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Jim Hunt

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The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« on: August 02, 2023, 09:42:25 AM »
I've entered at my peril!

Here's a few minutes old Xweet from my now ex Member of the European Parliament, Molly Scott Cato:

https://twitter.com/GreenPartyMolly/status/1686640965673459713

Quote
Those of us who care about the climate are in an information war with the fossil fuel industry

This is a forensic analysis of the weapons they're using

Since this is an existential struggle it would be good to familiarise yourself with them
« Last Edit: August 02, 2023, 10:06:26 AM by Jim Hunt »
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

Jim Hunt

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #1 on: August 02, 2023, 10:05:35 AM »
Cross posted from "The Far Right's Great White Arctic Sea Ice Con"

Look dumbass. Al Gore says the Arctic is warming at 4 times the speed of the rest of planet, but the data says it's GETTING COLDER!



See also:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2023/08/the-information-war-with-the-fossil-fuel-industry/
« Last Edit: August 02, 2023, 10:26:09 AM by Jim Hunt »
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

SeanAU

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #2 on: August 02, 2023, 10:28:05 AM »
I've entered at my peril!

Here's a few minutes old Xweet from my now ex Member of the European Parliament, Molly Scott Cato:

https://twitter.com/GreenPartyMolly/status/1686640965673459713

Quote
Those of us who care about the climate are in an information war with the fossil fuel industry

This is a forensic analysis of the weapons they're using

Since this is an existential struggle it would be good to familiarise yourself with them

This doesn't help -
Quote
Top 10 Disinformation “Tag Lines” Peddled by Big Oil Trolls (courtesy of Big Oil + politicians, PR firms, lawyers and consultants on payroll)
THREAD

I suggest, given the status at twitter blocking casual users not logged in from seeing more than one tweet at a time, you either need to provide a url to each Tweet ... or copy/paste the relevant text / images you are wanting to share.

Otherwise you are just wasting your time spinning wheels for those people who do not have a twitter account. 

Alt option is use nitter.net urls instead and do the work yourself so others don't have to.

https://nitter.net/AssaadRazzouk/status/1686142012427227136 

Tada!   ;D

But - .... That's a short summary of the orgy of oil trolls' disinformation themes.... Is it?
Every time they repeat those Themes they are RE-Activating those Themes in peoples minds.
Better to stop doing that!   ;D

But seriously, to get serious about this topic, then stop blaming everything on the oil companies and fossil fuel industry - it's self-defeating because it is wrong. It's not only 'their' fault alone - it's ours - everyone collectively for hundreds of years!

'We the People' let them do what they do. We let the politicians and the entire economic and industrial system do what they did because 'we' wanted them to. The system that was created in a millions of choices over hundreds of years is running on automatic now. ;D




See Part 2 - Oil is the Economy
« Last Edit: August 02, 2023, 01:58:01 PM by SeanAU »
It's wealth, constantly seeking more wealth, to better seek still more wealth. Building wealth off of destruction. That's what's consuming the world. And is driving humans crazy at the same time.

Jim Hunt

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #3 on: August 02, 2023, 05:35:01 PM »
Alt option is use nitter.net urls instead and do the work yourself so others don't have to.

https://nitter.net/AssaadRazzouk/status/1686142012427227136 

Thanks for the tip Sean. I'll pass the general concept on to Molly, if/when she eventually responds to my assorted missives. In the mean time this will have to suffice:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/1686762018529742848
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

Jim Hunt

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #4 on: August 03, 2023, 09:26:48 AM »
Meanwhile across the pond "Conservatives have already written a climate plan for Trump’s second term."

Allegedly:

Quote
Conservative groups have crafted a plan for demolishing the federal government’s efforts to counter climate change — and it wouldn’t stop with President Joe Biden’s policies.

The 920-page blueprint, whose hundreds of authors include former Trump administration officials, would go far beyond past GOP efforts to slash environmental agencies’ budgets or oust “deep state” employees.

Called Project 2025, it would block the expansion of the electrical grid for wind and solar energy; slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice office; shutter the Energy Department’s renewable energy offices; prevent states from adopting California’s car pollution standards; and delegate more regulation of polluting industries to Republican state officials.

If enacted, it could decimate the federal government’s climate work, stymie the transition to clean energy and shift agencies toward nurturing the fossil fuel industry rather than regulating it. It’s designed to be implemented on the first day of a Republican presidency.

