You may have read a bit about Carbon Capture and Storage recently. CCS is (still) being used as a way to avoid asking really hard questions about our future as a species (that is not hyperbole). A thread.
1/13
200 yrs ago, in 1824, a French scientist, Fourier, proved that SOMETHING in the atmosphere was trapping some heat from the Sun. If not, the planet would be much much colder. 30 yrs later Eunice Foote and John Tyndall showed carbon dioxide (C02) was a ‘greenhouse gas’.
The basic problem is when humans burn oil, coal and gas (“fossil fuels”) for energy, heat, making stuff, carbon dioxide is released as a by-product. Levels of C02 in the atmosphere have gone from 280ppm 200 yrs ago to 422 today. And climbing. Heat is trapped.
CCS is supposed to stop some of the C02 getting into the atmosphere. But even if (and it is a HUGE IF) it worked perfectly, at scale, it would be merely slowing down the increase of C02 in the atmosphere. Again, C02 traps heat. Too much heat is Really Bad.
4/13
CCS as a set of technologies is simultaneously old and new (as I call it here – Schrodinger’s Cat of a technology.
In the UK, there was brief interest in CCS in the late 1980s, but it really only kicked up in early 2000s.
More funding and another competition followed. In November 2015 George Osborne, then Treasurer, dismissively kneecapped it. Industry was furious. No, FUCKING FURIOUS. It looked like CCS might be dead. Then came the Kipling Manoeuvre….
8/13
From 2018 to now, there has been rhetorical support for CCS. And endless consultations and dribs and drabs of (big) money. But the future is not clear.
9/13
My guesstimate fwiw is
a) some projects will be begun
b) there will be fierce opposition from some locals and NGOs
c) There will be very entrenched positions
d) The winner will be … ???
10/13
This matters because we have
a) Limited money
b) Policy bandwidth and
c) Even less time (actually, net zero time)
To sort all this out.
11/13
I will be trying to point out the gaps and silences in the positions of pro and anti-CCS types.
(My position – defo a case for industrial ccS, but oil & gas sector will use that as figleaf).
Thirteen years ago, on this day, October 19th, 2011,
On 19th October, 2011, the Government terminated negotiations with the ScottishPower consortium as the Government considered it could not agree a deal that would represent value for money (NAO, 2012). The first CCS competition ended without any winner.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that BP had been interested in using CCS on one of its projects in 2005. proposed it. They pulled the plug in 2007, because Treasury wouldn’t comply. Then a CCS competition had been established in November 2007, Gordon Brown launched it at a WWF event. And the idea was it would be up and running within a couple of years. Ha ha. The competition dragged on and dragged on and dragged on, eventually whittled down to only one interested company. And they’d only been doing it because they were going to be given loads of money to keep the stranded assets afloat. And even then, that didn’t come off. But a second competition was already waiting in the wings.
What we learn is that CCS has a long, long history of failure in the UK, of broken promises of delayed and then ended schemes. Hopefully by now I can point to my book?
What happened next was that a second competition was set up as was the UKCCS Research Centre, some money for workshops and networking and so forth. And then the competition came undone in November 2015… And then, well, you should buy my book!!
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Alvin Weinberg, ‘Global Effects of Man’s Production of Energy’, Science 186 (18 October 1974), 205. Weinberg wrote that the world might reach ‘climatological limits’ within 30–50 years. Noting the uncertainty surrounding the results so far, he called for two responses. ‘First, climatologists should recognize the profound implications of this question and do the basic research in global modelling … so that, say 20 years from now, we can base our energy policy on a much sounder understanding of this limit than we now possess’; and, second, since the ‘problem of global effects of energy production, like….’
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the United Nations Environment Programme had been going for a couple of years, since the Stockholm conference. Science had been publishing articles, Weinberg had been paying attention. The modelling conference had just finished in Sweden. Weinberg as a big fan of nuclear thought that this was another selling point for nuclear – that its carbon emissions were so much lower.
What we learn why it matters is that the pro nuclear gloss on climate mitigation has been around for a long time. Weinberg was a serious player.
What happened next? Well, in 1979, Weinberg visited Australia and gave a speech which got reported in the Canberra Times and so forth. It explicitly mentioned nuclear as a climate solution. And again, that puts into context; what I thought was unusual in 1981 of the various Liberal and Country Party Senators talking about it was not that big a deal. People knew by the early 1980s, people knew who were paying any real attention.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
The long-anticipated shift from “climate change is a leftie anti-progress hoax” to “it’s too late to do anything except geo-engineer the planet” is underway.
