The story of how fossil fuel corporations lie to us is shocking.
But we may have a green future! Maybe!
"What if we actually pulled off a Green New Deal? What would the future look like? The Intercept presents a film narrated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and illustrated by Molly Crabapple.
Set a couple of decades from now, the film is a flat-out rejection of the idea that a dystopian future is a forgone conclusion. Instead, it offers a thought experiment: What if we decided not to drive off the climate cliff? What if we chose to radically change course and save both our habitat and ourselves?
We realized that the biggest obstacle to the kind of transformative change the Green New Deal envisions is overcoming the skepticism that humanity could ever pull off something at this scale and speed. That’s the message we’ve been hearing from the “serious” center for four months straight: that it’s too big, too ambitious, that our Twitter-addled brains are incapable of it, and that we are destined to just watch walruses fall to their deaths on Netflix until it’s too late.
This film flips the script. It’s about how, in the nick of time, a critical mass of humanity in the largest economy on earth came to believe that we were actually worth saving. Because, as Ocasio-Cortez says in the film, our future has not been written yet and “we can be whatever we have the courage to see.”
"In September 2019, the editor of The Conversation, Misha Ketchell, declared
The Conversation’s editorial team in Australia was henceforth taking
what he called a “zero-tolerance” approach to climate change deniers and
sceptics. Their comments would be blocked and their accounts locked.
His reasons were succinct:
Climate change deniers and those shamelessly peddling pseudoscience
and misinformation are perpetuating ideas that will ultimately destroy
the planet.
From the standpoint of conventional media ethics, it was a dramatic,
even shocking, decision. It seemed to violate journalism’s principle of
impartiality – that all sides of a story should be told so audiences
could make up their own minds.
But in the era of climate change, this conventional approach is out of date. A more analytical approach is called for.
The ABC’s editorial policy on impartiality offers the best analytical approach so far developed in Australia. It states that impartiality requires:
a balance that follows the weight of evidence
fair treatment
open-mindedness
opportunities over time for principal relevant perspectives on matters of contention to be expressed.
It stops short of saying material contradicting the weight of
evidence should not be published, which is the position adopted
explicitly by The Conversation and implicitly by Guardian Australia." ...........................................................................................................
"Twice we have been evacuated from our home. Twice
we have been among the lucky ones to return unhurt and find our home intact.
From this perspective, media acquiescence in climate change denial,
failure to follow the weight of evidence, or continued adherence to an
out-of-date standard of impartiality looks like culpable
irresponsibility."
"Even as the fires roar at the gates of power, the Murdoch columnist and others argue climate change is ‘overall, a good thing’"
.......
"What to make of Bolt’s most recent concession to the reality of
actual climate change is what his insistent “good thing, overall”
messaging reveals of the new political reality facing the conservative
movement. Unlike an election result that can be willed into existence
through sheer force of persuasion, the planet is not actually
persuadable. The ideological resistance among conservatives to address
the source of climate crisis is so powerful, so historically entrenched,
that flames literally surround the city in which the conservative
Australian prime minister himself has announced that “resilience and
adaptation” amid the fires will substitute for climate mitigation,
prevention, action to make them stop. On cue, the megaphones insist this
nightmare will be good for us.
Three survivors joined Friends of the Earth to accuse ANZ of misleading consumers by investing in fossil fuel projects
One survivor, Jack Egan, claims there is a clear link between ANZ’s
support for fossil fuels and the exacerbated bushfires conditions.
Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Three bushfire survivors have joined environment group Friends of the Earth in a legal claim against ANZ, accusing it of financing the climate crisis by funding fossil fuel projects.
"IT'S REMARKABLE that the least resilient, most non-adaptive Federal
Government in living memory should now urge its citizens, in the face of
horrific bushfires, to prove our resilience and adaptability by learning to put up with weather conditions that are hostile to human life.
"And the government is failing again by now
suggesting that our primary focus should be on adapting to climate
change, rather than upping our efforts to tackle the root cause: the
burning of fossil fuels." - Greg Mullinshttps://t.co/4xOsQFGPdS
It’s difficult to argue against this. It will indeed take a
resilience – previously unheard of within humanity – to withstand
record-breaking temperatures, prolonged drought and catastrophic weather
events such as the fires, floods and cyclones we’re certain to
experience if more is not done globally and urgently to reduce
emissions. The question is, why demand this resilience as the way
forward, instead of committing to undertake mitigation and prevention?