“Project 2025 is not a white paper. We are not tinkering at the edges. We are writing a battle plan, and we are marshaling our forces,” said Paul Dans, director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation, which compiled the plan as a road map for the first 180 days of the next GOP administration. “Never before has the whole conservative movement banded together to systematically prepare to take power day one and deconstruct the administrative state.”

"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

Jim Hunt

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #5 on: August 03, 2023, 02:55:16 PM »
A change is as good as a rest to a blind bat, so here's some Shock News!

An academic scientific journal article in the "politics" section of the ASIF!!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027723000550

Quote
Misinformation can negatively impact people's lives in domains ranging from health to politics. An important research goal is to understand how misinformation spreads in order to curb it. Here, we test whether and how a single repetition of misinformation fuels its spread.
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

Jim Hunt

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #6 on: August 03, 2023, 03:18:49 PM »
My Arctic alter ego has (obviously?) been studying this topic for many decades. "She" is particularly keen on doing "her" due diligence when it involves sinking a pint or three of Great British beer:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2015/05/why-its-so-hard-to-convince-pseudo-skeptics/



"Her" companion on that boozy evening was a climate modeller from the nearby UKMO.
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

Rodius

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #7 on: August 04, 2023, 02:07:21 AM »
Who to blame is a complex question.

Here is my take on it... for what it is worth.

In the 60s, oil companies got the ball rolling when they figured out how bad their product was for the climate, so they prepped for the media fight that was coming... first by hiding the information, then as climate news picked up, they buried it under propaganda.

We bought the propaganda, as we typically do for some reason.
And we kept buying it for decades.

Somewhere during the 2000's, the general population caught on to the lies, a little bit, and the climate situation was coming more topical in the media, the fossil fuel companies, not just oil, all pitched in to up the propaganda game to stall the action for as long as possible.

We bought it again.

Over the last decade, it seems the situation changed somewhat.
People are not buying the propaganda as much and there is a growing movement that we all need to fix this problem.

This is where my head begins to break....

People want to fix the problem but only if it means we keep our way of living, our two cars, our comfort levels, basically, we want to fix climate change but we dont want to change anything in the process.

So, we get tech "fixing" like electric cars, as if that is enough in terms of private transport. We buy into the lie that this is a problem we can fix, without changing how we live, by introducing tech solutions and carbon capture.

Politicians, who are basically bought now, are in a bit of a fix.
They like the money they get from fossil fuels companies, but even when they want to do what is required, we the people vote them out of power.
This is partially to do with the propaganda machine, it is partly to do with hardly anyone wanting to do what is required.

For example, if we are to take this situation seriously, we need to remove almost all cars from the system. We could probably get away with very small electric vehicles, bikes would be better, and cities designed for this approach to transport... ie trains, trams, bike paths, walking cities.
And that is just one example...

Another one would be to eat almost everything local and what is in season.
Less consumerism, less work, more gardens, even public gardens rather than buying from a grocery store.

There are a million things we could do, but we really dont want to do them on a personal level.

And then there is the change of electrical infrastructure from what it is today to what it needs to be.
If we removed cars entirely, this would be far less of a problem, but since we refuse to do that, the power grid needs a radical overhaul and increase in size to cope with the extra electricity required to power up electric cars.

I am fond of decentralizing the power grid, but even that it a massive undertaking.
It is far easier, almost certainly cheaper, to just remove cars from the equation.
It wont happen.

So, now we get to the fossil fuel companies talking about transitions from fossil fuels to renewable.
And, as insane as I feel saying this, given how unwilling we are to stop using cars, or change how we live, they are right.

Politicians can only do what we let them do, so we cant entirely blame them for the stalling game.

The logistics of changing a lot of our infrastructure is huge. I am not sure how it will even get half done even if we went all in on it.

And people, well, we want the comforts that cause the problems and the problems to be fixed at the same time.

Right now, I find it very difficult to pin the blame on one thing.... because the problem is the entire system now.

We need to tear down what we have as quickly as possible, but we all know that isnt going to happen willingly.

Which leave the system being ripped down unwillingly by the environment and climate.

To me, this is no longer an information war because we lost that to the oil and fossil fuel companies.

Admit that we lost it.