Speaking on the far-right television programme GB News on Wednesday 16th October s, former Conservative minister Jacob Rees-Mogg on Wednesday 16th October said the following
“When it comes to climate change, most of the public discourse surrounds hair shirt measures to cut emissions and phase out fossil fuels. But is this really where our focus ought to be?
“Perhaps, instead of being obsessed by futile attempts to stop climate change, a goal that’s looking increasingly out of reach, we should turn our attention to the virtues of green technologies and innovative developments to tackle some of the most practical and immediate challenges.”
[continues ad nauseam]
For once failing to meet the award-winning standards for fierce scrutiny, historical awareness and political balance for which GN News is globally respected [yes, that is SARCASM] the journalist in question failed to ask Rees-Mogg the following questions
a) Had he ever peddled climate skepticism (e.g. in a 2013 opinion piece in the Telegraph), despite his political hero Margaret Thatcher having made several ‘time to save the world’ speeches in 1988-1990
b) Had he tried to stop his mate Michael Gove in an (ultimately unsuccessful) effort to remove climate change from the National Curriculum.
c) Had he ever tried to stop his former boss, Prime Minister David Cameron from “cutting the green crap” like house insulation, greener transport etc, that would have led to lower bills (and probably lower emissions)
d) Is this not simply a classic ‘reverse-ferret’ – changing position so quickly that everyone will be too busy feeling their head spin to ask obvious questions about intelligence, integrity and the rest of it (that nobody expects from politicians anymore anyway).
The answers are, of course. Yes, no., no, and yes.
This switch from “not happening” to “too late to do anything” is time-honoured, and across many issues. See this 1986 clip from the classic BBC sitcom Yes Prime Minister. “The standard Foreign Office four stage procedure”
It’s been happening around climate, intermittently, since the late 2000s.
Thirty seven years ago, on this day, October 17th, 1987, in Vancouver, a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting took place, and other leaders (especially the small island states) tried to bend UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s ear on the problem of climate change.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 349ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that since 1985, scientists have been trying to warn politicians. Low lying nations and so forth were paying attention because they could see the writing on the wall or the waves washing over the seawall. And Thatcher by her own account, copped an earful at this Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. For all the good it did – it would be almost another year before she would give her speech at the Royal Society
What we learn is that you have to tell ideologues the same thing many many times before they’ll pay any attention. And God what a stupid species we are.
What happened next? Yeah, you’ve got the explosion of interest in 1988.
In 1989, the CHOGM lot received Martin Holdgate’s report, which had been commissioned at Vancouver.
Shridath Ramphal, then Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, who commissioned the report from an international expert group at the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Vancouver, Canada, in 1987, described the threat of climate change in his foreword as “truly global in its implications”.
He said: “If the Earth is to warm by even the most modest of the various projections, there could be far reaching, long term implications for natural ecological systems, farming, the design of major energy and water projects and for low lying areas that could be affected by rising sea level.”
The Holdgate report called for a “major international initiative” to establish “global responsibilities” for preventing unmanageable rises in the world’s temperature. It also spelt out practical steps which poor and small countries like Guyana, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Pacific islands, could take to monitor their changing environment.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 337ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that. Exxon had been looking at CO2 build up. They’d had discussions with oceanographer Wally Broecker. There were bits of equipment on oil tankers and so forth. And they’d done the calculations. And they basically knew what was coming, and made fairly accurate predictions of what was coming. See for example this June 6, 1978 presentation.
What we learn is that in the words of the website, “Exxon knew.”
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Twenty-five years ago, on this day, October 15th, 1999 the Australian Financial Review reported that ,
The Federal Government has conceded for the first time that its greenhouse gas policy could reduce the competitiveness of key sectors of the Australian economy.
The Australian Financial Review has obtained a draft record of an August 25 meeting of the Council of Australian Governments’ High Level Group on Greenhouse. It puts the Commonwealth position in these terms: “Competitiveness is fundamentally linked to the economy as a whole and not individual sectors – no government could promise that the competitiveness of individual sectors would remain unchanged over time.”
