[This excellent comment was made by John C. in response to one by Kevin (a.k.a. Manicbeancounter) on Mark’s To B or Not To B? thread. It deserves elevation to a head post so that more readers will see it. Thanks to John C. for agreeing to this — Scepticus]
Kevin (at 04 Jul 25 at 3:12 pm), when discussing the importance of narratives here on the Cliscep site we should probably first refer to our own Andy West’s work in his “The Grip of Culture” [Ref. 1]. In a work of well over 430 pages he mentions ‘narrative’ over 450 times.
Andy writes at page xii, “I was by then quite familiar with the power of cultures; given enough latitude they can overwhelm reality in the public consciousness, and their grip can subtly extend into organisations of all kinds before anyone notices their fundamental irrationality.” At page xiv he continues, “Unless anyone can think of a better explanation, the measurements (now greatly expanded for this book) do indeed robustly confirm a culture of climate catastrophism across global publics.”
Thus Andy’s work shows the huge (and sometimes overwhelming ) influence that cultures and their associated narratives can have on societies. It is notable that, in the context of climate, the narrative of catastrophism has overwhelmed large sections of the Western world (especially media and governments) but, fortunately for them, societies less closely linked to the West are largely free of such tunnel vision.
I propose to take what I think is a different but complementary view to Andy’s which will be based upon bureaucracies because so much of human activity is directed by organisations that have some form of internal structure (e.g. hierarchy) and which may reasonably be called bureaucracies. Specifically, I am concerned with (i) how they may operate internally, and (ii) how they may interact with other actors in the public (especially political) arena. I will start with the latter:-
The Iron Triangle of Bureaucratic Operation
I have previously mentioned this mechanism elsewhere on Cliscep but it bears repeating in this context where, in the UK, in addition to our continuing CCA/NZ challenges, we have just passed through the majority of the Covid event.
The Iron Triangle is a well-known phenomenon related to policy making. It is shown in diagram form in [Ref. 2] and is described in written form by Endress in [Ref. 3]. It is worth quoting at length from the latter. After describing the first- and second-best levels of policy making, Endress continues:-
“Third-best is the world of political economy, wherein costs and benefits directly influence the formation of coalitions that compete for political and economic advantage in society. The pursuit of such advantage is called “rent-seeking” in economics and typically involves activities such as lobbying, public relations campaigns, political contributions, and, sometimes, outright bribery. Unfortunately, the expansion of government that accompanies intervention on second-best grounds can facilitate rent-seeking at the third-best level … A particularly powerful type of rent-seeking coalition, long studied in political science, is termed “the iron triangle” because of the strength of the collaborative relationships among a triad of actors: politicians who seek campaign contributions, votes and reelection; government bureaucrats who aspire to expand fiefdoms and budgets; and private sector interest groups who seek special privileges in the form of political access, favourable legislation, subsidies, protection of monopoly positions, and lucrative government contracts. The iron triangle is durable and impenetrable because it functions as a highly efficient, three-cornered, rent-seeking machine.
Nowhere (except perhaps in healthcare) do third-best politics sink first-best and second-best economic considerations as deeply as in the realm of energy policy. In assessing energy policy in Europe and the United States, Helm (2012) is especially critical of policymakers’ obsession with current technology renewable energy, which is not yet commercially viable without government subsidies and mandates … Consequently, renewables have remained ineffective in lowering energy prices, creating green jobs, and reducing carbon emissions worldwide. The result is high costs for little gain. In a review of Helm’s book, “The Carbon Crunch,” The Economist … highlights Helm’s observation that the entire renewable sector has become an “orgy of rent-seeking.” This outcome is not compatible with the sustainability criterion.” End of Endress quote.
I find it telling but not surprising (given the importance of these topics to humanity) that Endress is here describing (a) not the best approach to governance but the third best form, and (b) he has noted that energy and health policies are particularly susceptible to influence under the lower standards of governance.
The Iron Law of Oligarchy [Ref. 4]
Given that the Iron Law of Oligarchy was proposed by Robert Michels well over a hundred years ago I am somewhat surprised that it is not known much more widely given its potential for explaining much of the behaviour of some bureaucracies over the years, and in particular those behaviours that favour outcomes which are very different from those originally sought.
