Fossilized Thinking: Back to communal horse and water powered farms to save the climate

Guest essay by Robert Bryce
In a simplistic and tedious new book, Andreas Malm argues that full Communism is the only cure for global warming.

Andreas Malm longs for the good old days. In his new book, Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, Malm, who teaches human ecology at Lund University in Sweden, pines for a time when manufacturing depended on waterwheels instead of steam engines. Indeed, Malm spends more than 300 pages—about 75 percent of the text—discussing why English manufacturers abandoned waterwheels and replaced them with coal-fired steam engines. It’s worthwhile history. But in the hands of an avowed Marxist like Malm, it’s tedious sledding. In Malm’s view, the rise of the steam engine was little more than a ploy by evil capitalists to subjugate workers, and because of that, we are now all going to die from global warming.

Yes, that’s a simplistic analysis, but Malm has written a simplistic book. He quotes an economist, Richard Jones, who, in the 1830s, wrote that water power is “cheap but uncertain. The steam engine is costly but powerful and its action is certain and continuous.” Jones goes on to explain why waterwheels had to go. For some reason, Malm prefers the days of yore, when production had to be shut down because of drought, or flood, or frozen rivers. He attempts to explain the complex world of energetics by marrying Marxism with climate-change catastrophism. By doing so, he puts himself squarely in the camp of the climate doomsayers—a group that includes Canadian author/activist Naomi Klein and U.S. environmental activist Bill McKibben, who have claimed that the solution to climate change is to abandon modern society and organize a socialist, organic-agriculture economy, where we can all, no doubt, have free yoga classes. In a 2011 essay published in The Nation, Klein—who provided a blurb for Malm’s book, calling it “the definitive deep history on how our economic system created the climate crisis”—called for nothing less than “a new civilizational paradigm, one grounded not in dominance over nature but in respect for natural cycles of renewal.”

It’s not Malm’s fellow travelers who are the problem, it’s his blinkered approach to basic physics, and in particular, to the essentiality of power density—that is, the ability to concentrate the flow of energy from a given area, volume, or mass. Ever since humans began walking upright, we have been trying to corral more energy so that we can turn it into more effective power, whether for farming, heating, or computing. Farmers moved from doing all the planting and hauling themselves to using draft animals, which helped increase production. Over centuries, they perfected their harnesses, going from throat-and-girth harnesses to breastbands and finally to collar harnesses, which allowed animals to pull loads as much as ten times heavier than they could pull with the earlier models.


Over the last seven decades or so, we have moved from electricity-hungry computers based on vacuum tubes to ones based on nano circuits millions of times lighter and more efficient. Malm insists that every joule and BTU we use is infected with class struggle. In the first chapter, he writes that “fossil fuels necessitate waged or forced labor—the power to direct the labor of others—as conditions of their very existence.” Yet, he doesn’t provide a single example of any place on the planet where modern workers are being forced to produce oil, coal, or natural gas. Malm decries the steam engine at every turn, but ignores how steam power led to a revolution in transportation that allowed even low-skilled workers to travel and search out better opportunities on railroads and steamships. Malm condemns all hydrocarbons, yet he ignores the creation and perfection of the internal combustion and jet engines. In doing so, he leaves aside discussion of the parallel creation of the global oil and gas sector, which is among the world’s biggest industries. Malm also ignores electrification, though electricity production (the biggest share of which is provided by coal combustion) now accounts for about 40 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Malm spends 13 of his 16 chapters decrying coal and steam. He notes with approval that in medieval England, coal fields were often controlled by the king or local bishops, and that they often imposed “restrictions on output, guaranteeing that the enterprises would be puny.” He continues: “Thriving on sword and cross, they could afford to stay aloof from subterranean riches.” In his fourteenth chapter, “China as Chimney of the World: Fossil Capital Today,” Malm details the rising concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide and denounces “the bourgeois ideology of eco-modernism” because of its belief that technology can help bring more people out of poverty.

In chapter 15, we finally get to Malm’s solution, which is, wait for it . . . central planning. A few paragraphs after quoting Leon Trotsky, Malm notes that the majority of global greenhouse gases are emitted from four places: the U.S., the E.U., China, and India. The way to cut those emissions is simple, says Malm. We merely need to “set up one special ministry in each and we would be on our way.” Ah yes, a special ministry. Welcome, comrades, to Professor Malm’s Climate Gulag. It’s for your own good, after all.


Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His most recent book is Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong.

h/t to Paul Driessen and John Droz


293 thoughts on “Fossilized Thinking: Back to communal horse and water powered farms to save the climate

  1. The watermelon crowd.
    Who knows we may be getting a new type of watermelon red on the outside red on the inside, at least the debate can advance with integrity under these new rules.

    • What a lot of people don’t get, and I did not until I read Das Kapital, is that Marx was a luddite. Thus this thinking of this professor is right in line with Marx.. All of these people, like Kirkpatrick Sale in his book on the simple life, miss the central point. Life was short, brutish, and hard. This is what industrialization saved humanity from.

    • Meh, college students. And this particular generation of college students have never lived without ipods and cell phones and laptops and cars and the ability to travel and most of them have never, ever had to perform manual labor. I’m sure his proposed lifestyle gets them very excited. (not) They might all totally agree with his mentality about evil capitalists and destroying the planet, but how many of them have ever even seen an actual horse plow? Or a horse? A generation that has never truly worked hard, cannot build a society in which everyone is required to work hard.

      • “A generation that has never truly worked hard, cannot build a society in which everyone is required to work hard.”
        True enough. But the danger is that they might try.. and fail.

      • Aphan wrote:
        Everybody else is required to work hard. Someone has to do the planning. Wait ’til they find out they are not going to be the ones doing the planning. It always ends in tears.

      • Where I live most of the year is the Driftless region along the upper Mississippi Valley. Lots of Amish around. It’s quite a sight seeing up to 6 abreast draft horses pulling a plow. Very fertile farms and a lot of cooperation among the people who don not depend on mechanization BUT they all have to take on outside mechanized work to survive.
        If the Amish can’t do it – nobody can.

      • And a lot of these college students are not very bright. Just think that a pass mark on a degree level course at the Open University in the UK is only 40%. And it’s not the only college that has such a low pass mark!

    • Consider how the “Bern” 70% of the “youth vote” in his “Party”, it’s no accident how these people were indoctrinated both in HS and College. If you have kids go read their science, history (Social Studies) and English resources. Depending on where you are there is plenty of retro 60’s Marxism. The U.S. the vilian in the Cold War, Climate Change a proven indictment of “industry” and on and on.
      Some will get smarter but there is a a residual who will go into government and education in particular and live completely delusional lives. Now the sciences are a growing haven following the climate science model. More ideological and propaganda funding fields to follow, certainly other “green” fields like GMO and anti-Pharma fields will prosper. They need only find the funding source as “victim” advocates.

    • Marcus, not only scary to be teaching, but unable to understand his position in life.
      Andreas Malm … who teaches human ecology at Lund University in Sweden
      He is a long way up the needs pyramid. Revise society to his liking and he has no job or career. Simple farmers don’t need lessons in ‘human ecology’ enough to exchange any surplus food.

  2. This is the inevitable result of a scientific controversy becoming dogma and political.
    It gives cover to all manner of idiots and their idiot ideas. As long as you come out in favor of “fighting” global warming, you can pretty much say whatever you want and the True Believers will accept it at face value.

  3. I declined an invitation to speak at the first Earth Day for my university and took an insightful thermodynamics course instead. I recall discussions later about how we would starve without hydrocarbons and we were left with “fossil” windmill towers when the subsidies vanished. Some may still exist.

  4. “Watermelon” does seem an appropriate insult. Of course, if his nirvana was instituted, only about 90% of the population would die off, but I tend to think he really wants such an outcome.

    • I’m convinced that most of these people are still mad that the Population Bomb never went off and the unwashed masses insisted on thriving, breeding, and thinking unapproved thoughts all on their own when by now they should have been starving and begging the Ivory Tower Oligarchy to manage their lives for them.

  5. What’s even more amazing is that Publishers are destroying trees to print this garbage. This will probably be his required textbook in whatever class he teaches on Eco-Communism.

  6. Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
    The cheap and reliable nature of fossil fuels made it possible to end slavery. Because we use machines instead of people. You either have cheap labour or cheap energy.
    Without concentrated fossil fuel energy, every tree on the planet would have been cut down to provide heat and cooking material.
    The beliefs of the Andreas Malms of the world would devastate humanity and the very environment they claim to want to save.

    • This by Kirk Sorensen, who is describing the next stage in the ongoing process of taming fire, the liquid Thorium reactor,
      Every time mankind has been able to access a new source of energy it has led to profound societal implications. Human beings had slaves for thousands of years, and when we learned how to make carbon our slave instead of other human beings, we started to learn how to be civilized people. Thorium has a million times the energy density of a cabon-hydrogen bond. What could that mean for human civilization? Once we’ve learned how to use it at this kind of efficiency, we will never run out. It is simply too common.

      • It is my understanding that the problem with Thorium isn’t in the nuclear science but rather in materials science. Chemistry rather than physics.

    • I was wondering how long until someone brought this up. It shows that his arguments are based on willful ignorance of basic history that I would chide a first grader over. Slavery thrived in the pre-industrial era, and many people have argued that industrialization only happened because machines finally became cheaper than slaves (despite the prerequisites being present in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China).
      Also, it’s not just slavery, but modern automation has allowed us to practically end domestic servitude as well. Not 80 years, almost every middle or upper class household had at least one full time servant.
      Finally, he actively praised the feudalistic serfdom, which was slavery in all but name. I just don’t know what else to say about this guy. His proposal is just backwards

      • We still have “cheap labor” today, STILL doing all the jobs that Americans don’t want to do. And many people who don’t have to labor in fields all day, but have to stand in an air conditioned restaurant or grocery store ringing people up on a cash register want to raise the minimum wage because they want to support a family on job that was never meant to be a career choice.
        It wasn’t “free” to own slaves to do your work for you. They were “purchased” either from someone else, or they sold themselves into indentured servitude for passage and room and board. Housing, clothing, feeding, guarding, etc a lot of slaves took a LOT of money too-money that if paid to those slaves would most likely not have purchased land, a home, and the ability for them to feed and care and protect themselves.
        I’m NOT endorsing slavery. I think it was a horrible and disgusting practice. But some slaves were well treated, well loved, and lived lives far superior to any kind of life they would have had otherwise. (I said SOME) My point is that farming by non-mechanical means will be just as expensive, if not MORE SO, and thus the price of food would skyrocket because you have to PAY people for their work, we don’t pay machines hourly wages.

