“The Climate Book” is cleverly labeled “Created by Greta Thunberg.”
The Swedish climate celebrity doesn’t claim authorship or publishing credit as the book is a set of gibberish by mostly far-left political activists.
Had this book been published by right-aligned individuals, it could have been dismissed as a set of conspiracy theories. It covers all emerging topics, from climate refugees to equality.
Let’s give attention to Olufemi Taiwo’s chapter on climate reparations, which is completely separate from Jacqueline Patterson’s essay on environmental racism.
Taiwo begins: “The climate crisis is the culmination of centuries of racial injustice.”
The premise is clearly flawed from the start. If we’re coping with a climate crisis, it is a worldwide problem, led primarily by China.
China emits twice as much CO22 greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, the current world superpower. Mix the emissions emitted by most of Europe, and the figure still doesn’t exceed China’s share of pollution.
So if Taiwo is trying to say that the climate crisis is brought on by racial injustice, they definitely have an issue with the Chinese race. At first, this looks as if a fairly racist idea.
The Georgetown professor goes on to argue that racial injustices are guilty and built into “the very fabric of our energy system, our economic networks, and our political institutions,” leading me to conclude that this argument is nonsense. Because if every part is racist, nothing is racist.
Combining the so-called climate crisis with so-called racial injustice, Taiwo uses half-truths to color an image of massive organized oppression.
Where he is honest, he states that solving these problems would mean “transforming the world”. This is Marxism 101.
Somewhat than using the “privilege” terminology of the Critical Race Theory, Taiwo speaks of “the consequent division of benefits and drawbacks.” It describes “wealth and poverty, manufactured goods and pollution, medical knowledge and ignorance” as divided into “profit pools” by design, “centuries of human effort and decision-making. Deliberate attempts to create an unjust social structure.”
He talks about the oft-debunked theory of systemic racism.
Taiwo not only relies on the assumption that there is a climate crisis, for which he presents no evidence, but he doesn’t present any critical evaluation to support his claim that racial injustice is the root reason for this crisis.
The wacky suggestion that “today’s world arose from a worldwide racial empire” is highly historically inaccurate. By “today’s world” does he mean Western civilization or the whole world? Which empire does he call a “global race”? Holy Roman Empire, Chinese dynasties?
He describes the British Empire as “a network of colonies and slave labor” that led to the Industrial Revolution. This is a totally erroneous account since it is the only empire in human history that not only ended slavery inside its borders, but additionally spent countless amounts of capital and lives to finish slavery on a worldwide scale.
In fact, there is no mention of it – “balance” doesn’t appear to be a word in Taiwo’s vocabulary. There is no try to take a holistic approach to history, just picking out elements and painting them as completely negative.
A first-rate example is the Industrial Revolution, which brought social mobility to the working classes by introducing recent types of production, labor and distribution.
It has improved the way of life for hundreds of thousands of individuals around the world, accelerated economic growth and prosperity, and made real progress for the human race.
From Taiwo’s description, one might think that it was a regressive regiment of oppression and misery, with the “Global North” reaping all the advantages while the “Blacks and Indigenous people” of the “Global South” saw only the downsides of “poverty and pollution.” “
While Taiwo’s revisionist and selective approach to history leaves much to be desired, the solutions he proposes are even worse.
To the informed reader, talking about “energy democracy” sounds more like communism.
He quotes the Black Panthers and calls for “black radical agitation” over compensation, “giving cold, hard money” to people “without the aqueducts of history”, resulting in the obvious query: who pays whom?!
Greta Thunberg has turn into a cult icon in the climate conversation. But as I personally discovered once I spent 20 minutes talking to her in Davos, she has little or no to contribute.
One can only assume that “experienced” friends often provide talking points, if not a script, for her appearances.
Greta’s book is proof of this: she has little or no to say because she has no knowledge in the field. This collection of activist propaganda is the best it has to supply.
It’s disturbing because so many young people around the world look to Greta for guidance, but she appears to be just as lost as the rest.
As an alternative of spreading fear of an imaginary man-made crisis and advocating for leaving school, Greta would do well to remind young people of the importance of education.
If there is a climate crisis in the future, we’ll need intellectuals, scientists and experts to offer solutions, not extremist teenage activists.
Reverend Calvin Robinson is an Anglican deacon of the Free Church of England (REC, GAFCON) and TV and radio presenter on GB News.