. From Gore to Thunberg. You’ll note they got a lot of cheddar though. And having had a quick glance at the plan, it seems more about keeping the south down and the west at the top. Hmm…
Seriously, quit worrying about climate. Study the sun if you must. I’m going to be concentrating on experiences because other catastrophic ends look far more likely.
Hi LY
It’s a shame that such arguments still convince people. It’s about the balance not the amount. 1% fentanyl in your bloodstream would kill you many times over.
As far as I can see, all predictions of temperature, sea rise etc have been far below what we’re actually seeing in reality. Al Gore is the wrong person to focus on here. The predictions in the academic literature of our rising temps have been accurate to quite a substantial degree. Albeit on the low side. We’re currently tracking the worst case scenario of our predictions.
Right. Ignoring the biggest issue facing humanity (and the other species in this planet) seems about right.
Whether we believe it or not makes no difference to the reality we’re facing. 2024 is likely to be the hottest year on record. Birds are literally falling from the sky because of the heat in Australia right now. This will get worse and worse. Ignoring it won’t make it better
https://www.gbnews.com/news/world/australia-weather-birds-drop-trees-heatwave
(Apologies for the gbnews link)
My body is not the atmosphere and fentanyl isn’t CO2.
Spock told us about the global freeze, then Blue Peter told me about acid rain The ozone went and came and global warming didn’t exactly flood the place either. Gore 20 years ago and Thunberg 5 years ago said we’re doomed!!1. Nothing. Not a sausage
No need to apologise. It’s not the Mail (yet)
Why it’s getting hot.
@KarenEliot sorry, meant to reply to you - the computer obviously failed it’s Schroedinger test.
Thanks for posting. It didn’t cheer me up much, I can say!
It doesn’t come across as a view from very close up. I wonder if that’s why it’s so gloomy.
From an individual point of view, of course what you do probably doesn’t ‘matter’. The question should be regarded as a collective one; otherwise there would never be a point in voting, even when there were good candidates with lively chances. Have you ever seen an election swing on one vote? Just go down to the pub! etc…
This guy needs Highwire therapy, or Childrens Health Defence; or a week in the diary of Meryl Nass to look at for inspiration.
I don’t understand why someone like Allen, who seems to have reasoned out the scams of covid for himself, would then take on board as read a comparable amount of information on a new crisis and assess it on a purely numerical basis irrespective of influence.
If Rancourt, who was vociferously sceptical of the covid narrative from the beginning, was able to demonstrate significant areas of scam pretty much for himself, then you would think the same Rancourt would be deserving of a little respect when he dives into the choppy waters of the new thing.
It’s quite a weak argument to presume to evaluate the strength of opponents’ scientific merit on the basis of their actions in opposing the ‘consensus’; he should know that Rancourt is not a chancer.
He should know that in political controversies, many ‘retracted’ papers are as a result of political pressure on the journal editors.
Had climate change been covid, for example, one would need to take account of the fact that journals are dependent on Pharma money for their survival. Armed with this, it just takes a little searching to get the authors’ ‘retraction’ stories; which in covid were almost invariably the same - journal ‘withdrawal’ stories.
On CO2 - perhaps the area that most needs to be understoood - he says:
“Some climate change deniers point out that the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere, relative to other gases, is minuscule. That this amount is small relative to the vast quantities of inert gas in the atmosphere no more means that it has no effect on climate than doubling or halving trace chemicals in your body — which make up a minute percentage of your body mass — wouldn’t negatively, even catastrophically, affect your health. Ask someone who makes this objection to eat a minuscule piece of the Death Cap mushroom, and then ask why he’s not too keen on the idea.”
I think some science is needed here, not a bit of rhetoric. Proving something isn’t zero doesn’t tell us anything.
More widely, it seems we’re being reassured of our doom not with science, but with words about science.
There’s nothing about political forces; surely these are the key reason for any gloom as to what is likely and what is unhappy to happen, but also the key to resolution.
There’s nothing like grappling with a few obstacles to lift the spirits!
Cheers
The point is simply that small, indeed trace, amounts of something can have an outside effect.
CO2 is such a thing
There is a lot of debate about the effect of solar dynamics on the changing temps on earth. Climate scientists are already taking that into account, to at least some degree. The point remains that if the sun is indeed causing a rise in temp that will work in conjunction with rising CO2 related heating.
One doesnt invalidate the other.