Ref. 4 states that the Iron Law of Oligarchy “asserts that rule by an elite, or oligarchy, is inevitable as an “iron law” within any democratic organization as part of the “tactical and technical necessities” of the organization … [A]ll complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies. Michels observed that since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy, power within an organization will always get delegated to individuals within that group, elected or otherwise. As he put it in Political Parties, “It is organization which gives dominion of the elected over the electors. […] Who says organization, says oligarchy.” … Far from being servants of the masses, Michels argues, this leadership class, rather than the organization’s membership, will inevitably grow to dominate the organization’s power structures.”.
Ref. 4 also describes the possible implications of the Iron Law in these terms, “The “iron law of oligarchy” states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations. The relative structural fluidity in a small-scale democracy succumbs to “social viscosity” in a large-scale organization. According to the “iron law”, democracy and large-scale organization are incompatible.”
Taken together, the Iron Triangle and the Iron Law form a potentially very powerful disruption to the correct operation of bureaucracies as conceived by their creators. In the extreme, those bureaucracies could, in principle, be completely redirected from their original purposes. To what extent has complete redirection or misdirection taken place in reality?
Effects in the Real World?
It is interesting, but somewhat depressing, to speculate as to what effects the Iron Triangle and the Iron Law may have had – and may still be having – on our lives today. For example, if catastrophist narratives influenced the oligarchies operating within large swathes of Western governments and their quangos, plus within major media organisations, major businesses and charities then, to consider just two thought experiments, some of the following perverse outcomes might occur:-
Suppose a major bird protection charity starts to believe that current renewables technology must be adopted in order “to save the planet” then perhaps the charity (i) would promote farms of solar panels where wildfowl would mistake them for water surfaces, and (ii) would advocate the erection of wind turbines in areas where these turbines could, throughout the life of the wind farm, mince up large numbers of birds, bats and insects.
Or suppose that governments, their public health agencies and large pharmaceutical companies collectively came to believe that a deadly pandemic was in progress and from which the only escape would be the rapid development of a “safe and effective” vaccine. In such an instance perhaps the vaccine’s safety might be inadequately tested due to the rapid development timescale required in order to release the population from repeated pandemic lockdowns. What then would be the medical effects of the premature application of a potentially unsafe vaccine?
Correcting Narratives and Improving Governance
The Iron Triangle model suggests that moving to a ‘first best’ model of governance would improve matters for the populace (i.e. moving away from a semi-failed state model back towards competent government), while the Iron Law suggests that continual vigilance (followed, where necessary, by corrective action) of major national and international organisations (and treaties with them!) would help to avoid countries being suborned internally and compromised internationally. However, many vested interests will oppose such improvements; group-think, tunnel vision and motivated reasoning are the dependable allies of vested interests.
In an era of 24-hour news (which, in the absence of severe censorship, will likely continue indefinitely) then avoiding panicked, snap decisions at senior levels, although very difficult, may lead to better long-term outcomes.
However, looking back at British history over decades the list of state failures is long; the Establishment has protected (and is protecting) itself at every turn. Thus the sine qua non of better governance in the British context is probably the election of a government that sees itself primarily as serving the electorate, probably through root and branch reform, rather than serving those unelected and anti-democratic forces which, for far too long, seem to have inhabited the corridors of power.
Causal Underdetermination
Thus far I have not addressed in this note the issue of the fundamental scientific causal underdetermination which you raised, Kevin. As this note has been concerned primarily with the possible misdirection of the efforts of Western organisations (both within and without nation states) I will not here switch horses to discuss in detail the very different but very relevant issue of underdetermination.
For now it is sufficient to note that the narrative adopted by many Western states, namely that of dangerously rising temperatures driven mainly or exclusively by unabated CO2 emissions, gravely hobbles the economies of those nations which try, at all costs, to mitigate any such climate change, while harming not at all those nations which reject (and perhaps even laugh at) the catastrophist CO2 narrative.
References
- https://thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2023/07/West-Catastrophe-Culture6by9-v28.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle_(US_politics)#/media/File:Irontriangle.PNG where the interest group could be, for example, a university, an NGO, or a green organisation, etc.
