'EcoFascism' and related Acts of Criminality.

[Grizzly]

Let us not forget that if you buck the party line you will not get research grants.

Atmospheric ionization and cloud radiative forcing
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-99033-1


Congratulations on saving the planet from fossil fuels

Millions of Tonnes of Waste Threaten Environment as Solar Panels Near End of Life
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/08/05/millions-of-tonnes-of-waste-threaten-environment-as-solar-panels-near-end-of-life/

[stickdog99]

Is austerity for average humans now a good thing? Are you now finally aligned Margaret Thatcher, the ghost of Ronald Reagan, the IMF, the WEF, and all neoliberals worldwide in demanding extreme austerity for all average humans?

You know, because of the enormous domino theory, federal deficit, WMD, Muslim terrorist, financial crisis, err, climate change emergency?

[stickdog99]

Jonathan Cook: Why action on the climate crisis is all hot air | Capitalism's endless growth paradigm can't be squared with sustainability. But no one – from politicians to the protest movement – is willing to admit the truth.

The debate about the climate crisis should have been settled in the early 1990s. And yet, three decades later, the extent, imminence and even existence of a looming catastrophe are still hotly disputed. That is not by accident.

David Attenborough is on social media pleading, once more, for mankind to do something before tipping points are surpassed that cannot be reversed and temperatures begin to rise inexorably, whatever we do.

In the same vein, Antonio Guterres, the United Nations' secretary general, warned late last month that humanity has shifted from the era of global warming to “global boiling”. Record temperatures keep being broken, while wildfires and floods have become a news staple.

Scientists’ updated models now predict the first breach of the limit of 1.5C mean temperature rise for the globe, set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, in a matter of a few years, rather than decades. This week it was announced that July had been the hottest month globally on record, a jump of 0.33C above the previous record.

The Middle East is likely to feel the worst effects early, with large parts of the region least able to cope with the heavy costs of adapting.

Water scarcity, extreme heat, food insecurity and desertification will make life increasingly tough, triggering migration and conflict.

And yet inaction on curbing fossil fuel use continues.

...

Averting a crisis for all mankind that the industry knew was coming may have been a moral duty, but it was not a legal one.

In fact, as explained previously by Middle East Eye, the exact reverse happened. Throughout the 1990s, Big Oil successfully sabotaged meaningful climate action by pressuring western states to sign an energy treaty tying their hands on cuts to fossil-fuel use.

That was for a good reason. Under the capitalist system, the primary duty of oil corporations – like other corporations – is to maintain profitability and guarantee value for investors and stockholders. Ethics never got a look-in.

So the fossil-fuel industry spent part of its vast profits pursuing a twin-track: first, muddying the waters about the climate science, then channelling attention towards largely meaningless, small-scale fixes that fell to the public to implement.

For the critical years when urgent, state-backed action was needed on a massive scale, climate denial, funded by dark money from Big Business, was given regular airtime on influential media channels like the BBC. Ordinary people were left, as they were supposed to be, confused and unsure.

**Meanwhile, the burden of doing something was intentionally shifted away from governments to western publics. Small, private actions, we were told, would have big impacts.**

**Ordinary people were encouraged, for example, to convert, very gradually, from using wasteful, short-life lightbulbs to more efficient, long-lasting versions - lightbulbs that had been around for decades but kept out of production because they were far less profitable.**

**Now the cost-benefit analysis had changed for Big Business: the humble lightbulb was a weapon in the fight to placate a public and policymakers keen to do something about climate change.**

**Similarly, responsible citizens were advised to commute to work on a bike, even as governments exclusively prioritised road infrastructure improvements for motorists, not cyclists, and a wider culture was fostered vilifying bike riders, one that persists to this day.**

**It did not end there. The fossil-fuel lobby intensified its capture of the public space.**

Corporate money in politics meant the political class was in no mood to take on the oil industry, whatever the scientists were saying. In any case, politicians, desperate for re-election, were not about to start questioning the precepts of capitalism in a two-party system in which both parties were expected to worship the model of endless economic growth.

The establishment media was embedded in the same network of interconnected corporations that profited from an oil-based economy. Their own short-termist goals depended on shoring up an irrational faith among the public in eternal economic growth on a finite planet.

Giant psyop

**The bottom line was that no one with a public platform had any interest in warning the public that advanced societies were structured in a way that was hurtling us towards extinction. The profit-driven, over-consumption model of capitalism was never in question.**

nstead, the fossil-fuel companies set themselves a deadline of the 2010s - the point at which, as their scientists had warned, climate disruptions would be hard to conceal from the public. By that time, the oil industry would need to have ready a new script that the oil industry was integral to saving the planet.

