A religious climate

It has escaped no one that for some months now the weather forecast has become a tool of terror, an apocalyptic incantation, chanted daily.
Through these little bulletins, and their extensions in the top headlines of television and radio news, a whole semantics of fear has infiltrated the authorised media in order to instil, day after day, the poison of guilt into the consciousness of European citizens, about what was initially called global warming, then climate disruption (in case the climate started to cool down...) and now climate collapse, in an escalation of dread!

The weather bulletin has therefore become ideological, servinga single, absolutist way of thinking, for anyone who opposed it would be pilloried^[1], so incontestable is the climate truth!

Just as with the covid crisis, what is being put in place,globally (and it is this phenomenon that is once again striking, so clearly can one sense the instructions coming from “above” and relayed by the same three international press agencies), is a religious rhetoric which little by little justifies the general control of society in the name of a higher threat, a planetary one, and which appeals to everyone’s moral sense and responsibility.

I use the term religion because this is a matter of faith, and so once again one must believe in “science”, respect the IPCC clergy, otherwise you are just a poor ignoramus…and then judge every act of our existence by the yardstick of these incontestable scientific truths.

Thus it will be determined what is good and what is bad, a veritable catechism with a new system of values in which one will be ashamed to take a hot shower and it will be transgressive to get into a car...

Everyone will thus monitor themselves and of course monitor others, for otherwise our efforts are pointless. We are in a collective undertaking, we are the people of the Climate God, God of Nature, where the salvation of the group takes absolute precedence over that of the individual.

A veritable crusade is being set up in which heretics must be converted and the end justifies the means. And too bad for freedoms… freedom of speech, of action, of movement, of thought...
But this is not only a question of rights and morals; this new faith must permeate every aspect of our existence. It therefore calls for contrition, guilt and an evangelising mission: the planet must be decarbonised at all costs, and this good word must spread everywhere!

Here, however, concerning this famous carbon dioxide, we are witnessing an extraordinary reversal of meaning in which CO2, which is the source of life, becomes a source of death. (it is an almost Orwellian inversion of meaning — 1984)

The IPCC clergy, which is at the centre of this wave of planetary terrorism, has pilloried this gas in particular, like a scapegoat (read or reread “Le bouc émissaire” by René Girard). Whereas it is only one of many greenhouse gases and represents only a very tiny percentage of this physical phenomenon.
The great advantage of this enemy is that it is invisible and omnipresent; it is in the air, in the water, in the trees, it is a pernicious Devil that can be quantified as one wishes, on uncontrollable criteria, where a simple rule of three (according to Jancovici, the pope of decarbonisation) makes it possible to define the number of plane journeys each citizen will still be able to make in their lifetime).

This clergy spares no effort to ensure that climate catastrophism gradually enters our daily lives.

The proof of this, for me, is the number of remarks I heard during the few days of fine weather we had at the beginning of September.

What used to be simply called an Indian summer is today an exceptional weather phenomenon, a sign of doom! 

For obviously the words constantly conveyed by the media change the very perception of reality: what was previously experienced as a moment of happiness — sunshine... a little warmth in our temperate country, generally cold and rainy... blue sky.. the mildness of the air... drinks on a terrace... all this becomes bad, and if we enjoy it, it is with a slightly guilty conscience, because what is happening is very serious, ladies and gentlemen!

Personally, I am a committed environmentalist; I am rather in favour of sobriety and a certain form of degrowth.

I have always found absurd the deadly logic of a capitalism that constantly pushes towards competition, overproduction and overconsumption and that denies the very essence of life and human existence by reducing it to the accumulation of wealth.

However, what is fascinating about this new guilt-inducing and apocalyptic discourse is thatit in no way calls this model into question! On the contrary, it even serves it, since it makes it possible to make profits by buying the right to pollute or to warm... and indirectly, it even pushes people to earn as much money as possible in order to be able to enjoy in the future the advantages that the majority will no longer have.

In fact, these discourses, these words, serve only to lie, to lie to oneself, to lie to society, so as to consider only the symptom without ever tackling the cause.

We are witnessing the appropriation of an environmentalist discourse, which was no doubt sincere at the outset, and which I shared myself, in the service of global communication.

We are like a universal deadly advertising campaign. (Christianity worked very well on the basis of the same recipes: fear of sin and of Hell…)

Everything gives the impression that this is a campaign first tested in the West but which will then, without any doubt, infiltrate every country in the world, because we are the model to imitate.

And it is here, once again, that we must question the meaning of words and their confiscation, for when words are no more than rhetoric, when it is only a matter of convincing in order to earn money

or to gain power... when words (save, sacrifice, recycle, sobriety, green economy…) are cut off from their real referent and intended solely to create collective adherence... these words are no longer true; they are shamefully perverted.

They serve an ideology; they become propaganda.

The problem today is that, thanks to the globalisation of trade and the Internet, the target audience is globaland so this propaganda is total and easily accessible to whoever has the financial power to control the new truth agencies.

Today, capitalism is appropriating communism, the sense of common value and its goal of a single truth to which everything must be sacrificed, to feed the Moloch Baal of the Market.
So I have the unpleasant feeling of becoming a citizen of East Germany under Soviet control, with messages constantly sent to me through television news, radio news, newspapers… and therefore even the weather bulletins, where what is constantly highlighted are natural disasters, forest fires, floods, extreme temperatures... just as Pravda used to endlessly repeat the results of the five-year plans and the threats of the Western world.
The same techniques of manipulation have been put in place: of desires (we are acting for our children, future generations, and of fears (drowned under the seas or burned by the flames, take your pick)

The apocalyptic climate rhetoric on which all the media and all the decision-makers in the world are now riding nevertheless has several great advantages: first, it is a threat that can last a very long time... then it concerns almost every aspect of the lives of citizens and consumers... and finally,  it gives meaning to lots of people for whom reality no longer had any.

All of a sudden, as with Covid, they find themselves entrusted with a mission!

At once, the sacred returns to reality, and taking a cold shower makes sense, going without holidays makes sense, never leaving home makes sense... being neurotic, ill at ease, unhappy makes sense.

So pay close attention to words, to discourse and to the religious element hidden in them, and when the same information is repeated to you a little too often, be wary, ask yourself questions and above all share your questions!

There is no greater threat than self-censorship; it is diffuse and easy to hide. It has given rise to many compromises and collaborations with the most sectarian ideologies, which, most of the time, were paved with the best intentions.

Jon Col

The opinions expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of BAM!

Standfirst by BAM!

[1] Philippe Verdier, le pestiféré de la météo