First, evidence they are not acting. Scotland, hosting the #COP26, is still exploring and extracting gas & oil with no end in sight. England is subsidizing airlines, expanding airports and pouring £30 into road-building, as well as opening two NEW coal mines. 2/
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The US is expanding oil & gas extraction, now a net exporter. Australia is opening a coal mine to rival all coal mines. Fossil fuel subsidies are still rampant, all over the world, despite decades of pledges to stop them. 3/https://www.nrdc.org/resources/g7-fossil-fuel-subsidy-scorecard …
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Second is the question of solutions. Alternatives to fossil-generated energy and wasteful energy use now mean that a myriad of zero-carbon solutions exit. See for instance the amazing demonstrator work of the Centre for Alternative Technologies
@centre_alt_tech in Wales. 4/Prikaži ovu nit -
See their Zero Carbon Britain report, which they put out last year. https://www.cat.org.uk/info-resources/zero-carbon-britain/research-reports/zero-carbon-britain-rising-to-the-climate-emergency/ … Or see
@ProjectDrawdown and their comprehensive climate solutions. https://www.drawdown.org/ Well researched alternatives exist. This is not the issue. 5/Prikaži ovu nit -
So why are our governments not acting on the climate crisis, first by stopping their continued support (with our tax $$, remember) of the fossil fuel industry, second by adopting all the demonstrated alternative solutions? Are they simply ill-informed? 6/
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The answer here is probably both yes & no. The science on climate change has been settled for decades. The IPCC was set up explicitly to write summary assessments of this science for governments. So no real excuses for not being up-to-date on the severity of the climate crisis. 7
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At the same time, the fossil fuel industry set up a HUGE public disinformation campaign, and are to date hugely successful. They succeeded in lobbying and bamboozling politicians and media figures, leading to the BBC insisting on false balance in climate news, for instance. 8/
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The history of fossil fuel deception and disinformation is chronicled in Oreskes & Conway "Merchants of Doubt" and
@amywestervelt 's@WeAreDrilled podcast. So disinformation is a huge problem - but it's not the only problem. 9/Prikaži ovu nit -
The main problem is that our governments are refusing to act on the climate crisis because they are historically "captured" by the fossil fuel industries. This mean they historically grew up with these industries, and their processes got entangled with them. 10/
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The fossil fuel industries, since 100 years or more, have enmeshed themselves into our government processes: laws, ministries, budget allocations - these all favour these industries by default. Effectively, we have governments designed to keep fossil industries afloat. 11/
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We have entire departments dedicated to fossil-fueled infrastructures and subsidies: road building, airport support, car-dependent urban planning and zoning, laws enforcing extraction (in the case of Scotland). Our govts are captured creatures of the fossil-fuel industries. 12/
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So for us to expect our governments, magically, once politicians and civil servants understood the magnitude of the climate crisis, to do everything in their power to ramp down fossil fuel support and support new technologies and industries was always a tad naive. 13/
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The reality of state capture by fossil industries means that our governments must first act on themselves, to purge their own internal processes of fossil-fueled corruption. This true of our political parties and labour unions too, by the way. It's no small task. 14/
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And how do we accomplish this vital task? That's my final point. The only way to stop an industry which has captured our governments for decades is what I have learned to call "social coercion": we, the people, must force our governments to escape fossil-fuel capture. 15/
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In my view, this social coercion to act on the climate crisis can only come about as the result of massive popular movements, which thank god are now all around us: the
@sunrisemvmt ,@ExtinctionR , the youth strikes & Fridays for Future. 16/Prikaži ovu nit -
So this is the point of this less-than-short (sorry!) thread: the climate crisis requires us to join popular movements, political parties, labour unions, and do the work to free our democracies & economies from fossil-fuel capture. Once we do that, we win. 17/
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But it will never happen just because solutions (carbon taxes/prices, renewable energy, whatever) "exist." These solutions exist on paper: fossil industry capture of our societies exists in reality, to block them. Realizing solutions means dismantling the barriers first. 18/
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And the only force strong enough to do this dismantling are massive popular movements. So join one, join several, support them, talk about it, get your workplace and schools and politicians to support them as well. Together we can win this, but only if we see ourselves as power.
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The End. This was a thread discussing the interconnections of points (6), (7), (8), (9) of my "10 basic facts". I hope it explains some of where I'm coming from on this.pic.twitter.com/b8hHLk4eQU
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. Professor in social ecology & ecological economics
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