Which is exactly what it did. Recent reports show that ethical and green investment funds have poured money into fossil-fuel companies after those firms rebranded themselves. The oil giants’ profits have again hit record levels.

Under the so-called Green New Deals, nothing fundamentally changes. We still drive our own cars in pretty, individualised colours. We still holiday abroad. We still shop in large supermarkets with everything – including year-round exotic fruit flown in from abroad – wrapped and protected in oil-based plastics.

We are still encouraged through advertising to consume as much as possible and throw away items of new technology – from personal computers to phones – every few years through planned obsolescence.

But this individualised, competitive, wasteful way of life is being given a makeover. Cars are now hybrids or electric. Holidays are “carbon offset” somehow. Plastic on our food is described as recyclable. Advertising now explains to us how all the stuff we buy is saving the planet.

Living ever more of our lives online supposedly helps too, because it reduces our carbon footprint. It is a green revolution in which everything stays pretty much the same – including the ability of giant corporations to make massive profits.

Armed with warnings – decades in advance – from their own scientists, the oil industry had enough of a head-start to invent a self-serving narrative. It's one in which ordinary people are encouraged to consume as much as before, while being persuaded either that they are making a difference or that the damage they are causing will be reversed by imminent technologies.

The new watchword is “net zero”. But in truth, it is a giant psyop, as climate scientists have gradually started to appreciate.

In 2021 a group of three leading academics admitted that for years they had been duped into championing the promises of the Green New Deal.

Technological fixes, such as carbon capture, offsetting and geoengineering, were “no more than fairy tales”, they warned. Net zero policies “were and still are driven by a need to protect business as usual, not the climate”.

**One, James Dyke, an expert in global systems at Exeter University, observed: “It’s astonishing how the continual absence of any credible carbon removal technology seems to never affect net zero policies. Whatever is thrown at it, net zero carries on without a dent in the fender… I've now realised that we have all been subject to a form of gaslighting.”**

...

[Belligerent Savant]

1.6 billion disposable masks entered the ocean in 2020 and will take 450 years to biodegrade

Waste from throwaway masks created a mass of plastic waste around 7 per cent of the size of the Great Garbage Plastic Patch

An estimated 1.6 billion disposable masks wound up in the ocean in 2020, creating a vast pile of floating plastic waste and threatening marine life across the planet.

Researchers from Visual Capitalist found that 3 per cent of the 52 billion disposable single-use masks produced to curb the Covid-19 pandemic found their way into the sea.

The throwaway masks sent 5500 metric tonnes of plastic into the oceans, which will take up to 450 years to biodegrade, the group said.

The waste from N95 and surgical masks created a mass of plastic waste about 7 per cent of the size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a huge gyre of floating debris that circulates in ocean currents.

The masks are usually made of polypropylene, which breaks up into microplastics and are then eaten by aquatic animals and birds, blocking their digestive tracts and causing their stomachs to become stuffed with plastic.

In China, an estimated 450 million disposable masks were manufactured every day during the height of the pandemic in April 2020.

The looming environmental catastrophe prompted one French ecologist to warn last year: “Soon there will be more masks than jellyfish.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-c ... 93830.html

So many stupid humans. Devolution, expedited.

[Joe Hillshoist]

[Joe Hillshoist]

That should have been a link to Who Killed the Electric Car? a film that's nearly 20 years old about events that happened over 20 years ago.

[Belligerent Savant]

https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/sta ... 64673?s=20

[stickdog99]

We need to do something drastic about climate change, and that can only mean one thing:

We need to hand the elites who caused the whole problem in the first place the authoritarian means to completely control the diet, movement, medical decisions, purchases, and even the purchasing ability of masses! The elites will surely use all of this power only to Save The Earth from the ruinous environmentally sinful personal choices of the masses!

Positive environmental change can come only if and when we all resolve to beg the elites to enforce horrific levels of austerity on the masses!

[DrEvil]

Why yes, the worst possible way to do something is always the only way to do something. It's the American way!

[Joe Hillshoist]

We need to do something drastic about climate change, and that can only mean one thing:

We need to hand the elites who caused the whole problem in the first place the authoritarian means to completely control the diet, movement, medical decisions, purchases, and even the purchasing ability of masses! The elites will surely use all of this power only to Save The Earth from the ruinous environmentally sinful personal choices of the masses!

Positive environmental change can come only if and when we all resolve to beg the elites to enforce horrific levels of austerity on the masses!

This is one thing we don't need to do.

Altho ... consumerism is a massive driver of all the environmental catastrophes we're experiencing.

people want to drive fuel guzzling cars like Hummers round cities and buy a new iphone every two years... that drives all of the environmental problems we have as much as the world's (and in particular the US') military does.

[Joe Hillshoist]

There's a directly proportional relationship between the size of an economy and the amount of energy it uses.

