As Doomsday Predictions Fizzle, Climate Crowd Joins on Lockdown Bandwagon
A short time ago, climate activists were claiming that the world had just a year left to exist if climate change was not properly addressed. As those dire predictions fall by the wayside, some eco-warriors are hopping on a new bandwagon.
According to The Guardian, a new report from Nature Climate Change suggests that the world would need the equivalent of a COVID-19 lockdown every two years to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
“Lockdowns around the world led to an unprecedented fall in emissions of about 7% in 2020, or about 2.6bn tonnes of CO2, but reductions of between 1bn and 2bn tonnes are needed every year of the next decade to have a good chance of holding temperature rises to within 1.5C or 2C of pre-industrial levels, as required by the Paris agreement,” The Guardian reported.
They added that many countries were already starting to cut emissions before the pandemic, but that was not enough to please the woke mob.
“Since lockdowns were eased in many countries last year, there have been strong signs that emissions will rise again to above 2019 levels, severely damaging the prospects of fulfilling the Paris goals,” they reported.
There seems to be a pretty strong implication in that sentence that if the world effectively stayed locked down, that would cause carbon emissions to be cut on a scale that would please these activists.
Of course, Corinne Le Quéré, the lead author of the study, is smart enough to know that the prospect of locking the world down every two years is not likely to gain much support. That’s why she says that an equivalent drop in emissions needs to be reached “by completely different methods.”
Could it be that the stated goals of the Paris Climate Agreement involve cuts in carbon emissions that are much too drastic? Neither Le Quéré nor The Guardian felt the need to address that possibility.
Even if Le Quéré is not actively arguing for lockdowns, it seems odd that she would author a study suggesting that the equivalent of a worldwide lockdown is needed every two years. At the very least, she is indirectly painting the lockdowns in a positive light.
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Eco Watch went even further in their article about the study. They basically suggested that the lockdowns were a win-win for slowing the virus spread and cutting emissions.
“Lockdown measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic had the added benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by around seven percent, or 2.6 billion metric tons, in 2020,” it reported.
The phrase “added benefit” implies that the lockdowns had multiple positive benefits. In the United States, states that locked down did not see significantly lower death rates than those that remained open. This suggests that lockdowns may not have done much to “stop the spread.”
No matter how the establishment media attempts to spin it, headlines such as Forbes’ declaring “World Needs Equivalent Of Pandemic Lockdown Every Two Years To Meet Paris Carbon Emission Goals” are inherently pro-lockdown.
That same article from Forbes later admits that “researchers wrote the lockdowns will not yield lasting improvement because the measures had little effect on the larger fossil fuel-based infrastructure that sustains the global economy.”
If that is the case, why are they out there writing headlines that subtly suggest the lockdowns were necessary to slow climate change? It is misleading at best, and outright lying at worst.
In an interview with The Guardian, Le Quéré inadvertently admitted the real motive of these climate activists.
“We have failed to understand in the past that we can’t have tackling climate change as a side issue. It can’t be about one law or policy, it has to be put at the heart of all policy,” she said.
“Every strategy and every plan from every government must be consistent with tackling climate change.”
That is truly an outrageous statement, and The Guardian publishes it without batting an eye. Le Quéré is saying that every decision that any government makes must be consistent with her own views in order to supposedly save the world from its own destruction.
This is the real reason that eco-warriors attempt to dishonestly paint climate change as an existential crisis. If Americans believe that climate change is a life-or-death situation, they are much more likely to support radical policies that promise to address it.
The left wants to push their radical ideas on climate in any way possible. This could include spending billions of dollars on a “Civilian Climate Corps” or subtly advocating for worldwide lockdowns. No matter the economic or psychological cost, they believe that their views always take precedence.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
