Eco-friendly startups are popping up everywhere and will save our planet, right?
Reality: "Climate, Energy or Sustainability" is only 2% of this (likely representative) batch. Compare that to 21% for fintech and you'll see investors' true priorities.
https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/meet-the-yc-summer-2022-batch/
"Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein
People are not consumers. Consuming more is not our duty.
Six Finnish environmental activists on their way to the Take Concrete Action protest in Gotland were detained in Stockholm harbor.
They were deported and punished with a two year entry ban. The reason? Planning to protest with no intentions to break any laws.
#Sweden's police is going down a dangerous path with their intimidation tactics. Getting detained and deported for the thought crime of planning to attend a peaceful protest is a human rights violation.
https://nitter.net/ExtinctionR_SV/status/1562447828961853440
Effective altruism is just philanthropy that devalues non-human life. These "spicy" responses are so telling.
"We should help other people" can never be as effective (sic) as "we should not exploit other people and nature to begin with".
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-as-a-tower-of
Taking existential risks seriously is a good idea.
But #longtermism has also some big ethical problems. The way some people are clinging onto it looks to me an awful lot like a coping strategy.
Two climate communication lessons I'm trying to learn.
1) Open with a positive future worth fighting for and then bring the facts. Storming in with the depressing reality makes people freeze up. See: mental contrasting + implementation intentions.
https://typeshare.co/tegantallullah/posts/try-this-4-step-narrative-for-climate-communications
@ggpsv I thought about writing more about how I try to deal with the emotional stress of activism, but in the end it didn't fit in this post.
But good to know about your interest: I'll make a not to write a post about it later on!
This was difficult to write because I'm not comfortable talking about myself publicly. At the same time, I would have loved to read this 2 years ago.
If you're lucky enough to be able to, I urge you to join the fight!