So economic growth will directly result in more energy being used.

Even if all that energy was clean and green there will come a point where the waste heat from that energy being used is too much for the planet to dump into space, and when that happens the surface of the earth will boil very quickly.

No one knows when that point will happen, or even if humans can do that much work (in the physics sense, ie transferring energy to an object) but some physicist did some calculations into this a bit over a decade ago and said another 300 years of ongoing economic growth (at 3% pa) would do it.

[stickdog99]

Who benefits when average people start demanding that elites utilize authoritarian means to enforce austerity on average people to Save the Earth?

Sure, the consumption levels and diet of the average American are environmentally problematic. But should the authoritarian controls be placed on the average American or on those handsomely profiting off of the consumption habits that they have inculcated in the average American? Shouldn't we demand that change begin with the worst environmental offenders such as our globalist corporate shipping empire, the US military, and those who continuously travel in private planes and yachts?

Again, I am more concerned with discussing what are acceptable responses to the perceived problem of climate change than with arguing about the severity of the problem itself.

Personally, I have always been attracted to the religious ascetism aspect of environmental conservation, and I completely understand and appreciate the Jimmy Carter crisis of confidence "environmental conservation must start with each and every one of us" mentality.

But our elites are now fully tapped into exploiting that wholesome mentality as we just saw in their response to COVID-19 during which all regular people and only regular people were asked to sacrifice their livelihoods, quality of life, and even fundamental rights in order to mitigate the COVID crisis. And many of the most compassionate among us not only complied with these authoritarian dictates while socially policing those who did not but also demanded further authoritarian censorship and punishment of anyone who dared to question the costs vs. benefits of the proscribed "change begins and ends with you and you alone" authoritarian mandates that were, quite characteristically, our elites' one and only response to this crisis.

There still exists to this day a widespread sentiment that if average people had just adhered far more religiously to lockdown, mask, social distancing, and experimental injection mandates and demanded of their authorities far longer and more severe lockdown, mask, social distancing, and experimental injection mandates, then the Gods of Respiratory Virus Transmission would have smiled upon our collective personal sacrifice and spared us all from their vengeful COVIDian wrath.

Very few of the countless millions who ever made this argument have so much as reevaluated their views even after being confronted with reams of irrefutable evidence detailing the tremendous deleterious effects of school closures and multiple forced injections for young and totally healthy individuals who were never at risk from COVID and thus for whom these injections undeniably posed more risk than benefit. And this does not even mention the trillions in wealth that were inarguably and almost seamlessly transferred from the lower 99% to the upper 1% under the guise of "everyone" doing his, her, or their part to save grandma! Nor does this even scratch the surface of the new levels of authoritarian control that the normalization of home prisons, QR-code and face-masked guarded entry, vaccine passports, employment medical mandates, cell phone tracking, and government directed social media censorship have granted our oligarchs.

Now, please consider how these same elites must be rubbing their hands in anticipation of the awesome new levels of authoritarian control and wealth transfer that they will be able to facilitate by exploiting the same compassionate mentality of all of us who are legitimately concerned about an impending environmental doomsday crisis that in our minds makes millions of COVID deaths seem trivial in comparison.

If you were willing to demand that authorities fire, fine, withhold emergency care, and even break up families just to ensure compliance with undemocratic COVID mandates that were scientifically questionable at best, what levels authoritarian controlled austerity will you be willing to demand of those who don't sufficiently comply with the mandated levels of personal ascetic conservationism that you yourself already personally practice and consider moralistic Commandments because you believe that they postpone an incipient environmental doomsday?

[Joe Hillshoist]

Who benefits when average people start demanding that elites utilize authoritarian means to enforce austerity on average people to Save the Earth?

Sure, the consumption levels and diet of the average American are environmentally problematic. But should the authoritarian controls be placed on the average American or on those handsomely profiting off of the consumption habits that they have inculcated in the average American? Shouldn't we demand that change begin with the worst environmental offenders such as our globalist corporate shipping empire, the US military, and those who continuously travel in private planes and yachts?

Again, I am more concerned with discussing what are acceptable responses to the perceived problem of climate change than with arguing about the severity of the problem itself.

Personally, I have always been attracted to the religious ascetism aspect of environmental conservation, and I completely understand and appreciate the Jimmy Carter crisis of confidence "environmental conservation must start with each and every one of us" mentality.

But our elites are now fully tapped into exploiting that wholesome mentality as we just saw in their response to COVID-19 during which all regular people and only regular people were asked to sacrifice their livelihoods, quality of life, and even fundamental rights in order to mitigate the COVID crisis. And many of the most compassionate among us not only complied with these authoritarian dictates while socially policing those who did not but also demanded further authoritarian censorship and punishment of anyone who dared to question the costs vs. benefits of the proscribed "change begins and ends with you and you alone" authoritarian mandates that were, quite characteristically, our elites' one and only response to this crisis.

