Let’s just bust all those comfortable Panglossian lies and stupidities
I focus on the lies of the nuclear lobby – because these are the most blatant, pervasive, of the lies that are swallowed up and regurgitated by political leaders and the media.
Lies about “cheap” “clean” “safe” “nothing-to-do-with-weapons” nuclear power, – especially the (non-existent) SMRs – Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.
Dr Pangloss, (from Voltaire’s 17th Century satirical novel “Candide” ) is the essence of foolish, gullible optimism. And a model – for our age – not to be.
But there are so many other prevailing lies that need to be busted, too.
My current top favourite is “The Cloud”. Wottlehell is The Cloud anyway? Clean? Pretty? Up in the sky?.
No, The Cloud is a vast number of “farms” containing dirty great steel skyscraper-like containers, powered by huge amounts of fossil-fuel electricity, requiring great lagoons of water for cooling.
And inside them? Every bit of digital anything that happens from great important dissertations, youtubes, whatever, and everybody’s pointless little emails, tweets, emojis – the world’s ever-increasing digital rubbish.
Renewable energy – big wind and solar – are the answer?
Not really. They require huge amounts of energy to build. They use lots of rare minerals, and plastic. Putting big wind turbines into the oceans is damaging to the marine ecology.
We’re reducing greenhouse emissions. No – they’re still rising
Cop 28 UN Climate Change Conference will lead the way for real climate action. Really?
The United Arab Emirates is hosting the UN climate summit in November and the president of Cop28 is Sultan Al Jaber, who is also chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. At least a dozen employees from the United Arab Emirate’s state-owned
oil company have apparently taken up roles with the office .
Debunking Degrowth. – We learn that reducing energy use, reducing consumption, living more simply – there has been a fair bit of propaganda about – telling the world that these methods are just not feasible. (But they might be the only answer)
Dr Pangloss would say that now “Everything is the best, in the best of all possible worlds“
Well, it’s not. I mean, apart from global overheating, biodiversity loss, diminishing resources, deforestation, water shortages, plastic pollution, climate refugees, pandemics, increasing conflicts – everything’s fine – yes?
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Christina’s notes
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