The Zimbabwe/Stone Age Solution to Climate Change

by Andy Caldwell

I am very grateful that every few years an honest environmentalist who has done the math so-to-speak, spills the beans on what life will really be like if we follow the demands of climate change extremists.

For instance, in 2020, I previously wrote that Rutgers’ Professor David McDermott Hughes wrote a piece for the Boston Review that speaks volumes about where we are heading via the Green New Deal’s pedal-to-the-metal efforts to decarbonize our society via the premature ban on fossil fuels. Hughes was truthful about what it will take to decarbonize our society.  Namely, regular occurring blackouts will become the new normal as electricity must be rationed, and delivery will become intermittent, for a multitude of reasons as we make the transition to an all-renewable energy portfolio.

My favorite part of his column? References to the energy-starved “dream states” of Zimbabwe and Puerto Rico as examples to follow. He uses these two reference points to prove that Americans can learn to live without power for hours, or, even days at a time. Moreover, he scolds us for wanting electricity on demand. That is, we must be willing to sacrifice, to save lives arising from the threats of climate change, by agreeing to have power turned off on routinely.

The Degrowth Movement Grows

Next up?  As Steven Greenhut reports in the Orange County Register, we now have a new movement urging us to do without the lifestyle associated with reliable energy supplies; it’s called the Degrowth Movement. Its best-known modern theorist is another professor, Serge LaTouche, from France. He envisions an alternate world “somewhat akin to those Stone Age affluent societies that never had an economy at all.” Greenhut points out that it’s utterly amazing that the professor could use the term affluent and Stone Age in the same sentence. But don’t miss the main point here. The degrowth movement is arguing, as Greenhut reports, to do away with economics altogether because economic betterment is “unsustainable.”

Global Governance cited as the Answer

That brings us to professor number three. Back in 2014, I reported on UCSB Sustainability Champion Dr. John Foran, who is part of a political campaign to end dependence on all “dirty fuel sources.” Foran is a sociology professor and co-founder of the International Institute of Climate Action and Theory (IICAT).

The means by which to save the planet from climate change?

Terminate capitalism and consumption as we know it by creating a global governance to end the “climate war” against humanity and the planet.

The theory at work?

Capitalism serves to satisfy consumer demands for more and more stuff and the production and use of that “stuff” generates greenhouse gases. 

The solution?

Quit living in modernity. Turn the clock back on the Industrial Revolution. Live life with intermittent power and fewer consumer products while we collectively envy – and try to replicate – the good old Stone Age.

Are these people nuts?

In with Sustainable Energy; Out with the Industrial Revolution

Yes, but at least they are honest enough to admit we must give up our freedom, our economy, and our standard of living if we are going to save the planet from the nebulous threat of climate change.

Their biggest problem?

A significant portion of humanity is already living without reliable power and such evil consumer products as air conditioning and potable water. They don’t eat three meals a day that can be served hot or cold; they have neither refrigeration nor natural gas ovens, albeit some manage to have hot meals by cooking with animal dung. That means we, us, the USA, will be doing most of the sacrificing here.

The most honest admissions of all?

With respect to the Trojan horse of climate change, consider the words of Ottmar Edenhofer, a recognized leader in the efforts to reach a global climate accord. In 2010, he stated, “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth.”  Or, as U.N. climate chief Christina Figueres says, the true aim of the U.N.’s 2014 Paris climate conference is “to change the [capitalist] economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.” 

There you have it: straight from the (Trojan) horse’s mouth.

Andy Caldwell, Executive Director, COLAB