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Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
@shellenberger
Sep 30, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
Under Obama-Biden, “$15B went to energy efficiency, which turned out to be a massive waste of money. 2x as much money was spent weatherizing homes as was saved. The episode disproved the myth that efficiency investments always “pay for themselves.”

forbes.com/sites/michaels…
“Determined to learn nothing from history, Green New Dealers are now proposing to spend taxpayer dollars weatherizing every building in America.”
FWIW, this is not a left-right issue. Even @MotherJones reports, “the upfront cost of efficiency upgrades came to about $5,000 per house, on average. But their central estimate of the benefits only amounted to about $2,400 per household.”

motherjones.com/kevin-drum/201…
Weatherization “was not a cheap way to reduce emissions. Although energy use (and hence CO2) did go down, it came at a cost of about $329 per ton. That’s much higher than the $38-per-ton value that the US federal government uses to evaluate cost-effective climate policies.”

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More from @shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 14
The President of the European Commission is not supposed to interfere in national elections.

And yet that's what President @vonderleyen is doing by spreading what appears to be disinformation about her political enemies in Germany.

What's worse, it appears she has weaponized the intelligence agencies of the Czech Republic and Poland in order to do so.

Neither Von der Leyen nor anyone else has presented any evidence to support their conspiracy theory that Russia bribed German politicians. Every single accused person has hotly denied the accusations.

And in the Politico article below, Von der Leyen even says that her enemies are guilty "Whether they have taken bribes for it or not"!

That makes what @vonderleyen is doing a McCarthyite witch hunt.

It is illegal for politicians to weaponize their national intelligence agencies and interfere in national elections.

There needs to be an immediate investigation into Von der Leyen and the intelligence agencies of Czech Republic and Poland are doing.

Voice of Europe must also make a clear statement as to what is happening, where its money is from, and who it has paid.

I am horrified by Putin and his violent war in Ukraine. I am no fan of AfD.

But the weaponization of intelligence agencies to demonize political enemies, interfere in elections, and demand censorship by social media platforms is totalitarianism, and must be denounced.Image
Von der Leyen's election interference may also be related to a disinformation operation by the French military it announced in February. Back then, French military officials claimed that “websites” were promoting “an anti-French narrative.” Then, as now, they made without any arrests or prosecutions, which likely means they do not have any evidence of criminal activity.

And both NATO-funded and government-funded NGOs are working with government bodies to interfere in German elections. Their “influence operation” aims to keep Germany in line with American foreign policy objectives and undermine the European peace movement. The evidence suggests that European intelligence agencies and NATO are breaking domestic EU laws against foreign election interference.

“We don't even know what Voice of Europe is,” a spokesperson for former Czech President Vaclav Klaus told Public.

Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 9
O governo brasileiro quer censurar as teorias da conspiração e ainda assim aqui está, espalhando teorias da conspiração: " O governo brasileiro suspeita que os ataques de Elon Musk ao ministro Alexandre de Moraes e agora também diretamente ao presidente Lula estão sendo feitos em cooperativa com deputados bolsonaristas..." relata a CNN.

A CNN publicou este segmento embora admitisse que “Ainda não temos provas sobre isso, está sendo investigado”.

Boa sorte em encontrar evidências porque não há nenhuma!

Fui convidado há muitos meses para palestrar no Fórum pela Liberdade no Rio Grande do Sul. Antes de chegar, meus colegas jornalistas brasileiros, David Agape e Eli Viera, me pediram para ver se havia algum arquivo do Twitter no Brasil.

Olhei e descobri que havia. O que descobrimos nos chocou: Alexandre de Moraes e outros funcionários do governo ameaçaram processar criminalmente o advogado do Twitter no Brasil se ele não entregasse informações *privadas* e *pessoais*, incluindo números de telefone das pessoas e suas mensagens diretas pessoais!

Publiquei os Arquivos do Twitter logo após desembarcar em Porto Alegre.

*Ninguém* além de David, Eli e mais um colega meu sabia que eu iria publicar o Twitter Files Brasil.

Depois que ficou claro que muitos brasileiros estavam interessados em falar comigo sobre os Arquivos do Twitter, adiei em uma semana meu retorno aos EUA. Depois que decidi fazer isso, o Diputado Federal Marcel Van Hattem cancelou a sua viagem há muito planejada a Bruxelas.

Conheci Van Hattem em Londres no ano passado, numa conferência, e ele estava no Fórum pela Liberdade, em Porto Alegre. Aceitei com gratidão a oferta de Van Hattem de ser apresentado a diversas pessoas que ele conhecia no Brasil.

