THE POWER OF FALSE MEDIA COVERAGE AROUND CLIMATE CHANGE
Mainstream climate coverage oversimplifies the problem, overcomplicates the solution and leads us down a path we would not choose if we knew the whole story.
What’s the big picture about climate change? What’s the truth?
“You can’t handle the truth!” (Name that movie.)
In this episode #374 of The Climate Report, I talk about the causes and solutions of drought. But in the first few minutes, I wanted to share a bigger picture: That the modern environmental movement is being led down a path to nowhere, while commercial interests make money off our legitimate fears, and political parties endlessly make hay over problems they have no ability or inclination to solve.
I submit to you that both drought and climate change are much more a function of what we do to the land than what we do to the atmosphere. But powerful business and governmental institutions are not willing to tell you that, because they would have to make real change. And they are not interested in real change.
Carbon dioxide gets too much attention as a cause of climate change. And when you see news coverage of drought, it is assumed that drought is caused by greenhouse gases. We do not hear much about how land use causes drought, warming, heat waves and forest fires.
Mainstream climate coverage is severely misleading. It succeeds in oversimplifying the problem and over complicating the solution. Fossil fuels and CO2 are the problem, they say. And they tell us that switching to so called renewable energy is the solution.
But switching to renewable energy is complicated, expensive and ineffective, and is a huge distraction from what we really need to be doing.
News is narrative. They are telling us stories. And they are lying by omission.
They are not telling us that we could reduce fossil fuel consumption by reducing our total energy consumption. We could reduce our total energy consumption by eliminating some of the activities that do not enhance human well-being. We could eliminate 75% of fossil fuel consumption by eliminating activities that have no rational connection to human well being.
Mainly, we could restructure nearly every sector of the economy (defense, transportation, retail, agriculture, media, etc.) if average people were in charge.
But in the mainstream climate narrative lies by omission. It lies by not talking about which activities in our economy might easily be eliminated. But that would call for real change.
They want us to believe that we just have to change how we generate energy. We have to switch from coal fired power plants to solar and wind. And we have to change from gas powered cars to electric cars. All of this would be possible--they tell us--if not for the (evil) fossil fuel companies and the (ignorant) climate deniers.
But the mainstream narrative is based on fantasy, partly because the damage we do with energy stems from how much energy we use, not just how we generate it.
For example, if you use a solar powered chainsaw to cut down a forest and burn it as fuel, what matters is not how you power the chainsaw, but what you do with it. If you are cutting down trees like there’s no tomorrow, and burning those trees to supply electricity to support the most frivolous, wasteful and destructive human activities, then it does not matter that the chain saw was solar powered.
We are being led down a path that says if we just switch to solar, then everything will be okay, because solar is “renewable.” But renewable is just a word, not a reality. Renewable is a label that we attach to certain activities that, if you look more closely, are anything but renewable.
So let’s not be too easily fooled by labels. And let’s not be fooled by stories that reinforce the most corrupt aspects of our current system, while creating the illusion of change.
You know the saying: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
The modern environmental movement has been commercialized and neutralized. We are being led along by commercial interests that have convinced us that we can change things without changing things. And they are laughing all the way to the bank.
And the kicker is that they are using all this energy to enslave us in an industrialized system that most of us would not want if we had a full knowledge of our options and the power to make change.
We can make meaningful change. But first we have to understand the true nature of the problem, and that is a complete lack of a functioning democracy and a functioning media. We are continually led along to who knows where by the power of lies to which we zealously adhere.