Hordern, N. 1999. Greenhouse policy `can affect competitiveness’. The Australian Financial Review, 15 October, p. 6.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 368ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Howard Government had come in in 1996 even more hostile to climate action than Keating. It had ramped up the opposition to international commitments. It had done greenwash where necessary and naked contempt when it thought it could. In 1997 it had been cornered into making a few promises that it was now trying to backtrack on, and water down. But it couldn’t always bluster past the advocates of action at the state level, including New South Wales Premier Bob Carr…
What we learn is that in 1999 even the Howard Government realised that continuing to ignore climate impacts was going to cause problems for The Australian Economy.
What happened next? Howard continued to do everything he could to avoid any climate action, both domestically and internationally. Domestically, he continued to undermine any progress on renewables, and to kill a carbon price twice (in 2000 and 2003). Internationally, he refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (despite having extorted the most unimaginably generous terms) and joined in various “spoiler” activities with the US.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Forty-two years ago, on this day, October 14th, 1980, scientist Barry Commoner is running for president, and a ‘shocking ad’ is released.
“It’s all bullshit!”
“What?!”
“Carter- Reagan-Anderson, it’s all bullshit.”
See also https://time.com/4584919/barry-commoner-shocking-ad/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 339ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Barry Commoner had been banging on about the threats to the environment for a looong time. His first book, Science and Survival, had come out in 1966 and was a crucial node for awareness of climate change. And he finally decided to run for President to highlight the issues. Of course, that was the election that one of the Koch brothers also stood on a so-called “libertarian” platform.
Anyway, Commoner’s campaign was not getting a lot of attention, of course. His campaign manager had the bright idea to put out an advert saying that voters should pay attention to Commoner if they were sick of bullshit. And this was back in the days when swearing was newsworthy. And it got Commoner a certain amount of attention though, by all accounts Commoner was not happy since it kind of cut across his preferred reputation as a serious and non joke/ attention-seeking candidate.
What we learn is that if you want to get attention, you have to do something newsworthy. Because the media are bored of it reporting actual issues. Because they know that the voters want a circus instead. The voters want a circus because what they can choose doesn’t really matter anyway, so they may as well be entertained. And also, some of the voters are really fucking thick. But that’s not really their fault. Education System, schooling system and society are all designed to make people thick, because thick people are easy to manipulate. The last thing you want is an intelligent electorate. What a freaking nightmare that would be.
What happened next Commoner lost, obviously. Reagan got up. Gaia help us all.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was tha the cold war -scientist shall talk unto scientist’ outfit the International Institute for Advanced Science Analysis (IIASA) was about 20 years old. It had a surprisingly long history of banging on about climate change and energy, back to 1975, with William Nordhaus and then Hafele’s energy studies. And they put together some workshops. And they were big fans of all their fancy computer models: really in love with them.
What we learn. And here we are 30 years later. And they just keep redrawing lines and magic shit into existence. Making heroic assumptions about the speed of development and deployment of offshore wind and hydrogen and so forth, bearing no resemblance to the real world. But how are you gonna make the numbers add up?
So we’re trapped in these ridiculous mental models and computer models, because we don’t tell the truth to ourselves about ourselves. That we screwed the pooch and is it no one’s short-term career interest to be the one who says “hey guys, I think we screwed the pooch.” You are not going to get promoted – in fact, you’re not going to keep your bloody job full stop if you do that…
What happened next so I’m sure that in 1993 there were people with misgivings. They didn’t speak up. I’m sure that there were other people who had misgivings in 2003, didn’t speak up. 2013 didn’t speak up. 2023 didn’t speak up. Why would you?
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Still here? Okay, thanks for the vote of confidence.
Now. Read this [link]. Ideally out loud. Ideally twice. Then stop and think about what that would feel like.
Want some more? From some Brits who only moved to the States a couple of years ago? The BBC can oblige. Here you go.
If you need a dose of vicarious misery pornography, and the Middle East doesn’t do it for you (wrong colour people, wrong languages etc) then Mother Nature and the 24hr news beast can provide. Endless photos, horror stories. Here comes the 21st century.
And of course, as you will also know if you’ve been following this even cursorily, there are just tons of “conspiracy theories” doing the rounds, and a lot (no, I mean a LOT) of articles, tweets about that. Which is what I am here to write about.
The articles include these three, which are both worth your time
The first two (I’ve added the Heglar upon finding it, on Oct 13) are very focussed – as journalists and pundits often are – on the recent past. Not so many of them make the obvious points (reasons of space, and focus and time and so on) that
There is a good book by Jason Rodger Fleming (2012) on all this, called Fixing the Sky. The cover art is from a 1950s magazine article, and you can see it in this All Our Yesterdays tile.