É isso. Essa é toda a “coordenação”. Se a CNN tivesse feito o seu trabalho, poderia ter aprendido tudo isto comigo antes de publicar a sua “desinformação”. Na verdade, a CNN me entrevistou há duas noites e contei aos dois repórteres como surgiu o Twitter Files – Brasil. Aparentemente, os repórteres da CNN não conversam entre si.

Aparentemente, a CNN também não fez o dever de casa com Elon Musk. Com Elon, o que você vê é o que você obtém. Ele respondeu publicamente ao Twitter Files Brasil. Não falamos sobre eles nem nos correspondemos sobre eles. Ele ouviu falar deles no mesmo momento em que o mundo ouviu falar deles.

Será realmente tão difícil acreditar que os políticos que foram censurados tenham respondido em X a mais provas das exigências de censura de Moraes? Que idiota.

Estou tentando ser gentil com isso, mas com o segmento abaixo, a CNN não está se comportando como uma mídia de notícias justa e equilibrada. Está se comportando como um teórico da conspiração irresponsável, carregando água para o governo Lula.

Pelo menos você não me verá exigindo que o governo censure a CNN.
@CNNBrasil @raquellandim @LulaOficial @marcelvanhattem
@CNNBrasil @raquellandim @LulaOficial @marcelvanhattem .@CNNBrasil deveria retirar esta propaganda governamental e desinformação e pedir desculpas a todos os envolvidos, principalmente aos dois repórteres que me entrevistaram há duas noites e que sabem que este segmento é uma besteira.

Read 8 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 7
BRASIL À BEIRA

Este é Michael Shellenberger, e estou reportando a vocês ao vivo do Brasil, onde uma série dramática de eventos está em andamento.
Às 18h52, horário do Sao Paulo a corporação X, anteriormente conhecida como Twitter, anunciou que um tribunal brasileiro a forçou a “bloquear certas contas populares no Brasil”.

Menos de uma hora depois, o proprietário do X, Elon Musk, anunciou que o X desafiaria a ordem do tribunal e suspenderia todas as restrições.

“Como resultado”, disse Musk, “provavelmente perderemos todas as receitas no Brasil e teremos que fechar nosso escritório lá. Mas os princípios são mais importantes do que o lucro.”

A qualquer momento, o Supremo Tribunal Federal poderá bloquear todo o acesso ao X/Twitter para o povo brasileiro.

Não é exagero dizer que o Brasil está à beira da ditadura nas mãos de um ministro totalitário do Supremo Tribunal Federal chamado Alexandre de Moraes.

O presidente Lula da Silva está participando desse impulso em direção ao totalitarismo. Desde que assumiu o cargo, Lula aumentou enormemente o financiamento governamental dos principais meios de comunicação, a maioria dos quais incentiva o aumento da censura.

O que Lula e de Moraes estão fazendo é uma violação escandalosa da Constituição do Brasil e da Declaração dos Direitos Humanos das Nações Unidas.
Neste momento, o Brasil ainda não é uma ditadura consolidada. Vocês ainda têm eleições e outros meios de enfrentar o autoritarismo que já não existem em tiranias mais avançadas.

Mas o Supremo Tribunal Federal e o Tribunal Superior Eleitoral interferem em eleições por meio de censura.

Há três dias eu publiquei os Arquivos do Twitter para o Brasil. Eles mostram que Moraes tem violado a Constituição brasileira. Moraes exigiu ilegalmente que o Twitter revelasse informações privadas sobre usuários do Twitter que usaram hashtags que ele considerou impróprias. Ele exigiu acesso aos dados internos do Twitter, violando a política da plataforma. Ele censurou, por iniciativa própria e sem nenhum respeito ao devido processo, postagens no Twitter de parlamentares do Congresso brasileiro. E Moraes tentou transformar as políticas de moderação de conteúdo do Twitter em uma arma contra os apoiadores do então presidente Jair Bolsonaro.
Digo isso como jornalista independente e apartidário. Não sou fã nem de Bolsonaro nem de Trump. As minhas opiniões políticas são muito moderadas. Mas eu reconheço a censura quando a vejo.