  7. Being ignorant I have often wondered what buckshot was intended for, now I have found the close range answer!

    • I got a woman, she’s so mean
      She sticks my boots in the washing machine
      Sticks me with buckshot when I’m nude
      Puts bubblegum in my food …

  8. “…organize a socialist, organic-agriculture economy…”
    What unbelievable drivel. There’s so many things wrong with this it’s hard to know where to begin. But let’s start anyway.
    First, there was a reason farming was one of the world’s most hazardous occupations until the late 20th century. Much of it had to do with working in close proximity to large, heavy draft animals.
    Second, productivity was trivial compared to modern agricultural yields. There was a reason why most of the pre-industrial population lived in grinding agricultural drudgery. Again, yields were low. Also, rural unemployment was stunningly high by modern standards. Such is possible only if close to half the population is living at primitive subsistence levels.
    Third, disease was rampant in large part because of huge quantities of animal faeces on streets, indoors, just about everywhere. Alcohol was consumed because water was usually foul.
    Fourth, their intent to rely on animal labour might get them into at least a bit of trouble with their fellow-travelers, the dedicated folks at PETA.
    These socialist dimwits, Malm,Klein, wish to impose the most horrific economic class system again that the western world spent the entire 20th century desperately trying to escape. My most earnest wish is that these morons would live and work just one day on a real mediaeval farm. Then they might truly understand just what a hell they are recreating.

    • To hell with draft animals, there was the common practice of using the wife to pull the plow while the husband steered the thing. Not to mention the scythe and the winnowing and the hand grinding and the baking and on and on and on of the rural drudgery of the medieval period.

    • So . . . why do we give the wet-dreams of socialist eco-fantasizers LEGS by re-posting their nonsense HERE? Frankly, this guy sounds like he’s been to one too many pot-parties at the Chewonki School. WUWT should concentrate on disseminating the true SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, and let the drivelers hang themselves. They’ve got just about enough rope now.

      • It needs to be seen here in order to remind us all what really underlies CAGW: socialism. They attempt to hide the basis for their religion, but every once in a while something like this ooses out to remind us what they are really about.

      • “Science” is being used as a fig-leaf to conceal what the true agenda is for global warmists.
        It may already be too late for true science to prevail.

    • getitright: scythes alone were a huge source of death and injury in pre-industrial agriculture, let alone milling accidents. There is a reason why pre-industrial lifespan was about 35, and a lot of it was purely work related.
      Goldrider: this is very much the desire of the so-called Deep Greens. If environmentalism is a religion, then the Deep Greens are the extreme sect which believe that there are too many people in the world by about 95%, and that human subsistence should be reduced to having no machine power. All Environmentalists believe that some of the technology we have developed should be abolished. The differences among the Greens are chiefly how much and to what degree technology should be abandoned. This is the essential division among them, and why nuclear power has proven so divisive among them.

      • Well, that idea is so completely wack that I can’t imagine anyone taking it seriously, anywhere. That ship sailed long about 1840, and if these freaks really want to live the pre-industrial life, they can always go join the Amish if they’ll have them–which I doubt. The best thing we can do about ideas like this is allow them to die an instantaneous death by IGNORING them–the LAST thing we should do is give them the attention they crave.

      • Yeah, because pretending there is no enemy out there, brushing it all under the rug, is the best way to protect against it happening in the future. It’s always best to turn your back on your adversary and ignore them. That ALWAYS results in them slinking away into the mist, unable to harm you because you never acknowledged them or said their names outloud….Voldemort….Beetlejuice….
        But you said earlier…by discussing it here, we were “giving it LEGS”, then said “that idea is so completely wack that I can’t imagine anyone taking it seriously, anywhere”…and then ended by once again saying that the best thing to do was “ignore it”. Which is it? An idea so stupid that exposing how stupid it is will not result in anyone, anywhere, taking it seriously, it will NOT gain legs here…and thus there is no harm done by discussing it…or an idea so good/bad that you fear discussing it here will change things?
        Your opinion about what WUWT “should disseminate” is merely that, an opinion, but irrelevant here because the topics here at WUWT are not yours to determine, or mine, or even the majority’s.

      • The Old Order Amish have agreed they can use cell phones because it doesn’t violate their rule against being connected by wires. Heading ‘back’ to a horse-drawn lifestyle doesn’t mean what many assume.
        The old order Mennonites have decided that cell phones are not allowed, but they do allow the use of telephones connected by wires provided they are installed by the road at the end of the driveway, not indoors. That way communication remains possible but not in a way that encourages frivolous gossip or seeking after ease.
        As patterns for living these lifestyles are poorly understood. They are not viable and at a national scale. They only work because they are supported by a society that shelters them.

    • We mustn’t forget that a proportion of the farm’s output had to be set aside to feed the horses.
      And, unlike tractors, the horses had to be fed even when they weren’t working.
      So the transition to fossil fuels meant more food for humans.
      Indeed, at one step removed, we are eating the coal and oil.

      • “The horse eats a third of everything on the farm”; an old Scottish saying. 66% surplus over the land it can work, given expert management. And that means expert.

  9. So the Hansen/Oreskes feud is ultimately an ideological one: Hansen at least pretends to believe the climate needs a real remedy (nuclear), while Oreskes wants to see the West go belly up. –AGF

    • Oreskes wants to see the entire human race go belly up. Progressives have to destroy Western culture to get a really good start on the long term goal. They will run afoul of all those other cultures that are bent on improving their standard of living and don’t give a d**n what Europe or North America thinks about it. When we are finished destroying ourselves they will simply move into a position where they are the masters and we are the third world countries. We won’t have the money to defend ourselves.

  10. Andreas Malm [who teaches human ecology at Lund University, Sweden ]argues that full Communism is the only cure for global warming

    Quite obviously, Andreas lives in a dream world where the evidence of reality never intervenes: I offer him the example of the DDR; the Soviet Union; North Korea; Venezuela; etc. Does he really advocate that the world’s population be reduced to a sub-feudal level of existence?
    I recently read a biography of an ordinary local man, born in Shakespeare’s home town in the 1880s. The way of life he experienced is not dissimilar to that to which Malm would have us return: one is reminded that – partly because of that life-style – his life was disturbed by two World Wars.
    I can thoroughly recommend the book, based on verbatim recordings from the man himself when in his 90s – and I hope the mods won’t mind me posting a link to it here..
    BTW: A ‘Dillen’ – which is what he was called – was considered to be the runt of the family: this chap was only about 5’4″

  11. While Mr Malm apparently thinks an agrarian society is the ticket, he doesn’t speak towards the most common path I hear among warmists circles. Artifical intelligence and it’s takeover of the highly inefficient way we use energy will be the future. Smart homes, grids, mining done by machines, manufacturing produced by AI … transportation operated by it … blah blah. The current way will be a distant memory and they certainly see it occurring in their lifetime.
    I think AI will make current life unrecognizable much like a horse and buggy owner wouldn’t recognize a mechanized world.
    Who knows. Maybe they’ll be AI operated hobby farms with safe spaces for the getting dirty.
    While CAGW is obviously a ruse, the place where AI advocates want to get to will happen. I’m not sure what will power it, but the world will be much different than this one. I always hope this transition period isn’t don’t so clumsily that it knocks off a few billion along the way to the brave new world.

    • “I’m not sure what will power it”
      I am positively damn well sure what it will take to power such a society and that will be fossil fuels!

      • Maybe, to start with. But in the end (by which I mean ‘in the next 85 years’) the only real choice is going to be some form of large scale Nuclear, whether Fission, Fusion, or the largest Nuclear of all, the Sun. Nothing else, not even the Earth’s vast supplies of hydrocarbons, will be able to generate the massive amounts of energy needed to lift our 8-10 Billion fellow Homo Sapiens out of subsistence level poverty. Not long term at least.
        Hydrocarbons can be an excellent short term solution however. Assuming we focus on improving the technologies needed for that future, and not waste our time chasing Green pipe dreams of ‘Sustainability’ and back to feudal methods.
        The truth is that, for people calling themselves ‘progressive’ they always look to the future with fear and to the past with longing. Real progress is made by those who look to the future with hope, take the present in hand, and never forget the lessons the past has left us with, least we repeat them.

      • In 85 years the population will be more like 5 billion or less. Even South America birth rates are below that needed to sustain populations. Already Russia and Japan have noticed there won’t be enough workers to sustain the current industrial and agricultural output if they don’t start encouraging people to marry and have children.

      • Ah, yes, heard about them. Sounds less than well thought out, but it keeps some busy I suppose. On the other hand, I think its inevitable that the pursuit of AI will march along till it can’t any longer. Any discussion of a future world needs to include it.

      • The fundamental problem with the Venus Project can be summed up in one simple equation.
        ‘Workers of the World Unite’ + ‘All work done by Robots’ = ‘Robot Uprising’

    • the transition from activist industry to fluffer industry did require AI to cross the threshold.
      so far, any idiot who can not type has predictive apps that will make it appear as if his vestigial thumbs can.
      so far any idiot who could never write a single line of code- can have a computer so he can take pictures and chat.
      we are almost there –
      but now, the missing ingredient is Artificial Stupidity to save the vestigial brains the labor of being idiots.

  12. “..a new civilizational paradigm, one grounded not in dominance over nature but in respect for natural cycles of renewal”
    I suppose that farming is out, since farmers dominate natural crops rather than picking and gathering them.

  13. We must follow the lead of our brothers in Venezuela:

    In response to growing food shortages, Mr. Maduro last month created a Ministry for Urban Farming. He noted that he has 50 chickens in his own home and that his countrymen also can be taught to farm at home.
    Venezuela’s Collapse Brings ‘Savage Suffering’
    Dying infants, chronic power outages and empty shelves mark the world’s worst-performing economy
    Wall Street Journal

    • Venezuela sits on the second highest amount of known oil reserves. Yet, it can’t feed its people. Venezuela is the ultimate counter-example proving why individual freedom, capitalism, and efficient energy supply lead to prosperity.
      You only have to kick out one leg of the stool to wreck the progress of the human condition. Of course, our POTUS is targeting all three legs at once.

      • If you fully count the oil sand reserves in the Orinoco belt, Venezuela may have double the reserves of the rest of the world combined.

  14. How many acres of hay and oats does it take to make one horsepower going this route? Also, I thought we were supposed to be decommissioning dams.

  15. The roots of global warming originate with the beginning of the current inter-glacial and will stop when the inter-glacial we now enjoy ends.
    What a rube to think a political system is going to resolve his problems with the climate system.

  16. Let’s return to those good old days of yesteryear. Said by someone who very likely didn’t live in anything approaching those idyllic times. Life expectancy seems to track the growth of those evil fossil fuels. Life expectancy in 1900 was about 47 years. Life expectancy in 2014 was about 77 years (US from birth). Go look at the third world with lower standards of living and lower life expectancy. Would he want to return to that?
    The collective farms in the USSR worked so well at food production. I guess his idea is a good way to get rid of perceived overpopulation.

    • Bob,
      I should be pleased if you would stop using the term “third world”: there is no such thing. This is a most polite, respectful request and NOT anything else.
      I keep banging on about this I know but (bear with me please) people in what we now call Egypt were making sea-going, luxury cruise ships in the first century A.D. when “we” Angles were still paddling our coracles.
      A better term to use would be “poor countries” (If one really means to say poor countries). Thank you.

      • Who cares what groups of people were doing 2000 years ago.
        3rd world is an accurate description of how they are living now.
        Yes, the climate of Nile river valley was more conducive to creating civilization compared to the cold regions of Europe.
        So what.
        Despite their handicaps Europeans built an advanced civilization while despite all their advantages the Egyptians lagged and by the time of the Romans had been left in the dust.

