This time it’s George R.R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels, on which HBO based its TV series Game of Thrones. For this post, I originally wrote Mr. Martin a long open letter but had second thoughts when another idea struck, an idea that readers here could have fun with.
Of course, the references later assume you’ve watched the TV series or read the books. The question posed by the journalist(?) and the reply by George R. R. Martin, however, will provide enough fuel for those of you who haven’t done so to enjoy yourselves as well.
First, in a recent Q&A with New York Times staff, George R.R. Martin reportedly noted that the upcoming prolonged, vicious winter in fictional Westeros has parallels to climate change in the real world…the human-induced, not the natural, kind.
Had his answer only appeared in the original article I would have ignored it, but numerous other online outlets published his reply, examples here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Oy vey! Do they really think a celebrity’s thoughts on catastrophic human-induced global warming/climate change in the real world —or anything else that has its origins in global politics—are newsworthy? Apparently they do.
Specifically, in the New York Times article George R. R. Martin Answers Times Staffers’ Burning Questions, Martin is reported to have provided an answer in response to the following question by Farhad Manjoo, who is obviously not a science contributor to the paper:
Many observers have pointed out that ‘Game of Thrones’ offers a perfect metaphor for understanding climate change. What do you think of this interpretation?
I’ll let you, readers, address that question.
And George R.R. Martin’s answer was (my boldface):
It’s kind of ironic because I started writing “Game of Thrones” all the way back in 1991, long before anybody was talking about climate change. But there is — in a very broad sense — there’s a certain parallel there. And the people in Westeros are fighting their individual battles over power and status and wealth. And those are so distracting them that they’re ignoring the threat of “winter is coming,” which has the potential to destroy all of them and to destroy their world. And there is a great parallel there to, I think, what I see this planet doing here, where we’re fighting our own battles. We’re fighting over issues, important issues, mind you — foreign policy, domestic policy, civil rights, social responsibility, social justice. All of these things are important. But while we’re tearing ourselves apart over this and expending so much energy, there exists this threat of climate change, which, to my mind, is conclusively proved by most of the data and 99.9 percent of the scientific community. And it really has the potential to destroy our world. And we’re ignoring that while we worry about the next election and issues that people are concerned about, like jobs. Jobs are a very important issue, of course. All of these things are important issues. But none of them are important if, like, we’re dead and our cities are under the ocean. So really, climate change should be the number one priority for any politician who is capable of looking past the next election. But unfortunately, there are only a handful of those. We spend 10 times as much energy and thought and debate in the media discussing whether or not N.F.L. players should stand for the national anthem than this threat that’s going to destroy our world.
Hmmmm, seems as though George R.R. Martin doesn’t realize that the international global warming/climate change movement is nothing more than an “anti-growth, anti-capitalist, anti-American” campaign masquerading as a crusade to save the planet.
Note: The source of the “anti-growth, anti-capitalist, anti-American” quote is Margaret Thatcher’s Statecraft published in 2002. There she wrote:
Kyoto was an anti-growth, anti-capitalist, anti-American project which no American leader alert to his country’s national interests could have supported.
[End note.]
Then, as I was proofreading the draft of my now-discarded 3,000-word open letter, I had a thought: I suspected some of you readers of the post would envision a different relationship between the characters who accompany the coming winter in Westeros and those who prolong the global warming/climate change scare that’s been taking place for a number of decades in our real world. You would view the zombie-like White Walkers as the unscrupulous, dishonest, deceitful, and devious eco-profiteers, politicians, activists, lobbyists, mainstream media, and funding-hungry scientists who constantly try to suck the life out of us by exploiting the misfortune and misery of our families, our friends, our neighbors, and others to advance political agendas every time a weather-related natural disaster strikes somewhere in the world. And I didn’t think it much of a stretch to imagine some readers would chose Al Gore as the evil Night King.
And I will predict the characters in my next short story will have a lot of fun with those thoughts.
So have fun now.
A happy Friday to all. Enjoy your weekends.
STANDARD CLOSING REQUEST
Please purchase my recently published ebooks. As many of you know, this year I published 2 ebooks that are available through Amazon in Kindle format.
- Dad, Why Are You A Global Warming Denier? (For an overview, the blog post that introduced it is here.)
- Dad, Is Climate Getting Worse in the United States? (See the blog post here for an overview.)
Regards
Bob
Bob Tisdale - Climate Observations 