- Arsenio Balisacan et al. (editors), “Sustainable Economic Development: resources, environment and institutions”, Academic Press, 2014, especially section 3.4.2 by Lee H. Endress, ‘Public policy: prosustainability or not?’, pages 57 -58.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
Climate Scepticism 
#/media/File:Irontriangle.PNG){kind=link}
Some interesting ideas there, but drilling down, this gets to the nub of it, so far as I am concerned:
…However, looking back at British history over decades the list of state failures is long; the Establishment has protected (and is protecting) itself at every turn. Thus the sine qua non of better governance in the British context is probably the election of a government that sees itself primarily as serving the electorate, probably through root and branch reform, rather than serving those unelected and anti-democratic forces which, for far too long, seem to have inhabited the corridors of power.…
What we do about it, I don’t know. The curious thing is that we have always had an elite establishment. We still do, but now it has morphed into something different. Whatever form it takes, however, it will always put its own views and interests ahead of those of the electorate.
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There is another process that might be worth mentioning in this context. That is the apparent drift of organisations, particularly charities, away from the reason they were formed and towards a system where that original goal becomes a mere decoration for an outfit with very different aims. What happens is tied in with growth and the inevitable self-organising forces noted by John above. The organisation’s day-to-day existence depends more and more on work to raise money and expand its status and staffing, and less and less on trying to achieve the aim that a small group of people began with. Examples abound; but once a paid staff grows large, and membership grows large, there is the inevitable inclination to count money spent on wages and swanky offices as money well spent on the cause, when it has no effect on the cause.
There seems to be another consequence of internal self-organisation, which is a sort of homogenisation, where charities adopt a common set of ethics and policies, and grow to resemble one another. A good example is the Rational Trust? thread, which notes the incongruous addition of a climate research department to a charity concerned with preserving old buildings and estates. Rather than employ another dry stone waller, they take on a climate scientist.
On the RSPB is Betraying its Members thread, I included this image, which showed the charities endorsing the RSPB’s position in favour of offshore wind farms (i.e. they supported the killing of birds):
As to answers to these troubles, I’m drawing a blank.
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Mark, one thing that supporters of reduced government like to note is that it wasn’t that long ago that the central government’s main concerns were foreign affairs and defence. I wouldn’t suggest a return to those days, but at least ending the growth in meddling with every damn thing that their citizens do might be a valid idea for a future government.
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Jit, your point about governmental takeover of individual freedoms has reached the point of redefining “rights” as tools for coercion:
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I think it is useful to have some temporal perspective on this issue of good versus bad governance (with the perversion/redirection of bureaucracies being one modus operandi for the latter). To this end I note [Ref. 1] that Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE) described six species of government that he divided into two groups of 3, with one group for True Government and the other for Corrupt Government.
For rule by a single person Aristotle contrasted Monarchy to Tyranny; for rule by a selected few Aristocracy was contrasted to Oligarchy; and for rule by the many Polity was contrasted to Democracy. In each case I have noted the True first and the Corrupt second. Note that Polity is rule by the many for the benefit of all (cf. ‘woke’). Aristotle criticised Democracy because, in practice, it represents the many ruling on behalf of the many rather than on behalf of the populace in its entirety.
Thus Aristotle ranked Democracy below Polity, although, apparently, he ranked Democracy more highly than Aristocracy and Monarchy. So there is some hope for us – at least in Aristotle’s view. However, we clearly need to move our governance further towards Polity if matters are to improve for ordinary people.
REFERENCE 1. Paul Kelly (consultant editor), “The Politics Book”, Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 2013, especially pages 40 – 43.
Regards, John C.
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JohnC – funny you should make that comment, just reading “the story of Greece and Rome” by Tony Spawforth, and just at the Greek city/citizen state chapter which mentions the word “polis” which gives us the modern “politics”.
Having read no further at this point, my question to you is, in a modern society with millions of people (not a city state with far less people) how would you see that working for ordinary people?
PS – many links I could give Climate Assembly UK – UK path to net zero must be underpinned by education, choice, fairness and political consensus, urges Climate Assembly
The first UK-wide citizens’ assembly on climate change publishes its final report today, setting out a clear, internally consistent and timely path for how the UK can reach its legally binding target of net zero emissions by 2050.
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What’s needed is ‘the taking of power by an epistocracy of the intelligent and informed, acting on their own life-responsibility as the vanguard of a healing revolution’.