Thunberg is correct. On our present trajectory we’re doomed. Ask the birds falling out of the sky, or people dropping dead from heatstroke.
Ignoring the facts in front of your face is not a viable strategy, usually.
Two short point ED
Unlike COVID, climate science has been conducted in a much more repeatable and public way. Data sets are available, multiple groups have reproduced the same studies, often with different methodologies…
The science, such as it was, around COVID could not be more different.
Secondly, Rancourt has said some truly ignorant things on climate change. Hilariously ignorant. For a layperson that would indicate a degree of scientific illiteracy. For an actual professor of physics, it suggests something else.
The same was true (sadly) for Zhakarova getting the basics (1st year degree level basics) of orbital dynamics wrong. For a layperson, not surprising, for an actual professor of astronomy … Not sure.
Hi Aly
Well I was really only commenting on the article.
Your second point tries to shoot the opposition down; so professors are numpties?
You usually make stronger points than I think Mr Allen does here, but it’s still mainly assurances formed of words.
My fault perhaps for not getting into the substance myself…
After seeing the science of covid, low level radiation, health effects of ionising radiation and one or two other areas, I think the strongest evidence of cause and effect going is that funding causes supportive papers to appear - ‘overwhemlingly’ even 
The absence of any sensible discourse regarding reducing energy consumption doesn’t fill me with trust. Most scientists aren’t calling for that, too busy looking for a slice of the action (putting it unkindly, I admit).
Even now scientists aren’t calling out excess deaths or demanding investigation. That’s a clear sign they are influenced by the politics of their employment.
If it continues at a rate of 10% extra though, the industrial world will collapse long before 2050, as it’s the professional classes most affected.
Cheers
I don’t believe CO2 is a danger that it’s made out to be. If CO2 is so dangerous for the earth, why does it naturally change methane in CO2 over the course of a few years? If CO2 was so inflexible, then it would have caused problems thousands of years ago, no?
0.00128% is our contribution. Maybe you should check out how much CO2 was spewed out by Hunga Tonga-Hunga. If my memory serves me correctly, it farted out approximately 300 years worth of 1970 pollution (I’d say that covers the industrial revolution in one eruption). So let’s look at Pinatubo that farted in 1991. Or Saint Helens.
But no, man’s pollution is the problem…
Well yes, it enables the plant kingdom to exist. The animals I eat are very grateful for that.
I really am not very knowledgeable about all this but DAs article struck me as simple common sense tbh. I well remember our dear friend Rhisiart making many of these points. Lots of room to quibble, sure, but we are too many.
On the surface that is a good point but we can to some extent do something about human emissions, whereas management of volcanoes not so much.
I posted Darren Allen’s article because I agree with his central point: it’s too late to stop the runaway tram whichever lever we pull. That is terribly bleak but the people who really run the world have realised this for some time. (Limits To Growth, etc)
A layer of useful idiots tries to manage things and keep us pacified. Of this stratum of wealthy powerful people David Rogers Webb says
I too find replies to particular parts of a thread seem to end up in odd random places!
Darren Allen is certainly a skilled rhetorician and may be judging evidence based as much upon feel as upon the evidence that is permitted to rise to the top.
I believe some of the momentum behind climate change scepticism comes from rather a similar set of vested interests as did all those assertions that cigarettes not only do not cause cancer but are actually beacons of liberty and good for your throat, as all the Docs said about Camels, or was it Luckies? Chesterfield?
It was a good article and right on point with regard to the current best data we have.
I cannot recommend Jem Bendell highly enough if you want to dig deeper into what’s happening and what we can do in the face of it. He’s really one of the best in this whole subject
Cheers
When you consider the time frame, and the fact that measures proposed do not deal with the problem, and also that other measures (drastic reformation of energy, power and wealth concentration, decision making) could, is there not a compelling case that the ‘runaway tram’ and the 'the people who really run the world ’ are one and the same entity?
" I believe some of the momentum behind climate change scepticism comes from rather a similar set of vested interests as did all those assertions that cigarettes not only do not cause cancer but are actually beacons of liberty and good for your throat, as all the Docs said about Camels, or was it Luckies? Chesterfield?"
Yes. That’s true of much of the covid opposition too. The vested interests are all along the spectrum, it’s hard to see what to make of that. It’s a bit like when someone realized that actually, it’s not wrong to say the sun moves round the earth, as they are both moving.