      • Not despite the handicap of Europe’s constantly changing Climate, BECAUSE of it. Necessity is the mother of invention, and Europe’s usually colder climate was the mother of all necessities.

      • I didn’t know where “third world” came from, so I looked it up.
        “The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO (with the United States, Western European nations and their allies representing the First World), or the Communist Bloc (with the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and their allies representing the Second World).”
        I had always seen it used as referring to poor or poorly developed.
        But, in any event most third world countries, as initially defined (and the label or grouping was accepted by Egypt) still exist. So, they were third world … and if they are playing politics and courting opposing powers instead of working to develop on their own (as some countries like Egypt have a history of doing), or are poorly developed (by today’s standards), then they are third world.

      • Warren Latham,
        The term third world is defined by business dictionary-“Collective name for most of the nations of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, many of which share a colonial past and are variously termed as developing, less developed, or least developed countries. They support 75 percent of the world’s population but consume only 20 percent of its resources, and are generally characterized by (1) slow pace of industrialization, (2) low to very low levels of per capita income that is insufficient to generate savings for economic growth, (3) low literacy levels but high rate of population growth, (4) poor health facilities and transport infrastructure, (5) dependence on agricultural and commodity exports as main foreign exchange earners.”
        By Merriam Webster as-
        Definition of third world
        2: an aggregate of minority groups within a larger predominant culture
        3: the aggregate of the underdeveloped nations of the world
        The term “third world” is pretty much an internationally accepted and understood term that does in fact indicate and define “a specific thing”. That “thing” is underdeveloped nations and the term’s definition involves a much more detailed description of what those are, than the term “poor country” does. You apparently don’t like or accept the term, but it’s impolite, and disrespectful to ask or expect people to “please you” by using terminology that you declare “is better to use” but that they might not agree actually IS better.
        Do you also object to the use of Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, perfection, sinless, omnipotent, dragon, Klingon, wormhole, time travel, etc because there are “no such things”, or do you just object to a term that actually DOES describe a real thing for some irrational reason?

      • What bugs me it the term “Developing Countries” It invariably refers to countries that obviously are not developing but going backwards at a rate dependent on how corrupt and socialist their leadership is.

      • Warren,
        In the 1st century AD, the Angles, then still living in Germany and Denmark, and their neighbors had already developed the boat building techniques that would in coming centuries enable their descendants to conquer the British Isles, Normandy, Sicily and Russia, reach Iceland and Greenland and explore North America.

      I think you hit on the real point of this foolery. Not only has this guy bought the CAGW lie he is working from the assumption that the population bomb has already exploded.
      He needs to ask-How many people can a man with a horse feed? Modern tractors can have 850 horsepower and help that farmer feed other folks who don’t have time or land to grow their own food.

  17. There are certain undertones in Malm’s writing that sound an awful lot like Marx and Engels, particularly the inevitable conclusions that are only derived from a tortured development of straw men that “must be dealt with”
    And dah commrade, we all know how Marx and Engels analysis played out…

  18. Robert Bryce:
    You say


    I agree that communism cannot work and should be opposed, but Malm argues for more than that: Malm calls for communist, totalitarian central planning to be adopted as a method to impose extreme environmentalism.
    Malm’s suggestion has been tried. It was applied in Cambodia during the 1970s by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge movement. They ruled from 1975 to 1979 and in that time at least 1.5 million Cambodians out of a total population of 7 to 8 million died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork.

      • Roland Reagan:
        YES! The use of fossil fuels has done more to benefit humans than anything else since the invention of agriculture.

    • Growing wheat in Kansas with horse and mule power, plus maybe some steam threshing, produced from nine to 19 bu/acre, mostly 10-15. With fossil-fueled machinery, chemicals and improved varieties, it’s 28 to 50 bu/acre. In the high, dry western reaches, there’s also irrigation, which also requires power. Half to two-thirds of grain is oil and gas.

      • If we stop commercial farming, we’ll all be forced to eat liberals to stay alive. They taste bitter, they’re tough as leather, and they have no nutritional value. I’m against communism for that reason alone! 🙂

      • Ah…blush…thank you. I’m going to boycott the ceremony though because the nominees weren’t diverse enough to satisfy my political correctness parameters. Plus, the entire audience just looks like military MREs in sparkly packaging….shudder…

    • Communism can’t be imposed without a totalitarian govt. In fact the further you get from capitalism the more powerful and intrusive govt must be. It takes a great deal of force to make people do what they wouldn’t naturally do.

      • Mental,
        Your ignorance apparently is boundless.
        Few if any regimes in history have come as close to the totalitarian goal as the Inca Empire, in which practically everything which was not forbidden was mandatory. Nobles in Aztec society got the best cuts of their sacrificed victims’ flesh. Moctezuma liked boys.
        If by “communism”, you mean Marx’ so-called “primitive communism”, that has never existed outside of small family groups. In Amerindian farming societies, elites ruled. In hunter-gatherer cultures, the best hunters got first crack, so to speak, at all resources, to include mating rights, as is still the case among “wild” Amazonian tribes today. And various bands and tribes very much recognized private property in the form of hunting grounds, which territory they fought over.


        Markw, Native Americans lived under Communism before North America was invaded by Europeans. I don’t recall them living under a totalitarian government.

        Those hundreds of thousands of slaves in the conquered tribes across both continents (north American and South American) and civilizations (Mayan, Aztec, Incan) who died being thrown under their other native American religions as grease for the sacrifices and as non-fossil-fueled stone age slaves (and those who simply died by extermination for land, for trophies, for warfare for scarce food and water WOULD tend to disagree with your “memory” of the propaganda given you the past few years.
        Oh, there was a “confederacy” of tribes united in upstate NY for a short period, but who “voted” and when was that confederation begun? The rest of the Indians? Slaves. Dead. Or the conquering tribe when the truce was broken.

      • RA,
        I guess along with everything else, Mental has never heard of a slave-killer, the ceremonial weapon used by Northwest Coast Indians at potlaches to kill slaves in an orgy of conspicuous consumption.

      • Mental,
        The rise of capitalism is why slavery was abolished. It continued to exist under mercantilism, as it had from time immemorial, but the capitalist revolution of the 18th and 19th century led to its demise in most of the world. But in African and Asian agricultural and pastoral societies, it persisted into the late 20th century and still does in some forms. Saudi Arabia ostensibly outlawed it in 1962, but it continues there de facto, as does debt slavery in Pakistan and human trafficking from countries where the rule of law essential to capitalism hasn’t yet taken hold.

      • Mental,
        You give it up.
        They didn’t eat their own. They ate battle captives.
        The Aztec Empire was not like a normal empire, since it kept enclaves of permanent enemies like the Tlaxcalans as essentially stockyards or feed lots, instead of conquering them and incorporating them into their empire. Lacking major sources of animal protein other than turkeys and dogs, the Aztecs and prior Mesoamerican societies developed a religion based upon human sacrifice.
        The Aztecs continued a tradition that went back at least 1500 years and probably much farther:–xaltocan-human-sacrifice-skulls-drought-archeology/

      • Mental,
        They were fools to take on debt for degrees with no clear purpose toward employment.
        That’s a voluntary act, however ill-advised. That they didn’t learn a useful trade was their mistake. That’s a far cry from slavery. You insult all real slaves by such a lame attempt at analogy.

      • Mental,
        Apparently you didn’t bother reading the link from the Independent, about the discovery of 550 severed heads and the clear signs of cooking and eating the bodies to which they had been attached, along with stabbing the fetuses of pregnant women and other atrocities.
        As before, you’re a hopeless troll case. The ideal Sanders voter.

      • I actually thought “hopeless troll” was pretty kind.
        I was also impressed how GloMax engaged you twice despite your obvious rude attempt at baiting.
        10X the patience you deserved in my knuckle dragging world.

      • “It takes a great deal of force to make people do what they wouldn’t naturally do.”
        Like drag million ton slabs of rock into a pile so the king can be buried inside them.

      • DMD
        Sadly, the blog world is polluted with people who are disingenuous concerning the nature of debate. Just like real life, there are many people who have made an artform of what is nicknamed the feminization of warfare.
        Essentially, the provocateur enters the debate with the intent to trigger a socially unacceptable reaction. I’m sure your smart enough to know the kind.
        Good luck out there and try not to burn too many opportunities for healthy debate.

      • After losing every argument he has ever started here at WUWT, and proving beyond a doubt that his understanding of almost any issue is trivial huffpo style bullet points, Dental Midget declares himself the winner.
        ‘Ha Ha’ the Troll declares, ‘I was only PRETENDING to by this stupid.’

      • “Markw, Native Americans lived under Communism before North America was invaded by Europeans.”
        Because you said so? Um nope. SOME tribes lived in a “communal” lifestyle (lowercase c) but that alone does not make them Communists (capital C). They “naturally” lived that way because there really wasn’t any other way TO LIVE and survive at the time. The choice was “dwell together, have children, protect and serve each other and live” or “try to survive alone as long as possible”.
        But your argument fails because there were many Native American tribes that FOUGHT with and KILLED and LOOTED the possessions of other Native American tribes. The notion that all Native Americans were docile, egalitarian, passive and concerned about equality for all is a foolish and misinformed one. They all spoke different languages and had different customs and they all warred with each other for the same reasons that Europeans have fought with other Europeans, and Asians have fought with other Asians and Americans have fought with other Americans. Territory, revenge, power, revolution, pride, sex, food, etc. The empirical evidence we have from pre-colonialization, such as skulls crushed in or bones bearing arrowhead markings or knife scars proves that brute force power was in play long before white men and their long guns showed up.

      • ” they still lose the argument.”
        Not really. It is a common error to confuse insulting remarks with ad hominem/logical fallacies. They are two different things.
        An insult can be an accurate designation of evidenced behavior. If the premises (upon which the insult is based) support the conclusion (of the insult), then it’s not necessarily an indication of a lost argument. More of a commercial break during an argument in which the specific behavior of another is pointed out and labeled accurately.
        Ad hominems on the other hand, “are any kind of argument that criticizes an idea by pointing something out about the people who hold the idea rather than directly addressing the merits of the idea “. Even the most despicable person on the planet is probably capable of rendering a logical argument. Calling that person despicable is fine and logical. Calling whatever that person is proposing “despicable” or bad by association, is not fine. THAT is a losing argument.

      • dentalmanagerdmd said:
        ” A person can take on debt …, then get the debt discharged”
        are you arguing that fraud is a virtue and that keeping a promise is a new form of victimhood?
        do you practice this virtue?

      • Debates with those on the left are best described as chess with a pidgeon. No matter how clear the checkmate is, a leftist kicks over all the pieces, struts across the board and declares victory.
        Never fails. I prefer to call them pidgeons vs. trolls.

        Look Snowflake, (Oops! Sorry ’bout that), plenty of folks here, who are simply being skeptical of the conjecture that a rise in CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate catestrophe, have received death threats from the alarmist crowd.
        Don’t you think that’s what you should be using your time to criticize?