Morrison’s latest tactic is a textbook example of behaviour typical of an abuser — also known as "gaslighting".
In order to continue the pattern of abuse that brings gratification of
one kind or another, the abuser must convince the abused that they have
to adapt to the abusive conditions. In order to perform that adaptation,
the abused must develop the resilience both to withstand the abuse, and
to live an outwardly normal life. The abused party must not give any
indication of the dysfunctional nature of their circumstances because
the abuser must be allowed to maintain the illusion of normality for the
eyes of the outside world. Resilience and adaptation are essential to
achieve these goals, as many survivors of abuse will confirm."
Almost 90% of Americans are avoiding climate change activism.
Recent research
shows that at least 40% of Americans are concerned or even alarmed
about global warming, But only 13% say they have called their elected
officials or joined an activist group. One question on many minds is,
despite saying they are alarmed and concerned, why aren’t the other 87%
of Americans demanding policy changes that would curb greenhouse gases?
Photo by Glenn Fay
Apathy
It
is easy to attribute climate activism avoidance to apathy. By
definition, apathy is indifference, lack of interest, concern, or
enthusiasm. That would seem to explain it. Yet the same survey,
done by YPCC shows that 29% say they are indeed concerned about global
warming. If they are concerned then that would mean that they shouldn’t
be apathetic. Maybe they are concerned and they behave as if they are
apathetic because something else is going on.
Per Espen Stoknes, in his book, What We Think About When we try not to Think About Global Warming,
says that a lot of people are depressed about climate destabilization
and environmental damage. Apathy can be one symptom of depression and
maybe people are concerned and alarmed but depressed about it and
therefore act apathetic.
The Bystander Effect
Another
well-known phenomenon in psychology describes the diffusion of
responsibility that occurs with large groups of people, called “the bystander effect”.
The theory goes, when something bad happens, the larger the number of
people that are present, the less likely an individual is to take action
in an emergency.
In
the bystander effect scenario, we could be bystanders to the slow
heating of the earth’s atmosphere and systematic climate
destabilization, but most of us assume someone else will surely take
care of it. After all, the Chinese are still building coal-burning power
plants. And if we do take action many of us believe we have little
power to have an impact. The logic goes, others who do have more
responsibility than us will surely take action. In this way, the
majority of concerned and alarmed Americans stand by and assume someone
else will take action.
Carbon Addiction
There
is a third and more nefarious reason that concerned and alarmed
Americans might not be taking action. And this reason is not something
very many people are talking about. And the reason is that admitting it
might reflect poorly on our morals. This third possible reason is that
we are “carbon-addicts” and we are afraid that taking action might result in changing our lifestyles and identities.
How
can we possibly become climate activists when we know, deep down
inside, that it will threaten our supersized American consumption and
the affluence of our resource-rich lifestyles? Will it threaten our
personal attractiveness, our commodity culture, driving SUVs, flying
around the world regularly, enjoying our carnivorous eating habits,
shopping sprees, plentiful water, and unlimited energy that we have
worked so hard to enjoy ? Especially when our egos and identities are
built on those markers of our success?
In
short — we can’t. So we create plausible deniability. It’s much easier
to ignore it, to be skeptical, to not have time, and to find excuses
instead of taking action. Climate activist avoidance is driven by all
three of these reasons. But that’s not all.
Dynamic Conservatism
Did you ever notice how slow big institutions and corporations are to change? In the 1970’s MIT professor Donald Schon coined the term “dynamic conservatism”
to describe how organizations inherently fight to avoid change. Dynamic
conservatism in our government and society is reinforced by a
marketplace that saturates our habitual lifestyles with our
preoccupation with cars, consumption, meat-based diets, development, and
all of the things that lead to more carbon in the atmosphere.
Photo by Glenn Fay
When
political contributions and subsidies are added to the equation, the
deck is stacked in favor of continued fossil fuel production and
pollution. Schon suggested that learning, reflection, and perceptual
change is needed to overcome dynamic conservatism. But the U.S. shows no
signs of becoming a learning-oriented society now or any time in the
future.
Sustained Leadership
Even
if the vast majority of Americans became alarmed about climate change
and realized they are like the frog in a beaker of water slowly heating
up on a hot plate, our government leaders are heavily influenced by
fossil fuel companies and big money.
According to Forbes, we spend more on fossil fuel subsidies ($5.2 trillion a year) than we do on education. We don’t have the “sustained leadership” to make courageous changes in energy policy.
