Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Janet Daley offers a reason why the West has taken such an obsessive attitude toward climate change and Covid-19: self-blame.
“Let us accept for the moment that this is absolutely true: that climate change and the Covid pandemic are unquestionable phenomena just as they are described in the official doctrine adopted by virtually all Western governments. Even if we grant this, there is something very odd about such highly developed, confident, technologically sophisticated societies renouncing their fundamental attitudes and values in the face of them.
“Why do the only remedies offered for climate change involve first accepting limitless blame for developing the processes that made modern life—with all its potential for improved health and social well being—possible for so many? In effect, for making the advantages that were once only available to the rich—like warm homes and plentiful food—accessible by most people?
“Instead of concentrating research and experimentation on adapting to the changes that global warming may produce, we are instructed to dwell on our moral responsibility for causing it. Before we can begin to address the practical consequences of this change, we must cleanse ourselves of inherited guilt. And this self-punishment must involve a renunciation: not only do we accept the original sin but we must forego any return to such indulgence. Widespread prosperity was to blame for this curse so it must be abolished.”
The full story is behind a paywall at the Telegraph; Net Zero Watch has reproduced all or most of it here (item no. 8).