      • I kind of liked “snowflake”.
        They are temporal items that flutter thru the sky at the mercy of the slightest change in temperature.
        They are also unique and special. No two alike I hear.
        Sadly, they are victimized by a changing environment and slaves to the imperfect and unstable weather.
        Perhaps they didn’t want to fall from the sky but were forced too because mama cloud couldn’t support all the little snowflakes at once. Do snowflakes lose their critical ability to be unique when they fall under duress upon being with other snowflakes ? How do they counter the seemingly difficult task of being special yet doomed to compaction under the weight of a mass movement of snowflakes ?
        And, finally, who hears the little snowflake that melts if there are no other snowflakes to hear them ?

      • So, are you implying that “communal” is natural, and “non-communal” (capitalistic) is unnatural?

        Its natural to share and we still do with close family, give to more distant relatives and friends and donate to charities. One reason for less sharing with extended family is that we pay taxes and the government provides for others in the community.
        Natural is for small family clans to share but as usual, the ones providing more meat or protection to the clan gets preferential treatment. Clans in a tribe cooperate and might be looked after if in trouble but not shared with equally.
        Australian aboriginals traded amongst tribes, not just clans. Even in a very primitive society with little manufacturing and trade, they still found time to process tools, tobacco and possibly smoked eels, then trade these, not give them away.

      • dementalermagerd-
        “Peonage, also called debt slavery or debt servitude, is a system where an employer compels a worker to pay off a debt with work. Legally, peonage was outlawed by Congress in 1867.”
        “Slavery is a legal or economic system in which principles of property law are applied to humans allowing them to be classified as property, to be owned, bought and sold accordingly, and they cannot withdraw unilaterally from the arrangement.”
        Normal, rational people with basic English skills can determine the difference between those two words. Since those with student loan debt are not employed by, or being compelled to work FOR the student loan companies it is not peonage. So stop it.

      • DMD
        “Didn’t say it was an ad hom”
        Your link is referring to it specifically-
        “One of the things people notice about me is that I focus on the arguments that someone presents and not the person; also known as playing the ball not the man.
        Ad hominem is Latin for “to the man” and is a logical fallacy as I defined and explained earlier. Your lack of familiarity with (or disregard for) the rules of logic is part of your problem here.
        Am I “implying” that capitalism is not “natural” but living in a commune is? Nope. Capitalism is an economic structure, not a social structure, and hundreds of millions of capitalists live in “communties” and we all pay for and share water systems, power, roads, schools, and other things. Communities have councils that discuss community issues and help resolve problems. Communities have food banks and charities that help those who need help. Human families in the US don’t have to live in tight formations anymore to survive BECAUSE we have the money and ability to build secure homes (rather than tents) to protect ourselves (for now) and laws that punish thieves and raiders and kidnappers. Our poor are still well off when compared to underdeveloped countries.

      • Do you have any evidence to support your delusion dental?
        Everything I have read about the Native Americans is that they owned and protected from others their private property.
        That’s not communism.

  19. It’s remarkable how shallow the socialist climate doomsayers understanding of history is. Their view is simplistic that it is reasonable to say they know nothing.
    The solution for them is simple. sell their sh!t, buy a farm and some animals and make a go of it. I have a feeling though they may not realize the reality of what “working the land” means. Especially giving up powered farm machinery and continuous dependable energy.

    • It’s amazing how often leftists confuse their models with reality.
      Be it their models of how the climate is supposed to work, or their models of how the economy is supposed to work.

      • Alx and MarkW:
        It’s amazing how rightists always pretend their ideology has some possibility of working in reality.
        In reality, fasc1sm has always failed and it always will fail.
        And their deliberate attempts to pretend socialism is like their and other forms of totalitarianism (e.g. communism) would be amusing if it were not loathsome.

      • DonM-
        Richard lives in an imaginary world in which he “pretends that his ideology has some possibility of working in reality as well. It doesn’t matter how beautifully it could be modeled, it’s impossible to get society as a whole, to voluntarily act in the manner required for “socialism” to benefit everyone equally.

      • How come the media doesn’t expose the massive illegal immigration problem in Venezuela and North Korea?
        I am sure these nations are inundated with millions of folks yearning for the utopia Malm describes.

      • I agree that fascism has always failed, all forms of socialism fail eventually.
        Socialism will always require a great deal of force, because those who work for a living don’t like having the products of their labors stolen in order to buy the votes of those who don’t want to work.
        It really is fascinating the lengths socialists will go to justify their desire to steal from others.
        I’m still waiting for Richard to defend his belief that capitalism can’t work.

    • MarkW:
      NO! I “label” fas1sts” as being fasc1sts.
      And, as all fasc1sts do, you try to pretend socialists are communists and H1tler was not a fasc1st.

  20. A vision which holds as its ideal the death resulting from uniformity and conformity as practiced in North Korea. Just picture the horror of the entire planet reduced to that level. The die off of the Middle Ages from the plague would seem mild in comparison.

  21. You first, buddy. If you want to lower your standard of living and live like a caveman, then you are free to do so. Why must you pull everyone else down into the abyss with you?

    • Most people become socialist/communist because they are convinced that the world hasn’t given them what they are entitled to.
      Happy people rarely care how others are living their lives.

      • MarkW:
        Most people become socialists because they care for people.
        Happy people usually care enough to help others to live the lives they want.
        Jealous and dissatisfied people support the extreme right: i.e. they become fasc1sts.

      • Richard,
        What do you suppose fasc!sm to be? Isn’t it national socialism, as opposed to international socialism, ie communism?
        The overtly fasc!st party in Britain is the Scottish National (Socialist) Party and those of like mind in the Labour Party, not the Tories.

      • I used a verboten word.
        OK: people here want us to think that people we called ‘fascists’ running Germany in the past, were actually East Germans.

      • Richard said- Most people become socialists because they care for people. Happy people usually care enough to help others to live the lives they want. Jealous and dissatisfied people support the extreme right: i.e. they become fasc1sts.”
        Wow. Richard has interviewed and diagnosed the motives of “most people who become socialists” and determined that they became socialists because they “care for people”. He’s also interviewed all happy people and determined that they “care enough to help others to live the lives they want”. And that “jealous and dissatisfied people support the extreme right-they become fascists”.
        As always, I’d love to see Richard’s ground breaking work in these areas, his peer reviewed papers that document his research and give credence to his conclusions. But alas….there are none.
        1) CARE for people-
        I personally would say that most people become doctors, nurses, humanitarians, and volunteers because they care for people. Actually CARING for someone else involves physical and observable efforts that directly benefit the life of that other person. I can’t think of ANY physical way in which joining or belonging to one political or ideological party or another actually demonstrates CARE for other people at all. I cannot find any publication anywhere in which the term “socialist” is synonymous with “caregiver”. I do know that in the US, the state that donates the most volunteer time and money to charity is ALSO the #1 state in the US on the “Happiness” scale. Utah, a very decidedly “conservative”, right wing, happy state.
        2) Happy people-
        Speaking of Happy US States-heres a list!
        It’s so WEIRD how almost every survey I can find usually show that the most “unhappy” cities/places in the US tend to be “liberal” or vote Democrat (left), and how the happiest cities/places in the US tend to be “conservative” or vote Republican (right).
        Happy people DO help others to live the lives they want….er….at least I agree with you if you mean they help other people to live the lives those other people want….NOT to help other people to live the lives that the “happy people” THINK they want, or assume they want, or think they SHOULD want.
        I’ve never met a fasc1st so I can’t tell you if they are jealous and dissatisfied or not, or who or what they “support”. The only self declared”socialist” I know (and just from reading his comments) is Richard and he absolutely hates it when anyone else talks about living the lives they want if those lives are different than his version of “socialism”. He spends a great deal of time being dissatisfied by America’s historical “left and right” wings being different than the “left and right” wings in Europe, and calling anyone who points that out a Big Lie propagandist who merely wants to chuck H1tler over to the left side because of some stigma he claims to know that all “right wing” Americans have about the Naz1s.
        What he doesn’t understand is that most modern Americans don’t suffer from any of the cultural, ancestry, past generational sin guilt or stigma that old world Europeans do. H1tler could have been a member of my family, my current political party, my book club, my carpool, my church, my HOA….doesn’t really matter to me. I’d have still called him a disgusting, abhorrent, subhuman monster and shoot him in the head myself if given the chance to without embracing ANY guilt at all from his death OR any other associations we may have shared. It’s beyond my comprehension why Richard even feels the NEED to argue about it, much less almost have a stroke every time it comes up, because H1tler’s personal ideologies are completely and totally irrelevant to me.

      • EMS,
        I apparently didn’t make the distinction clear enough. H!tler was not a commie, but a National Socialist, ie N@zi or Fasc!st. Stalin was an international socialist, ie Communist, although he was forced for a while to advocate “socialism in one country”, so went through a national socialist phase, while never giving up on the Communist internationalist ideal.
        Mussolini was an international socialist before founding a national socialist movement, ie Fasc!sm.
        I hope this helps.
        Libertarianism opposes both forms of socialist totalitarianism.

      • I love the way socialists actually believe that the only way to “care for people” is by stealing from those who have more than they do, and using the money to buy votes.
        In Richard’s world, private charity doesn’t exist.

      • MarkW:
        What gives you the right to claim I don ‘t support private charity?
        Clearly, I had underestimated how great a loathsome creep you are.

  22. The thing I always wonder about people like Malm, Klein et al is; do they ever who’s going to deal with their night soil in the utopia?

  23. Is Malm’s groundbreaking book printed on a printing press? I think, if the man demonstrates fidelity to his beliefs, that he should write out, by hand, each and every one of his book’s 300 pages for each and every copy that’s distributed.

    • I was just thinking the same thing Tom. I wonder if he wrote it out in long hand by candlelight on sheepskin he harvested and prepared himself, with a feather quill and homemade ink? I wonder if he rides a horse to the college every day, spins his own cotton into wool and makes his own clothing? I’m sure he’s never flown anywhere to take a class, or give a speech or interview or used a public road, or any other utility.
      If he doesn’t live what he preaches, he’s just another hypocrite using all of the benefits of a fossil fueled world while he complains about that fossil fueled world. Yawn

    • Many of these types forget that the invention of the printing press freed people from relying on the Church for books and texts. And Malm would not be able to do what he is doing, speading his foolish opinions about the climate on this rock and what to do to save it (Whatever that means.), without the internet.
      Malm should set an example. Get some land and some beasts and see how long and hard he’d have to work just to feed himself and his beasts. He won’t have a phone (The most powerful kitchen appliance ever invented.) to hand to call in some takeout.

  24. If these people were really serious about reducing CO2 emissions, they’d want to close central banks. But that would drastically reduce their power, so it’s out of the question.
    All “solutions” on the table require their power to drastically increase. And as we’ve witnessed in recent history, that never ends well for the masses.

  25. The Amish lifestyle is available now, but I don’t see any elitists adopting that life. Or maybe they are and I don’t hear from them because they are “off the grid”.

    • I have friends that live that lifestyle (Mennonite) and my wife’s family. Many stay, many join, but it is not the life for the weak and many have a great respect for mechanization.

    • In the Midwest at least, Amish and Mennonites use chemical fertilizers and pesticides and light their lamps with petroleum.
      Maybe Malm thinks we should go back to whale oil instead of rock oil, too.