The question in my head is what are we going to do about the lost war and to figure out how to prepare for what is coming.

SeanAU

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2023, 02:49:48 AM »
Who to blame is a complex question.


Who to blame - is the wrong question.
Seriously, it is.

I recommend the videos refd above and

https://www.energyandourfuture.org/

and

Reality Blind (Bind?) https://read.realityblind.world

which includes such myth busting ideas as:
The “Trade” - Replacing Human Labor with Fossil Energy

Thought for the day: If your fossil armies had a labor union, most humans
would only be making pennies per hour.

The Bottom Line: We use large amounts of fossil energy to displace
 far smaller amounts of human labor.

It’s no coincidence that money and energy use are tightly correlated. Energy
is real and money ain’t. Energy is what makes things happen, so to the
extent money were to become uncorrelated to it, it would mean that
“money” was decoupling from the real world. When that happens, it isn’t
always good news.

The Bottom Line: We use energy for every good and service that
contributes to GDP. Energy use and economic growth are tightly
linked. There is little ‘dematerialization’ globally.

The Metabolism of Humanity
The Bottom Line: Just like animals, human society has an energy
metabolism linked to its size
.

Gross World Burning
The Bottom Line: Our most central national statistic, GDP, might
be more accurately labeled GDB – where the B stands for burning.

The Bottom line: Abundant cheap energy allows us an abundance
of almost all other materials. In fact, usable net energy is, ultimately,
almost the entire story.

https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/198/

Generating enough "Usable Net Energy" from "Renewable energy" is not abundant and it is not cheap.

Myth #21: Renewables Can Power THIS Civilization




Just Stop Oil !? Part 2 - Oil is the Economy

In Part 2 of this Frankly Series, Nate breaks down why energy - and specifically oil - is currently the central foundation of our entire modern economic system. There are ecological and energetic laws that apply to all life, including humans and our economies. By accessing a huge surplus of dense carbon energy in the form of fossil sunlight, we’ve effectively turbo-boosted our economies, populations, and material wealth - but what happens if this fossil abundance were to go away?

What are the systemic implications of an economy tethered to growth, tethered to carbon?

Is it even possible for us to choose to stop using oil?

How do these complex constraints on our global systems affect the options - and most likely outcomes - in a future with declining oil availability and rising climate insecurity?

Recorded July 25th, 2023

 
It's wealth, constantly seeking more wealth, to better seek still more wealth. Building wealth off of destruction. That's what's consuming the world. And is driving humans crazy at the same time.

SeanAU

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #9 on: August 04, 2023, 03:00:08 AM »
By accessing a huge surplus of dense carbon energy in the form of fossil sunlight, we’ve effectively turbo-boosted our economies, populations, and material wealth - but what happens if this fossil abundance were to go away?

Answer: Our economies, our food production, our water supplies, our transportation systems, our populations, and our material wealth that provides our capacity to do things rapidly declines. 

It's wealth, constantly seeking more wealth, to better seek still more wealth. Building wealth off of destruction. That's what's consuming the world. And is driving humans crazy at the same time.

Rodius

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #10 on: August 04, 2023, 10:48:22 AM »
Who to blame is a complex question.


Who to blame - is the wrong question.
Seriously, it is.

It isnt so much the wrong question... it is more that it isnt worth talking about because the results of finding out (if it is even possible) wont change the future outcomes one iota

We walked into the situation, and now we cant stop walking and the cliff is close.

As I said, we need to focus on preparing for the consequences, which we are also not doing and I suspect will be another battle we will lose.

Add on: I am watching the videos, he is saying what I am thinking
« Last Edit: August 04, 2023, 11:03:23 AM by Rodius »

SeanAU

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #11 on: August 04, 2023, 12:12:42 PM »
I hope you find what he presents as useful for you personally. Best.
It's wealth, constantly seeking more wealth, to better seek still more wealth. Building wealth off of destruction. That's what's consuming the world. And is driving humans crazy at the same time.

SeanAU

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #12 on: August 05, 2023, 07:07:04 AM »
I don't provoke people, I say what I believe to be true.
-- https://youtube.com/shorts/E0mSS6xFZWI

--- ---
Nate Hagan's final part is out ... the super organism keeps on growing on automatic ... do note the critical consequences of lending money creates new money out of nothing and the impact of this debt bringing forward the use of energy and consumption of non-renewable resources speeding up the super-organisms consumption .... and that within a decade this monetary system is going to, likely to, totally implode. 

