Home Blog 2020: General mobilisation against climate change

2020: General mobilisation against climate change

Warning: Environmentalism, or the preservation of the environment in an overpopulated world, largely deserves enlightened debate, intelligent policies and effective investments. However, we are using the word “climatism” (in the absence of a better word) in the more extreme ideological sense, where environmental preservation becomes the clothing of a war machine against rationality and liberty prone to engulf more and more hidden agendas.

In 2020, everyone understands that environmentalism provides a unifying theme to regain the power of action required in the face of the transformation challenges at stake. To cite only the two most emblematic cases of this awareness:

  • That of von der Leyen’s EU, launching its Green Deal,[1] intended to catalyse the emergence of financial capacity on a continental scale (even if the objective is salutary, we can already see that environmentalism is serving other agendas – that are just as relevant by the way: growth, inequality… and climate change).[2]
  • That of international finance embodied by Larry Fink (BlackRock) writing his Green Manifesto,[3] warning his peers of the dangers that climate catastrophes will pose to insurance and ultimately to the entire financial system, and proposing to direct the sector’s firepower towards investment in a green economy.

But these two cases are only indicative of the powerful phenomenon in which all parties are converging towards the objective of fighting climate change:

  • Davos 2020: focused on climate issues[4]
  • Almost all political parties: gone green; even far-right parties are moving that way, realising the political potential of this cause[5]
  • Public opinion: highly sensitised through disaster movies and incessant messages about the climate apocalypse[6]
  • Small and medium-sized enterprises: applying to be granted various eco-labels[7]
  • Large companies: advertising actions on their part that favour the environment (from greenwashing[8] to green marketing)[9]
  • Schools, [10] social networks, advertising…read more in the GEAB 142

____________________________

[1]      Riding on Pierre Larrouturou’s ClimatePactFinance proposal: “1000 billion euros to save the planet”.

[2]      Source: FinancialTimes, 11/12/2019

[3]      Source: A Fundamental reshaping of finance, BlackRock, 14/01/2020

[4]      Source: Time, 27/01/2020

[5]      Source: Nationalising the Climate: Is the European Far Right Turning Green? Green European Journal, 27/09/2019

[6]      The “energy” bias of the author of this article should be noted. Nevertheless, his point of view is relevant and well argued, and in fact agrees with ours on the consequences of an excessive dramatisation of the real underlying issues of climate change (“climate change”, the halting of which is a desperate goal as opposed to “environmental preservation”).  Source: Why Climate Alarmism Hurts Us All, by Michael Shellenberger, Forbes, 04/12/2019

[7]      We can only welcome the existence of these eco-labels. Having said that, we can see from this article that the bait used by the European Commission is the opportunity to help innovation and not concern for the planet. If we combine all these harmless signs of deviated agendas, we obtain a vast mobilisation watchword in which the best and then the worst will become engulfed.  Source: European Commission

[8]      Source: Brighton Journal, 12/02/2020

[9]      Some of them quite dishonestly (source: TheGuardian, 26/06/2019); others, more and more sincerely (source: Financial Review, 14/02/2020).

[10]     Is the trend to stop serving beef in canteens an environmental or a budgetary concern?  Source: VegNews, 14/11/2019

Comments

To leave a comment sign up now
Related articles
Excerpts
25 Nov 2020
free

State of the Union: This is the final crisis! (excerpt from the GEAB of June 2020)

#crisis #democracy #geopolitics #trump #unitedstates
update
13 Nov 2020
free

Coming up next, the GEAB bulletin of November. Synopsis

#China #democracy #elections #europe #finance #global crisis #united states
29 Sep 2020
free

Summer 2015: from the end of the Greek crisis to new geopolitics in the Eastern Mediterranean

#europe #finance #Greece #investment #oil #systemic crisis