OXFORD UNIVERSITY, England (LifeSiteNews) – In a debate held last week at the Oxford Union, a Russian-British podcaster attacked woke culture for its promotion of “climate anxiety,” which he argued ignores extreme poverty as well as the ability of human creativity and hard work to improve the world.
The debate was called “This house believes woke culture has gone too far.” In it, Konstantin Kisin, author of the bestselling An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West, challenged his interlocutors to accept a rational argument aimed at finding the truth.
“I want to talk to those of you who are “woke” and who are open to rational argument, a small minority, I accept, because one of the tenets of “wokeness” is, of course, that your feelings matter more than the truth,” Kisin began. “But I believe in you. I believe there are those of you here who are “woke”, who are open to rational arguments. So let me make one.”
“We are told that your generation cares more than any other about one issue in particular, and that issue is climate change,” Kisin continued. “We’re told that many of you suffer from climate anxiety; you wish to save the planet. And for tonight, and tonight only, I will join you. I will join you in worshiping at the feet of Saint Greta of Climate Change.”
Noting out that England “is responsible for two percent of global carbon emissions,” Kisin pointed out that “if Britain was to sink into the sea right now it would make absolutely no difference to the issue of climate change.”
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Kisin then argued that for much of the world the question of climate change simply does not matter because of extreme poverty. “Let us all accept right here, right now, the future of the climate is going to be decided in Asia and in Latin America by poor people who couldn’t give a s*** about saving the planet,” he said. “You know why? Because they’re poor.”
“You are not going to get these people to stay poor; you’re not even going to get them to not want to be richer,” Kisin continued. “And so I put it to you, ladies and gentlemen, there is only one thing we can do in this country to stop climate change, and that is to make scientific and technological breakthroughs that will create the clean energy that is not only clean but also cheap.”
It is uncertain, however, that so-called “climate change” is caused by human activity or that changes observed in the climate in recent decades point towards catastrophe. The concept of climate change is being used to urge further depopulation of the world, in part through promoting abortion and birth control.
Contrasting efforts to foster and direct human industry and creativity with the ineptitude of woke culture and its deleterious effects on the young, Kisin slammed woke victimization that undercuts any real attempt to improve the world.
“The only thing that wokeness has to offer… is to brainwash bright young minds like you to believe that you are victims, to believe that you have no agency, to believe that what you must do to improve the world is to complain, is to protest, is to throw soup on paintings,” he declared.
“And we on this side of the house are not on this side of the house because we do not wish to improve the world. We sit on this side of the house because we know that the way to improve the world is to work, is to create, is to build. And the problem with woke culture is that it’s trained too many young minds like yours to forget about that.”
The Oxford Union, part of Oxford University, hosts regular debates on “politics, religion, science, the arts and literature”, inviting notable members of society to take part. Konstantin Kishin is well-known for his pro-freedom of speech activism and journalism, and since 2018 has been the co-host of a podcast entitled Triggernometry.