Thread by @SteB777

Why, as a society, we're not seeing the big picture of the climate and ecological emergency.

In 1972, after the first UN Environment Conference in Stockholm, the situation seemed quite clear. The action plan should have result in action.

1/🧵un.org/en/conferences…

Unfortunately, by the early 1980s, the UN realized that none of the action agreed to in 1972 had happened, so they set up the Brundtland Commission in 1983, to examine the whole situation.

2/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brundtlan…

In 1987, the Brundtland Commission delivered its report, Our Common Future, defining the concept of Sustainable Development, created to stop our civilization, heading in a globally suicidal direction. It dealt with what they called climatic change.

3/sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/docume…

In 1992, the massive Rio Earth Summit was held, the biggest global summit ever held, with the purpose of getting international agreement, to put into action, the measures identified as necessary in Our Common Future.

4/un.org/en/conferences…

Most of the treaties, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which set up the COP talks were signed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. The way forward seemed clear, and it looked like our governments were going to take action.

5/unfccc.int/files/essentia…

Except for the last 52 years, absolutely nothing meaningful has happened. Globally, our governments have carried on with the economic growth, Business as Usual BaU model, which we knew 52 years ago, was globally suicidal for our civilization.

6/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limit…

This is normally when establishment optimists get angry, and talking about the progress we've made, and how bad it would be without it. However, as @KevinClimate points out, we're actually on course for 3-4C of warming by the end of the Century.

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Yet our governments and politicians, talk about keeping warming to the 1.5C 2015, Paris Agreement target, and achieving Net Zero by 2050, as if the problem has already been solved.

8/ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/s…

But as the presentation by Professor Kevin Anderson shows, the reality is completely different. To achieve staying within 1.5C, and we've already got there, with a 50% chance of success, we'd have to halve emissions by 2030, 6 years time.
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Whereas actually emissions are increasing, and governments are already rowing back on the totally inadequate Net Zero by 2050 plans, which would not get us anywhere near Net Zero by 2050.
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I haven't even got on to the biodiversity crisis and the rest of the ecological crisis, where there is no plan at all to address this. Not even a pretence, as with Net Zero by 2050. The denial of the crisis and the situation we're in, is off the scale.
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Unfortunately, there is total denial about the denial. With the pretence that there's climate change denial, and that somehow our governments and politicians, are not in denial, because they pretend to accept the science.

12/threadreaderapp.com/thread/1768279…

However, exactly what science our politicians and governments actually accept, is not clear at all, when the policy they are pursuing, is the exact opposite of what is necessary, to address the climate and ecological crisis.
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The whole situation is one great big mess of absurd falsehoods, total denial, disinformation and propaganda, on an industrial scale. The powers that be are trying to label environmentalists as extremists, for merely expecting what governments promised.

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What is clear, is that no one in any position of influence and power, not the media, not any governments - are seeing the overall big picture, and they are all in some level of serious denial.
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The essential problem is the language use and style our culture has developed, where if someone in a position of high status, power and influence says something, it is treated as real, even if all the evidence contradicts it.
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It's a form of the reification fallacy, where an idea becomes more real to people, than the objective reality, the idea refers to. Words are ideas and concepts. Just because some says something, does not mean it has any truth or basis in reality.

17/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reificati…

I really don't understand why I even have to explain this, because there are so many examples of it. Trump or someone right wing commentator, just asserts something, as if it is a fact, and millions of people just accept it as fact.
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However, it is entirely mistaken, to just see this as something the populist right do, although it is a rather obvious and extreme example of it.

Politicians across the board, told us they were going to address the climate crisis, and people just accepted it.
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The notion that our leaders were going to address the climate crisis, got traction, and was accepted as reality, although they have essentially done nothing, and we're actually on course for 3-4C of warming. This demonstrates how this works.
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Remember, by 1983, the UN had accepted that no action had been taken on the Action Plan agreed to at the 1972 UN, Environment Conference. Actually, that's been the story ever since. Politicians promising action, and then doing nothing.
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If politicians and governments, had taken the action they had promised they were going to take, we wouldn't be on course for 3-4C of warming, with emissions likely to rise for the foreseeable future.
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What I'm saying is hardly difficult to understand, to see for yourself, and it is empirically demonstrable. That people just accepted action was being taken to address the climate and ecological crisis, simply because politicians said that. The reality is quite different.
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This is not just the climate and ecological crisis. People are totally losing faith in politicians and governments, simply because for years they've been saying and promising things, which never happen.

I've been trying to point this out for a long time, yet it's ignored.
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I can only think when I keep telling people, that it's the reification fallacy, that they mistakenly think it is just some obscure, philosophical concept, not relevant to the ideas they have about how things work. No, it's demonstrable reality.
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I've just provided the clear objective evidence for what I'm saying. Our leaders have been saying they were going to address the ecological crisis for 52 years. Yet, they did nothing, and on most dimensions, from the climate crisis to the biodiversity crisis, it's got worse.
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Yet what our leaders said, was clearly false, and yet it got massive traction, just because they said it. As I say, this is not just about the ecological and climate crisis. This is why people have lost faith in politics.
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There's lots of distracting ideas about this, from psychological theories, to people being innately gullible, stupid, greedy. None of which are needed, because the way people just accept what powerful people tell them, is there for all to see, and explains everything.
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Our leadership, the powerful and the influential, can create alternative realities, just by saying things and promising things. Even if they never actually do any of what they promise, and what they say, is objectively false.
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All of this simply comes down to how people have got a weakness, for believing something, just because someone powerful, or influential said something.

Honestly, there is no need for any other explanation.
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People believe the economy matters more than the natural environment, just because powerful people, and media commentators, keep saying it. It's a demonstrable fact, that the economy is entirely reliant on natural systems.
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People accept economic growth matters more than anything, just because powerful people in our society, keep telling them that. Wealthy and powerful people, tell the public this, because it is how all their wealth and power is derived.
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The wealthy and powerful, are hardly going to tell people to stop doing what makes them wealthy and powerful.

There is a way out of this, as I've been trying to explain for a very long time.
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This is a widespread understanding of the map territory relationship, and that the idea/word, is never the reality/territory. That words are not reality. That at best they are approximations, and may not be true at all.
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But the powerful and wealthy, are hardly going to want the public to understand, that just because they say something, doesn't mean it's true, because it's what has allowed them to dominate us, for the last 6,000 years.
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Until the last few decades, it might be argued that if people wanted to accept what the powerful told them, even if it was untrue, then was up to them. But not when it's responsible for destroying the natural systems, which sustain us.
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