3. There have been stories about people controlling the weather for, well, since humans began telling the stories. Gods would do it and then their self-appointed ‘ambassadors’ on earth would (claim to do it). It’s a standard sci-fi trope. The two examples below are among MANY. I chose them because
a) They’re from the mid-1970s, when ALL sorts of anxieties were knocking about (the seeming end of prosperity, cheap oil, the American empire, the emergence of climate threats etc).
b) I have read them both and loved them, since watching Geostorm. My article (Hudson, 2017) on that disaster film includes LOTS of examples of weather control films, and some excellent observations from a ‘sci-fi tragic’ friend I am seeing tomorrow, for the first time in far too long.
c) The covers are mint.
And these novels were inspired by things like HAARP –
“High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, a US government-funded program that studies the ionosphere” [Wikipedia].
Not to haarp on about it…
4. People can have a hard time separating stories they have heard a lot from “reality” (like, you know, bearded sky gods who take a personal interest in whose and what type of genitals an individual is rubbing their own genitals against).
Also, have we all forgotten Donald F – sorry, ‘J’ – Trump and his sharpie? The Dorian-Alabama thing in 2019, aka Sharpiegate. Have we?
Philosophical interlude
What did we do in response to the pain we can’t imagine? And the ‘stupidity’ we are sure we are better than? We – some of the best among us – reported and commented on what was happening without offering historical, political, psychological context. Blinded by our fear of what is already here, and what it presages.
Conspiracy theories about weather manipulation are, unfortunately, the logical next step in climate denialism, and the traction they are getting shows how hard it is to get out of this absurdly terrifying loop.
I know we shouldn't expect consistency from conspiracy fantasists, but seeing people claim that "human beings can't possibly alter the climate" AND "human beings are causing hurricanes with cloud seeding/chemtrails/Jewish space lasers" suggests we really are doomed as a species.
I know we shouldn’t expect consistency from conspiracy fantasists, but seeing people claim that “human beings can’t possibly alter the climate” AND “human beings are causing hurricanes with cloud seeding/chemtrails/Jewish space lasers” suggests we really are doomed as a species.
I can hear the objections, that I am being unfair to these (good) thinkers and misunderstanding the limits of a limited social media platform. SO I say, calmly and quietly, the following.
YES I KNOW THESE ARE TWEETS BUT THERE ARE SUCH THINGS AS
Twitter threads
Blogs and columns you write and then tweet about to your tens/hundreds of thousands of followers so they are not merely confirmed in their fear/disdain, but forced to think.
And the rest of us? We do like to the mock the Jewish Space Laser people. (I understand that impulse, and give into it most of the time)
And we push the stupidity narrative.
And we framed the problem as (only) stupidity. And not our stupidity.
I will say this several times in the rest of this rant. The stupidity narrative (especially on its own) doesn’t help. You could almost say it is… what’s the word… stupid?
But it is both easy and also it makes us feel good. And ultimately, what matters more than that?
Most of the people pushing these lines probably don’t like the Conservatives very much. And if they’re old enough and British, they probably didn’t like John Major (UK Conservative Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997).
In February 1993, speaking to the entirely wonderful newspaper the Mail on Sunday, Major said – in the context of the murder of a 2-year old boy by two 10 year-olds – “ ‘Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less,”
But we need to condemn a little less and understand a little more.
What’s the backstory?
The back story is not just “neoliberalism” (though that really hasn’t helped. It is not as if the “Keynesian” government of the Glorious 30 (1945-1973) were beloved (see Seabrook, 1978; Gross, 1980; Slater, 1972). Things weren’t great before (though in retrospect they look like, well, a Golden Age). Nearly 40 years of ‘austerity’ and widening wealth gaps has happened.
Enormous social changes (some for the ‘better’, some perhaps not). Enormous technological changes. People feel hella disorientated, aggrieved etc.
And on neoliberalism? It is part of the response to the Crisis of Democracy. What’s that? Well, here’s a short Noam Chomsky video.
But humans are also fragile, cognitively. It’s easy to plant false memories in them. [Wikipedia]. And we are so surrounded by stories, all day. We are made of dreams and bones, sang Pete Seeger. And stories.
