Carl Sagan warned of a “critical mass of ignorance” that could be reached - a sort of social-psychological tipping point where the forces of ignorance, anti-science, pseudoscience and superstition, combined with actual crises, could overwhelm our civilization and rapidly send us back into darkness.
Aren't climate change and pandemic ultimately dimensions of anti-science? Is the problem perhaps rather that everything that the Enlightenment has brought in terms of knowledge is being negated? Isn't the problem the massive irrationality that is politically fueled by fascism and leads to darkness?
Looking forward to the book. My wild conspiracy theory is that the wealthy understand climate change and over population. They simply want a lot of people to die so they can remain powerful overlords of the remaining 2 billion or so survivors.
They would be much poorer with many less people. Not trying to be rude, but overpopulation is not an actual problem, the composition of our energy consumption is. We do not live in a Malthusian world.
I disagree. The sheer numbers of humans at this point needing food and housing and clean water, not to mention the luxuries of technology are totally destroying the biosphere. Read much about the insect apocalypse yet?
But something drives me really nuts: which is the secret-ultimate-true reason to deny climate change? Even by petrostates... Make more money or more power? To spend in which planet?
Because they have to know, for sure, that's not gonna be in this one... 🙃
Outstanding article, by the way. I'm sharing it with my renewable energy systems students. I try to avoid politics in my classes, but in this field many times it's unavoidable. Also they need to know, and spread the word afterwards.
Sadly, this description of our dire predicament fails to address the core cause of all these problems: capitalism. Getting rid of “plutocrats” and their lackeys is not enough. We need a revolution to stop an economic system that is destroying the planet. Power to the people!
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#AskingForMany
Thanks & and a Happy new Year!
Walton, S., Hofstadter, R. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. United Kingdom: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Best way to fight triple threat is with the double whammy of Mann & Hotez.
Education slippage
Because they have to know, for sure, that's not gonna be in this one... 🙃
And that propaganda includes a mix of anti-science messaging that denies the threat of both pandemics and climate change.