      • Heck, here in North Eastern Indiana most of the Amish use Solar Panels.
        I guess that makes it home made electricity. <¿<

  26. The value of fossil fuels can be summed up in this picture.
    For less than $1.00 of gasoline, you can move you and your car all the way down to the end of this road in minutes and be comfortably seated doing so.
    Or you can push you and your car to the end of this road over two full days of hard physical labour. Or your draught horse could pull your car and you to the end of the road over one full day but it would take many times more resources than $1.00 worth.

  27. I always found it interesting that Marxists condemn the very way of life that simplified their life so much that they now have enough time to come up with their Marxists ideas. If the way of life they condemn never came to be, they would be too busy figuring out how to survive until tomorrow and wouldn’t have time to invent new ideas.
    To Professor Malm and every other environmentalists, communist, or totalitarian: you first. Before I do anything you tell me to do, I want you to be the first to live that way.

  28. Like the Amish and Mennonites perhaps . They seem successful and happy with their horse and buggy existence. How much they are actually dependent on modern technology is never made clear in the few tv documentaries I have seen.

    • You never see their secret underground bunkers powered by 3rd generation Thorium reactors. Nor their stealthy hot-rods that burn up the Pennsylvania back roads at oh dark thirty.

  29. I was told recently by an old friend that everyone is reading Marx now and the tide is turning against Hobbesian contempt for the weak and needy people. These weak and needy will be better managed by a command economy. I assume he thinks Marx didn’t work before because of the capitalists, not because the Marxists became the Soviets.

    • I’ve never met anyone who has contempt for the weak.
      According to liberal doxology, not giving others what they want is a form of hatred.
      Just like disagreeing with a liberal is by definition hate speech.

      • I agree with MarkW, I’ve never met anyone who has contempt for the weak and truly needy. Compassion, sorrow, active service for and on behalf of…that’s how the people I know behave. The only people I have contempt for are those who seek to control or change the lives of those who choose to live differently than they do, those who presume to know exactly what another person, or worse…a whole group of people to whom they apply one label or another, thinks, feels or believes, and those who will perpetuate lies or deception for an agenda in which they feel the ends justify the means.
        Whether those people are weak and needy or strong and self sufficient is irrelevant to me.

  30. Must be something about the name “Andreas”. This chap reminds me of the German pilot Andreas Lubitz who flew the plane into a mountain last year. But at least that other rabid dog settled for only 300 or so souls to murder along with himself.

  31. Clueless ideologues like him never have a clue the death and misery their “vision” would unleash upon the world. Or that they are likely to be the first up in front of a firing squad.

  32. Leftists in general and Marxists in particular are convinced that the only reason why they don’t have everything they have convinced themselves they are entitled to is because people with money are conspiring against them.

  33. Communism has become extinct. True, North Korea is the land that time forgot, but hey, it’s the exception that proves the rule.
    “every joule and BTU we use is infected with class struggle”
    What an utter plank. Keir Hardie wouldn’t be impressed with that, at all.

  34. I get really tired of this constant left-bashing on WUWT. Whether or not non-motorized agriculture is a cure for global warming (it’s not) is irrelevant, a red herring, a meaningless, distracting diatribe. It is simply another way of growing food, a method which does not use fossil fuels, thus lowering its cost and dependence on finite resources.
    Stick to climate science and leave politics out of it, please.

      • You do not understand the danger you are in. Anyone who understands how rulers divide people…they play the right like a fiddle and the left like a tuba.
        BOTH have severe problems with understanding anyone who disagrees with their individual dogmas. Also, you are not building alliances on say, the climate issue when you attack potential allies over say, women’s or gay rights, for example like some here love to do whenever anyone tries to be friendly.

        • “Danger”? He’s in “danger”? Please. Did MarkW tell you for himself that he’s interested in, or hoping to, form alliances with anyone? He’s just as entitled to his opinion as anyone else, and what you think constitutes an “attack” when someone tries to be friendly is also that…your opinion.

          • Dipping my toe into the three-way. My take on what ems is saying is as follows ….
            WUWT has a tendency to be perceived as a right wing conservative site. I haven’t surveyed, so I wouldn’t know the reality. Because of this perception, I have heard people in real life who don’t identify with American conservative politics dismiss the climate change related solid critical thinking that goes on here.
            To be fair, some of the liberal people that I’ve heard dismiss WUWT in real life also dismiss semi liberal people who are not as liberal as they are on certain issues. Sounds messy doesn’t it ? It is messy.
            Mostly, what I see is people have made up their minds and believe in CAGW till kingdom come. I have political opinions that range throughout the spectrum of political genres. What I find most interesting is that people in real life try to pin me down as a right wing conservative which I am on certain issues when I debate the science concerning CAGW.
            Perhaps I’ll throw them for a loop a the next dinner party by showing up in dress with a Hillary Now pin and see how it works when I discuss the MWP and LIA.
            I could be wrong but EMS was trying to promote tolerance of other political views than what is normally perceived as being par for the course at WUWT in order to make room for CAGW doubters who aren’t conservative. Of course, I could be totally tone deaf on what she meant but I figured I’d give it a stab.

      • Because rulers divide people, the answer is LESS GOVERNMENT. Leave power locally, and limit the Federal government to its specific Constitutional authority. If you believe rulers pit sides against each other restrict their power.

      • ems, there is more than one problem in the world, and the greatest fallacy of all is the one that says we have to give up all battles with the exception of the ones others declare to be the most important.
        PS: The AGW scam was created in large measure to give cover to the socialists as they seek to gain more power. Once the AGW scam is defeated, the same rascals will move on the next scam. If we merely concentrate on defeating the scams one at a time, we lose.

    • Is politics so commonly discussed alongside climate science (and the health fields) because the science has taken a backseat to the politics ? Is the selling out of the scientific method to the glitter of political support the reason for the intrusion of politics ?
      Once you invite politics (and let’s not forget religion) into your bed, is it fair to only want to discuss science ?
      It gets messy pretty quickly and I’m pretty sure its going to get more messy before science sleeps alone.
      Or, better yet, till politics finds another bedfellow.

    • Check the title of the book under discussion, Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming,
      It’s a book about global warming, so is therefore relevant to this site. Its author, Andreas Malm, has linked global warming to political issues by suggesting communism as a solution to what he sees as a problem.
      It therefore follows, as night follows day or inanity follows a liberal arts degree, that any discussion of the book includes comment on its political element.

    • Your comment is just one more indication of leftard’s views of both economics and your Malthusian confusion.
      Those who wish to farm without the use of fossil fuels are free to do so. No one’s stopping them. But this chap, and those of his ilk want to stop us from using fossil fuels. That way lies authoritarianism and human misery.

    • “Climate science” hasn’t been valid science ever since the IPCC was created as a political/propaganda institution in 1988. It’s now impossible to separate “climate science” from politics (or religion, for that matter), and it’s the CAGW movement’s own fault. One of the reasons people like myself are so disgusted with this movement is that it is an affront to the scientific method itself. Science, properly practiced, has provided enormous benefits to humanity, and the CAGW movement wants to trash some of those very benefits in order to achieve it’s political/social engineering ends CAGW is a failed hypothesis, but the CAGW movement won’t let it go – and for those at the very top of the movement, they never did care whether it was true or not. It’s simply a means to their ends, the truth doesn’t matter. It’s a disgrace to science.

      • “but the CAGW movement won’t let it go”
        Thanks for spurring the thought ……
        Let’s say for a minute that climatologists want to actually be free of the political/religious manipulation.
        The sad truth is that their very existence depends on keeping the crazy bedfellow happy.
        At this point, I don’t think its too far a stretch to imagine that climatology as a serious science can’t survive without the crazy person in the bed with them.

      • Knutesea,
        Speaking of crazy people, how else do you explain Obama’s appointment of Holdren – a pathetic failure going on many decades – as his chief “science” adviser without also understanding that climate science has now become completely political? This loathsome ghoul should have been completely irrelevant many years ago – except that politicians liked what they heard from him, whether it was true or not. CAGW is ALL political. Now the EPA itself, after 35+ years of doing a great job cleaning up real pollution, has also politicized itself and become Obama’s political puppet. Sigh.

        • Frodo
          I think politics/religion has sunk its teeth into a willing public health industry which includes many disciplines.
          A book called hubris does a wonderful job describing it. It’s going to get worse before it gets better because there is still to much money to be made from the unholy union. I think 2016 going into 2017 is going to be a wakeup call for economy. It may be big enough to shake up the frivilous findings and policies that have resulted from such unions, but I’m not sure about that yet.
          And yes, my money is where my mouth is on the subject.

    • At least five of the seven billion people on earth would starve to death without fossil-fueled agriculture, as advocated by this ecoloon.

      • Probably a lot more than that. While the earth could support 2 billion without fossil fuels, the people don’t have the training to live without fossil fuels and the tools to live without don’t exist either.
        It will take time to transition, and in that time many more will die.

    • malanlewis
      Then don’t come here or don’t read those threads. No one has ever said or declared that WUWT is a blog strictly for the discussion of climate science. It’s Anthony’s blog and under “About” you’ll find:
      “About Watts Up With That? News and commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts”
      If you want to lower the cost of food, using non-motorized means is the LAST thing you want to do. Manual labor costs a whole lot more than mechanized labor, or were you suggesting that we pay manual laborers mere pennies per hour to keep the cost of “growing food” down?

      • malanlewis,
        I have to agree with Aphan, knutsea and others here. Anthony Watts makes it clear, in writing, that this site covers the gamut. Anthony has his finger on the pulse of current events in science, which includes plenty of discussion on the current (so-called) “climate” issues. The amazing success of WUWT attests to that. No alarmist blog comes close to the traffic that WUWT generates. In fact, this site gets more traffic than all alarmist blogs combined.
        The reason (IMHO) that most commenters here support the view that the cAGW scare is politics and not science is because skeptical commenters are rational, rather than being emotional. It takes a certain level of rigor to keep the emotion out of the analysis. But with the dumbing down by the gov’t .edu factories, that rigorous analysis is missing. It’s emo-response all the way, with a lot of the public.
        To me that means that things must come to a head; there will be no rational, unemotional discussion of the facts and evidence. It’s all emo, all the time, and facts be damned.
        The Left (the intelligent ones, who are callling the shots from the sidelines) are guiding the masses toward the cataclysm. They figure they will pick up the pieces. If they do, then the one-world UN believers will trade their freedom, enterprise, and self-sufficiency for safety and security.
        But if — and it’s a big IF — the rational folks get hold of the reins, then the doom of a one-world government can be averted for a while. But things don’t look good at the moment.
        In my almost seven decades of observing the human condition, one thing I’ve found is that predicting the future is pretty damn difficult. Anything can happen. But right now it’s clear that freedom and the free market — which have both given humans the best standard of living ever — are very fragile constructs. All it takes is a devious ‘Communtity Organizer’ to destroy the greatest wealth-producing system in existence. So I pray the one-world folks fail.

      • DB….
        You bang on about how the science debate is motivated by the political leanings of the left, then give a big lecture about how the free market will save us all. DB, climate cares not a jot for whether you vote right or left, whether you are free market or socialist. It changes when it is forced…. You can keep watching the political world, I will watch the science.

      • Simon,
        If you watch the science rather than the politics, then you should see that nothing out of the ordinary has happened to earth’s climate in the 70 years since CO2 began its monotonous rise.

