Propagandaschlacht ums Klima
1 architects of misinformation
tabacco . doubt is our product
rachel carson - silent spring warns of DDT pesticide banned in 1972 character assassination campaign against carson
monsanto.
moskitos grew resistance to it. carson predicted that.
merchants pf doubt - oreskes about market radicals. borrowed tactics from tobacco.
fred singer.
just enough to justify policy of inaction.
bush: clean air act: coal plants. CAP and trade introduced.
contrarians denigrate the entire peer review process.
fred singer.
trump. installed all purpose deniers. (climate and ozone)
military industrial complex. arms race of US and Soviet. anti ballistic missile program. one scientist standing in the way.
carl sagan. cornell university. earth and planetary science. young earth paradox. -> greenhouse effect.
sagan was more than a scientist. unmatched ability to get people excited people about science.
ponder fundamental and existential questions. voice of science of the nation.
nuclear war risk.
enough dust do block out sunlight.
introduce a state of nuclear winter.
same fate as the dinosaurs after asteroid impact possible.
they tried do attack sagan.
sagan used early climate models.
GMI.
2 the climate wars.
"when rich wage wars it is the poor who die"
michael mann at yale university.
berry saltsman: discovery of chaos.
one can not predict the details of weather.
james hanson. carbon from oil and gas was heating the process. hansen testified to congress in 1988.
white house edited it to downplay it.
exxon mobils scientists: there is not doubt that fossil fuels warm the earth.
1982 exxon mobil scientists predicted our current levels of carbon and warming.
UNFCCC : UN climate change
book: blaming warming on solar activity.
1988 : IPCC was founded.
one small orga like GMI was not enough to distract.
global climate coalition: exxon mobil, shell, bp, chevron, american petroleum institute joined forces with others
like heartland institute.
news media, fake articles.
"science is too uncertain". natural variability.
david and charles koch. they funded climate denial.
they played an early role.
cato institute: liberal thinktank.
first climate denial conference.
fred singer: all purpose denier. received substantial industry funding for his work.
1995 : climate change proof has become more compelling. industry funded resistance grew more and more. the battlefield has taken shape. climate was the defining issue of the time.
IPCC scientific consensus.
usa and saudi arabia lobbied against it. lots of discussion about formulations in the summary for policy makers.
fred singer attacked the ipcc. picked out one graphic that seems to contradict the warming.
serengeti stategy. pick out individual scientists. separate them from the herd. "if they can bring down michal mann, they can bring down the ipcc"
mercer family.
oregon petition is touted as evidence. few of the signatories were scientists. gery helliwell from the spice girls was on the list. many did not agree to be listed.
the hockey fight. 2002. frank lunts.
attacks against michael mann by fox news. all by republicans.
science has self correcting machinery. real skepticism. keeps us on a path to truth. if it is wrong other scientists. opposite of what deniers say is true. journals like nature and science.
the recent warming is unprecedented across the last millenia.
distiguish the world of science and the world of politics. in politcs anythign goes. reality out the window. alternative facts. "the demon haunted world" - carl sagan
"climate gate" was manufactured. november 2009. kopenhagen conference brought great hope to climate activists. al gore: an inconvenient truth was very successful.
bits of pieces of mails have been taken out of context. claim: "climate change is a hoax"
watergate was the source of the "gate" suffix.
wikileaks and julian assange. fossil fuels are russias primary asset. trump would be good for them (rosneft). exon mobil. trump did not hold sanctions about crimea. rex tillerson: announced secretary of state. exxon mobil russia partnership. russia influenced the elections.
putin: fossil fuels dont cause warming. just adapt to it.
yellow vest protests in france. are they tied?
strategy : just lie. trump lies so much, that journalists can not keep up.
fossil fuel funded denial machine. fox news. flood social media mit disinformation and misinformation. make extreme positions more visible than they really are. talking points. people perceive that more poeple deny climate change than actually do.
deny the negative impacts it has now or in the future. example wildfires in califoria. denier in chief donald trump blamed people to mismanagement of forests. data manipulation by trump administration to downplay the role climate change played in the wildfires.
amazon wildfires in 2019.
climate effect have become too visible to be denied any more.
climate change threatens our economy by about more than 1 trillion a year. what was viewed as an environmental thread is no a economic and national security threat.
citizens climate lobby trains volunteers to talk with representatives about climate. even some of the most conservative people. recognize people are suffering climate change NOW.
revenue neutral carbon tax?
charles koch: "find policies that work, reduce co2 and at the same time not make peoples lifes worse."
solutions proposed by republicans are often not real solutions.
they have a single goal: "inactions" we can call them "inactivists"
forms
- deniers are going extinct
- deceiver
- dissemblers downplayers, deflecters, doomers
divide the public, delay action, "too late"
cliamte wars have not ended, just evolved to a new form.