Nates first major career was in Finance btw

In Part 3 of this Frankly Series, Nate breaks down the logic of how we COULD arrive at a post-growth future. Our global situation is complex and not static - IF we somehow are able to shrink the global economic output (which would imply significantly less oil use) we first have to navigate ‘the 4 Horsemen of the 2020s’.

Nate outlines 10 possible avenues for how this could happen, not as a prescription but as a description of various possible scenarios.

Just Stop Oil !? Part 3 - 10 Pathways to Post-Growth




That being said after watching this, nothing changes - except maybe a better more holistic but shallow understanding of the challenges about the real issues involved .... besides no one with real political or media communication power or institutional power is adopting these realizations or acting on them.

Even believing what Nate presents is valid and true still won't help anyone one bit. Nate and all those who he has interviewed who generally align with his thinking and attitudes - systems systems systems - are very much only lost voices in the wilderness.
It's wealth, constantly seeking more wealth, to better seek still more wealth. Building wealth off of destruction. That's what's consuming the world. And is driving humans crazy at the same time.

SeanAU

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #13 on: August 05, 2023, 09:43:50 AM »
Kevin Anderson: "The Uncomfortable Link Between Climate and Equity"

11 mins
"KA (edited) - We are not science deniers but we are mitigation deniers. We (the climate scientists &  experts group) have managed to delude ourselves. Those who have worked on the science are simply unprepared to accept what the implications of what the science means to society. The people we need to get to (about actions needed to be done that align with what the science is telling us) are our own group ... but we are deluding ourselves. We have deluded ourselves that somehow we can significantly shift business as usual (incl equity) to align with what our science says is necessary to deliver on our political commitments - which (so far) in themselves are quite weak. But scratch below the surface of the skin of us experts and we are perfectly aware that (what we are saying on mitigation plans - net zero all that guff,) is a delusion.

The repercussions now of how late we have left things mean that the changes to business as usual are not to be found do not exist within the current paradigm. We are talking fundamental reshaping of almost every facet of modern society. But we don't describe it like that because we don't want it to be like that because we have done remarkably well out of it. Now if we could just get Musk to make Twitter/X work properly it would make things a lot better for everyone.
."



My opinion is - Kevin's narrative has not changed for over a decade (except to become more urgent and dire) and still no one in power really hears him or acts on anything he says, And the climate scientists - especially those self-appointed 'climate industry' experts like M Mann et al continue to black ball him - are denying that they are the most deluded do nothing deniers of them all.

But it is nevertheless a good discussion for those who don't know much about Kevin or Nate and their clear eyed perspectives and deep knowledge and ethical values.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2023, 10:17:49 AM by SeanAU »
It's wealth, constantly seeking more wealth, to better seek still more wealth. Building wealth off of destruction. That's what's consuming the world. And is driving humans crazy at the same time.

Jim Hunt

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #14 on: August 05, 2023, 04:24:05 PM »
I hope you find what he presents as useful for you personally.

Good afternoon Sean (UTC),

I realise that you have almost as many hobby horses as I do, but do you think you could try to get the message imparted by your recent videos across on a more appropriate (IMHO) thread.

The topic here is "The [current] information war with the fossil fuel industry". See above:

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,4034.msg377157.html#msg377157
« Last Edit: August 05, 2023, 05:57:55 PM by Jim Hunt »
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

NevB

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #15 on: August 05, 2023, 05:03:45 PM »
I hope you find what he presents as useful for you personally.

Good afternoon Sean (UTC),

I realise that you have almost any many hobby horses as I do, but do you think you could try to get the message imparted by your recent videos across on a more appropriate (IMHO) thread.

The topic here is "The [current] information war with the fossil fuel industry". See above:

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,4034.msg377157.html#msg377157

Best available solution to that problem is this as it's not worth your valuable time:

Jim Hunt

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #16 on: August 05, 2023, 05:57:25 PM »
Hi Nev,

Whilst I appreciate your suggestion, as the originator of the thread I'm trying to preclude the need for all and sundry to employ the process you suggest.

Unless of course Sean is implying that Nate Hagens is in actual fact a shill for big oil?