      • Simon,
        Since there’s no verifiable, empirical, measurement-based evidence that supports your CO2=AGW belief, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re conflating science and politics.
        I wrote that the free market has produced immense wealth for the average person. You don’t seem to agree. Tell us, what system would you like to see implemented?

  35. Please oh please just let me live to see the day these halfwits have to admit to themselves that they are a bunch of boobs, chumps and dunces, and that there has never been one single unusual weather event that could be attributed to anything other than random chance and natural variation.

    • Keep thinking those happy thoughts, but it is extremely unlikely to happen. Climate ‘science’ is a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, where they have a complete inability to see their own incompetence.

    • Dream on. Deny everything. Brazen it out to the end. Joseph Goebbels said “The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”

  36. Fossilized indeed! I lived in communism for 12 years and I know what that means!!!!! What is worst than that is the way people think, the lack of equilibrium in this story about climate change/global warming. There’s a long way from communal horse and water powered farms to offshore wind farms, for example. In my native country, we have them both, and there’s no equilibrium…. Climate is still changing (since we’re speaking about a global scale change), we still have extreme phenomenons and temperatures and we still refuse to understand the way that climate change works….

  37. Does anyone know this fellow’s life style? Does he live the life he preaches? The Amish use cell phones.
    I have a vision of the Kardashians tilling the land.

  38. Communism, the social order that gave us all of history’s greatest ecological disasters, the solution to save the environment … I see a disconnect here.

    • Nothing to do with Marxist philosophy.
      Socialism plus Electricity = Communism said Lenin 1921.
      The 5 year plans for industrialisation of USSR and China are implementation of that philosophy!
      Huge collective farms using tractors and combine harvesters was this ideal implemented.
      Plough horses and nostalgia were looked on as backward peasant feudal thinking

      • “[Lenin coined a slogan about how communism would be achieved thanks to Communist Party rule and the modernization of the Russian industry and agriculture: “Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country!” The slogan was subjected to mathematical scrutiny by the people: “Consequently, Soviet power is communism minus electrification.”]”

  39. Malm is really advanced. He’s allowing farming with tame animals and farm implements. Shouldn’t he be advocating hunter gatherer bands with no clothing technology allowed and no weapons besides bare hands and maybe rocks?
    These whackjobs reinforce my belief that we could, worldwide, downsize academia by 95 % and not miss a thing.

    • Mike, I think this is a step in the right direction but goes too far.
      How about eliminating tenure and make all sabbaticals be one year working at common labor without any university support.
      If nothing else, they would get a change of scenery and a change of income too.

  40. Robert Bryce is a journalist who now makes a living writing simplistic books. I am not saying that there are not crackpots at universities who also write books. I am just saying I am wondering why Bryce bothered to write an essay about one of them.
    It would appear from searching on the internet, that Malm is about as obscure as one could be. The book is just a commercial printing of his phd thesis defended in 2014.

    • Retired Kit P,
      Don’t kid yourself, there are plenty others just like Malm. Some of them are even more radical:
      “If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund
      “In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 per day.” Dr. Jacques Cousteau
      “I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.” John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
      “This is a political game. It has nothing to do with science. It has nothing to do with health and safety.” Sherry Neddick, Greenpeace.
      “People are the cause of all the problems; we have too many of them; we need to get rid of some of them, and this (ban of DDT) is as good a way as any.” Charles Wurster, Environmental Defense Fund
      “Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.” John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
      Childbearing [should be] a punishable crime against society…all potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing. – David Brower
      Societies go in cycles:
      From bondage to spiritual faith; 
      From spiritual faith to great courage; 
      From courage to liberty;
       From liberty to abundance;
      From abundance to complacency; 
      From complacency to apathy; 
      From apathy to dependence;
      From dependence back into bondage.

      We’re at the second to last stage…
      …and then:
      You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.
      ~ Soviet Premier Nikita Khruzchev

        ~ Soviet Premier Nikita Khruzchev”(sic)
        Could you give a link to this quote?
        I dont think you can!

      • Another fine DB post saved.
        I actually had to create a DB folder.
        Complacency to apathy
        Apathy to dependence.
        Could be a few things that shake that up though.
        We’ll know in the next year or so … my opinion

      • db I agree that there are lots of people who disagree with my views on how to protect the environment and but I do not have to debate with them unless others can benefit from the debate.

        • Bryan,
          Thanx for your opinion, and for the opinions you posted. They are both unconvincing.
          The quote is from a conversation between Secretary of Agriculture Benson and Nikita Khrushchev, which took place during Khrushchev’s visit to America. Benson repeats Khrushchev’s comment, which might not be absolutely verbatim — who really knows? — because Khrushchev’s comment is repeated from memory.
          Unless, of course, you’re calling Benson a liar. If that is the case, you had best provide some solid evidence showing that he went around telling lies.
          I recently viewed a video of a Benson speech. Benson certainly comes across as a no-nonsense, level headed guy. Also, I note that Snopes has a distinct lefty point of view. Given the contrast between them and Benson, I go with Benson…
          Unless, of course, you can show that Benson is a liar.
          The ball is back in your court.

      • DB
        Haha. No it is not in anyones court but yours. You said it, you own it. Once again you show you have no interest in the truth. The quote is a complete load on nonsense. Just try using your friend google. Any number of sites will tell you it is a myth. If you think otherwise then “you” prove it.

      • Even the so-called debunking at your snopes site shows there are disagreements about the quote.
        (It is NOT proven incorrect in either intent nor general content at the snopes site.) Do you dispute the intent or meaning of the quote?

        • Simon,
          Can’t you read? I posted the quote right above.
          Every comment you make confirms that you’re mentally dull. I referred to Secretary of Agriculture Benson’s comment. But as usual, you both deflected from my challenge: you can’t document any evidence that the AgSec is a liar, or you would have.
          Thus, you’re both blowing smoke from the anonymity of the peanut gallery.

      • The origin of that particular quote is from a public speech given by Benson in 1966-
        “I have talked face-to-face with the godless Communist leaders. It may surprise you to learn that I was host to Mr. Khrushchev for a half day, when he visited the United States. Not that I’m proud of it – I opposed his coming then and I still feel it was a mistake to welcome this atheistic murderer as a state visitor. But according to President Eisenhower, Khrushchev had expressed a desire to learn something of American agriculture, and after seeing Russian agriculture I can understand why.
        As we talked face-to-face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under Communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his, and all other grandchildren, would live under freedom, he arrogantly declared, in substance:
        You Americans are so gullible. No you won’t accept Communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and you find you already have Communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you fall like over-ripe fruit into our hands.”
        Note the two qualifiers-1) it is a representation of something said in a private conversation, and 2) the words “in substance”. Those two words indicate what is defined as a paraphrase. Benson did not attempt to pass off his words as a “direct quote” from Khrushchev. There is no more “evidence” that Khrushchev did NOT say that than there is that he did. So its a petty point to argue.
        As per every foreign relation between parties that do not speak the other’s language, Benson and Khrushchev had interpreters with them. Here are two photos taken during that visit. You have to insert the http(s) in front of them as I didn’t want to bomb the thread with their size. Benson is wearing thick glasses, Khrushchev is in the light colored suit, and his well known interpreter (who also speaks English) Viktor Sukhodrev, is leaning over Krushchev’s right shoulder between him and Benson in the 2nd image. He’s separated from him in the first photo by the tall man on Khruschchev’s right, who blocks the view of Sukhodrev directly behind him.

      • DB
        Why on earth did you want to include what can best be described as a very dodgy second or third generation mangled misquote .
        I don’t know who you are but you must understand that this can only undermine whatever point you are trying to make.
        There must be thousands of real quotes about how the Soviet Union failed to keep up with the decentralised western economy e.g. computers software microelectronics.
        So much so that Soviet Union and China dropped the centralised model and adopted capitalist economies.
        If you trace the fake quote back it has double inverted commas “……….” indicating a direct quote.
        Even DBS was not stupid enough to copy them.

        • Bryan says:
          …what can best be described as a very dodgy second or third generation mangled misquote.
          Wrong, Bryan. It is Benson’s first hand report of a comment by Nikita Krushchev. And what would make it “very dodgy”, other than your spin?
          You’re just deflecting. I challenged you to produce evidence that Secretary of Agriculture Benson is a liar.
          You failed. Anyone watching his videos can see he’s a stand-up guy.
          So your assertion is simply your baseless opinion. But to be fair, my challenge remains open: produce evidence that Benson is a liar, and I’ll retract. Otherwise, you lose this mini-debate.
          I might add that Aphan has completely demolished your point in her comment above.

        • “Double inverted commas”? Those are called quotation marks.
          And since the original quote, as far as I can find, was SPOKEN during a speech in which the person speaking specifically QUALIFIED the fact that he was not directly or exactly quoting Khrushchev by saying “he arrogantly declared, in substance:” (ie- he paraphrased-” to express the meaning of (the writer or speaker or something written or spoken) using different words, especially to achieve greater clarity.”)
          (You might be unaware of the fact that translating Russian into perfect English, and vice versa, is impossible, so even the translator had to adjust/ transition between what Khrushchev actually said and it’s closest English equivalent. We all remember Hillary’s “reset button” fiasco right? So we tend to be more forgiving of statements made that one has to adjust for clarity in another language ANYWAY.)
          Now, if we go BACK to the point in which dbstealey used that quote for the first time in this thread, you’ll note that it’s at the very bottom of a very long list of quotes that he prefaced by saying-
          “Don’t kid yourself, there are plenty others just like Malm. Some of them are even more radical:”
          A rational human being would therefore accept that dbstealey was proving his point by providing evidence to support his claim. That fact that YOU got all hopped up on the murky origin of a statement made by Khrushchev, that can be totally and completely DELETED from his comment without affecting the truth/logical conclusion of his comment at ALL, indicates that your motives are not logical, but personal. You keep attacking “the man” (dbstealey) rather than his argument. The quote from Khrushchev was a PREMISE of his argument, NOT the conclusion of it, and since he has EIGHT other premises in that reply, losing one of them does NOT undermine the point he was trying to make at all.
          So, how about the next time you want to come across as Captain Logic and reason, you behave in a logical and reasonable manner towards the person you are criticizing. Something like “db-just as an fyi, you may not be aware that the origin of the quote attributed to Khrushchev is murky at best.” would have been appropriate.
          How you chose to respond instead was-
          “Could you give a link to this quote? I dont think you can!”
          “Read this, you have posted a fake quote
          You chose to act in the same manner you consistently have here, and went after “the person” rather than “the argument” despite pretending you weren’t. You posted a link to a discussion thread at Snopes as if it “proves” YOU right and db wrong, and that is hilarious as well as irrational/illogical. Again, you have no more proof that the statement was NEVER made, than db has that it WAS made. But feel free to continue to “undermine whatever point it is that you are trying to make!”

