Climate realist Martin Durkin has a new blog

HAPPY PEASANTS (and global warming) | martindurkin.com

There are few things Greens enjoy more than switching on their high-definition TVs and watching shows about primitive peoples in their natural habitat. Green TV presenters delve into tropical forests in search of scantily clad tribes with bones through their noses. The rugged presenter grimaces slightly as he eats the baked grubs, and then speaks in awe of the deep primeval wisdom of these funny tribes people with their strange habits … a wisdom we shallow Westerners have forgotten. Then it’s back to the hotel with the crew for cocktails. And when the Greens aren’t misty-eyed about the noble hunter-gatherer tribes, they’re gushing about happy peasants, knitting their own underpants and playing instruments made from sheep bladders.

Where, in this pre-capitalist Disneyland, is the terrible infant mortality, the lack of electricity, the long cold dark nights, the dirty water and diarrhoea, the degraded social position of the women, the ignorance and discomfort, the crushing boredom and narrowness of the impoverished lives? Conveniently overlooked. Instead pre-industrial life is portrayed as ‘authentic’ and at-one-with-nature (and of course, good for the climate).

What would be disastrous for these people (we are told) is for them to aspire to a lifestyle like ours, which is any case, corrupt.

The Secret of Global Warming - Posh Anti-Capitalism | martindurkin.com

The Greens tell us that food should come from peasants rather than industrial farms. Chairs and tables should be produced, not in factories, but lovingly by skilled artisans. But as we all know, such antiquated, handicraft methods inevitably produce far fewer, more expensive goods. Handicraft production was what happened in that Green golden age before capitalist production, when the vast majority of people were grindingly poor – unable to afford such lovingly crafted, hand-made luxuries. These were the good old days, when everyone knew their place in the ‘natural order’.

Green anti-capitalism is Snob anti-capitalism. This is not mere name-calling. It goes to the very heart of what ‘Green’ is about.