And Sean's very first contribution to this thread was both on topic and helpful.
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

KiwiGriff

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #17 on: August 06, 2023, 12:55:59 AM »
Quote
By accessing a huge surplus of dense carbon energy in the form of fossil sunlight, we’ve effectively turbo-boosted our economies, populations, and material wealth - but what happens if this fossil abundance were to go away?
The sun still rises.
More than enough energy is contained in the sunlight hitting our blue marble to support our economy's.
We just have to ignore those who benefit from the extractive industry's of  oil gas and coal.
Wind energy and hydro is also driven by sun light.

 
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.
Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
Robert Heinlein.

Jim Hunt

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #18 on: August 06, 2023, 08:41:06 AM »
Another recent example of the current climate disinformation campaign is referred to by John Mason in this article at Skeptical Science:

"The difference between land surface temperature and surface air temperature"

Quote
This headline and accompanying blog was republished at Watts Up With That (WUWT) on July 19th 2023 and has been archived for future reference here: https://archive.is/LDRxJ. WUWT serves as a sort of amplifier, one among many, for stories and conspiracy theories emerging in various dimly-lit corners of the Internet.

The trouble with stuff like this is that once amplified, it goes viral thanks to social media. The core of this emergent climate myth was the fictitious (to put it mildly) claim that the European Space Agency (ESA) had done something very, very naughty...
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

SeanAU

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #19 on: August 15, 2023, 10:30:51 AM »
Wiser souls would recognize and acknowledge the fossil fuel industry is a part of the global community. It's self-defeating to back them into a corner and declare them to blame for everything and make them all the enemy.

Quote
Just Stop Oil ! ? Part 4 - The Intersection

see video below @8:15 minutes

The third category is Incentives by Nate Hagens

I don't think it's the fault of the fossil fuel companies or the corporations
This is an emergent (economic/social) structure that happened over time
and the people that work at these Fossil Fuel & Extraction organizations
are following the cultural cues that we (collectively in the Western world)
set in motion a long time ago but we are pricing this unbelievably
powerful non-renewable CHEAP ENERGY input to our economies - Oil
especially - at just the cost of extraction [ plus minimal Taxes plus Profit ]

So there's Too Cheap Energy and the [primary] goals of 'The System'
are just to maximize Growth.

And so Cheap Energy + Maximize Growth = GO humans figure it out!

We have [ collectively jointly with agreement ] self-organized into that System
so over time we will somehow need to change the incentives of this system.

Humans are incredibly social creatures - we copy other people - [we copy
apparent success ] - we have optimal foraging dynamics - we have a very
"Other Regarding" [aka Communal / Sharing] Social Impulses which
have been suppressed from the stories that neoclassical economics tell us.

I think over time we could change the incentives and that's something that
we should be working at all scales [on all levels ]

Comment:

But we are not doing that collectively. Economic growth is maintaining the
structural systems on automatic, this is the norm - global human society is
(currently) akin to a metabolic heat engine - it requires enormous amounts
of cheap energy at high volumes to keep feeding itself - and that only
comes from fossil fuels, Oil in particular.

Our collective global economic metabolism is based on a need for growth
creating a non-stop and growing demand for cheap energy to sustain it.

It is the naked emperor without clothes that no one dares speak of.


It's wealth, constantly seeking more wealth, to better seek still more wealth. Building wealth off of destruction. That's what's consuming the world. And is driving humans crazy at the same time.

SeanAU

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #20 on: August 16, 2023, 06:40:03 AM »
Topical news in relation to the above ...

Quote
    This is the first time that a 1.5 °C anomaly has occurred during Northern Hemisphere summer. Such a temperature excess coming during the already hot summer months is more likely to lead to extreme temperatures and all-time records than if it had occurred at other times of the year.

https://berkeleyearth.org/july-2023-temperature-update/

Berkley Earth indicates:
* Likelihood of final 2023 ranking: first place (99 %), second or third place (1 %), top-3 overall (> 99 %);
* Likelihood of full-year 2023 to exceed +1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above the preindustrial benchmark is 20%
.

James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Reto Ruedy published their latest communication on 14 Aug 2023 titled Uh-Oh. Now What? Are We Acquiring the Data to Understand the Situation? They concluded with:

Quote
    A new climate frontier. The leap of global temperature in the past two months is no ordinary fluctuation. It is fueled by the present extraordinarily large Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI). EEI is the proximate cause of global warming. The large imbalance suggests that each month for the rest of the year may be a new record for that month. We are entering a new climate frontier.