      • DBS
        Are you trying to bring this site into disrepute!
        A sceptic should have solid reliable evidence to back up his position.
        To needlessly copy what is generally thought of as an invented quote leaves the reader to think that anything else you say is worthless.
        Surely you can look into Kruschev’s official published writings and find some real quotes!
        Heres another source of fake quotes
        Of course you will believe every word he says unless someone proves beyond reasonable doubt that IDS is a liar

        • Bryan,
          I suggest you read Aphan’s first comment above. You’ve picked an argument that you can’t win. Not too smart. You’re trying to make folks prove a negative; an illogical argument for sure.
          You’re presuming that Mr. Benson was being deliberately dishonest, without a shred of evidence. You’re jaded because current politics is ethics-free. We have a President who lies like a child, and you assume public figures were always like they are now. But Benson was a religious man, in a time when ethics and basic honesty were valued for their own sake.
          Furthermore, why would he lie about a minor comment like that? It was only a very small part in the video. If he did lie, that would mean he’s a liar. Liars lie, it’s what they do. So there would be plenty of other examples to prove Benson was a liar — if he was.
          But you can’t produce anything except baseless opinions claiming what he said was fabricated, with zero evidence to support those opinions. That’s no argument at all, because it’s a completely baseless assertion. I could say exactly the same thing about you, and be just as credible. Do you think that would make what I said credible?
          Whatever you choose to believe, it’s only your personal belief. You have no facts to support it.

          • It’s like watching a fly repeatedly hit a window because it doesn’t understand what glass is. He’ll stop buzzing eventually, but his little legs are going to kick madly until he dies. 🙂

        • Bryan-
          “DBS-Are you trying to bring this site into disrepute!”
          lol-Three logical fallacies in one sentence? Argument from motives (that db could want to “bring disrepute”) red herring-distracting the conversation with something completely irrelevant to it, and poisoning the well (WUWT might suffer from the mere association with dbstealey!)
          The boldness with which you demonstrate your incompetence is both breathtaking and disturbing at the same time.
          “A sceptic should have solid reliable evidence to back up his position.”
          Really? Just a sceptic? So someone like you, who is skeptical of a quote dbstealey used should have solid, reliable evidence to back up YOUR position! How are you not getting that point? dbstealey’s position on Soviet Russia had PLENTY of solid, reliable quotes to back up his position on it even without Khrushchev’s quote. Period. YOU however have NEVER attacked dbstealey’s POSITION, you keep merely attacking one of his premises and YOU cannot provide ANY solid, reliable evidence that the quote was never said because there were only three men who COULD provide that evidence and they are all dead!
          So once again…if you think you can undermine/rebut dbstealey’s conclusion/position….of which the quote in question was merely one of 9 PREMISES (the only one here who is calling it a position/argument/conclusion is YOU…idiot) then do that. Attack/rebut his conclusion if you think you can. But your repeated illogical distractions about one of his PREMISES here are only making you look determined to prove how foolish you are.

          • Petty comes to mind.
            Despair also.
            I learn so much watching bottom feeders self destruct. I also learn lessons watching how others don’t allow themselves to be baited.
            I wish I was exposed to this site when I was a young person. It offers so many lessons.

      • Bryan,
        You make this too easy. I’m used to more competent opponents. Don’t forget that you started it, and for reasons I still don’t understand. Maybe you’re jealous of knutsea’s comment? Or maybe you’re a Soviet fanboy? You started it with this comment:
        So I gave you links. That should have been the end of it, but you insisted on digging your hole deeper.
        In your last link you attempted to tar Mr. Benson with that brush, but you failed again. There is no comparison: your politician pal admitted fabricating the quotes. How are the two comparable?
        They’re not, you’re just getting desperate. And now you’re presuming to speak for me:
        There’s a night and day difference: Smith admitted to fabricating quotes. But only a real lowlife would imply that another person is lying based on that false comparison. If you were a stand-up guy, you’d retract. We’ll see.
        Finally, you never answered my question: should I assume you are lying, unless you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you’re not? Answer that simple question, please. A ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ will do fine; no need for any tap-dancing, parsing, or long-winded explanations.
        Just remember that whatever your answer is, it applies to Benson, too.

      • DBS
        I’m from the UK where there is no right wing/left wing split among the climate change sceptics.
        It appears that this is not the case in the USA.
        Whether increased atmospheric CO2 causes a significant atmospheric temperature change is purely a science question and one day it will be settled.
        If you are a climate sceptic just because you are right wing what will you do if the alarmists turn out to be correct.
        Will you then become left wing?
        There is a psychologist of very doubtful reputation called Professor Stephan Lewandowsky.
        His theory is that all climate sceptics are right wing whackos who also believe that the Moon landings were faked, that JFK was really a Communist,that the Earth is really flat and so on.
        Up till now I have never encountered this
        You can if you like, continue to needlessly use fake quotes to back up your viewpoint but you will create a very bad impression of yourself to any rational person .
        I’m afraid I dont have the time or inclination to continue this dialog.

        • Bryan,
          You’re twisting yourself into a pretzel, trying to argue your way out of your out of your original comment where you said I couldn’t produce links to support my own comment. But I posted plenty of them. Rather than acknowledging that you were wrong, you deflected onto other subjects.
          I argue based on facts, not on politics (although I’m happy to point out how politics has poisoned the well. Your Lewandowsky insinuations are a good example). The CAGW crowd argues based on politics, because science does not support their conjecture. Therefore you’re wrong when you try to label me a “climate skeptic”. I am a Feynman-type scientific skeptic; if the facts change I’ll change with them, and all the facts must be considered, not just those that you like.
          But so far, there are no credible facts to support the ‘dangerous AGW’ scare. After many decades of searching, no one has ever been able to quantify AGW with measurements. So it is no more than a belief. A conjecture. An opinion.
          The problem is that politics has intruded because the science is bogus. That is entirely the fault of the climate alarmist crowd. They lost the scientific argument, so now they argue politics. Tell us, how do the words “climate change” fit into science discussions?
          As for Right/Left, tell it to Richard Courtney, a genuine leftist who knows the AGW scare is bunkum. Since all it takes is one example to falsify your conjecture, that does it. But of course, there are many more on the left who know CAGW is nonsense.
          Finally, you already lost your “fake quote” argument. I had hoped you would man-up and admit it, but like most alarmists you keep digging your hole deeper. You started this with an accusation and a challenge — which I met in spades — but you still can’t verify anything you allege yourself. There is zero proof, and zero evidence of any kind, that Mr. Benson did anything but report what he was told. If it weren’t for bearing false witness and character assassination of someone long gone, you wouldn’t have anything to say.
          You finally tuck tail:
          Good. Kindly get lost, and don’t come back. This is a science site.

          • Well said. They do these same things on every statist social policy. That’s one good indicator we’re on the right side of the fence. True unfettered capitalism is the only system that can bring about real civility and prosperity to the majority in a society. Getting those who are feeding off the public treasury is our greatest threat.

    • I used to farm with an ox team. They were oxen of Austrian Alpine heritage, all black with white muzzles. Sweet boys, you talk to them to get them to do stuff!

      • I used to farm with an ox team… Sweet boys, you talk to them to get them to do stuff!
        I’ll still take a fossil fuel burning, CO2 emitting tractor…

      • ems,
        … and if they weren’t in the mood for your sweet talk did you take the day off, hit ’em with a stick, or buy a tractor?

    • I grew up in a small farming town. The farmers with the most land were using tractors at the time. But I remember seeing my grandfather still using a team of horses to plow his fields and haul hay in the early 60s. I also remember seeing a farmer down the road plowing his field with his teen-aged daughters hooked up to his plow. How many wives and daughters of these modern-day communists and environmental wackos would be willing to go back to those days, based solely on an unconfirmed climate forecast? Not only is the climate-change forecast unconfirmed but so is the belief that a few degrees of warming will be disastrous rather than net beneficial to the inhabitants of the planet. This book is just one more piece of evidence that climate change was invented as a means to an end, and these people really don’t care how many human beings have to die to achieve it.

      • Women did what they had to do or there would be nothing to eat. Oxen and horses cost money just like tractors cost money.

      • Simon, if some folks get their way, the future is in the 3 livestock pics above. Teslas will be available – to Party card holders – and paid for by the proles.
        Neither you, me, nor anyone else reading this will possess a Party card. Not even those who promote the new order will be part of that In crowd. You’ll be used, then discarded.
        So you’re either for that kind of change, or against it. There’s no fence-sitting on this particular debate.

  41. so here we are in 2016 and the world average food index is at a 7 year low with bumper crops seen world wide.
    weather that leads to poor crops-
    too much heat
    not enough heat
    too much rain
    not enough rain
    hmm, the weather seems quite benign,

    • Weather that leads to even worse poor crops or even no crops:
      – Late frosts in Spring
      – Late freezes in Spring
      – Early frosts in Autumn
      – Early freezes in Autumn
      – Hard freezes in mid-Summer

  42. I’m sure his soul was anguished by the fact that printing presses were required to publish his work. Think of all the employment he could have given to thousands of scribes cutting their quills and dipping them into pots of ink not to mention the horde of tanners requires to produce all those sheets of velum. And of course the concept of royalties and copyrights for authors is a relatively modern, read capitalistic, idea so he surely declined any sort of compensation for his work preferring instead to seek the patronage of a sympathetic noble.

  43. Sweden was once (before it turned itself into a service economy) a prime example of a modern, industrial economy. Sweden produced and exported machine tools, cars, agricultural machinery, textiles, nuclear power plant components; you name it. The economy was, for good and worse, controlled by the centralized, socialist/social democrat government in an “unholy” alliance with the patrician, capitalist families and foundations of Sweden. In a sense a quiet understanding between quite far-left leaning socialists and quite far-right leaning “old” capital. It was certainly not a republican system and not really a very democratic one despite there being free elections; but it somehow tended to lean towards economic and industrial development of the land.
    This guy Malm here might be a modern “leftie”, but the “old left” in Sweden was in contrast usually for industrial development. The great majority of socialists were, after all, not Maoists wanting to send students out trenchdigging with a shovel. Industrial development was supposed to drive forward the liberation of mankind from class difference and the poverty of the workers and whatnot. If you are going to talk about “watermelons” and such, the label might fit this fellow Malm, but it doesn’t really fit in with most of the history of what is generally referred to as “the left”. The socialists and social democrats of old would likely have thrown Andreas Malm out of their meetings (they would not tolerate any opinions that were not in accordance with the party line!) for advocating the abolition of modern machinery. Maybe Luddite is a more fitting moniker for people such as him.
    In my opinion, one should certainly blame “the left” for not respecting (or not even believing in!) the individuality of man, but not really for advocating green mass murder. You would find as many people (or maybe even more) with a horribly twisted green agenda on the ultra-right. Prince Philip and his son quite quickly come to mind, for starters.

    • Quote
      It was certainly not a republican system
      No such thing, all Republic means is “not a monarchy” and defines a type of State.

      • What is the point in defining a word simply by its negative? I will rather let Abraham Lincoln define it: “government of the people, by the people, for the people”.
        But, there have been many different states throughout history who called themselves “republics” due to the simple fact that they were not, technically, monarchies. As James Fenimore Cooper wrote in the preface to the Bravo (the book being specifically about the insidious Venetian “republic”):
        “It is to be regretted the world does not discriminate more justly in its use of political terms. Governments are usually called either monarchies or republics. […] In the latter we find aristocracies and democracies blended in the same generic appellation. The consequence of a generalization so wide is an utter confusion on the subject of the polity of states.”