Os Arquivos do Twitter também revelaram que Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp e Instagram traíram o povo do Brasil. Se forem comprovados tais indícios, os executivos dessas empresas comportaram-se como covardes: forneceram ao governo brasileiro dados cadastrais pessoais e números de telefone sem ordem judicial e, portanto, violando a lei.
Quando o Twitter se recusou a fornecer informações privadas dos usuários às autoridades brasileiras, incluindo mensagens diretas, o governo tentou processar o principal advogado brasileiro do Twitter.

Quando eu morei no Brasil em 1992, eu era muito de esquerda. Na época, as palavras de ordem de Lula e do PT eram “Sem medo de ser feliz”.

Nos últimos dias, conversei com dezenas de brasileiros, incluindo professores, jornalistas e advogados respeitados. Todos me disseram que estão chocados com o que está acontecendo. Eles me disseram que têm medo de falar o que pensam e que o governo Lula é cúmplice na criação desse clima de medo.

O Brasil é o seu país, não o meu. Existem limites para o que sou capaz de fazer. Sei bem até onde posso ir.

Mas prometo que eu vou apoiar vocês na sua luta pela liberdade. E posso dizer uma coisa que muitos brasileiros não podem mais: Alexandre de Moraes é um tirano. E a única maneira de lidar com os tiranos é enfrentando-os. Cabe aos seus senadores enfrentar o tirano. E cabe ao povo do Brasil pressionar seus senadores para que façam isso.
Por favor, junte-se aos nossos “Spaces” para discutir a repressão totalitária do governo brasileiro à liberdade de expressão!
👀
Read 4 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 3
TWITTER FILES - BRAZIL

Brazil is engaged in a sweeping crackdown on free speech led by a Supreme Court justice named Alexandre de Moraes.

De Moraes has thrown people in jail without trial for things they posted on social media. He has demanded the removal of users from social media platforms. And he has required the censorship of specific posts, without giving users any right of appeal or even the right to see the evidence presented against them.

Now, Twitter Files, released here for the first time, reveal that de Moraes and the Superior Electoral Court he controls engaged in a clear attempt to undermine democracy in Brazil. They:

— illegally demanded that Twitter reveal personal details about Twitter users who used hashtags he did not like;

— demanded access to Twitter’s internal data, in violation of Twitter policy;

— sought to censor, unilaterally, Twitter posts by sitting members of Brazil’s Congress;

— sought to weaponize Twitter’s content moderation policies against supporters of then-president @jairbolsonaro

The Files show: the origins of the Brazilian judiciary’s demand for sweeping censorship powers; the court’s use of censorship for anti-democratic election interference; and the birth of the Censorship Industrial Complex in Brazil.

TWITTER FILES - BRAZIL was written by @david_agape_ @EliVieiraJr & @shellenberger

We presented these findings to de Moraes, to the Supreme Court (STF), and to the High Electoral Court (TSE). None responded.

Let’s get into it...
“We are… pushing back against the requests...”

On February 14, 2020, Twitter’s legal counsel in Brazil, Rafael Batista, emailed his colleagues to describe a hearing in Congress on “Disinformation and 'fake news’”

Batista revealed that members of Brazil’s Congress had asked Twitter for the “content of messages exchanged by some users via DMs” as well as “login records - among other info.”

Batista said, “We are… pushing back against the requests,” which were illegal, “because they do not meet [Brazilian Internet law] Marco Civil legal requirements for disclosure of user's records.”

Batista noted that some conservative Twitter users had gone to the Supreme Court “after they learned from the media that the Congress was trying to get their IPs and DM content. In light of this, the Supreme Court granted an injunction suspending the requirement given its failure to fulfill legal requirements.”Image
CONTEXT: Brazil’s Supreme Court and Superior Electoral Court

Seven justices comprise Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE).

Three of those justices are also members of the Supreme Court (STF).

One of them, Alexandre de Moraes, presides over the TSE.

Here's background on the rise of Brazil's Censorship Industrial Complex by @david_agape_

Read 24 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 29
The head of the @BBC says it will “Pursue the truth with no agenda by reporting fearlessly & fairly.” But, according to current & former BBC journalists, the BBC is suppressing the truth about "gender-affirming care," mislabeling men as women, and failing to safeguard children. Image
Bullying, Cowardice, And Careerism Behind BBC Disinformation On Gender

Current and former BBC journalists condemn the British media giant for corruption of language and failing to safeguard children and vulnerable adults

by @shellenberger
Tim Davie (left) Director-General of BBC (Getty Images)

The highest purpose of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is to “Pursue the truth with no agenda,” said its Director-General, Tim Davie, last week. BBC would do this “by reporting fearlessly and fairly.” In his speech, “A BBC For the Future,” Davie added that “Disinformation, propaganda, and partial news is [sic] weakening our shared understanding of the world, undermining trust in our institutions and our democratic process.”