Or that’s what John Foster said at the website of Green House Think Tank last week. He thinks that most voters are too stupid and/or addicted to consumerism for democracy to be capable of averting the climate catastrophe.
He also said that the reactions of fellow greenies to similar statements he has made in the past (he has been proposing elitist eco-
fascismepistocracy for several years) have been somewhat painful. They seem to have been somewhat painful this time too. He resigned as a director of GHTT five days later.LikeLike
dfhunter (16 July at 1035pm), good question which should probably be thrown open to all Cliscep commentators.
For myself, I am busy for the next few days and so will not be able to comment more fully until then. Regards, John C.
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dfhunter (16 July at 1035pm), I think I am now emerging from my other occupations and so can start to attempt answers your points. Let me first address the issue of the Citizens’ Assembly on the path to Net Zero, to which you kindly gave a link at the end of your commentary.
I am not, nor ever have been, a fan of the Climate Change Act or Net Zero policies. The reasons against NZ in the UK (i.e. it is unachievable, economically and societally disastrous, and pointless in global terms) have been set out very clearly by our own Robin Guenier here:-
https://cliscep.com/2025/06/24/the-case-against-net-zero-an-eleventh-update/
I therefore incline to the view that, ideally, NZ and the CCA should be abolished. If that cannot be achieved then they should be de-fanged as much as possible and as soon as possible. However, if you think there are important points raised by the Citizens’ Assembly report then please comment upon them, especially as they relate to bureaucracy and similar issues which are the subject of this thread.
The very big question that you raise, “… in a modern society with millions of people (not a city state with far less people) how would you see that working for ordinary people?” requires a separate response and is a task I will begin to address in later postings.
Regards, John C.
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Thanks for the reply John C.
Was a bit O/T with my comment. Reading your post this partial quote stood out to me
“Ref. 4 also describes the possible implications of the Iron Law in these terms, “The “iron law of oligarchy” states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations. The relative structural fluidity in a small-scale democracy succumbs to “social viscosity” in a large-scale organization. According to the “iron law”, democracy and large-scale organization are incompatible.”
Which made me think of this statement from Climate Assembly UK webpage –
“The UK is committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050. Climate Assembly UK brought together 100+ people from all walks of life and of all shades of opinion to discuss how the UK should meet this target. The assembly members met over six weekends in Spring 2020. They heard balanced evidence on the choices the UK faces, discussed them, and made recommendations about what the UK should do to become net zero by 2050. Their final report was published on Thursday 10 September 2020.”
Climate Assembly UK has been covered in the past on this site, but still relevant.
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The Climate Working Group (CWG) report, cited above, marks a significant attempt at rebalancing the climate debate (at least in the USA). As one of the report’s authors, Dr. Roy Spencer, says, “…we are the “Red Team”; the “Blue Team” has had their say since the late 1980s.”
I think it may be useful for this thread to record the thoughts of a couple of the report’s authors, Drs. Spencer and Curry. One of the significant factors from the report is, in Dr Curry’s words, “the deep uncertainties associated with estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon”. Hence CO2 may not be the demon that the alarmists would have us believe it to be. In which case it should, in principle, influence the many organisations/bureaucracies relying upon the assumption of its large positive cost.
2. Dr. Spencer has written down his personal thoughts on the report here:-https://www.drroyspencer.com/2025/07/some-thoughts-on-our-doe-report-regarding-co2-impacts-on-the-u-s-climate/
I found the section of Dr. Spencer’s comments entitled ‘Why Would Climate Science Be Biased Toward a Specific Outcome?’ to be particularly interesting in the context of this thread. In that section Dr Spencer writes, “In that meeting [at the White House], Bob [Watson (Al Gore’s science advisor on environmental matters)] remarked on the formation of the IPCC something to the effect of, “We are now regulating ozone-depleting chemicals, and carbon dioxide is next”. I was astounded that the policy goal had already been decided, and now all we needed to do was to fund enough science to support that goal.”
Further on, Dr Spencer writes, “So, why is climate science biased? First, when we decided that essentially 100% of research funding would come from the government, we put politicians (and thus policy goals) either directly or indirectly in charge of that funding. Second, Congress only funds problems to be studied… not non-problems. As President Eisenhower warned us in his 1961 farewell address, these forces could lead to a situation where “public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite”. That has now happened.”
