Class Half Empty

The kids who paraded their victimhood through Australian streets yesterday were not being as original or independent as they thought. By Fred Pawle.

Widespread concern that industrialisation was altering the climate and could lead to the end of life on Earth supposedly began in the early 20th century.

Popular Mechanics magazine in the United States reported in March 1912 that the previous year would “long be remembered for the violence of its weather.” A heat wave of “unparalleled severity” withered corn and cost farmers a million dollars a day before spreading to Europe, where England “scorched” and France and Germany “sweltered”. Whalers returned from the Arctic with news that the polar ice was melting (this of course was before whalers themselves became climate-change culprits). Then the crazy weather hit the Philippines, which “were more thoroughly drowned than they had been since the time of Noah.”​

This conflation with religion should have given the game away. If only readers of Popular Mechanics a century ago had recognised the similarities between this fear-mongering and every other pagan religion stretching back to Ancient Egypt and dismissed it as just another irrational attempt to correlate the cosmos with the virtues of human behaviour.

But alas. The climate-change religion, filling the vacuum left by vanishing Christianity, has grown to the point where its superstitious rituals, illogical assumptions and hyperbolic imprecations are now mainstream.

In announcing his intention to run for the Democratic ticket in next year’s United States presidential election yesterday, US media darling Beto O’Rourke succinctly summed up the fears and delusions of the climate religion: “This is our final chance. The scientists are absolutely unanimous on this, that we have no more than 12 years to take incredibly bold action on this crisis… We should do nothing less than marshal every single resource in this country to meet that challenge.”​

If this were a real scientific crisis, O’Rourke would simply offer a scientifically measured, financially viable policy and explain how it might work. But he knows that’s not what his followers are seeking. They want something "incredibly bold" that will deliver divine sanction for their guilty consumerism and white privilege. And if they can’t have that, government-subsidised solar panels and a network of charging stations for the Tesla will have to suffice.

​At the same speech, O’Rourke turned on the schmaltz by saying his eldest son, who is called Ulysses, would in 2050 look back at this moment “to judge what we did or failed to do.” But O'Rourke also believes that if we “fail to do” what is necessary the world will end. How will Ulysses even be alive in 2050?

If Ulysses is anything like his Australian peers, he has, unlike his dad, already concluded that living till 2050 is out of the question.

“What’s the point of going to school if the effects of climate change are casing (sic) our world to end,” one attendee at the School Strike for Climate asked on Instagram yesterday, oblivious to the obvious answer that school is for learning how to spell and punctuate, among other things.  

This is the generation that are driven to school, enjoy air-conditioned classrooms and spend much of their time out of class staring at their coal-fire-powered mobile phones.

Despite having not yet had the chance to contribute meaningfully to society, the School Strike for Climate collective is precociously placing demands on the rest of us: Stop Adani, stop using coal and gas, and build a 100% renewable energy system by 2030. It's only a short list but I'm sure if they forgot anything they'll let Santa know later in the year.

This delusion of oppression is inversely related to their affluence. On this front, they are not alone. Few characters embody this paradox better than Titania McGrath, the satirical "slam poet" and woke author who has accrued 220,000 followers on Twitter a mere year after starting her account.

This week, British stand-up comedian Andrew Doyle revealed himself as the account's creative genius. In an interview with Toby Young on a Quillette podcast, he said the character was based on the plethora of affluent people who moan about their oppression on social media these days.

"With victimhood comes clout," he said. "I find it really sickening, but I also think it’s funny. We just have to laugh at these people."

Or perhaps we shouldn't. It might increase their victim status.