3 the crying indian - deflection campaigns
big companies use clever advertising to distract from government regulation solutions and shift the burden to individuals.
crying indian - 1 min
"people start polution, people can stop pollution"
this inspired many people to care more for the environment. was even adapted by environmental groups. it was a trick by the beverage industry to lobby against pfandflaschen.
NRA: "guns dont kill people, people kill people" lobby against gun regulation.
tobacco industry: promote fire prof furniture (poisonous chemicals) instead of make cigarettes burning proof. chemical industry support them.
focus on individual action divides environmental movement.
4 its your fault
finger pointing
purity test
virtue signaling
hypocrites
loss of personal liberty
deflection
nathaniel rich - losing earth "human nature brought us here" deflection campaign
stop eat animals meat shaming.
"futility of guilt based advocacy"
philosophy often obsessed over the individual
doomism. pointing finger is something we all can do.
shaming only makes people feel bad. overlooking the structures.
sow division within the climate community.
knows as a "wedge" campaign. wedge strategy.
use internal division.
russia manipulates with trolls and bot armies. split democrats to not vote for hillary. the climate left critizied her fracking policy.
russia fossil fuel extraction. exxon mobil partnership.
russia gate russia is dependant on fossil fuel extraction.
weaponize social media.
strategy: use professional memes. have trolls post it. then bots amplify it.
1/4 of tweets about climate are done by bots.
divide and conquer
lifestyle choices.
boomerang effect. focus on positive norms. shaming individuals is counterproductive.
greta thunberg. she critizies politians. media emphasizes her personal behavior.
michael mann: "we need both individual and collective action".
roger hallam downplayed the holocaust. this led to the german branch distancing itself.
mann: we need individual AND systemic action
even allies can buy into bad framing.
endless opportunities of fingerpointing.
cowspiracy. a polemic film. vegan activist are convinced meatshaming is the solution to climate change. scientists point out that meats impact is small compared to fossil fuels. vegan activists have been weaponized by deviders.
abandon market econmics: another distraction.
air travel is only 3% of global emissions. carbon offsets.
distractors want us to focus on behavior at elites. age, ethnicity, class divides us. prevents us from uniting.
capitalism itself as the enemy? (will return to that later)
catherine hayhoe: flying, child, meat is treated as a purity test.
project drawdown flightshaming = the movement eating it own.
george monbiot "we are all killers" - all that continue to fly
holthaus: vasectomy to stop population growth.
wedge issue: socioeconomic class. identity politics
documentary: ice on fire. trailer shows mann. critiqued for lack in gender diversity. despite the film being good in it.
toxic atmosphere in the climate movement.
an inconvenient truth. afterwards report by koch brothers: "al gores house uses 20x the amount of energy" hypocrite narrative. smear campaign.
leonardo dicraprio has been similarly attacked.
rupert murdoch
dicaprio has a big footprint, so we should not care about climate change. focus anger on climate champions and on the whole climate movement.
attack scientists. are perceived es credible and integrity. the science is so clear, attacking it makes no sense. thus they try it with the hypocrisy strategy.
when we make it about personal sacrifice, we play in the inactivists hands.
displaying climate activists as purists enforces the conservative framing of displaying them as authoritarians.
trollbot rating
most conservatives are on board with renewable energies.
focus on personal sacrifice turns off many people in the middle.
cost of inaction is immensely higher.
green new deal (GND)
social programs by AOC were added.
job garuantee
paid vacations to all US citizens
high quality healthcare
mann: i support the goals but have doubts about.
adding a whole laundry list to a climate movements agenda.
carbon pricing.
naomi klein.
neoliberalism must be overthrown through mass resistance.
watermelons: green outside, red inside.
use climate change as a strategy to overthrow capitalism.
blm drive a wedge.
what can we do?
first realize when you are being played.
block and report bots.
be constructive and engage meaningfully with others.
engage in climate friendly individual actions.
dont become complacent.
we can not solve it without deep systemic change.
that requires political changes.
put a price on pollution.