To combat this disinformation, the BBC launched a special initiative, “BBC Verify,” last year. Last week, the BBC released a 9-page report to reporters that required a “careful and accurate use of language” regarding gender.

But according to current and former BBC journalists, the BBC itself is spreading disinformation, failing to pursue the truth without regard to any agenda, and behaving fearfully and unfairly on issues relating to transgenderism.

Three days before Davie gave his speech, The Times of London reportedthat BBC had buried a large package of investigative stories on the problems with giving children and adolescents puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in an effort to change their sex or gender. Former BBC journalist Hannah Barnes said, “The BBC didn’t really back our work at all.”

It’s true that BBC ran part of Barnes’s article. She told the Times that it “wasn’t blocked.” Barnes went on to write a book, Time To Think, based in part on her reporting, which started at BBC. And in 2020, the BBC, after facing criticism, stopped working with a transgender advocacy group.

But Barnes told the Times, “There’s a really big difference [between running a story and properly projecting it].” Her documentary films “weren’t promoted across the BBC. It wasn’t like Panorama. You didn’t hear it on the news bulletins. You didn’t see it on the Six or the Ten [O’Clock News].”

And BBC buried a major part of her story, said Barnes. She had learned that the medical director of Britain’s main gender clinic, Tavistock, had “failed to mention a number of safeguarding concerns raised by [gender clinic] Gids staff in a review he had published of the service.”

The Times of London described Barnes’ scoop as “a turning point in the story: a revelation that prompted the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to conduct its own review, in which Gids would ultimately be rated ‘inadequate.’” The Times reported that none of it ran. Said Barnes, “It wasn’t anywhere on the BBC. The online piece was so buried that even though I had written it, I couldn’t find it.”

And two years after distancing itself from one trans activist group, in 2022, BBC gave seed funding directly to another group, “All About Trans.”

In response to our questions, a BBC spokesperson told Public, “The BBC is committed to reporting all stories impartially, in accordance with its publicly available editorial guidelines.” The BBC spokesperson referred us to BBC editorial guidelines, an article in Dateline about the 9-page reporting guide, and the transcript of testimony given by Davie and two other BBC executives to a parliamentary committee.”

For years, the BBC’s decision to refer to trans-identified men as “women” has inspired controversy. In 2022, BBC changed the pronouns of a trans-identified male attacker. The Times of London reported at the time that “The woman referred to her alleged rapist as ‘him’ but [BBC] insiders said that her words were changed to avoid ‘misgendering’ the abuser in an article on the corporation’s website.” BBC has, on several other occasions, referred to male rapists and male sexual predators of children using female pronouns

A male suspect of child pornography mis-identified by BBC as a woman.📷
The BBC Style guide requires BBC employees to use female pronouns with “a person born male who lives as a female… We generally use the term and pronoun preferred by the person in question unless there are editorial reasons not to do so.”

Barnes isn’t the only former BBC reporter to level concerns at BBC for bias. “The BBC is telling its journalists to lie about a person’s sex under almost all circumstances if the person requests it,” wrote Cath Walton, who worked at BBC for 25 years before leaving in 2023.

“How is a presenter or reporter to explain why there is a controversy at all about trans-identified men in, say, women’s sports or prisons if they are unable to say that they are male?” Walton asked. “It should be a requirement, not a punishable offense.”

And now, yet another BBC journalist has decided to speak out publicly and has even agreed to record a podcast interview, below...Image
Please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning investigative reporting, read the rest of the article, and listen to the podcast with the BBC reporter who is speaking out.

Read 4 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 29
A representative for the EU says, in response to our reporting, “We are not censoring anyone’s opinion.” In truth, she and the EU are putting in place a sweeping totalitarian system of censorship and lying about it.
Four days ago, Czech investigative journalist @CecilieJilkova exposed the censorship efforts of @VeraJourova. Jourova ignored repeated requests for an interview.

Now, supposedly coincidentally @VeraJourova is claiming to have uncovered a vast “Russian disinformation” effort
@CecilieJilkova @VeraJourova Suddenly, out of the blue, “Czech and Belgian intelligence” are alleging a vast Russian disinformation and bribery campaign. They are claiming to have proof that conservative politicians — ie, Jourkva’s political rivals — are Russian puppets.
Read 11 tweets

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