@jeffowski

#KochNetwork alone has spent over $127 million on climate denial.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-chaos/climate-deniers/front-groups/

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2022/03/21/the-dirty-dozen-the-biggest-nonprofit-funders-of-climate-denial/

@jeffowski

My father was chief medical officer of health for a part of Toronto… his career spanned the battle against smoking: it’s all the same tactics, with the same huge investments in misinformation and the same level of dishonestly and outright lying and cheating.

@jeffowski

Agreed.

Though even just calling it "denial" gives precious ground on the nature of the problem. It makes it sound like a success would be to convince people not to deny. It encourages debate.

Physics doesn't care about anyone's opinion. It pays attention only to actual action. And, meanwhile, physics continues to act on a default plan we're not going to like.

Debate takes time. And it already loses everything to delay. It's like what's going on with the US court system, up to and including the Supreme Court, where important cases are being slow-walked as if justice will come when they finally get to court. But justice is already denied just by the delay.

Every day there is a debate is a win for the so-called denialists because they already know they cannot deny the truth, that it will catch up with them. Their goal is not to win some intellectual debate. Their goal is to rake in short-term profit for as many days as possible before the collapse they are causing finally happens.

Rather than call it denial, call it delayism. Call those who do it delayists. That is the game, and seeing it in that form will make it clear that it's time that is the precious commodity here. Every day lost to debate is a nail in our collective coffin.*

Every day of delay is money in the bank for them and a 100% win for that day for the delayists. Every such day brings us close to game over. Eventually winning the debate is not winning. Soon there will be nothing left to win.

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*The coffin metaphor is used here with some knowing irony, since one of the sad truths about the end of humanity is that there will be no one around to bury or remember the dead. We use metaphors all the time about "history will remember these people badly", but really history will not be written. That's also an artifact of human civilization, but we're talking the end of history, the end of burial, the end of every shred of every human tradition, every human debate, every human hope. It's all on chopping block.

#climate #ClimateDenial #ClimateCollapse #extinction #collapse