There still exists to this day a widespread sentiment that if average people had just adhered far more religiously to lockdown, mask, social distancing, and experimental injection mandates and demanded of their authorities far longer and more severe lockdown, mask, social distancing, and experimental injection mandates, then the Gods of Respiratory Virus Transmission would have smiled upon our collective personal sacrifice and spared us all from their vengeful COVIDian wrath.

Very few of the countless millions who ever made this argument have so much as reevaluated their views even after being confronted with reams of irrefutable evidence detailing the tremendous deleterious effects of school closures and multiple forced injections for young and totally healthy individuals who were never at risk from COVID and thus for whom these injections undeniably posed more risk than benefit. And this does not even mention the trillions in wealth that were inarguably and almost seamlessly transferred from the lower 99% to the upper 1% under the guise of "everyone" doing his, her, or their part to save grandma! Nor does this even scratch the surface of the new levels of authoritarian control that the normalization of home prisons, QR-code and face-masked guarded entry, vaccine passports, employment medical mandates, cell phone tracking, and government directed social media censorship have granted our oligarchs.

Now, please consider how these same elites must be rubbing their hands in anticipation of the awesome new levels of authoritarian control and wealth transfer that they will be able to facilitate by exploiting the same compassionate mentality of all of us who are legitimately concerned about an impending environmental doomsday crisis that in our minds makes millions of COVID deaths seem trivial in comparison.

If you were willing to demand that authorities fire, fine, withhold emergency care, and even break up families just to ensure compliance with undemocratic COVID mandates that were scientifically questionable at best, what levels authoritarian controlled austerity will you be willing to demand of those who don't sufficiently comply with the mandated levels of personal ascetic conservationism that you yourself already personally practice and consider moralistic Commandments because you believe that they postpone an incipient environmental doomsday?

Its not just the average American, its the average Australian too. They buy a new six foot tv every three years, build fucken mcmansions that take up every inch of their quarter acre block then live in three rooms and use the rest to store all their old bloody tvs.

I never buy new shit, well very rarely. I nearly always buy second hand stuff and as a result have a great car, a six foot plasma tv, a video game console, internet access in a camp in the buysh etc etc. You don't need to buy into consumer culture.

And I fully agree with the thrust of your post. But consumer culture is a trap that keeps people locked into endless debt on their mortgages and credit cards while they work as wage slaves and the vast majority of the fruit of their labour flows upward to the people you're talking about as wanting to implement an authoritarian culture that protects their interests and makes the rest of us suffer the consequences.

This song is nearly 35 years old and nothing has changed:



here are the lyrics:

Ten percent of the rest
Is the hand that pulls the strings
Be the privileged few (to have to own to hold)
Power over the people yes yes
Power over people
Be the privileged few to have to own to hold
Money property assets before lives
Green gestures of a dying planet
An endless debate only too late
An appetite for gluttony
The only way is up the only way is up
But when you are up you have to try and stay there
So you stamp and cheat on people
Champagne breakfast (rewards for the killing)
And a fat waist bulging
Indulging, with what you call good living
But most of all there is too much fat on your heart - pig
A lifestyle of cholesterol
Cross collateralized cholesterol
Saving what's left from profit margin
For what?
I'll tell you what for
For some conscience easing charity, why?
Just to justify!
Just to justify!
Look at this utopia
Society based on solid foundations
Educate our children, educate them well
To feather the nest and fuck the rest
(Yes yes feather the nest and fuck the rest)
The waste expands
(Your waist expands)
While others stand at the back of the queue
I mean you
Still the same old security
For your creature comforts
Exchanging the hours of your life
For the cash you've already spent
Eating rubbish so you can pay the rent
Table wine once a week if you're lucky
In comparison
Privatize the people's lives
Be part of the company (or fade!)
Appliance of science to privatize their lives
Water is our business
Electricity is our business
Gas is our business
Lives are our business
Business is our business
Your money, my time
Your stinking industrial bathwater, my wine
Imbalance induces hate
How will you bridge the gap
Between the endless buffet
And the empty plate I have
I feel hate I feel hate
I feel hate I feel hate
(Don't be afraid to show your hate, hate!)
You just treat me like a commodity
You didn't know I couldn't even afford to feed my family
I just want to kill
I just want to take a gun
And put it to your head
And pull the trigger

[Joe Hillshoist]

The solution to climate change is simple too. Plant trees (or hemp) and use the wood and fibres in things that last.

[Belligerent Savant]

The solution to climate change is simple too. Plant trees (or hemp) and use the wood and fibres in things that last.

https://twitter.com/balancealways/statu ... 79827?s=20