Brazil leads new international effort against climate lies at the G20 summit
theverge.com
theverge.com
We impoverish ourselves when we chase climate goals by restricting our own industries and economic activities. Meanwhile the US puts a couple more centuries of distance between itself and developing nations.
That is throwing the towel in my book. Nothing will be done so at least we can try to rebuild something after it got destroyed/sunk/whatever, and it doesn't deal with the middle or long term consequences of this keeping going on and worsening.
I think a some of the opposition in the US is simply people who hate East Coast values, so they oppose it to the degree that coastal elites push it. Having spent some time in New England, I can understand that even if I that is foolish way to act: New England seems to be pretty self-righteous in their views of how things should be, and everyone else is just wrong and it's them, those unrighteous people who oppose our views that are holding back society, and we should fix it by passing laws to force them to do it our way. (Colin Woodard calls this "Yankeedom" in his book "American Nations" and posits that American politics is historically the Yankees (which includes places settled by Yankees, so the West coast and the mid north to Minnesota) trying to push something and everyone else resisting it.)
If I'm correct in this, then one would find less opposition by talking about it less and trying less to force people to change. A lot of Red states are adopting wind and solar because it's more cost-effective; every time I visit Oklahoma I see more wind farms, despite conspiracy theories being the local truths. And I've never heard anyone complain about the wind farms, either. If electric cars were noticeably cheaper, I think even conspiracy-theory Republicans would find a way to justify purchasing one.
I've not heard a word in opposition to this. It's sad to me that there seems to be reality on the ground and political reality, and they aren't the same thing.
Brazil's president, the exact same guy who this article claims is "leading the new international effort against climate change", has literally admitted in front of cameras that he goes to events like these and just makes up numbers on the spot. He goes to places, preferably places filled with foreigners, and just starts spouting nonsense statistics. This event was probably no exception. His ministers also engage in this healthy tradition, not too long ago one of them was claiming a hundred million brazilians were dying of hunger. They'll say anything if it gets them what they want.
I don't even have any particular objections to their pathological lying. They're politicians, that's what they do. It gets ridiculous though when they start accusing their opponents of "fake news", when they start trying to criminalize it. To me it's just beyond absurd to watch this particular guy and his people object to "misinformation" of all things.
The net effect of this 'international effort' will be an increase in polarisation but that may just be the desired effect. If this is the case the supporters of this type of effort should have a good hard look at the outcome of the last election in the USA as well as recent elections in Europe to see whether this strategy is effective in gaining political support - it isn't. All it does is increase the distance between where these activists stand and where the general public - for lack of a better term - think they should go. The net effect will be for the cause espoused by these activists to be tainted by affiliation with their movement and with that something which can be used by populist politicians to gain support by denouncing the activists. In case of 'climate activism' this is not a bad thing in and of itself but since 'climate activism' has been inserted into real issues like environmental and wildlife protection those causes will suffer as a consequence.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50173134-apocalypse-neve...
Of course given the scale of the challenge and potential negative effects there will be technologies to try to mitigate it, and necessary economic changes but the whole point is that even with those humanity will suffer through immense hardship if we don't act timely. The issue is never if there will be a magical solution to it but if we can avoid the more extreme side-effects to diminish as much as possible the suffering and hardship.
I invite you to stop just looking for the contrarian position and do deeper research on what the consensus is, what are the current gaps in knowledge the consensus is trying to remedy with research. I personally know quite a few PhDs in climate science who did their studies at Stockholms Universitet in different fields: physics, biology, marine biology, biochemistry, through them I was able to see what is the current state of the field, and very smart people have been studying it for quite long, dismissing all of that just because you read a couple of books giving voices to the contrarians is just that: contrarian.
Unfortunately a lot of climate scientists have toned down the actual alarmism they face on their research, exactly to not ruffle feathers like yours to become even more contrarian, the actual current understanding of how bad it will be is quite worse than the public discourse. So if you feel there's alarmism in what you read through mainstream channels, don't fret about the alarmism, it seems to be way worse than that given our current most up-to-date models.
In a way, yes, you've fallen into climate lies, and the danger is exactly what you exposed here: you'll believe it and feel you are more correct than 97% of the consensus because you found a cozy contrarian position to lean into.
Science and alarmism do not go together, the recent unpleasantness around SARS2 is a good example of where it leads.
So no, I have not 'fallen for climate lies', I just do not agree with your position. There are many others who do not agree either, reports about 'consensus' among '99% of scientists' notwithstanding. I do have my reasons and did not just 'read a few books' - I studied meteorology and read a number of the IPCC reports (not just the media summary) so I do have some background in this material, i.e. I'm not just aping whatever loud voices are out there on the 'net.
Let's just agree to disagree here and leave the term 'climate lies' to those who are intent on using it as a club to keep dissidents at bay. A club, I should add which has the opposite effect of what its wielders intend.
How should scientists who see a potential immense threat looming talk about it then? If an asteroid was discovered on path to hit the Earth when 97% of astronomers agreed it'd happen sometime in the next 30-80 years shouldn't they be ringing the alarms we should do something about it? I don't understand your take, neither the comparison with COVID to be honest.
> So no, I have not 'fallen for climate lies', I just do not agree with your position.
You can not agree if you provide extraordinary evidence for the extraordinary claim, if you are on the position contrary to a major consensus you need to show unquestionable evidence to support it since you are going against major work done. Can it be possible? Of course, science is not a religion and it's main tenet is to be testable and falsifiable but it doesn't mean that because you hold an opposite view you are entitled to have that view as valid as the consensus. It's not as valid until extraordinary evidence is shown.
> There are many others who do not agree either, reports about 'consensus' among '99% of scientists' notwithstanding.
Yes, there are many others, there are people who do not believe the Earth is a globe, it doesn't mean their position is valid. Nowhere I said "99%", you are again creating a strawman (probably inspired by Koonin?), the number is 97% of scientists are in the consensus, that is a hard fact, the 3% outside of it is what you are choosing to attach yourself to. Why exactly? It's a common psychological pattern to root for the underdog, or to take a contrarian position because that makes you feel better about yourself on being a contrarian, you are just stating stuff without showing the evidence for it (except for a couple of books, one that is clearly discredited).
> I studied meteorology and read a number of the IPCC reports (not just the media summary) so I do have some background in this material, i.e. I'm not just aping whatever loud voices are out there on the 'net.
How far did you go into meteorology studies? Bachelor's? Master's? PhD? If only a bachelor you should know that you know almost nothing of the field, you got the broader strokes but it didn't equip you with enough to understand climate models in depth. You are not an authoritative figure in the field, why do you think you are equipped to criticise and be contrarian to 97% of the field which the vast majority has more knowledge about it than you?
> Let's just agree to disagree here
Nah, that's an easy cop out, "agree to disagree" doesn't lead anywhere. I can agree that you hold beliefs that are supported by a fringe population in a science with lots of research done, almost as kooky as someone wanting to agree to disagree that relativity is real... Because there's also some 2-3% of physicists who do not believe in relativity.
Solar panels are the cheapest form of energy, half the price of US panels. EVs are cheaper than ICE cars in China. EVs already make majority of new cars sold. If US allowed tariff free imports of BYD, they'd be the best selling cars in US.
Yeah China had to subsidize and get their industries jumpstarted. They're flourishing now.
Economic policy ultimately dictates action.
Biden tried and Trump is likely to reverse it. China has a blessing and a curse of being able to plan and execute long term.