Unsophisticated

Unsophisticated arguments can entertainingly strong and especially entertaining when we are not supposed to notice how strong they are. Sometimes strong but simple arguments have to be dismissed as unsophisticated to discourage even the incurious from picking up on them. 

For example, as we drive on and on towards Peak Tedium it is still worth recalling that prominent royals such as Prince Charles, David Attenborough and Princess Nut Nut have a theory that driving around in cars warms up the outside world. The unsophisticated may call it global warming. The more sophisticated appear to vary their terminology depending on the impression they wish to make.

Yet a moment or two spent considering this royally approved notion casts a good deal of unsophisticated doubt on it. If we had really discovered that driving around in cars causes a tiny amount of global warming we’d reduce the tax on cars with huge engines to keep the effect going. Cars with titchy little engines would be taxed heavily and we teach children to point at them and laugh.

We’d have to do something about bicycles too, because they don’t emit any CO2. Wind turbines and solar panels would have to go, or at least attract punitive taxes.

In a nutshell, if we really believed that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes a modest amount of global warming them we’d be pumping the stuff out as hard as we can go. A tiny bit of warmth plus the agricultural benefits of more CO2 in the atmosphere – yes we’d be grabbing that effect with both hands.

I recently did a unsophisticated check on twenty miles of motorway. At a steady speed of 60mph, how many cars did I overtake as they kept their speed down to minimise fossil fuel consumption? None is the answer, but you already guessed that.

To a unsophisticated approximation, nobody believes the official climate change narrative. Nobody ever did believe it. The unsophisticated noticed those private jets at COP26 though.