The demise of climate alarmism has become, almost overnight, a fashionable subject of speculation. For decades, dissenters from climate orthodoxy were dismissed as “deniers.” Yet the alarmist consensus was never truly “settled science.” Climate models reinforced elite biases, exaggerated risks, and justified technocratic control. Ordinary people, sensing the vast uncertainties and politicized data, met the sweeping claims and alarmist rhetoric of climatists with justified skepticism.A German Substack writer, Eugyppius, recently published an essay titled “On the Slow Death of Climate Alarmism in Europe.” He concludes with this observation: “In retrospect, I think climatism was an ideology crafted for a world bereft of concrete villains — a world where industrial processes and gases were the only conceivable enemies. We’re not in that world anymore, and that is why climatism is finished.”.MacLEOD: Is it time for Alberta’s independence referendum?.He is right. In a world without visible enemies, there is a deep human urge to conjure them. Climate ideology supplied one in carbon dioxide. A naturally occurring, life-sustaining gas was recast as the serpent in the garden, the villain of our age. Yet this impulse is hardly new. The West has long been haunted by myths of a lost Eden, by stories of innocence betrayed and paradise undone. As Giorgio Agamben argues in The Kingdom and the Garden, the true myth of the West is not paradise itself, but its loss. We are haunted less by images of Eden than by the trauma of our expulsion, condemned to wander east of Eden in search of return.This myth found its most powerful modern iteration in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who gave the longing a political and philosophical form. He conjured a prelapsarian humanity — the “natural man” — living in innocence and harmony, uncorrupted by institutions, until the advent of civilization shattered the bucolic idyll and bred inequality, envy, and domination..What is remarkable is the persistence of this Rousseauian fantasy. Every era creates its own story of innocence lost and redemption offered. Our version is net zero. Where Rousseau once envisioned the “natural man,” today’s policymakers present the idea of a carbon-free utopia. Net zero functions more as a moral tale than a policy: industry is depicted as the villain, citizens are portrayed as penitents, and planetary salvation is presented as the ultimate reward. The pattern is well-known. It starts with a fall — our “sins” of industrialization and dependence on fossil fuels — and promises salvation through renunciation: disassemble the very economic systems that support us, and a new Eden will emerge.But like all utopian dreams, the promised garden never quite materializes. Already in Germany and Britain, voters have begun to rebel. Industrial decline, shuttered factories, and energy insecurity make poor substitutes for planetary salvation. .LAFRAMBOISE: The persecution of Canada’s ‘other’ Freedom Convoy truckers.The irony is that the scientific record increasingly challenges the apocalyptic climate narrative. The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2025 Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate found that most extreme weather events show no worsening trend, that sea level rise continues at a modest historical pace, and that elevated carbon dioxide has contributed to global greening and increased agricultural productivity. Steven Koonin, in his aptly titled book, Unsettled, has rigorously demonstrated what ordinary people intuited: science is no monolith but a contested, provisional conversation, advancing only through skepticism, uncertainty, and the clash of rival interpretations — not ritualistic chants of consensus.In Canada, climate orthodoxy has been elevated to a civic religion, with Net Zero by 2050 serving as the litmus test of national virtue. Yet, Canada is an energy superpower, blessed with oil, gas, hydroelectric power, and uranium. Rather than harnessing these gifts for the nation's prosperity, Ottawa stigmatizes them: carbon taxes, stalled EV mandates, and pipeline blockades — each is justified in the name of net zero..A tone of inevitability characterizes the official language of net zero. Targets are announced with the gravity of prophecy: 2030, 2035, 2050. Bureaucracies emerge to track emissions with the vigilance of inquisitors. Citizens are lectured on their sins: flying too often, driving too far, heating homes with the wrong fuels. The carbon tax is not just a policy tool; it becomes a ritual of penance.The results are serious. Energy poverty affects more than two million Canadian households. Manufacturing is not merely stagnant, but visibly contracting across many sectors and regions. Families face higher costs for food, fuel, and shelter. Truckers and farmers, the backbone of the economy, struggle with rising costs..TOKEN LEFTY: The UCP manufactured teacher’s strike.And the political fallout is harmful: the more Ottawa pushes toward net zero, the greater the alienation in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Provinces rich in resources are told their livelihoods must be “transitioned” away — as if centuries of human ingenuity in mastering energy can be undone by decree. Western Canadians are told that their prosperity must be sacrificed for the sake of planetary salvation. There is an additional irony. Even if Canada were to eliminate all of its greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, the impact on the global climate would be negligible. As the DOE report states, US emissions policies are expected to have “undetectably small direct impacts on the global climate.” .Canada’s contribution is even less. In other words, we are being asked to dismantle our prosperity as a mere gesture — a sacrifice without real consequence, a penance without any actual effect.Rousseau’s myth of the natural man was never an actual account of communities. It was a thought experiment designed to examine humanity in a pre-social state, a philosophical device to reflect on European society. The image of the natural man was a fable, a tale of innocence meant to expose the hypocrisies and corruption of civilization: a paradise-like garden destroyed by the onset of civilization..THOMSON: Canada’s silent war: Losing to terrorists without a fight.Agamben reminds us that the central myth of the West is not Eden itself but our expulsion from it. The wound of exile is what gives our myths their power — and their danger. For if the wound defines us, politics becomes an endless attempt at return. Utopian projects, whether socialist paradises or carbon-free Edens, all follow this logic of restoration. They promise redemption through sacrifice, yet they deliver only new forms of bondage and immiseration..This is why the myth of net zero cannot endure. Myths may guide, but they cannot suspend the laws of economics or the requirements of human flourishing. The collapse of climate ideology presents an opportunity. It encourages us to rediscover an older, wiser view of caring for the environment. The biblical garden was never just a place for leisure; it was a space to be cultivated. Eden was not pure wilderness, nor was man a passive observer. The human role was not to abandon the world but to tend to it. As the Book of Genesis states, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”.EDITORIAL: A pipeline to prosperity: Eby’s narrow vision stifles Canada’s potential.Instead of seeing ourselves as penitents in an endless morality play, we could embrace the virtues of prudence, balance, and care. This involves recognizing the genuine but limited impact of human activity on climate, while avoiding turning science into prophecy. It means responsibly harnessing Canada’s abundant resources, providing reliable energy for ourselves and our allies, and investing in innovation that benefits the nation.It means resisting the temptation to create new Edens. For the tragic wisdom of the West has always been that paradise is not meant for this world. When politics believes otherwise, it ceases to govern and turns into a theatre of salvation. Net zero is the latest stage for this drama. It will eventually collapse, as all stages do. The question is whether Canada will have the courage to leave the stage before it falls.Patrick Keeney, PhD, has taught at universities in Canada and abroad..Due to a high level of spam content being posted in our comment section below, all comments undergo manual approval by a staff member during regular business hours (Monday - Friday). Your patience is appreciated.
