Thread by @SteB777

This really is an excellent article by @GeorgeMonbiot, which I can't praise enough.

This clarity is totally lacking in almost every other presentation of the climate crisis in the media. Most deliberately misdirect public. Very important 🧵

https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1455792543250231297

I really do despair when I read or hear most of the presentation about the climate crisis in the mainstream media because it tacitly implies we can avoid climate catastrophe without leaving fossil fuel reserves in the ground.

I am a firm believer in that to effectively solve a problem, especially one of this magnitude and seriousness, you have to understand the problem. This means being brutally honest about what the problem is and constantly re-evaluating your understanding of it.

You see, most problem solving simply fails because the solutions are a misconception of what the problem actually is i.e. it doesn't address the actual problem. Here the misrepresentation of the problem is quite deliberate. I will prove this here.

In addition, problem solving of a society wide problem means most people acknowledging what the problem is. This has actually been the main purpose of climate change denial, not to win any supposed debate, but to create doubt in the minds of the public about the problem.

The thing is vested interests and those wanting to maintain business as usual are fully aware of what I said, as are most media and journalists, otherwise they wouldn't be so touchy about these truths being mentioned.

The brilliant @GretaThunberg has repeatedly pointed out that not only does she keep repeating key information in the IPCC SR15 about how little of the carbon budget remains to stay below 1.5C, but that the media persistently refuse to report it.

https://twitter.com/gretathunberg/status/1219653306353618946?lang=en

Sure enough none of the media reported what Greta said. Here in the @guardian, the self-styled leader in climate reporting, they simply edited out this part from Greta's fantastic speech. No mainstream media reported what she said as she predicted.
theguardian.com/business/video…

Self-evidently, this is not accidental. You do not have the world's most high profile climate activist consistently repeat key information from the IPCC to the world's assembled media, tell them they don't want to report this, and them not report it, by accident.

There is a very simple reason as to why politicians and the media repeatedly refuse to acknowledge key scientific information about the climate and ecological emergency, and this is done very deliberately. This reason is detailed below.

If it is acknowledged that for instance you have to keep most fossil fuels in the ground, beginning immediately, as much as possible, as fast as possible, you are tacitly saying we need major system change. There is no way this action can be taken - WITHOUT - major system change.

If you simply halted most fossil fuel extraction very soon, and took no other action at all, it would radically alter business as usual, the global economic and political system, without taking any other action or even intending this outcome.

All of the media, every politician, every journalist is fully aware of this, which is why they go to such enormous lengths to not report what @GeorgeMonbiot and @GretaThunberg have said.

I can already hear people saying, but @GeorgeMonbiot's article is in the @Guardian, surely this contradicts what I say. No it confirms it. George is not a member of the Guardian's staff.

The Guardian know very well, that generally, only those already receptive to George's perspective will read his excellent article. Just like only those who follow Greta will be aware of what she said at Davos 2020 and elsewhere.

I call this ring fencing. There is a coordinated campaign by the political establishment and the media to other certain people, to say, these people are radicals, extremists, to imply in clever ways people should not listen to them.

This ensures that the clearest voices on the climate and ecological emergency are only really heard by the followers of these people, so they are only preaching to the converted. @GeorgeMonbiot and @GretaThunberg have creatively done all they can to ensure this doesn't happen.

I mentioned before understanding a problem before you try to solve it, and how you need constant re-evaluation of the problem. This is one part of the problem I have had to constantly re-evaluated. You need systems thinking to understand it.

Conventionally, it is seen as if the individual has the responsibility to get their message across and to find a way to do this. However, this is not a one way process, when you have the media and the political establishment actively trying to distort this message.

I've illustrated here how the media and the political establishment have gone to enormous and knowing lengths to keep from the general public, key elements of the climate crisis. They respond reactively i.e. when these key parts are mentioned, they actively suppress them.

We must act reactively to this, and we must do this by exposing what is happening to the public. We need the public to be angered by how what they know is being controlled, and how they are being manipulated. We must shame this behaviour and those involved.

@GretaThunberg @GeorgeMonbiot @KevinClimate @ClimateHuman @JKSteinberger

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