- by C Bartholomew
- The Guardian
- Issue #2117
Photo: UNclimatechange – flickr.com (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) (plus composite of CC0 images)
Online propaganda on platforms such as YouTube takes numerous forms. There’s the obvious: Japanese influencers promoting whale meat; USA-based gaming, fitness, and even car channels promoting military recruitment, Israeli combatants gloating about their genocide on just about every platform. However, there are also more subtle forms of propaganda, particularly on climate change. Some of the most popular science and tech channels on YouTube feature climate change narratives which have attracted the attention of sponsors such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Perhaps the most dangerous of these narratives is an approach I call ‘climate casual.’
Various climate change narratives form what is referred to as ‘New Denial.’ These include lines such as “climate solutions won’t work,” the Coalition’s current favourite “climate science and climate movements are unreliable,” and the retro classic from some of the fossil fuel industry’s earliest advertising campaigns,“the impacts of global warming are beneficial or harmless.” Climate casual can be summed up as “The free market is already developing technologies to solve the climate crisis, so please slow down and relax.” This message is popular among climate oligarchs such as Bill Gates, usually as one element of a three-part narrative.
Here’s how it goes. First, they say “We can’t shut off fossil fuels overnight.” Then, linking to the “climate solutions won’t work” idea, they say “We need intermediate steps such as nuclear and gas to ease a gradual transition away from coal.” Finally, they point to more efficient lightbulbs or carbon capture to say “Technological progress is on its way, so don’t be irresponsible and rush ahead when we have plenty of time.” This myth has been promoted in Australia by organisations such as the Gas Industry Social & Environment Research Alliance (GISERA), an alliance between the CSIRO and the five largest corporations behind the fracking industry, with representatives of all five companies stacking the management committee, massive cuts to climate research jobs, and suppression of research from the climate scientists who remain. Then there’s the Bureau of Meteorology, which received millions from companies including Santos, Shell, and Woodside to remain silent on climate change. Executives have redacted mentions of climate change from public documents.
The promotion of this narrative is to be expected from such corporate meddling, but it is also a key feature of many of YouTube’s most prominent science creators. Even trusted science channels have been guilty of promoting carbon capture, nuclear intermediaries, and the idea that tech such as efficient lightbulbs show the world is on the right track.
Combatting hopelessness is important, but the way these channels do it demonstrates their underlying ideology. They equate acknowledging the reality of the climate crisis (and capitalism’s involvement) with “doomerism.” Rather than recognise that outrage against the devastating impacts of climate change, political inaction, and the role of capitalist modes of production in creating the crisis and obstructing climate action can fuel organised action by the oppressed classes, these channels instead downplay the seriousness of the crisis and capitalism’s culpability to promote a far more casual “it’ll work out fine” attitude.
The 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement is dismissed as too “ambitious,” with little regard for the cataclysmic harms warming above this threshold will unleash upon the world. The human effects of climate impacts are overlooked. 2°C of warming will likely kill tens of millions, displace hundreds of millions more, and decimate global food supplies. The UN estimates that 21.5 million people have been displaced by weather events each year since 2008. Some calculations project that as many as 1.2 billion people could be displaced by 2050, an effect which is likely to disproportionately impact the Global South. How many of these displaced people will be butchered by the increasingly militarised border control schemes of the Global North? Dismissing the impacts of 2°C of warming, or speaking of them in ambiguous terms, to justify the narrative that we can afford to wait because the free market’s technology will save us does little more than shield the continuation of fossil fuel profits, the expansion of Western military power, and the plundering of the Global South.
Channels that subscribe to climate casual claim that projections showing current climate action will limit warming to 3°C should be welcomed as “good news,” and claim, incorrectly, that “most scientists” think we have avoided “apocalyptic” climate change.
They claim that the unlikeliness of total human extinction is a cause for calm. They celebrate individual technological advancements (attributing their development to the free market) but make no comment on the systemic changes necessary for the deployment of these technologies, nor the contradictions within the capitalist mode of production which impede their development and implementation.
Offline, climate casual is used from all corners of politics, from the Coalition’s useless nuclear plan to Labor’s backing of the Beetaloo gas project. Those campaigning for stronger climate action are used to being told to slow down, often with crocodile tears about job security or some other economic impact. Renewables have far more potential for job growth and security than fossil fuels. If our economic system cannot implement strong action on climate change without sacrificing jobs, then that is an indictment of capitalism, not climate action.
Climate casual, particularly the online brand that equates blaming capitalism with giving up completely, exposes an ideological commitment to capitalism to which, in the words of Margaret Thatcher “there is no alternative.” It also promotes free market solutions to climate change by lauding individualistic efforts such as personal solar, praising things like renewable energy storage while still calling for intermediary gas and nuclear projects, and endorsing carbon capture, blue hydrogen, and other technologies which are little more than excuses for fossil fuel corporations to continue business as usual.
The climate casualness narrative is pernicious because it’s appealing. We have all experienced moments of fear considering the scale of the crisis that has already begun to rear its ugly head, so being told that business as usual is getting the job done, or will eventually solve our problems, is an easy source of hope. Unfortunately, this narrative has little substance, only truly serving as an excuse for the fossil fuel industry and capitalism generally to maintain the status quo. As difficult as it may be at times, all of us committed to genuine climate action must continue to target the true causes of the climate crisis. Class-conscious organisation and systemic change are the only true sources of hope for the future.