The final citation that I would like to make from Dr Spencer’s article is some wording that is well-known to sceptics, “As they say, follow the money.”
3. Dr Curry has recorded her personal thoughts here:-
https://judithcurry.com/2025/07/29/new-climate-assessment-report-from-us-doe/
Dr. Curry quotes from the report’s foreword by the USA’s Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, as follows:-
“Climate change is real, and it deserves attention. But it is not the greatest threat facing humanity. That distinction belongs to global energy poverty. As someone who values data, I know that improving the human condition depends on expanding access to reliable, affordable energy. Climate change is a challenge—not a catastrophe. But misguided policies based on fear rather than facts could truly endanger human well-being.”
A further quote from Dr. Curry expresses her hope that climate scientists may drop their motived reasoning, “J[udith]C[urry] recommendations for climate science/scientists: Embrace the complexity of climate science and acknowledge uncertainty and disagreement. Stop with the faux “consensus” enforcement and stop playing power politics with climate science. Constructively participate in the dialogue that D[epartment]O[f]E[nergy] and the CWG Report are attempting to foster, in the interests of returning objective physical science to the climate issue.”
Powerful stuff! Or, at least, I hope it will prove to be a powerful and influential report.
Regards, John C.
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Regarding the scientific-technological elite: it’s quite obvious that climate change is the biggest show in town when it comes to funding. That means that the scientific output is heavily tilted towards climate change – and to finding reasons that “it’s worse than we thought.” Although in this observer’s view, the “worse than we thought” discoveries are either wrong, or are nth-order problems that are of no real consequence.
Looking at the UKRI’s funding opportunities just now, I see 7 items with the keyword “climate”, some with very large budgets. Top was this:
“Cultural heritage and climate change networks to drive policy change”
Total fund a fairly-trivial three hundred grand. I cut’n’paste the aim below, in case anyone can explain to me what it means:
Link, if anyone wants to apply for a grant.
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Jit – had a look at – Research organisations eligible for UKRI funding – UKRI
Maybe I could blag my way into the The Welding Institute – Home by calling myself a “re-welder” using ancient techniques & solar power!!!
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In the head post I quoted from the work of economist Lee Endress [Ref. 1], particularly in relation to the third-best level of governance. For completeness we should understand the Three Levels of Governance model that Endress was referring to; he sets these out in [Ref. 1] and thereby allows us to make a comparison between this model and the binary models of Aristotle [Ref. 2]. The latter contrasts true government with corrupt government according to the number of people in government:-
Number of rulers: True government / Corrupt government
Rule by single person Monarchy / Tyranny
Rule by a selected few Aristocracy / Oligarchy
Rule by the many Polity / Democracy
In his section on ‘Public Policy: Prosustainability or not?’ Endress [Ref. 1] writes as follows of the three levels model:-
START OF QUOTE
“The project of sustainable development comes with problems standard in natural resource and environmental economics: externalities (spillover effects like pollution, with missing markets); under provision of public goods (goods that exhibit nonrivality in consumption, e.g., protection of ecosystems from invasive species); and open access natural resources (open ocean fisheries, global climate), which are vulnerable to ruinous depletion …”
“Appropriate policies for addressing these problems … will also be shaped by systematic consideration of the policy environment at three levels of analysis, or the three-tiered, analytical hierarchy of economic policymaking: first-best, second-best, and third-best …”
“The first-best world features an idealized, frictionless economy without information costs, contracting costs, or agency costs. Information is complete; contracts cover all contingencies and can be fully monitored and enforced. Crime, corruption, and rent-seeking (pursuit of special privilege) can be costlessly nullified. At this level, government intervention and private contracting can be equivalent solutions to the problem of missing markets … Prudent policy analysis and design start by getting it right at the first-best level.”
“Second-best brings information, contracting, and agency costs to the forefront. Because information gathering is no longer costless, asymmetric information is a common occurrence … Information, legal, and administrative costs result in incomplete contracts. Agency costs prevent full monitoring and enforcement. The optimal levels of crime, corruption, and rent-seeking are no longer likely to be zero when the net costs of combatting them are considered. The default view … is that second-best costs are pervasive and government intervention (via taxes, subsidies, and regulation) is necessary to improve social welfare. Since government faces the same types of cost and information constraints as the private sector, it cannot be a foregone conclusion that government can always do it better; private sector solutions with market competition may in some cases be superior.”