    When the first author gave a TED talk 10 years ago, EEI was about 0.6 W/m², averaged over six years (that may not sound like much, but it equals the energy in 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day, every day). Now EEI has approximately doubled. Most of that energy is going into the ocean. If Southern Hemisphere sea ice cover remains low, much of that excess energy will be poured into the Southern Ocean, which is one of the last places we would want it to go.

    That does not mean that the problem is unsolvable. It is possible to restore Earth’s energy balance. Perhaps, if the public finds the taste of the new climate frontier to be sufficiently disagreeable, we can begin to consider the actions needed to restore a propitious climate.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2023/UhOh.14August2023.pdf
It's wealth, constantly seeking more wealth, to better seek still more wealth. Building wealth off of destruction. That's what's consuming the world. And is driving humans crazy at the same time.

Florifulgurator

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #21 on: August 17, 2023, 06:38:08 PM »
Leftist media stars (and frequent appearances in the polit threads) doing the bidding of the fossil fools. From Congo to the ozone hole... I stopped counting the nonsense.
"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or committed communist, but rather people for whom the difference between facts and fiction, true and false, no longer exists." ~ Hannah Arendt
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etienne

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #22 on: August 18, 2023, 06:43:26 AM »
She probably made a mistake, but COVID broke her dynamic and I guess, she doesn't know how to start it again. I also wonder how the AGW discussion could become mainstream again. Just like in this forum where nobody cares about the walking the walk section.

Jim Hunt

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #23 on: August 18, 2023, 12:08:54 PM »
Here's a cross post from Glen on the parallel "Arctic sea ice disinformation" thread:

The acolytes of nihilism ("there is nothing but me & now") are working to keep us on the climate disruption trajectory.  Material from PragerU has been approved for use in Florida public schools, including K-5th grade.  There is a Sci. American story about this malfeasance at  https://climatecrocks.com/2023/08/08/in-florida-along-with-slaverys-good-points-a-climate-denial-curriculum/

The PragerU video linked below has a "Global Issues" tag which could presumably qualify it for use in science class indoctrination for 1st graders.  If I described how pernicious this slop is you would think I was exaggerating, so I won't bother.  See for yourself.  WARNING: 9 minutes of anti-science/climate denial/Holocaust-cheapening agitprop: 
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

Jim Hunt

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #24 on: August 18, 2023, 12:13:48 PM »
To counterbalance all the YouTube videos here's an academic preprint:

"AI could create a perfect storm of climate misinformation"

Quote
What we believe is not only a result of our own reasoning, but also of the beliefs of people around us. Our brains are wired to consume information that is liked by our peers. That way, social reinforcers online – in the form of likes, comments and shares – can build a basis for what individuals believe to be true or false.
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

Florifulgurator

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Re: The information war with the fossil fuel industry
« Reply #25 on: August 18, 2023, 12:52:05 PM »
We are since long in a storm of climate and other antiinformation. I don't think AI will make it substantially worse. The problem is more the consumers, less the sources. Folks can even make up their own BS to avoid an increasingly frightening reality. No input needed. -- I have one clear example: My brother, not stupid, who after 30 years of being told about the climate problem finally made up his mind and told me the cause is overpopulation. I also observe this with other folks who don't consume much internet and don't even know where to find stuff like my YouTube example above.

Actually my hope is that AI can help sort out and trace (and hunt down) sources of antiinformation.

Another thing we urgently need to work on is the high BS tolerance in public discourse. As long as shameless liars or stupid bullsh#ters don't receive adequate public shame and ridicule, they won't shut up, and the mindless masses think they can believe them.

I'm telling climate scientists since more than a decade: Use the wörd bullsh# more often! Maybe a first project would be an AI that simply calls "BS!" on BS input (and can tell why, if asked). -- If AI is capable. Call it Florifulgurator's Turing test...
« Last Edit: August 18, 2023, 01:07:27 PM by Florifulgurator »
"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or committed communist, but rather people for whom the difference between facts and fiction, true and false, no longer exists." ~ Hannah Arendt
"Вчи українську це тобі ще знадобиться" ~ Internet