Thread by @leahstokes

I’ve taken a Twitter break this week. I want to share some reflections about why I did this and how we are treating one another on #climatetwitter right now.

In short: I think we need to be more open as a community to constructive dialogue. THREAD.🧵

With the primary, people in our community support different candidates. That is normal. We should be open to the fact that different people have different ideas about how to solve the climate crisis without resorting to "they are deniers" or "they are fossil fuel hacks."

This isn’t just happening to a few men quoted in a recent article. In the past two weeks, I have been told I’m "not an energy expert" that my concerns about feasibility are akin to "climate denial” or that I am "spreading misinformation."

The fabric of society feels very thin to me right now. In the last few weeks, I have been attacked on here by people I considered friends. I have been yelled at in public by strangers. I’ve been subtweeted up the wazoo. It’s tiring.

It’s going to take decades to solve the climate crisis. It’s going to be very hard. We are going to have to make many tough choices that have tradeoffs. We need to have a community that is open to constructive debate to make sure we make good decisions.

Many people have asked me what I thought of that article by Lisa Friedman. They have said no women were quoted. Well: Lisa did call me. And I asked her not to quote me. Because I was exhausted by being attacked constantly. Perhaps other women felt the same.

Here’s the thing: shutting down existing nuclear plants has led to increased emissions when it has happened in Germany, California, and likely Vermont. I don’t want carbon emissions to go up. That is a very real risk for example in NY state right now.
nytimes.com/2017/06/13/cli…

Here’s another thing: we need negative emissions technologies according to the IPCC. So if you have a big spending plan where you have allocated all the money and you don’t give any money to those technologies, that is a problem.
insideclimatenews.org/news/12102018/…

And guess what? 100% renewables is likely very expensive and technically difficult. If you want to do it by 2030, deployment rates will need to be 16x the BEST YEAR we have ever had. Every year for more than a decade. That would be very hard.
utilitydive.com/news/transitio…

I agree that urgency and ambition are very important. And I'm glad that many candidates have come up with climate plans that show both. I agree that there could have been more of a sense of the urgency in that article.

I think that Jesse Jenkins, David Victor, Michael Oppenheimer, Dan Kammen, and Noah Kaufman are all smart people who have spent their lives devoted to understanding the climate crisis and trying to reduce emissions as fast as possible.

In fact, I spent the last few days with David Victor. Guess what? He’s currently building clean energy projects. That’s how he spends his time. He is not an enemy of the climate community or a fossil fuel hack. He is an ally. Period.

I respect people on here who have different views than me. I'm not going to reply to this thread. I'm going to continue to think about how much time I am spending here. I encourage folks to think about how they are treating people in our community and the perils of groupthink.

The End.

Give some love to a climate advocate today. Maybe even one of those so-called "climate experts." They really aren't your enemy.