EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2021

The Gods of Olympus Swan Song in Glasgow

Nov. 1, 2021 (EIRNS)—“It’s one minute to midnight” warned Boris Johnson, adding that we must “consign coal to history.” “The existential threat to human existence as we know it,” echoed Joe Biden. “What we need is a comprehensive transformation of the way we live, work and do business,” whined the lame duck Angela Merkel. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres accused countries of “treating nature like a toilet” as he warned of a looming “climate catastrophe.”

The Führer for the witches and goblins gathered in Glasgow—the guiding light to these would-be Gods of Olympus—is none other than the Heir to the Throne of the British Empire, Charles, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay. “Our efforts cannot be a series of independent initiatives running on parallel,” proclaimed the Malthusian Prince in his speech today. “The scale and scope of the threat we face call for a global systems-level solution based on radically transforming our current fossil fuel-based economy to one that is genuinely renewable and sustainable.”

But who is listening? Another Englishman, Percy Bysshe Shelly, who loved Mankind rather than wishing to “cull the herd,” once wrote about an earlier version of such Olympians:

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

COP26, now known as FLOP26, was to be the final nail in the coffin of industrial society, the end of human progress, the return to a primitive existence where the wind and the sun would provide enough energy for the fewer than one billion people who survived. The Club of Rome’s “Limits to Growth” utopia was to be made the “rule of law,” to be imposed on the “lesser races.”

But Lyndon LaRouche’s refutation of the Club of Rome—his 1983 book There Are No Limits To Growth—is now like a spirit, an unseen force of optimism awakening nations and peoples around the world. The majority of the human population, whose governments care more for the wellbeing of their citizens than the survival of the Casino Mondial known as the Western banking system, have decided that the royals and the billionaires running the Great Reset, the Green New Deal, have no more real power than Ozymandias:

• Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Oct. 12: “Energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built and the capacity for energy self-supply should be enhanced.... Given the predominant place of coal in the country’s energy and resource endowment, it is important to optimize the layout for the coal production capacity, build advanced coal-fired power plants as appropriate in line with development needs, and continue to phase out outdated coal plants in an orderly fashion. Domestic oil and gas exploration will be intensified.”

• Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, essentially speaking for Africa in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Oct. 24 titled “Solar and Wind Force Poverty on Africa,” wrote: “Africa can’t sacrifice its future prosperity for Western climate goals. The continent should balance its energy mix, not rush straight toward renewables—even though that will likely frustrate some of those gathering at next week’s global climate conference in Glasgow.”

With the exception of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, none of the leaders of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) are attending the Glasgow Gala, which Prince Charles described as the “last chance saloon.” (Ironically, the Collins Dictionary, published in Glasgow and used in most U.K. schools, defines “last chance saloon” as “a place frequented by unsavory or contemptible people.”)

But Prime Minister Modi’s presence is not bringing any relief to the failing Olympians in Glasgow. He, like virtually every developing sector leader, is insisting that the developed countries live up to their pledge (thus far ignored) to provide $100 billion annually to pay for the “transitioning” away from fossil fuels. However, Modi insisted that that money must not be used for “mitigation,” to reduce carbon emissions, but for “adaptation” to counter the harm supposedly caused by global warming. Calling the emphasis on mitigation an “injustice towards the developing countries that are heavily affected,” he proposed instead that the money be used for providing “Clean Tap Water for All” and “Clean Cooking Fuel for All,” and invited all countries to join the “Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.”

But the danger is still great. The bankers who run the Green New Deal have simply asserted their power over governments to set economic policies worldwide, by cutting off credit to fossil fuels and those industries and agricultural sectors they deem to have too large a “carbon footprint.” Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England and UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, will be speaking at FLOP26 on Wednesday, Nov. 3, on how the global banking empire can dictate de-industrialization and de-population to the world.

As Lyndon LaRouche often said (and as Vladimir Putin repeated last week in a speech in Sochi), the would-be gods on Mount Olympus may be screaming their demands to mankind below them, but they fail to recognize that the mountain is crumbling beneath their feet. They are dangerous, but extremely vulnerable to an awakened population which joins in an International Anti-Malthusian Alliance. Join the Schiller Institute Conference on Nov. 13-14, to add your voice to that Alliance.