Sure,
there are bright spots with some Green New Deal advocates and states
taking the lead on renewables, local food production, planting trees,
saving energy, and other fronts. We have students holding climate strikes and threatening to vote green in a few years.
But
even if the next presidential administration and all of the countries
around the world were to immediately take action on decarbonization, it
would only be temporary until the next pro-fossil fuel oriented leaders
come into power and reverse those changes. We are kidding ourselves to
think that the green sea change is stable and consistent enough to
actually result in a sustained period of enormous policy changes that
would lead to significant decarbonization.
So
no matter how encouraging the pockets of increasing climate awareness
look, the reality is that our leaders and most of us will continue to be
addicted to the idea of free or relatively cheap carbon-dumping in the
atmosphere, regardless of the planetary consequences.
Should
we give up on climate action? Absolutely not. Even though serious
climate change mitigation may be impossible, anything we can do to
decarbonize and avoid a runaway greenhouse effect depicted by the most
hellish IPCC scenarios is a step in the right direction.
We
can turn around apathy by promoting the opportunity for a prosperous
green economy, our improved health, plentiful food, water, and military
security. We can model civic responsibility, coach and cajole people to
upend the bystander effect in order to inspire bystanders to pitch in.
We can strive for and promote a learning society and attempt to elect
leaders who will fight to reduce carbon in the air.
But
it’s a much harder, maybe impossible sell to convince someone living in
relative affluence and slack, who has a mindset rooted in hard work,
prosperity, and entitled consumption that they need to actively fight
the institutions that made their lifestyle possible, rather than enjoy
what they think they so richly deserve.
As the climate crisis worsens and conflict increases over scarce resources expect more threats to authentic democracy.
In The Maldives
President Abdulla Yameen of the Maldives. AFP/Getty
"According to a 2017 study published in The Lancet,
extreme weather could displace up to a billion people around the world
by the middle of the twenty-first century—an unprecedented human
migration will undoubtedly influence the politics of wealthy countries,
pushing them to the right.
The best way to counteract this phenomenon is naturally to halt, or at
least slow, the effects of climate change. So far, the Paris agreement
is the only tangible result of those efforts, and its fate is far from
certain ............. But this might change, if the problems caused by climate change—not
just stronger hurricanes, droughts, and rising seas, but political
rupture—keep washing up on the disappearing shorelines of wealthy
governments."
"In its
5th Assessment Report (2014), the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
unequivocally confirmed that climate change is real and that human-made
greenhouse gas emissions are its primary cause. The report identified
the increasing frequency of extreme weather events and natural
disasters, rising sea-levels, floods, heat waves, droughts,
desertification, water shortages, and the spread of tropical and
vector-borne diseases as some of the adverse impacts of climate change.
These phenomena directly and indirectly threaten the full and effective
enjoyment of a range of human rights by people throughout the world,
including the rights to life, water and sanitation, food, health,
housing, self-determination, culture and development."
"It takes some chutzpah to stand up with a straight face and deliver a speech foreshadowing a government crackdown on protest activity
while in the same breath declaring that a new insidious form of
progressivism is intent on denying the liberties of Australians."
Our democratic freedoms are under threat in Australia and around the world.
Australian Federal Police raid the ABC offices
"Source confidentiality is one of journalists’ most central ethical principles. It is recognised by the United Nations and is vital to a functioning democracy and free, independent, robust and effective media.
"If the major parties and politicians want to rebuild trust with voters,
they will need to change the way they do politics: stop misusing their
entitlements, strengthen political donations laws, tighten regulation of
lobbyists, and slow the revolving door between political offices and
lobbying positions."
Let's
safeguard our democratic institutions such as free speech, restrictions
on overwhelming amounts of corporate donations to political parties,
freedom to protest, freedom to privacy, freedom to gather.
"As heat, disaster risks, and rising seas bombard local governments, the
ability of those governments to fulfill their basic functions—the
delivery of services, the maintenance of the safety net, and managing
civil, familial, and educational institutions—could be degraded, too.
This could manifest in three distinct phenomena that are already on
display in disaster-affected areas: the increased dominance of private
and developer-class interests in local politics, the acceleration of
existing wealth inequality, and the collapse of institutions dedicated
to disaster response."
Prominent
media corporations are supporting climate deniers, fossil fuel
dependent corporations and corporations whose profits depend on
degrading the human environment.
Let's care for our vulnerable.
Lets support action plans (see below) to tackle climate change.