It’s a comforting story, people believe it. And it is a very short sidestep to Smart, Qualified People acting nefariously in cahoots with the WEF, OECD, PTA, whoever.
At least somebody is in charge, at least somebody knows what is going on. “Phew, we do, ultimately, live in a rational society.”
Except, remember that Nate Bear article you didn’t go and read? Or you did and you’re about to get a repeat….
Bear talks about reading a well-meaning tweet from someone who laments ‘if only we’d been told about the brain-damage aspect of COVID in 2020, we’d have acted differently’ and observes it got a lot of likes and retweets. And Bear writes
I’m going to be honest about what this says to me.
It says that too few people who consider themselves informed, clever, rational, followers of science, have spent any time thinking about how bad things happen and why.
It suggests to me a certain amount of privilege in your circumstances and life experiences.
My brain kind of translates it as how did I, a white person in the global north, where I thought we had our shit together, end up living in such an irrational society?
Bear, N. 2024.
What about the race, class, gender and general powerlessness (stripped out civil society). And the pandemic if you haven’t spoken of it before and anyhoo, recap
So, here’s a new section I am going to put in all these sorts of rants, I mean, “considered and very publishable in respected outlets think pieces.” You can call it mechanical, abrupt, virtue-signally, whatever floats your boat. I will call it forcing myself to think about things I can – as a white, male, hetero, middle-class, able-bodied mofo – very easily pretend don’t actually matter (pro-tip, they do).
Incomplete list to consider (e.g. age, species)
Well then.
Race
Why might black people be suspicious of the medical system? Why might they have crazy crazy ideas about being neglected, or used as unconsenting guinea pigs, their diseases treatable but left untreated? BECAUSE IT HAPPENED. But that sort of thing has definitely stopped. For sure. Yes.
Class
Just go reread the quote about losing everything at the top. And also look at the people in that meme with the bandages on their ears. They are of a different class. They are part of a class that likes Trump’s tax cuts. And the permission Trump gives them to sneer at anyone Not Them.
Gender
Think about all this in interplay. And think about what it will be like for female meteorologists. Remember, when the death threats started flying at Australian climate scientists in the late 2000s, women copped more. And still are (as per Gergis, 2024).
Powerlessness
It’s all combined. The neoliberalism (destroying the democratic state), the algorithms and surveillance and carceral state. The sense of hopelessness that anything will get better, that the enormous challenges will be dealt with. There ARE evil actors out there, meaning harm. But it’s easier to punch on meteorologists than the people who wrote Project 2025, because those guys have the power to mess you up good and proper. So allow your fear, hate, despair, anger to be channelled towards punching ‘down’.
Pandemic
Unprocessed trauma. Trauma about how the whole thing has been memory-holed. See also Terror Management Theory
Synergy/intersectionality
Yeah. If you have to ask, you won’t ever understand.
Time for more Bear. Read more Bear.
“Under conditions of depoliticisation, people either reach for conspiracies or mold their understanding of events into long-standing explanations of the world. This goes as much for centrists and even some leftists as it does for the right.
“Centrists famously lack the ability to see the world through prisms of imperial capitalist power, leftists see imperial capitalist power behind every crisis, and the right see manufactured threats to a loosely defined freedom as behind every crisis.”
Bear, 2024
What it implies/what is coming next(what hand-wringing opportunities for guilty impotent liberals [most of us] lie ahead?
At times like this, one needs to quote the famous Swedish political philosophers Ulvaeus, and Andersson.
“Something bad is happening, I’m sure you do agree
People care for nothing, no respect for human rights
Evil times are coming, we are in for darker nights”
The anger and all the rest of it isn’t going away, whether Trump i) wins, ii) steals or iii) is somehow unable to steal and that nice Kamala Harris gets into the White House. The goose, like the planet, is well and truly cooked.
More death threats and shit against the impact scientists (meteorologists, disaster preparedness etc etc – see the Walzer quote below).
What is to be done? (by social movement organisations. But won’t be)
Oh, the usual.
Create and maintain functional groups that support members, extend their skills, knowledge and relationships while avoiding co-optation, cognitive capture, repression and burnout.
Work with other similarly effective groups across a range of issues (all the issues), sharing resources and working to democratise the state (good luck with that) and using the state to control private concentrations of power.
Create and defend venues for individuals and networks to figure out what is actually going on.
Easy-peasy.
