Climate Activism as Atrophy of Political Imagination
I long stopped paying attention to Grist magazine online. But someone posted this piece in one of my Facebook feeds, so I had to comment.
How YouTube’s climate deniers turned into climate doomers
Subtitle:
A new report documents a sharp rise in arguments that clean energy and climate policies won't work.
The problem, of course, is that clean energy and climate policies will in fact not work. Under capitalism, clean energy is designed to supplement, and not replace, fossil energy, and climate policy, like policy in general, is intended to widen the class divide. Key paragraph from the essay:
John Cook, a researcher at the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change in Australia, has documented a similar rise in attacks on climate solutions by conservative think tanks and blogs. “It’s surprising to see misinformation on YouTube shifting so quickly,” Cook said in an email. “The future of climate misinformation will be focused on attacking climate solutions, and we need to better understand those arguments and how to counter them.”
The problem, of course, is that "climate solutions" are not solutions at all. The nice writers at Grist might use their big human brains toward the noble end of finding actual climate solutions, rather than spin-doctoring "climate solutions" so that revolutionary options that might actually mitigate climate change are left out of consideration. It's not as if the Grist writers can point to some fabulous record of success in solving the problem of climate change. Look at the global oil production statistics put out by the EIA. Sure, they conflate oil with other liquid fuels. But 100 million bbls./day is still a lot, no? The number is not significantly going down from year to year.
Start here: Climate change mitigation in fantasy and reality. Password to unlock the PDF: AddletonAP2009
You want to mitigate climate change? Start by putting an end to the capitalist system. End all war, and do something to deal with those pesky nation-states, which only serve these days to fuel the global business competition. Let's send all of the Grist writers out to Russia and China in hopes of persuading the political classes of Russia and China to be climate-friendly. Oh, right, that's out of the question, because our political class here in the States has so polluted the national atmosphere with hatred of Russia and China that it would be impossible at this late date to persuade the political classes of Russia and China to do anything at all.
Comments
Seen on the net
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The same thing happened to the anti war left or whatever they call themselves these days. They fully support our backing of Ukraine because they spent the last 5 years having daily 2 minute hate sessions against Russia because they were lied to by democrats and their mouthpieces.
They were once against big pharma because of all the crimes they committed. But just because of how they think Trump flubbed the Covid they are now fully supporting it. Hey remember when Biden and Kamala said that there was no way they would take the 'Trump' vaccine because they didn’t think enough time had passed to see if it was safe or effective and yet once they took office they both took the Trump vaccine. Shitlibs said they wouldn’t take it either and yet…..
And then there are the people who were always for free speech, but now think Biden is right to censor anyone who doesn’t believe the government lies. But why do they?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Vax politics
Something amusing during the dark, unpleasant mandate era—A representative of Oregon Children’s Health Defense described this at a group I belonged to a couple years ago. He represented CHD at a table set up at a local event. He was providing information about fighting the vaccine mandates. An angry man walked up and accused him of being a “Trumpster.” The reply: “Trump is always bragging about his big, beautiful vaccines so you’re more of a Trumpster than I am.”
Anya
Yes that’s true about Trump still
loving the vaccines even though Pfizer screwed him by not getting them out before the election.
And Biden hasn’t done anything different than Trump did and more people have gotten sick and died on his watch.
" COVID is OVER” and you can take off your masks.” And nary a word after the rise in infections. But for some reason the shitlibs are giving him a pass.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Because they can't think of anything better to do.
My diary title is appropriate. Mainstream politics appears as a joke because the principal actors have no alternative path of action. The Grist writers are included in this criticism, and that's why they're headlined here.
The situation in some ways recalls pre-revolutionary France. The French Revolution had two important contributing causes: 1) Bread riots in Paris (and we should have enough homeless people for that) and 2) the government's fiscal bankruptcy (happening earlier in Europe, to be sure, but eventually here). Once the rise of BRICS is complete and a good portion of those thirty-or-so countries with outstanding applications to BRICS are approved, we should see the worms really turn in the US and Europe. Whether said worm-turning will amount to anything is an open question.
Even the "rebellion" appears as a form of conformism. They might show flashes of imagination now and then, and so for instance you have Cornel West in Portland:
but it's clearly not enough at the present time. So, wait and see.
“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser
The themes vary
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The reactions are pretty consistent. Those of us making anti war noise are the same as we
have been since Vietnam. It somehow got co-opted by the "left" in the eyes of the media.
Those of us who care about the planet still do so. The media whores change the discussion
to suit their 'erase humanity' agenda guided by the WEF machine. Effective climate action
does not balance with their capitalist dreams.
China is leading the world in transitioning energy infrastructure to renewables. But western
propaganda try very hard to ignore that fact. Because China is an enemy competitor or some
other excuse. Somehow 'national security' prevents cooperation in such matters. As long as
the military gravy train is running, little issues like food security, climate failures, housing
and peaceful coexistence are not prioritized.
question everything
There will be no transition under capitalism.
Rather, in the glowing-hot capitalist future, alternative energy will merely supplement fossil energy. My point in bringing up Russia and China was that if you want something important (from the climate change mitigation perspective) to occur on the energy front, you must first end the business competition between nations, but with the neocons in power in the US, you're very unlikely to see anything of the sort.
“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser
Yep, RUS and CHI may go their own way
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It is the collective west stuck in their mire of past delusions
which is preventing change. Like riding a dead pony. Not fun.
question everything
Big Brother has a solution to the climate crisis.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/01/18/uk-government...
I don't trust the solutions either.
I don't trust the people behind the solutions because the solutions are meant for profit and greed. China makes cheaper EV car batteries than Western makers which are currently out of sight for normal people. A guy in my work group in Texas told us that huge hail storm in Nebraska completely destroyed solar farm. Who knew there would be hail storms in Nebraska.
Baseball-Sized Hail Smashing Into Panels At 150 MPH Destroys Scottsbluff Solar FarmBaseball-Sized Hail Smashing Into Panels At 150 MPH Destroys Scottsbluff Solar Farm
Guy in Texas said people are pushing for solar panels in East Texas. Anybody familiar with weather in those parts.
I heard of something bizarre I gotta say. A wind drought.
Are wind droughts a threat to the booming North Sea wind power industry?
And Europe wants to keep building wind power?? Mother Nature might be laughing.
And in Netherlands environmentalists want to stop the use of manure. A quick search reveals creative solutions that can keep family farms. The problem in Denmark is one of priority. Given the nature of weather, some people in some part of the world will face hunger and even starvation and we are going to reduce productive farm lands??? Are we looking at undoing the Green Revolution without something to take its place??
Not being a rocket scientists, it seems our efforts in "climate engineering" are horrible and all seem to lead to consequences that should have been seen by those creating the solutions. It is the same mindset of leaders flying in private jets to Davos and asking what the hell is the solution.
Think it was 'has been' John Kerry
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introducing some plan of removing a trillion of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.
A bit unbalanced IMO. He was obviously bought out and no longer stands for
sensible climate change actions. These nincomputs think that by stopping cows
from farting is going to help earth somehow? The obvious problem with their
solutions is small farm production suffers and therefore local food sources die.
Think about it. Does the new green agenda mean anything beyond greed and control?
question everything
Yup greed and control especially
I remember awhile ago dk that there was a moral panic that we had to make a gallon of gas at least $10. Like right now. Those people had absolutely no clue how that would devastate the working classes and outright probably kill off small farms. Not one clue on what next week would look like under such a regime. And make the oil companies so insanely rich they could buy every government in the Western hemisphere multiple times.
Humans do need to put into place solutions for changing climate, so let's use our collective genius instead of profit and control.