More Members Of The Ruling Class Want To Use Covid-Style Tyranny To ‘Fight Climate Change’By: Justin Haskins
January 13, 2022
How far would you go to mitigate the effects of climate change? If you’re like most people, the answer is, probably not far at all.
According to numerous surveys, the vast majority of Americans aren’t willing to make even modest sacrifices to address global warming. For example, a 2019 survey found 68 percent of Americans wouldn’t agree to pay just $10 extra per month in higher electric bills to “combat climate change.” In the same survey, only 57 percent said they would support paying $1 extra per month.
These views are remarkable for a variety of reasons, but perhaps the most striking is that they show there is a huge chasm between how most working families view the issue of climate change compared to ruling class types in government, corporate boardrooms, and academia.
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Most disturbing of all, however, a growing movement among some in academia and environmentalist groups pushes openly for radical and in some cases downright authoritarian reforms of Western societies. Perhaps the best illustration is a recent, disturbing paper published by the American Political Science Review and Cambridge University Press, one of the most influential and highly respected academic publishing houses in the world.
In the paper, titled “Political Legitimacy, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change,” professor Ross Mittiga argues that the “climate emergency may legitimate resorts to authoritarianism, both in managing the fallout from impending or unfolding climate catastrophes (i.e., emergency of effects) and in ensuring that such events are more limited in number and scope in the future (i.e., emergency of action).”
For Mittiga, the allegedly dire nature of climate change justifies rethinking democratic norms and Western understandings of individual rights. Mittiga believes freedom is the problem when it comes to mitigating climate change, and that “authoritarianism” — his word, not mine — is justified and perhaps even necessary to ensure humanity doesn’t die from a climate catastrophe.
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/13/more-members-of-the-ruling-class-want-to-use-covid-style-tyranny-to-fight-climate-change/