For my part, I simply see ‘the right’ as what remain when ‘the left’ vacate the topic. Both graviational pulls also dictated by vested interest. So you don’t get far trying to pick a side based on that.
In this day and age of the vested interest you have to look at the evidence, or failing that look at the interactions around the evidence. It strikes me that the dynamic of the exchanges is similar to that with covid, where those of a suspicious mind and not much else were more right than their trusted institutions and experts and all the sensible people that told them not to make medical judgements.
I’ve not formed my view of MC2 yet but I don’t like the absence of debate and intolerance of dissent.
Or maybe I just can’t face even the possibility of being scammed, while the other scam is still live!
Cheers
That puts it very well, and the out-front managers are certainly attracting some heat, apologies for unintended pun. It’s to be expected that some of them will pay a high price for their treachery. We inherit our kamma.
Certainly we should all do what we reasonably can, be that paying off debts, moving not to a car-dependent twee village but to a town where the shops are walkable…even if we have to queue for our rations when we get there. And continuing to debate these critical matters too.
Thanks to everyone for contributing, bless you all.
I didn’t get the MC2 reference unfortunately
Hi Evvy
I do understand your concerns regarding the debate, and I think the issues you raise around the politics, the proposed “solutions” and vested interests are all extremely important.
My frustration with Rancourt and co is evident, and perhaps unfair on my part. I have the same level of frustration with the scientists that were hired by the tobacco lobby to “disprove” the smoking/lung cancer connection, or the scientists who push the line (up till very recently) that mRNA vaccines for covid were sterilising vaccines and conferred immunity to covid.
These people do know better. They are pursuing a different agenda from the one they are stating. The same is true, incidentally, of scientists who push the green revolution agenda of maintaining our current society with solar panels and various other techno wizz-bang solutions. They also know better, but are serving a different purpose.
Despite all that, it remains a fact that the basic science behind CO2/climate change is not controversial and is well understood. The planet is warming, and this is very evident. The only question is how do we face what we know is coming in a way that challenges the current paradigm of domination by elites at the expense of the rest of us.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record Jem Bendell has looked at a lot of the angles of this and has, so far at least, come up with the best analysis of all this that I’ve seen.
{Sorry @KarenEliot MC2 is meant to be man made climate change - which is pretty useless coinage due to its only having temporary scope.}
Why is Rancourt as frustrating as Big Tobacco? I’m not sure why you’re mentioning them.
Equally, why is Allen 100% right. Wasn’t dragging their feet for as long as possible then switching to ‘It’s too late now’ an obvious Oil Company tactic?
Anyway I don’t see it likely that Rancourt is bought; there’s no rich anti-covid fraternity, and his drive there has been similar and he’s been in rebel mode for many years. And no-one has refuted his analysis relating excess deaths to vaccination roll-outs. The correlation was already obvious - I did a piddly one for a few countries - but this seemed to equate to rollout dates. Needs confirmed but the excess deaths don’t. Likely he’s right, so I don’t have any information that says treat him like an idiot on climate change.
“Despite all that, it remains a fact that the basic science behind CO2/climate change is not controversial and is well understood. The planet is warming, and this is very evident.”
Sorry it might be a fact to you, but I don’t know it’s a fact. My bad, possibly.
Going by academic consensus, it’s also ‘a fact’ that mRNA vaccines are safe and effective and necessary, and that EMF’s can’t harm anyone at under the current (non-) safety levels.
“The only question is how do we face what we know is coming in a way that challenges the current paradigm of domination by elites at the expense of the rest of us.”
Don’t we first have to face what has come already?
The same professional/intellectual/political group that brought us covid (one way or another) and whose solution has left us with 10% extra deaths is now saying Never mind all that and prepare for another abstract disaster in 2050 by ceding us the remainder of your rights.
Not so long ago well qualified people were predicting widespread deaths from the vaccination programme and the answer then was Where are the bodies?
Well now we can not only point to the bodies statistically, but the likely cause of these deaths is being enshrined in stone as we speak, in an attempt to make it standard and non-refusable.
If even that doesn’t register a concern then what does it mean for the credibility of mass produced scientific (or political) consensus?
If the problems are caused by an elite political class then the faces of talented writers like Daren Allen should be lighting up with delight at the obvious solution! Might not so hopeless after all…has Jem Bendall proposed any radical political shakedown of the power structures?
Cheers
