Linguistic Technology： How the Left Captured Climate Change ｜ 7⧸26⧸23
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
152.30527
Summary
A stifling heat wave has impacted large portions of the U.S. this summer, which can only mean one thing: endless stories from the media about the apocalyptic threat of climate change. But the problem with climate change is not the idea that we should honor the land on which we live and preserve it. It s the notion that the planet is too complex to understand and is outside of human control.
Transcript
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A stifling heat wave has impacted large portions of the United States this summer,
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Endless stories from regime media about the apocalyptic threat of climate change.
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Leftists' nearly hegemonic control of the consensus manufacturing apparatus in America
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grants them the ability to construct the default narrative framework
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in which any discussion about current events takes place.
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Every news cycle is a new opportunity to capture power.
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The problem with climate change is not the idea that we should honor the land on which
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The Chamber of Commerce GOP approach of who cares about tomorrow, burn it all down if it
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As hunters, farmers, fishermen, and hikers, many conservatives have a natural affinity for
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nature, and this should be reflected in the approach of the Republican Party.
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But GOP voters are right to doubt the motives of the modern environmentalist movement.
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The phrase climate change itself is an obvious piece of newspeak.
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When I was growing up, environmentalists would talk about greenhouse gas emissions and the
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Whether one believes that the current levels of industrial pollution were having a significant
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impact on the climate or not, at least there was a rational discussion to be had.
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Global warming predicted a specific chain of events that could be observed, and the assertion
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could be proven true or false through reason and evidence.
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But as dramatic predictions of peak oil, global famine, and submerged cities failed to materialize,
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environmentalists realized they needed to rebrand.
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Every time there was a cold snap or a blizzard, the public's faith in global warming was called
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into question, so a more durable term was chosen.
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Climate change is impossible to argue with because the climate is always changing.
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Even if man had never existed, the planet's climate would shift dramatically over time.
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Global warming implied a consistent pattern with identifiable results, so it could be proven false.
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The right rarely thinks very much about the language it uses, stepping into whatever frame
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Progressives carefully select the terminology they advance, intentionally forcing their opponents
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Climate change is an amazing piece of rhetorical technology, allowing the left to take something
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that is undeniably true in the strictest sense and charge it with infinite political energy.
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By taking ownership of the phrase and proactively defining its public use, the left managed to
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construct a political monopoly around a piece of reality.
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To be clear, leftists don't care about protecting the natural order.
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They'll surgically mutilate children if it's fashionable.
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What progressives care about is rationalizing the consolidation and centralization of power
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The progressive revolution relies on the notion that man can become God, defining and controlling
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Progressives deny human nature and seek the power to bring about utopia.
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The mass graves left by communist regimes give them no pause.
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The notion that the planet's climate is too complex to understand and is outside of
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Just like the notion that men are born men and stay men even if you surgically mutilate
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Every new frontier in social engineering is a new opportunity to raise funds, build infrastructure,
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Climate change is what the video blogger Dave Greeney refers to as a magical word, a term
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that has been hollowed out of any real meaning and filled with political energy.
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Other magical words include racism, sexism, democracy, and social justice.
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These words have been lifted from any actual context and are used as a shibboleth to embody
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But behind the term's use lies the entire leftist project, the entire leviathan of social engineering
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Leftist elites don't care about the environment.
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They care about controlling the population through the infinite number of regulations that
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Progressives care about funneling money and power to their coalition through those mechanisms
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The same pattern can be seen with the crusade against racism.
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Not only do leftists not reject racial bias, they actively fight to institutionalize it against
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Asian and white Americans through programs like affirmative action.
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What progressives really care about is controlling the population through the infinite number of
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regulations that eliminating racism justifies, rewarding friends and punishing enemies all the
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This is why the left would choose rolling blackouts in the third worldization of America's power
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grid over the building of more environmentally friendly nuclear power plants.
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Solutions that don't funnel money and power to the leftist coalition are forbidden.
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Climate change is also a very useful narrative for a political coalition that can offer Americans
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The left is choosing party loyalty over competency, removing those who are capable and replacing them
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The United States relies on a vast network of complex systems and it can't hope to maintain those systems
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Modern leftists have coasted on material prosperity provided by previous generations, but the surplus
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is running low and they're too incompetent to operate the machine.
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Climate change provides a rationale for demanding that the plebs eat the bugs, live in the pod, and turn out the lights.
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Not because the ruling class is too incompetent to maintain a power grid, but because the planet is at stake.
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You don't want to be responsible for the destruction of the planet.
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Unfortunately, because so many on the right exist only as a reaction to the left,
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the knee-jerk response is to simply reject all responsibility for caring about the land we call home.
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Luckily, there are a growing number on the right who understand that conservation should be a core value of conservatism
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and that abandoning the issue to the left is a mistake.
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But conservatives are right to reject the left's call to buy into their program.
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It's corrupt, top to bottom, deeply political in nature,
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and in many ways unlikely to have a significant impact on the climate itself.
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Political solutions become increasingly difficult because on every issue,
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even the ones that should easily cross all partisan divides,
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the language and institutional apparatus through which solutions should be administered
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Our political issues will likely need to be resolved before any real action can be taken on the environment.
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The problem is one of trade-offs, something that both sides are loath to admit,
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and compromise of that magnitude requires a shared set of values and priorities
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that simply does not exist in the country today.
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For now, it's important to recognize the rhetorical trap set by the linguistic technology present in a phrase like climate change,
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and the danger of allowing the left to set the framework for discussion around critical issues.
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