The Eschatology of Climate Change: The End of Times

The Climate Change myth of the end of times views reasonable scientific and economic concerns through a deep metaphysical lens that places today's Woke at the center of a saga to save the world.

The American Spirit Essays #19

(Previous: Wokeism Rises to the Challenge)

Strategic Eschatology

The preceding essay made the case that Wokeism is a new religion whose many scientific-sounding arguments are mere veils shrouding metaphysics and theology.  This essay considers the oldest and best developed area of Woke pseudoscientific spirituality, the end-times myth of apocalyptic climate change.

Eschatology—a belief about the end of days—arises in some form in many faith traditions.  There are only two plausible explanations for such universality, one external, the other internal.  One, there could be an underlying external Truth to the end of days that each of these traditions has attempted to access (with all faithful believing that theirs has done so most correctly).  Two, there could be some deep, internal, human spiritual need that only a belief in end times can fulfill.  Either way, Wokeism is hardly the exception in giving a central role to the repentance that can keep humanity from hurtling toward destruction.

Not all beliefs about a changing climate are eschatological and not all people concerned with the earth’s changing climate are Woke.  Wokeism simply embeds some eminently reasonable scientific inquiries and economic considerations within an eschatological framework—then seizes ownership of the entire discussion.  The sleight-of-hand implication is that rational observations and concerns imply the truth of their deeply metaphysical Woke interpretation and mythology.  From there, the leap from established apocalyptic concerns to draconian, authoritarian power grabs follows as a matter of course.

This approach is hardly novel.  The history of philosophy is replete with rational thinkers who derived some element of their faith, then leaped immediately to particularist conclusions.  René Descartes, for example, labored mightily to prove that the world could only have arisen through the actions of a sentient deity—then quickly concluded the Truth of his Catholic faith.  Blaise Pascal similarly used rudimentary game theory to prove that the utility differences between eternal heaven and eternal hell should motivate anyone who placed any non-zero probability on God’s existence to adhere to a Catholic lifestyle.  Needless to say, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims might have followed the logic of these Catholic thinkers until almost the very last step before concluding that something had gone awry.

Wokeism thus draws upon a longstanding tradition that has pervaded the writing—and logic—of some of history’s greatest thinkers.  In today’s world, Woke eschatologists have woven an elegant tapestry of climate science, resource politics, and their apocalyptic vision into a single Climate Change myth.