We've all known that liberals tend to react more emotionally than conservatives and (most) libertarians. Just look at the rhetoric from both sides; the left leans more heavily into emotional arguments, and they also lean heavily into describing the right as heartless, among other things, because we tend to be more analytical, more fact-based.
The other side of that coin is that liberals swing more widely from joy to despair, depending on how they've done in the last election. Just look at any of the many, many outbursts from leftists after either of Donald Trump's presidential election victories.
So it comes as no surprise that the constant drumbeat of Chicken Little-like rhetoric over climate change has sent many on the left into a dizzying spiral of depression.
A recent article at the Washington Free Beacon, titled “Great News for Humanity: Depressed Liberals Are Increasingly Suicidal Due to ‘Climate Anxiety,’ Study Finds,” takes a humorous approach (black humor, to be sure) to discussing a study that found liberals are increasingly suffering from climate anxiety and depression, leading the climate-anxious to refrain from having children and even contemplating and, in some cases, committing suicide. The article makes light of it, but it is a widely reported trend. Since climate change does not threaten human existence or flourishing, and extreme weather is not worsening, their fears and anxiety are unjustified by the actual state of the climate. Unfortunately, climate alarm has been foisted upon people, especially on children and mentally unwell adults, despite evidence indicating climate change is not anything to be alarmed about.
We should note that these people aren't interested in evidence. It's hard for those of us who are interested in evidence to understand what drives people like this. It's likely, though, to have to do with how deeply people think about any given topic. Matters like climate, economics, or geopolitics are unbelievably complex, with millions of moving parts, influences, inputs, and outputs, and nobody understands the totality of any of those systems. In the case of climate, not only is it unbelievably complex, but it's incredibly vast as well.
Few of the climate scolds or their fragile victims seem to understand that - or care to. And the legacy media is encouraging it with the deliberate, non-stop drumbeat of panic-mongering.
The Free Beacon sees an upside. That piece states:
Depressed liberals are increasingly at risk of suicide due to so-called climate change, according to a group of European and French-Canadian scientists. The alleged findings, while morbid, could signal a bright future for the human race. A world with fewer annoying people would make life more tolerable for the rest of us. The species would grow more resilient, and the planet might also (somewhat ironically) benefit from the decline in population, assuming it isn't a hoax.
Yes, that is morbid. One would hope that these people would seek out a mental health professional rather than an assisted suicide worker, although there are places in Canada and Europe where one can find those.
See Also: AP Claims Farmers Need Government to Shield Them From Climate Change. They Don't.
There's a Third World Oil and Gas Boom, but Climate Scolds Would Keep Them Poor and Hungry
As to the population issue, the earth's population is indeed expected to crest and begin to decline in the next few decades, but very, very little of that is due to people being concerned about the planet getting too warm by a degree or two.
There are facts to consider here:
- Climate-related deaths per capita have plummeted in the last hundred years and are lower today than at any point in human history.
- Far more people die from extreme cold than extreme heat.
- Throughout the earth's history, it's mostly been warmer than it is now - at some times, much, much warmer.
The climate-panic issue that has these people so depressed is based on two faulty assumptions, the first being that we humans, who have only been on the planet a short time, geologically speaking, can somehow know what the planet's "correct" temperature range is - and that there is some kind of thermostat we can adjust to keep the average temperature within that range.
And again, the legacy media and Democrats (but I repeat myself) are encouraging them in these faulty assumptions. It's no wonder leftist climate scolds are depressed.
The Free Beacon piece makes another interesting point about the left:
Even the depressed liberals who don't commit suicide are doing their part to improve the human species by refusing to procreate. A 2020 Morning Consult poll found that 26 percent of childless adults cited climate change as a factor in their decision not to have kids. Ezra Klein, the liberal New York Times columnist, wrote in 2022 that the question he gets asked "more than any other" is whether it's morally unjustified to have children on account of climate change.
Suicide is an unfortunate thing we shouldn't wish on any human. But lefties choosing not to reproduce to save the planet? I'd kick in a few bucks to buy advertising space in, say, "The Nation" to spread that idea. If nothing else, in dealing with the loony left, we can just outbreed them!
