3 ms·
First off, simply because you don't like the people that support a position doesn't mean that position is incorrect. And overpopulation? Um... because draconia
by splitrocket 6y ago
First off, simply because you don't like the people that support a position doesn't mean that position is incorrect.
And overpopulation? Um... because draconian population control tactics and policies are evil? China's one child policy was unconscionable.
German energy is costly not due to production costs, but instead due to taxes on energy utilization in general to subsidize a more rapid transition to environmentally sound energy. Other countries, i.e. France, have chosen to lower costs substantially. (France is unwise, IMHO. Lower costs increases utilization which offsets carbon gains, see rebound effects [0]. Germany is doing the right thing) [1]
Nuclear: Has always been on the table. Environmentalists are not a unified block. The Gates foundation is substantially funding nuclear.
Most of what you think of as "environmental support" is actually funding from petroleum based business. The whole personal recycling movement? paid for by the petroleum industry. [2]
Finally, the petroleum industry hired the exact same goons that the tobacco industry did to peddle pseudoscientific nonsense. [3]
There are coherent, comprehensive, effective plans for fighting climate change. You are just unlikely to hear about in the news because they are deeply wonky. There are paths out, they are neither easy (there will be losers) nor simple (it's a complex system).
However, most of what we hear are the voices of very, very, very rich and powerful oil industries trying to muddy the waters. And lets be clear: they will be the losers, if the rest of us have any hope of not either having to bear terrible austerity or the horrors of climate change.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebound_effect_(conservation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebound_effect_(conservation)
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/05/if-saving-the-climate-requires-making-energy-so-expensive-why-is-french-electricity-so-cheap/#1312eaa41bd9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/05...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...
[3] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-and-oil-industries-used-same-researchers-to-sway-public1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-and-oil-i...
- specialist 6y ago"However, most of what we hear are the voices of very, very, very rich and powerful oil industries trying to muddy the waters." I'm shocked, shocked by your suggestion that bad actors would conduct disinformation campaigns to discredit and neutralize inconvenient truths.
- freen 6y agoWhat is shocking is that they play both sides. It’s a well known phenomenon that if you give people a small, concrete thing that they have agency over, i.e. recycling their cans, even though that thing is next to useless in terms of systemic change, they will be less likely to support broad based, effective system legislation. The bad actors pretend to be “environmental” in order to muddy the waters, sap support for actual change, and paint the entirety of the movement as ridiculous by funding outspoken lunatics. It’s straight out of Putin’s playbook. [0] Putin funds “anti-Putin” organizations, but only ones that are absurd and implausibly idealistic. Those likely to offend other Russians. [0] https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/05/31/putins-propaganda-man/ https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/05/31/putins-propaganda-m...
- specialist 6y agoYa, frankly, the effectiveness of propaganda scares me, deeply. How do I know what I know, with any certainty, if I'm so easily manipulated. The exploitation of our cognitive "loopholes" is the best case against Freedom Speeches™. Paraphrasing: We're not rationale, so countering falsehoods with truthiness simply cannot work. The only legal mitigation I can think of is authenticate (optionally) speech. Just like the authenticity facets of the replication crisis. Meaning show your data, cite your sources, sign your works. And then maybe over time our culture learns to discount anything unsourced and unsigned.