British officials have a message for Britons baking in the summer sun: Get rid of your air conditioner.
Officials have ordered citizens to remove air conditioning units from their homes due to carbon dioxide emission concerns, telling Britons to consider air conditioning a “last resort,” according to GB News. Temperatures in southwest England reportedly reached 97.5 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, marking a record high for the nation.
“Council enforcement teams” have reportedly turned up at homes, insisting residents remove their cooling units. In London, developers must adhere to a six-step “cooling hierarchy.“
“minimise internal heat generation through energy efficient design”
“reduce the amount of heat entering a building in summer through orientation, shading, albedo, fenestration, insulation and green roofs and walls”
“manage the heat within the building through exposed internal thermal mass and high ceilings”
“passive ventilation”
“mechanical ventilation”
The sixth step, to be undertaken only when all others have been exhausted, is the implementation of an active cooling system. If developers are permitted air conditioning, they must ensure the cooling systems are the “lowest carbon options.”
Demand for air conditioning is rapidly rising in the United Kingdom. Regardless, about 5% of British households have air conditioning, as compared to nearly 90% of U.S. households.
Let’s consider the issue from a policy perspective. You know what would really reduce carbon dioxide emissions?
If everyone in the United Kingdom died of heatstroke. Such an approach might be a bit unappealing to the general public, except for the most radical of anti-human environmentalists. British officials appear content to merely raze their citizens’ standard of living, for now. And to let the elderly swelter and sometimes perish in their air conditioning-free flats.
Let’s turn to a more peaceful means of extinction: convincing young Westerners that having children amid a Climate Change Crisis is gravely immoral. This might do something to depress the birth rate, particularly among conscientious young men and women — precisely the sort of people who have no business reproducing.
Permit me to spitball a few headlines to advance our cause.
“Science proves kids are bad for Earth. Morality suggests we stop having them“
“Having kids is terrible for the environment, so I’m not having any”
As you may have gleaned from the hyperlinks, these are real headlines. You may notice that anti-natalists generally caution westerners like themselves not to reproduce, despite the fact that most western nations have a total fertility rate (TFR) below replacement level. One can hardly imagine NBC publishing an op-ed pleading with Nigerians or Somalians to stop having children, for the sake of the Earth (Niger has a TFR somewhere between 5.8 and 6.73, Somalia has a TFR somewhere between 5.4 and 5.8).
For most childless adults, “climate change” is probably a post-hoc justification for forgoing reproduction, but it’s a fascinating excuse nonetheless. Such anti-natalist sentiment inverts the biblical mandate to “be fruitful and multiply,” while retaining the moral force of scripture. The Climate mandate is: “Be fruitless and wither.”
The Climate movement is one of many cults which the Western mind has found room to consider following attempts at de-Christianization. That being said, the theology of the Climate Cult is probably cladistically Christian. Climate Cultism cannot be “post-Christian,” in the way that birds cannot be “post-reptile” (to borrow Nick Land‘s explanation). Christianity will always remain Climatism’s cultural ancestor.
The Climate Cult provides its followers purpose, truth, and an enemy. Climate cultists are forever performing penance for throwing their paper straw away in the wrong bin, for driving a gas-powered car, for being born in the first place. (Note that not all who are concerned about carbon emissions or the effect of human industry on plants and animals belong to the Climate Cult.)
Emma Beddington, writing for The Guardian, provides a perfect example of Climatism: “How do I feel about air conditioning? On the one hand, I’m extremely hot. On the other, it’s destroying the planet[.]”
In general, in most places, women are more religious than men. One theory suggests that this difference can be explained by varying risk aversion. Women are more risk averse than men, and irreligiousness means risking hell. Or other nasty eternities.
Essentially, women are taking Pascal’s wager.
It’s no surprise, then, that the Climate Cult attracts more women than it does men. A Pew Research poll conducted in 2015 found that, in wealthier nations, women were more likely than men to be concerned that climate change will “harm them personally.” Women were also more likely than men to say that “global climate change is a serious problem,” according to Pew. More recent reports corroborate Pew’s findings.
Beddington writes: “AC is quantifiably bad, but I think it’s also philosophically problematic. Cooling offers comfort, making the unbearable bearable, at least for now … When you can buy a personal bubble of coolness and not truly feel the heat, the screaming urgency to tackle the collective issue of a world on fire can recede slightly.”
Beddington clearly takes some pleasure in suffering for the good of The Earth. She would like others to suffer, so that they might offer up their suffering and be redeemed. Beddington’s adherence to Climatism imbues mundane decisions with profundity. Rejecting air conditioning is no longer a matter of preference, but a matter of almost spiritual importance.
Think of Milan Kundera’s observations in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Kundera takes up Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of “eternal recurrence”: If you were told you were going to live your exact life over and over again into eternity, would you cry out with joy or sorrow?
Kundera notes, “If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make.”
But, Kundera asks, is freedom from burden — lightness — really so splendid?
Kundera writes: “[T]he absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”
Climatism, like any religion or pseudo-religion, restores heaviness to being.
The Climate Cult deifies “The Earth,” which is at once extremely powerful and capable of vengeance (wildfires, floods, and winds conceptualized as punishments for our carbon sins) and at the same time weak and in danger of human-wrought annihilation.
The Climate Cult possesses its own eschatology — the world will end, and soon, and it will be our fault, and then Mother Nature may slowly retake what is hers.
Greta Thunberg’s early career — “How dare you” — exemplifies the Climate Cultist. Recall how adults prostrated themselves before her wisdom. Out of the mouth of babes! Thunberg was a prophet, a version of the Nepalese Living Goddess fit for worship by the rational, irreligious man.
Now in her old age, Thunberg has pivoted to advocating for Palestine’s independence and, more recently, Balochistan’s independence (Pakistan’s largest province by landmass).
If Thunberg’s conversion to independence politics is any indication, Climatism has had its heyday. The Climate Cult may have some difficulty attracting new members — data center discourse and Middle Eastern politics are so much sexier these days — and may see a fair amount of apostasy. But the policies promulgated by Climatists will remain in places like Britain, making summers all the more hellish.
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