It’s the only way you’ll prevent climate meltdown, and as long as you start in the early 1970s and work consistently and persistently and don’t suffer too many setbacks, by about 2026 or so you’ll be home free.
What are the academic theories I find useful for thinking about this/Concepts for you to use (in rough order of importance or alphabetical order or no order whatsoever because there were other things I had to do and anyway i) ymmv and ii) about three people are reading these
Terror Management Theory [Wikipedia] – people scared of death. And they figure ways to ignore it, blame others
Anti-reflexivity – we’re fed up with how damn COMPLICATED the world has gotten. See this by McCright and Dunlap.
It’s a bit of a miracle that an article (okay, rant) about conspiracy theories hasn’t already referenced Lewis Carrol and “Six impossible things before breakfast.”
Well, here’s three impossible things to do before breakfast. (Also, like accusations, every bit of advice is a confession).
A little humility
Maybe (we) liberals could reflect on all the patently absurd shit we either believe or find convenient to pretend in pubic to believe?
About markets, democracy, progress, the capacity of their institutions to cope with climate change.
A little fucking humility might be in order (1)
Marilyn Robinson’s 1989 book Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State and Nuclear Pollution was so incendiary that those loveable scamps at Greenpeace sued her for libel (and won). Among its many gems was one she wrote(and I can’t find the exact page number or quote, so this is a paraphrase – if you have a copy, please let me know) (2).
“Most people know a little about some things and nothing about everything else. They have little islands of knowledge in vast seas of ignorance”
And Robinson was writing thirty years ago, before the sea level rise – literal and of metaphorical ignorance was rising.
A little empathy, compassion, hermeneutical phenomenology, whatever label you want to stick on it.
Who knows, maybe some compassion and imagining what the world would look like in someone else’s shoes? (3).
Update on October 13, 2024 – See this from Heglar (2024) on the question of compassion
So why are folks running to invent new conspiracy theories when the real, undeniable conspiracy is right there? Because for them to change their mind would be to lose a very real part of their identity and, perhaps, to have to consider the possibility that some of their other beliefs may not be real either. And that might mean they need to find new communities or even new families. Changing your mind about something as colossal as the ground you live on and the air you breathe is not unlike coming out of a cult.
But we don’t treat people that way. We treat them like doofuses who fell for an obvious lie. Ultimately, who does that serve? Perhaps it’s time we start treating these people as what they are: victims of a manipulative, deliberate lie. And then turn our attention back toward the people who lied to them.
TO BE CLEAR: THIS IS DISTINCT FROM CONDONING OR TOLERATING DEATH THREATS.
Earn your ‘keep’ as intellectuals and tackle the “Warzel challenge” Remember those two articles at the beginning of this post. Well, the second was by a guy called Warzel. “We need new ways of thinking.”
The whip-smart American journalism professor Jay Rosen (you should follow him) screengrabbed this bit below of Warzel’s essay. I’ve not got access to the full Warzel, but I trust Rosen to get to the crux.
Maybe stop fucking wallowing in the fucking smugosphere and riding the emotacycle off the cliff? Eh?
And as anyone who knows the author can attest, if you’re getting humility advice from Marc Fucking Hudson, you are in far deeper shit than you actually understand
The closest a perfunctory google search (GoogleBooks not letting search of MC) was this
“How is one to understand the degradation of the sea and earth and air of the British homeland by people who use the word British the way others of us use the words good, and just, and proud, and precious, and lovely, and clement, and humane? No matter that these associations reflect and reinforce the complacency that allows the spoliation to go unchecked; still, surely they bespeak self-love, which should be some small corrective. I think ignorance must be a great part of the explanation–though ignorance so obdurate could be preserved only through an act of will.” From Granta.
This had me making some jibe about MTG (the g stands for gourd – as in Empty Gourd. Geddit?” It’s not funny (but I thought it was at the time) and it is EXACTLY the sort of shit that is going to piss people off for no benefit. I have ZERO problem pissing people off if there is a potential benefit (to them and me both, ideally). But for the yucks? Really? Isn’t that just using other people’s misery and confusion to make us feel more powerful and superior in the moment? Isn’t that morally and politically bankrupt? Oughtn’t I to grow the fuck up?
See also what else I’ve written
Oh, there is the old “Conspiracy -Apocalypse- Paranoia” booklet I should dig out and scan because it is bound to be startlingly brilliant, oh yes.
See also what other people have written
When the Conversation article goes live, I will post it here.