“Third-best is the world of political economy, wherein costs and benefits directly influence the formation of coalitions that compete for political and economic advantage in society. The pursuit of such advantage is called “rent-seeking” in economics and typically involves activities such as lobbying, public relations campaigns, political contributions, and, sometimes, outright bribery. Unfortunately, the expansion of government that accompanies intervention on second-best grounds can facilitate rent-seeking at the third-best level. Corollary: the antidote to rent-seeking is not more government and regulation, but competition. This was a key insight of Adam Smith … who observed “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.””
END OF QUOTE
More of Endress’s comments on the third-best level and rent-seeking may be found in the head post.
References
Regards, John C.
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Slightly off topic, but I think one of the issues for the UK’s representative democracy is the gradually declining quality of the representatives. Maybe people have always moaned about this, and always been wrong, and maybe I’m wrong too. But watching PMQs I see increasing numbers of MPs resorting to reading out their questions, and I’m sure that not that long ago anybody trying to do so would have been shouted out of the chamber.
This is perhaps a symptom of the wider problem of good candidates being deterred from putting themselves forwards, and of party faithful being pushed forwards, almost regardless of quality.
Perhaps one solution would be for local party branches to have sole control over the person they select to go forwards as their candidate. Or for there to be a wider vote on selection of candidates.
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Jit, I think your comment is very much on topic because parliament is, in a very real sense, a bureaucracy (or a series of interlinked bureaucracies) and therefore subject to the same pressures as I have described.
I, too, have the impression that the quality of our representatives has fallen over the decades. In one regard in particular, namely the dominance of non STEM trained people, there is a notable weakness which has allowed parliament (and the executive) to be misled by unrealistic optimism in both technological and financial matters; the examples of HS2 and renewable energy are two cases in point. However, it is not beyond the wit of parliamentarians to recognise their collective weakness and, for the protection of the public interest, build defensive procedures that would ensure the elephant traps (which are so evident to Clisceppers) are largely avoided.
There is also the related problem at the highest levels of the UK Civil Service bureaucracy which has not been modernised for decades and is thus not fit for evaluating much of the stuff it is confronted with; this matter was much discussed towards the end of the comments in Robin’s seventh update (https://cliscep.com/2024/10/14/the-case-against-net-zero-a-seventh-update/).
As a nation governed through representative democracy we really need to ‘up our game’ if we are to better respond to the public’s needs, but are the forces of conservatism currently too powerful to allow such modernisation?
Regards, John C.
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Jit, further to your comment on our parliamentary representatives and my response which treated parliament as a net of interlinked bureaucracies, I believe it is worthwhile posing the following question …
How far will political elites go in sustaining themselves and their political goals? What level of harm will they suffer their populace to endure? To estimate an extreme (to date), upper bound we can consider the UK’s losses in the First World War.
A popular history [Ref. 1] sums up the costs that British elites, supported by gung-ho media, were willing to accept in prosecuting World War 1:-
“Above all, these were years of visible death. A little over 6 million men were mobilized to fight in the war, and more than 722,000 died … But the danger was unevenly distributed. One in eight fighting soldiers was killed, and nearly a third wounded … The worst place was Flanders: for every nine men sent from Britain, five would be killed, wounded or reported missing.”
In partial mitigation it should be remembered that the sentiment at the start of the war, August 1914, was that it would be over by Christmas. In the event it took about 12 times longer before the Armistice was signed.
Ref . 1 also describes war leader “Lloyd George … in rallying, sustaining and holding together a young semi-democracy through terrible times … was touched by greatness too.”
Reference 1. Andrew Marr, “The Making of Modern Britain”, Macmillan, 2009, especially part 2 ‘The Meaning of Hell 1914-1918’, pages 121, 124 – 125.
Regards, John C.
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John Cullen – I am watching The Pacific (TV Mini Series 2010) – IMDb at the moment (think that’s it anyway).
WW2 by then, but seems to me we forget the hell the US/allied troops went through to beat the Japs. May be wrong, but I seem to recall 1 million troops were expected to die taking the fight to the Japanese home islands, so the bombs were dropped.
