4 ms·

Record number of environmental activists murdered

4 points by notRobot 5y ago

notRobot 5y ago
The year is 2087, the remaining scientists that weren't hunted down in the previous year, have issued a dire warning that time is running out for action on climate change. The claim is rebuked again by a conglomerate consisting of Breathing apparatus manufacturers, Sunblock body-paint makers, Subterranean city developers, Biohazard swimsuit makers, Soylent green icecream industries, Nestlé, FEMA holiday camps, and the Corporate Emperor of USA. The 2088 hunt is scheduled to begin March 1st. https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pn6x3g/record_number_of_environmental_activists_murdered/hcnbsxn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pn6x3g/record_nu...
anigbrowl 5y ago
I argue from time to time that people should just stop listening to or trying to debate with climate denialists and their ilk, and this often gets pushback from those who believe in a marketplace of ideas (which I consider a nice but somewhat naive metaphor that overlooks the existence of market failures). the thing is that denialists are professional propagandists, and when their propaganda fails some economic stakeholders simply resort to more direct methods of addressing problems. It's not hard to find people willing to do dirty deeds for relatively cheap in many parts of the world, including wealthy and civilized countries - the price is just a bit higher, as are the legal risks. While assassinations are unlikely in places like the USA they're far from impossible. By contrast, militant environmentalists have been treated as major public safety problems. Prior to 9-11, the FBI was telling Congress in all seriousness that it was the #1 terrorist threat on their radar, despite environmental saboteurs activists never having killed anyone (unless you count Ted Kaczynski as an environmental activist but most people regard him as a unique case whose motives aren't so easily simplified): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Scare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Scare There's a basic cognitive mismatch here in that environmental scientists and activists do present an economic threat to the established order but tend to do so almost exclusively through normal political channels, whereas their opponents are demonstrably willing to commit murder instead - might not be true or provable in every single case, but if you don't think 227 people in a year is a meaningful data point then I have a decommissioned pipeline to sell you at an incredibly low price. It's especially facile to say governments must do more to protect people. Governments foster such outcomes in the first place as often as not, since politicians want to be dispensers of economic growth and a great many of them are captured by resource extraction industries. Environmentalists would be better served by taking security threats seriously and developing latent militant capacity of their own rather than relying on the conscience of comfortable.

4 points by notRobot 5y ago

The year is 2087, the remaining scientists that weren't hunted down in the previous year, have issued a dire warning that time is running out for action on climate change. The claim is rebuked again by a conglomerate consisting of Breathing apparatus manufacturers, Sunblock body-paint makers, Subterranean city developers, Biohazard swimsuit makers, Soylent green icecream industries, Nestlé, FEMA holiday camps, and the Corporate Emperor of USA. The 2088 hunt is scheduled to begin March 1st. https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pn6x3g/record_number_of_environmental_activists_murdered/hcnbsxn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pn6x3g/record_nu...

anigbrowl 5y ago

I argue from time to time that people should just stop listening to or trying to debate with climate denialists and their ilk, and this often gets pushback from those who believe in a marketplace of ideas (which I consider a nice but somewhat naive metaphor that overlooks the existence of market failures). the thing is that denialists are professional propagandists, and when their propaganda fails some economic stakeholders simply resort to more direct methods of addressing problems. It's not hard to find people willing to do dirty deeds for relatively cheap in many parts of the world, including wealthy and civilized countries - the price is just a bit higher, as are the legal risks. While assassinations are unlikely in places like the USA they're far from impossible. By contrast, militant environmentalists have been treated as major public safety problems. Prior to 9-11, the FBI was telling Congress in all seriousness that it was the #1 terrorist threat on their radar, despite environmental saboteurs activists never having killed anyone (unless you count Ted Kaczynski as an environmental activist but most people regard him as a unique case whose motives aren't so easily simplified): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Scare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Scare There's a basic cognitive mismatch here in that environmental scientists and activists do present an economic threat to the established order but tend to do so almost exclusively through normal political channels, whereas their opponents are demonstrably willing to commit murder instead - might not be true or provable in every single case, but if you don't think 227 people in a year is a meaningful data point then I have a decommissioned pipeline to sell you at an incredibly low price. It's especially facile to say governments must do more to protect people. Governments foster such outcomes in the first place as often as not, since politicians want to be dispensers of economic growth and a great many of them are captured by resource extraction industries. Environmentalists would be better served by taking security threats seriously and developing latent militant capacity of their own rather than relying on the conscience of comfortable.