The Emperor has no Clothes

Someone has to tell the truth and in this case this task falls on me. There are two climate crises. The first climate crisis is well-known and involves massive climate change and subsequently future mass extinction of species. The second climate crisis involves how politicians respond to climate change and this is the most urgent of the two. The way governments respond to climate change is fundamentally dysfunctional. Climate politics is an utter failure and the very notion that governments are able to lower emissions of greenhouse gasses through central political planning is completely wrongheaded. Planned economics or ”democratic centralism” as the Soviets called it just does not work IRL despite sounding well in theory. International conferences where nations commit to reductions in national emissions at future dates just does not work and is rather in effect an excuse for not taking effective action.

What would constitute effective action? If politicians cannot reduce emissions then what can? The way forward is through gargantuan investment in research to further develop green technologies. Since the current American administration believes that there is no human-made climate change to begin with, this task falls on the backs of EU leaders. Why is mass investment of thousands of billions of euros in R&D to invent and further develop green technologies effective and the way forward? The simple answer is that societal change has always been primarily driven forward by changes in technology. If the European Union is serious about Europe once more becoming a worldwide leader in the global economy, the European Union needs to become the leader in the technologies of the future.

Europe needs to lead the world, 1) first by gargantuan investment in greentech R&D, 2) second by stopping all government subsidies to old dirty technologies and their industries and 3) third by outlawing old dirty technologies once the new green ones are developed and competitive.

If we invest enough and we have no choice but to invest fantastical amounts of EU money in greentech R&D, then truly we will be able to stop climate change and the subsequent mass extinction of species in this century.