I recently published a post on the current troubles with the supply of energy to Europe on my blog "The Seneca Effect." The post went viral, a little, and had more than 10,000 visualizations according to "Google Analytics." Most commenters agreed with my interpretation of the current political and strategic situation, but I also received a side stream of insults by people who, for some reason, objected to my statement that renewables are "much cheaper than fossil fuels and capable of replacing them."
The commenter above said that I am a "complete clueless moron," another one said that I suffer of ignorant bias & agenda, others that I am in the payroll of the WEF, and another one asked "did they accept your application? How many virgins do you get?"
You can take these insults in stride, in a sense they are funny. But the Web is a garden of poisoned mushrooms and it takes little to become the target of a coordinated mobbing action, just like it happened recently to Prof. Desmet, in part with the same accusation, that is of belonging to the WEF.
Now, I understand that some subjects are politically charged, such as Covid vaccines, especially if they are supposed to be mandatory. And I understand that people feel hurt at what they see as an unacceptable intrusion of the state in their private sphere, and because of that, they will react strongly. Without going to the extreme of saying that vaccines are bioweapons designed to kill us, I agree with the idea that they should NOT be mandatory.
But, in this case, come on! All I said is that at present renewables are considerably less expensive than fossil fuels (and of nuclear energy, too). And I base this statement on the available data. You don't believe the data? Fine, then produce different data, but don't just react with insults. And don't react by linking to data that are, by now, obsolete. Most of the criticism against renewable energy is based on data that are decades old, often going back to the last century.
On the basis of this, I think it IS possible to rebuild a functioning society based on renewables producing energy flows of the same order of magnitude as the present production (I recently coauthored a paper on this subject). I may be wrong, sure, and obviously it is not something we can do in a short time. It will take decades, at least. But I don't see why people should get mad at the idea that renewables can help us a lot in this difficult moment. Looks like you try to save someone who's drowning, and he refuses to touch your extended hand because you didn't disinfect it against viruses.
So, what goes wrong inside people's heads? I think I should ask to my friend Chuck Pezeshky, an expert on empathy and how people deal with each other. Maybe he could write a post on his blog on this subject -- and I think he should. But, no matter what we say or do, I am afraid that plenty of people will keep insulting those who promote renewable energy. As long as they limit themselves to written insults, it is fine, but..............
I've just read a book called Putin's Trolls, by Jessikka Aro, a Finnish reporter. She got death threats for being critical of Putin. In the U.S.A. the tribalism of people who believe Trump lies, climate denier lies, Putin lies, Koch network lies have made life hard for some climate scientists. Michael Mann wrote a book about it called The Madhouse Effect. I've tried to think about where integrity and honesty went and how lies persist and are amplified. Hypotheses that may make sense: a) Advertising has made Americans accept lies as normal discourse. We are lied to hundreds of times a day by marketers and political candidates. b) Science is discredited to an alarming extent because people know you can hire a scientist to say anything you want. Especially: Don't worry about climate change. c) Fossil fuel companies have big climate denial budgets. I think it might be a cost of doing business related to marketing and PR. d) Social media clicks make money, and the more outrageous the lie the more clicks it gets. Classic example: Somebody in Macedonia made serious money posting the ridiculous lie that Hilary Clinton is a pedophile operating out the the basement of a pizza restaurant in Bethesda. The restaurant doesn't even have a basement, but an idiot came with a gun to stop the non-existent pedophilia and shot a hole in the ceiling. (I may be misremembering a bit, but you can look it up. This is close.) Aro says Putin's misinformation bots influenced 80,000 voters, at least, in three key states, giving the 2016 election to Trump. e) Science is also discredited because after a couple of centuries of making life better it now turns out the side effects (population doubling in 48 years, carbon emissions, nuclear weapons, etc) are making life crazy and dangerous.
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