  44. I would like to take the opportunity to mention my new book The Delusion of Being Well Off. It explores the paradigm shift from the erroneous belief that our foreparents had a difficult life to one where we realise that coal power is as misogynistic as the power of the Monarch/Church duopoly.
    I expect to make enough from library and academic sales to pay for construction of a pool room. If enough people who use book shelves as decoration buy it, I might be able to afford insulation.

  45. CAGW was never a scientific theory or discovery, it was a circuitous political route to re-establishing Communism as a viable social system after its slow decline and final spectacular implosion and collapse.

  46. I own a farm and used to farm with an ox team who were named Mr. Chips and Dale and with my Haflinger horse from Austria, Sparky and his Love of His Life, Molly, a British horse.
    They all died of old age and I miss them all a great deal but I am too old to farm with them all anymore. No more ‘gee’ and ‘haw’ to get the Boys to turn left or right, nor more ‘giyyuup’ to get Sparky moving. And no more sheep, thanks to ‘free trade’ the value of my sheep per head fell from $250 each to less than $50 each.

  47. What would anyone expect from a guy who has a sinecure at a university. Let him renounce that job and take up a life in agriculture using 1850s technology, and we’ll see if he can maintain his current comfortable lifestyle and if he has the time to crank out this theoretical claptrap that earns him and his compatriots like Naomi Klein the horselaugh from 99% of the population.

    • “Let him renounce that job and take up a life in agriculture using 1850s technology”
      Hmm, that’s a very good idea. That way he’ll have first hand information on subsistence farming, the effects of long term UV skin damage that will make him look ten years older than he actually is and said academic will be so damned tired at the end of the day he won’t have the energy to write such tendentious totalitarian claptrap.

  48. Two “coincidences” Malm needs to explain:
    First, the rise of fossil fuel power in the 19th Century and the substantial abolition of the millennia-old institution of slave labor around the world.
    Second, the fact that the only areas that have met CO2 reduction targets are those that used to be Communist and are now Capitalist. (Nothing like “capitalist greed” for profits to conserve on expenses…)
    I’m sure I’m missing on easy alternative explanations for these coincidences. I hope Malm can enlighten me…

    • While the end of slavery is significant, much more important, and I believe intractably connected to the rise of vast exploitation of fossil energy, is the recent and rapid worldwide reduction in child mortality (death before age five). For more than 10,000 years with agriculture (and 200,000 years before that), child mortality stubbornly hovered around 500 per 1000 (see Humans could not protect their children from famine, disease, warfare, violence, and exposure to the elements. Today the rate is 40 per 1000 (and 3 per 1000 in the top countries) and falling.
      Today, the worst country for child mortality is Angola at 157 per 1000, just half the rate of the best country in 1800, Belgium at 322 per 1000. Some may say that’s due to modern medicine. Hogwash. Without the bounty provided by cheap energy, we would have not modern medicine. Exploitation of vast amounts of energy makes modernity possible.
      Energy allows us to protect our children. Those who would limit or ration this resource are ignorantly and indifferently calling for the continued death of children in sub-Saharan Africa.

  49. Hey I’d recognize that water wheel anywhere. That’s at Berry College in Rome, GA. Now there’s a lady modern progressives probably hate. Instead of demanding other people go out and teach the mountain kids book learnin’, she used her considerable fortune and did it herself.

  50. Uncle Enver (Hoxa), as He was called, would have sent this fellow on his merry way (prison), for being: retro, pro serfdom, against progress, and generally a Luddite. He could also have been set to a re-education farm to become a useful person and help pull a plow.

  51. Having only recently taken up Yoga and finding it quite enjoyable I ask if we can keep that part and ignore the rest?

  52. The subsistence economy is the least of our problems. Just wait for the purges and the show trials.

    • Not just purges. And why bother with show trials. Uncle Joe personally signed and issued monthly orders by city and region with quotas for random arrests and executions (say 1,000) and random deportations to the gulags (say 10,000). Check the history. A single death is a tragedy, but one million, that’s a statistic.

  53. This is the endgame, of course. People like Malm never envision themselves actually plowing a field with an old draft horse and rusty plow; they never envision themselves spending 16 hours a day during harvest toiling under a 90 degree sun bringing the hay or wheat harvest to market. No, that job would be reserved for us, the Little Guy.
    The writer Jonah Goldberg last year wondered why the BBC Series, Downtown Abbey was so popular with the Progressive Jetset. It wasn’t their solidarity with the servants who ran the estate. No, the attraction of Downtown Abbey with American Liberals is envy. For they see themselves being waited on hand and foot by the unwashed masses. This is what Cultural Marxism has evolved into. Don’t think for a moment these people do not see themselves as the inheritors of the old aristocracy.

    • JP,
      Exactamundo. Look what happened when the Soviets won the Russian revolution: did they make everyone equal? No. As in, HELL No!
      The first thing they did was to divvy up all the palaces, the dachas, the richest ‘kulak’ farms, and all the other property of the previous aristocrisy, and ensconce themselves in it. (Khrushchev was an ignorant farm boy, who brutally rose through the ranks to become Premier. He once bragged that to end an argument in a Politburo meeting, he pulled a pistol and murdered his opponent).
      The revolutionaries recreated everything except the royal family. Instead, they handed out Party cards to about .5% of the population, and replaced the old aristocrats with Communist Party members (and there was a hierarchy within the Party, too).
      Only the players changed. The system was no better than what it replaced.
      That’s what they’re gunning for now. The only difference is that the old Russia was pretty corrupt and kept the masses down. But if today’s leftists win, they will replace a very good system that allows everyone the opportunity to get ahead. It will be replaced with the same Soviet-style communist aristocrisy. This time around the corrupt UN will probably get the confiscated loot. And if anyone thinks taxes are high now…
      It’s a remapping of Plato’s golden city: a very small group of aristocrats, in command of a large military, and both controlling the overwhelming majority of proles. And the fellow travelers helping them really believe they will be the ones in charge. heh
      They should read more history. Most of the Russian revolution’s fellow travelers were ‘liquidated’ when they were no longer needed. They were just in the way; there’s only so much loot to go around for the inner clique and their pals. Today’s fellow travelers in the gov’t .edu factories will find themselves being part of the 85% proletariat who are not in the military, or in the tiny aristocrisy… if they’re lucky.
      ‘Fools’ doesn’t begin to describe them.

  54. I confess I didn’t read the whole article because all I could picture were mounds of animal dung with noxious fumes of methane coursing from each heap. Honestly if our culture could ever return to the horse and buggy era there would be communists (socialists) who would then insist we must go back even further to the caves.

  55. Malm has stumbled across the solution to our unemployment problem. By outlawing tractors (and backhoes for good measure) we could force all plowing and ditch-digging to be done by hand. We could keep all the unemployed humanities majors busy, tired from physical labor, and thus out of mischief. Of course half the world would starve to death, but to him a small price to pay for reducing global warming by 0.04° for the next few thousand years until the next glaciation begins to kick in.
    Astoundingly moronic.

  56. BTW, Malm,’s book sells (or should I say is priced, as nobody but rich eletes or university libraries can afford it) on Amazon for $90 (!) (hardcover) or $24 in paperback. This review on WUWT will obviously be its widest audience.

  57. It is a pity that a perfectly legitimate technical argument is obscured by many more words ranting on politics.
    The sad reality is that the United States has central planning also. The government – via research grants, corporate subsidies, defense contracts, and so forth does plenty to push development in specific directions. Shale oil is one prime example.
    Why is it that government contracts are not considering central planning?

    • I agree that the fact that the US govt has central planning is sad.
      We were much better off when people were permitted to decide for themselves how they were going to live their lives.

      • MarkW:
        You say


        Please be more specific. In which horrific minute of which horrific day were all US citizens “permitted to decide for themselves how they were going to live their lives” and did that permission apply to Al Capone or to those whom he extorted?

  58. When Malm is out in the fields with traces over his shoulders a fixing his plough after hitting a rock. There is a reason farms used to only be a quarter section – ranches were larger but had to be. But you still needed farm land to grow hay and grain for winter feed. Life was hard – 16 hours days in the summer, daylight to nightfall and then some.
    I remember when we got our first dug well with a hand pump. Such a luxury. Didn’t have to hook up a team to go get water from the spring.
    I still have the “night bucket” so you didn’t have to make the run to the outhouse at 30 below and wipe with an old Eaton’s Catalogue. Those weren’t the days my friend. My grand parents and parents lived that life, I saw the end of it, and in retrospect gladly. (Although I still have a horse and buggy – just in case 😉 )
    Anyone who pines for that life should be sent to the wilderness, miles from pavement and gravel with an axe, a saw, a bag of grain and a team of horses. Those of us who lived that life know better.

  59. Encountered Naomi Klein on a youtube video. She looked normal enough but after less than a minute, the word ‘kook’ came to mind.

  60. This guy must be brilliant. I’ve met kids in high school who can explain why communism fails. Even democracies last longer than communistic societies. Just study the ex-Soviet Union, but don’t let the lame stream media distort the evidence. As an example the phone system was from the 1960s when the USSR began collapsing in 1989. Quit simply, no one benefits from improving anything. Government projects and building were left unfinished because there were no incentives to finish them. People get paid even though they may be doing a crappy job, so doing the least one can do while still getting paid becomes the norm. The bureaucracy in “our” country is even known for having to stretch 3 hours of real work into an 8 hour day and not to work to hard because it makes the rest of their fellow employees look bad.
    Venezuela is the most recent highly socialist/ partly communist country to crash and burn, mired in poor productivity and failing central policies. One of the reasons so may are fighting against the various socialistic polices in this country is that socialism eventually drains the society of it’s wealth. It’s not that any one social policy is that bad, it that the collective costs of them eventually bankrupts the society. Once you start down that path though it is hard to stop the snow ball effect. People are under the delusion that government can solve capitalist problems. Another social policy is then created to try to correct the previous failed social policy. The example is Affordable Health Care Act. We have so many social policies effecting our healthcare system, what economists government interventions, that rather than repeal them and go back to works best, an unfettered system, we keep adding more and more social policies even though we all should know socialism/communism doesn’t work in the long run. I you want to fix the health care system you need to abolish many of the social policies negatively effecting it. Things like prolonging patents, providing monopolies the drug companies, licensure laws, government mandated college accreditation, the FDA raiding alternative healthcare labs and clinics and prohibiting advertising of cures. the prohibition to practice medicine without a license, etc. etc. etc.
    Many will say these type prohibitions of various protectionist policies for the common good will harm society but not as much harm that has come to our society because of them. That why capitalism all though not perfect, is better than socialism. It is clear that despite all the government policies enacted in the twentieth century, our sick care system is horrible. Thinking that government will solve the problems is ridiculous and history clearly bears this out.

  61. Socialism and Communism depend on one thing for their continued existence — separating the common people from power. So the common man will be behind a horse drawn plow while the black helicopters circle overhead. I jest but only slightly.
    The first duty of socialists and communists is, by any means, to get power. The second is, by any means, to keep it. The third is — well, they never really get beyond the second.
    Eugene WR Gallun

    • Eugene WR Gallun:
      Please explain where you obtained your delusional ideas concerning socialism. Was it part of indoctrination session in a meeting of the H1tler Youth?

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