“What level of harm will they suffer their populace to endure?” – what a question in our current ongoing wars.
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“How far will political elites go in sustaining themselves and their political goals? What level of harm will they suffer their populace to endure?“
Good question. It all depends on how far they can persuade the public to go. During World War 1 there were, from time to time, movements hostile to the continuation of the war, and keen to encourage peace moves, but by and large the public remained behind the politicians who insisted we keep fighting. Thus, so long as the cost (both financial and human) could be sustained, the war – or the UK’s participation in in – would go on.
Comparing the net zero campaign to fighting a vicious and damaging war is an interesting parallel, because, of course, it is a parallel the climate concerned often make. If we can mobilise society and bear such huge costs, they say, to fight evil wars, then surely we can do the same (and more) to fight the evils of climate change?
There are huge differences, however. Britain’s politicians were reluctantly dragged into the two world wars (perhaps a bit less reluctantly in the first one) against their wishes (but with the enthusiasm of much of the public first time round) by evil third parties. Stopping the war wasn’t an option. Leaving the war wouldn’t be remotely easy. The “fight” against climate change isn’t like that at all. They have to keep the propaganda going to frighten us with the threat, because without the propaganda the threat isn’t at all obvious. But the costs of the fight are very obvious (trashed environment, rising energy bills, energy insecurity, exported jobs and losses in manufacturing, balance of trade deficit), especially when we in the UK seem to be bearing the brunt of it while much of the rest of the world largely stands on the sidelines and holds our coat. Whatever the propagandists say, unlike a world war, it isn’t an existential threat. It’s a fight we could leave tomorrow, and it would make no difference to the outcome. And the public is no longer wholeheartedly on board.
Thus, it’s much more difficult to persuade the electorate to remain committed to the fight and to the pain. “How far will political elites go in sustaining themselves and their political goals? What level of harm will they suffer their populace to endure?” This time the answer is very different from the answer with regard to world wars. This time the answer isn’t dependent on the politicians. The net zero zealots who are in power will continue to double down on the pain, for the simple reason that they are zealots. But I strongly suspect that the public won’t allow them to continue inflicting the pain beyond the next general election. Here’s hoping, anyway.
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dfhunter, yes, I was aware of the enormous anticipated casualty list (on both sides) from invading the Japanese homeland in the Second World War. However, I chose the First World War example for the following reasons.
The nature of warfare changed considerably between the two World Wars in a way that put a large fraction of the civilian population, even those living far away from the military front line, at risk of attack from e.g. long-range and large-scale carpet bombing of cities (well before precision-strike missiles were developed).
Hence, in the First World War the majority of casualties were largely soldiers associated with action close to the front line and therefore the result of army action. And the armies, through their general staffs, were closely controlled by their political masters. In such a scenario, a political decision to halt military action by any of the belligerent powers would have stopped their contribution to the slaughter. And this in the simplest view (cf. Andrew Marr, “The Making of Modern Britain”, Macmillan, 2009, part 2 ‘The Meaning of Hell 1914-1918’, page 191) is essentially what happened in the First World War; the belligerents collectively agreed to a ceasefire (armistice) at 1100hr on 11/11/1918 and the slaughter of soldiers by soldiers ceased abruptly.
As the death toll of-soldiers-by-soldiers rose inexorably during the First World War the politicians could have at any stage, at least in principle, paused the conflict. But it took over four long years to come about. That is. perhaps, the bureaucratic lesson for our current age. Regards, John C.
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Mark H, you wrote, “It’s a fight [against climate change that] we could leave tomorrow, and it would make no difference to the outcome”. Indeed! If CO2 is the principal “enemy” then the war against it was lost long ago as a glance at the Mauna Loa observatory data will confirm; the UK alone has zero chance of beating that ‘foe’. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
Perhaps the turning point in the battle came in late 2009 at the Copenhagen COP when Western governments turned against their own peoples by committing them to continue the ‘fight’ against CO2 while the rest of the world went its own way [Ref. 1].
