A new kind of climate denial has taken over on YouTube
theverge.com
theverge.com
1. It's not happening.
2. Ok, it is happening, but it's not our fault.
3. Ok, it is our fault, but it's too hard to be worth addressing right now.
4. Ok, it would have been worth addressing at the time, but it's too late so we should learn to live with it.
These apply generally across the political spectrum, but specifically with respect to climate change, if people are shifting from step 1 to step 2 and even step 3 as per the article I suppose that is a form of progress in the sense that they are moving closer to reality. Having said that, no step requires that anyone take action or make sacrifices so practically it doesn't matter which step they're on.
At first you think everything's fine so you don't have to do anything. Then when it's no longer possible to lie to yourself about that you immediately switch to "can't do anything anyway" so you can continue doing nothing.
His main example was the "end of history" when dealing with autocracies around the world. At first we thought they will solve itself because we're on the winning side of the history. Then we immediately switched to "nothing can be done".
Anything to avoid taking responsibility.
They want to feel special for figuring out 'the thing' and the reality of it not being 'the thing' means they are idiots and back to being idiots. A largely unacceptable proposition (there are people who do get out).
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
- developed countries have gone through a period when they developed massively with basically zero care for the environment. Now they demand that countries that are currently under development can do so only with the current standards for environment protection and thus at a much higher cost.
- a lot of policies put the responsibility of climate protection on the back of poor average Joe. Not only you must take the bus and I drive home in my >100k electric car but I want you to pay 10% of said car.
Now I understand that the situation is critical and we can not afford to still do what we did in the past. Drastic measures are required. But how about we have the rich bare the costs for once?
Like the latest Michael Moore documentary? The well known shill of Big Oil? Is that the kind of thing we should start censoring?
I point this out just to try to resist this "us vs them" mentality and divisiveness that I see growing in many places. One can advocate for addressing climate change, while still being worried about the impacts of policy changes to the most vulnerable. There's a complex, overlapping set of issues here that one could prioritize differently without there being a stark "good guys" and "bad guys" breakdown.
(My own view is that we need very aggressive changes to minimize carbon pollution and also that it's reasonable for rich countries to pay a larger share for those changes than poor countries)
The problem here, as I see it, is that while I am completely with mainstream science on climate change (and all other issues it's qualified to speak on), and I think Jordan Peterson is a ridiculous figure, there is a kernel of truth to criticisms like this – the economic structure of this world means that yeah, poor people probably will bear the brunt of any changes, even if they're necessary, and that's deeply unjust.
So what's the argument that the interventions will hurt them more than the problem?
Peterson has anbeasy answer, because he's a loon and doesn't believe in the problem or any of the solutions and can just tack concern for the poor on as rhetoric.
But people who understand the problem and the solutions don't have that luxury.
Look into "Center for Industrial Progress" and dig deeper.
I’d go as far to say that if you re-ran the human experiment on 1,000 earths, they would all embrace growth over their environment — it’s why so-called safe AI is impossible and AGI will occur at any cost.
Intelligent species must increase their energy production since they compete with each other’s factions and the “tech tree” if you will inevitably goes through fossil fuels. The only thing that _actually_ changes what we do is the economic factor.
It’s all really just a sophisticated game of Factorio. The reality is that people’s opinions have no effect on what humans actually do. It’s why Texas is full of windmills despite their cultural leanings — the almighty dollar is all we really end up caring about.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/20/twitter-x...
All these people seeking to censor fall into this category.
Can someone explain the upside to me?
And a personal level, I never said the lab leak theory was impossible. I simply figured it was a racist dog whistle because Fox News was the one parroting it. Furthermore, focusing on the "suspicious origin" of the "wuhan flu" while broadly ignoring public health advice diminished the credibility of those talking about it.
All partial-evidences and clues point to lab leak, including post covid coincidences that look like cover-up attempts.
But no definitive proof exists and china will never admit it. so whats the point?
But the big problem was that funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology came from the good old U.S. - from Dr Fauci-sponsored EcoHealth alliance. NIH awarded EcoHealth Alliance - who were contracted with the Wuhan Institute of Virology - three grants between 2014-2020 to especially study bat coronaviruses.
So, the original idea was to fully cover up the US sponsorship and there was a LOT of hush up and be silent around the matter. The U.S. does not want to be held responsible after all.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/10/nih-admits-funding-r...
It’s so wild to me that we’re here as a society.
Don't wear your seat belts kids. /s
The lack of understanding and nuance in approaching topics like this is orders of magnitude more harmful than the mistakes that were made.
but in science, there are no authorities. and there is no consensus.
the only thing that matters is truth. numbers, facts, and logical demonstrations. stuff we can read, analyse, reproduce to end up with the same (or not) conclusions.
i am very very annoyed by articles that say "on subject X, we have way too many people not saying Y"
this is totally unaceptable in science.
do i have to remember you that the scientific authorities of their times told us that no human would ever go faster than a horse ? that people taking trains would suffocate ?
that others told the Wright brothers that nothing heavier than air would ever fly ?
that everything there was to discover through science had already been found and there was nothing more to find ?
we don't even know where the covid emanated. we have people that think it's natural, and papers that explain how the protein spike has been inserted because it never has been seen nor did it happen nor could it happen in nature ? i don't know myself what to think of that.
some people will never believe truth, even if we put it in front of them.
we should not spend or lose time with them.
focus on making good science. do not recognize any authority especially if they say "this is true because i am an authority in my field". einstein warned us deerly about those kind of authorities.
good science will use facts and provable facts to advance our knowledge and seek truth. let's focus on that.
in the end, it does not matter how much videos or papers with false content are on internet, or youtube. in the very end, the truth wins and all those false claims, those false articles, those false videos, will end up in the bin of history.
let's focus on making good science and finding truth. and not spend a single minute trying to fight, if false, that climate denial on youtube. because it's a Don Quixote fight.
I would like to see evidence that climate change is "supercharging deadly weather disasters". I don't believe that evidence exists. Whether climate change has caused (or increased the severity of) "extreme weather events" is a question that has no simple answer.
Also, it absolutely is a concern that developing countries will suffer as fossil fuels become more expensive. It's also a concern that people will simply burn wood or dung if they can't get coal.
It calls it "likely" that climate change is inducing more cyclones and heavy precipitation but also "virtually certain" that it is causing a increase in frequency and intensity of heat waves. The specific editorial verbiage in The Verge is a bit reductive, but I'd say it's entirely fair.
That aside, I don't believe we have the data or the statistical methods to make the claim that the article does. I would say that the link between climate change and weather events is "frightening plausible" and leave it at that.