Once global (all countries) CO2 mitigation was no longer even an option (i.e. post Copenhagen) then surely Western governments should have adopted a defensive attitude in order to protect their own populations – Western adaptation rather than continued mitigation should have been the rule. But Western elites thought they knew best and doubled down on the agenda that is now costing us all so dearly
As Darwall wrote [Ref. 1] over 10 years ago, “Whatever the predictive merits of the science, the absence of a regime capping global greenhouse gas emissions rendered the West’s global warming policies completely pointless. The results of global warming’s political experiment already provide a definitive verdict: global warming policies have made the world unambiguously worse off, a conclusion which holds irrespective of the outcome of the geophysical experiment.”
Reference 1. Rupert Darwall, “The Age of Global Warming. A history.” , Quartet Books, 2014, notably pages 272, 282, 286 and 298. Regards, John C.
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John Cullen – thanks for your thoughtful reply to my comment (which was a bit O/T).
Maybe the Falkland’s war would have been a better example. 1st time I heard the word “Jingoism“. Had to check It’s meaning again before I comment – Jingoism – Wikipedia
“The chorus of a song by the songwriter G. W. Hunt, popularized by the singer G. H. MacDermott – which was commonly sung in British pubs and music halls around the time of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 – gave birth to the term.[2][3][4] The lyrics included this chorus:
We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too
We’ve fought the Bear before, and while we’re Britons true
The Russians shall not have Constantinople!”
Makes you realise how things have changed for the UK.
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I do NOT wish to give the impression that I was simply dismissing civilian deaths in war. Rather, I was trying to highlight that such deaths, while often large in absolute terms, were relatively small compared to the overall (mainly military) losses.
In the case of the First World War that I cited, civilian losses (due to military action) for a major belligerent country like France (where the war was largely fought) were about 3%, and about 2% for the UK. Smaller nations like Belgium could suffer disproportionately; their civilian deaths at 23,700 were very roughly 50% of their military deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties Regards, John C.
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John Ridgway has written a very useful and informative article at Climate Etc. describing yet another way in which bureaucracy, specifically scientific bureaucracy, can go astray. John’s article is thus very relevant to this current thread:-
https://judithcurry.com/2025/09/08/the-matthew-effect-mono-cultures-and-the-natural-selection-of-bad-science/ Regards, John C.
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John C – thanks for the link, answered my question about “where is he”. Seems John has been busy elsewhere 🙂
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Dfhunter,
After several years both monitoring and contributing towards the Cliscep project, I felt it might be a good idea to take a break and, as they say, touch grass. It’s actually a bit like taking retirement, since I’m pleased to see that I’m finding more time to do other things. The level of dedication required from the Cliscep team should not be underestimated.
That said, I don’t think I will ever entirely give up the essay writing. The one recently posted at Climate etc. is on a subject I have already covered here at Cliscep. I may be doing more of that sort of thing, i.e. reusing material to reach a different audience. It saves having to come up with new ideas. In the meantime, all power to Cliscep; it is in more than capable hands and I will no doubt be passing by from time to time to chip in with the odd contribution.
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Testing new computer to find what works and what does not! e.g. WordPress has, until now, refused to recognise Cliscep’s existence for me.
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John Ridgway has written another useful and thoughtful article on the natural selection of bad science; it is to be found at Judith Curry’s Climate Etc site:- https://judithcurry.com/2025/09/23/natural-selection-of-bad-science-part-ii/
Here are a few quotes from John’s article which resonated with me:-
“Persistent, normative practice that is well known to be wrong is a strong indicator that we are dealing here with a natural selection for bad science. Gavin Schmidt can blame this on the policy makers but I’m afraid the scientists must take the responsibility.”
“Climate scientists have learnt that if they want to sit at the big table with the policy makers they have to ignore any misgivings they might have and instead give the policy makers what they want …. “
“Furthermore, if there is any pragmatism, it is clear that it is a pragmatism that protects the scientist from falling short in the eyes of policy makers. The problem is that no one is incentivised to be right.”
“The assumption that the scientific method will always ensure a natural selection for the good science would seem to be somewhat optimistic; that much is clear when looking at how the climate science community handles its uncertainties.”
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[To continue my 7.09pm comment that Worpress interrupted]
John Ridgway has also announced his semi-retirement, at least from Cliscep. In doing so he acknowledged the large effort that the backroom staff do to keep the site running; I too thank them for their most welcome efforts. I also wish John well in his semi-retirement and thank him for his helpful suggestions. Regards, John C.
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