SCOTUS: Breyer retirement paves way for Biden Supreme Court pick (E&E News $), Climate ‘champion’ sought to replace Breyer (E&E News)
CLIMATE LITIGATION: Judges appear skeptical of Big Oil’s climate claims (E&E News $), This supreme court case could destroy water protections (Gizmodo)
DENIAL: Americans’ trust in science now deeply polarized, poll shows (AP)
DOI: Biden administration cancels mining leases near wilderness area (New York Times $, AP, Reuters)
DOT: Transportation dept. outlines plan to address rising traffic deaths (New York Times $)
BUILD BACK BETTER ACT: GM, Microsoft tout Biden climate, social spending push (Reuters, Wall Street Journal $, The Hill), Pramila Jayapal urges executive action to get Build Back Better over the line (Newsweek)
MANCHIN: ‘He’s a villain’: Joe Manchin attracts global anger over climate crisis (The Guardian), Joe Manchin says 'there's a lot of areas in climate' spending that he can strike a deal on as Democrats begin revisiting the stalled Build Back Better spending bill (Business Insider)
CONGRESS: Unlike Senate, House Democrats make climate push in China bill (Roll Call), GOP senator from North Dakota wants to tackle climate change (NPR)
REVOLVING DOOR: Democratic ex-senators join pro-gas organization (The Hill)
CITIES AND STATES: ‘Walking into the lion’s den’: Cities and towns say they need help as climate change dangers grow (Boston Globe $), Central park is opening a lab to study climate change (Bloomberg $), Minnesota cities hope climate emergency resolutions add urgency to responses (Energy News Network)
CALIFORNIA: In California, a new fight to stop building in the path of fire (New York Times $), Proposed California rule would cut its solar market in half by 2024, says wood mackenzie (CNBC)
IMPACTS: Greek PM apologises for snowstorm ordeal (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Goats, sheep and livelihoods lost to floods and cold in northern Kenya (Reuters)
BOMB CYCLONE: Why this weekend's bomb cyclone could be a huge snowmaker—or a complete dud (Gizmodo)
WARMING: An extraordinary iceberg is gone, but not forgotten (New York Times $)
HURRICANES: Death toll from tropical storm Ana in Mozambique, Malawi rises to 12 (Reuters)
OLYMPICS: Temperature Rising: Winter Olympians Feel Threat From Climate Change (NBC Washington)
AIR POLLUTION: Even low levels of soot can be deadly to older people, research finds (New York Times $)
OIL & GAS: Rocketing demand for fossil fuels could deal blow to climate goals, report says (The Guardian), Biden fails to change course on fossil fuels, despite a bold campaign pledge (Washington Post $)
WIND: Wind turbine maker warns of volatile business environment as inflation and supply chain issues bite (CNBC, New York Times $)
METHANE: Environmental group says 30 Permian 'super emitters' have spewed 110,000 tons of methane (Houston Chronicle)
UTILITIES: Arizona utility regulators again reject clean energy rules (AP)
EVs: America’s Favorite Pickup Truck Goes Electric (The New Yorker $),The pandemic has been great for electric car sales (CNN)
GM:General Motors CEO Mary Barra predicts EV dominance by mid-decade (CBS), GM's aggressive electric vehicle plans come into focus (Axios),
TESLA: Tesla is like a ‘plantation,’ says lawyer who won racism cases for workers (Bloomberg $), Elon Musk says Tesla will give priority to deliveries over new vehicles in 2022 (Wall Street Journal $, Axios)
CARBON TAX: Not even free money can fix a carbon tax (The Atlantic):
CARBON CAPTURE: Top U.S. oil states vie for carbon capture oversight to speed up permits (Reuters),
AGRICULTURE: U.S. crop insurance payouts rise sharply as climate change worsens droughts, floods (Reuters)
DINING OUT: Bean burrito or beef burrito? Restaurants try messages on menus to help diners order less meat (The Guardian)
FINANCE: Hedge fund short-sellers take aim at green energy stocks (FT $), Energy transition drew record $755 billion of investment in 2021 (Bloomberg $)
SEC: Past legal fights seen bolstering SEC’s case for requiring climate disclosure (Roll Call)
SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISM: Costco shareholder vote signals focus on supply-chain emissions (Wall Street Journal $), JPMorgan fights nuns and activists over climate disclosure proposals (FT $), Activist investors pressure firms to go green (Deutsche Welle)
START-UP: AccuWeather enters the climate consulting space (Axios), Startup seeking "truth" in carbon offsets raises $33M (Axios)
COMPOST: The climate solution in California’s compost and crops (The Verge)
FOREST: Over 10 years and $1bn on the table yet little was achieved in a historic forests deal, study says (CNN)
CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: U.S. should boost financing to Caribbean nations: Antigua PM (Reuters), John Kerry hosts world's largest carbon emitters in first forum since UN climate summit (CNN)
INTERNATIONAL: France’s macron failing to tackle climate change, report says (Bloomberg $), Germany sees a gas pipeline under the Baltic as a commercial project. Russia may see it as a leverage. (Marketplace)
UKRAINE CRISIS: Italy’s business leaders talk climate change with Vladimir Putin as Ukraine crisis heats up (FT $)
MEXICO: Mexican green energy investment drying up, trade groups warn (Bloomberg $)
CHINA: China’s new wind and solar capacity makes up over half the power industry total as nation seeks to cut carbon footprint (South China Morning Post)
BYE BRAIN: Jordan peterson and Joe rogan talking about climate change will make your brain dissolve (Gizmodo), ‘Word salad of nonsense’: scientists denounce Jordan Peterson’s comments on climate models (The Guardian), See also: Denier Roundup
WORDLE: Yes, there’s a climate change version of wordle now (Grist) |
“There Is No Climate”: Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan Plumb the Depths of Climate Stupidity
When an enlightened child tells neophyte mind-freer Neo in the 1999 classic movie The Matrix that “there is no spoon” and bends the illusory utensil with their mind, it’s a metaphor for the fundamental malleability of social constructs and what we consider reality.
When a selfish manchild made famous by his own obstinate bigotry despite being a clinical psychologist (Jordan Peterson) tells podcaster, fight commentator, and comedian (Joe Rogan) that “there is no climate”, it’s not a metaphor. It’s just one of the dumbest things to ever be worth an apparent hundred million dollars for Spotify listeners who are willing to wade through over four hours of idiocy.
Obviously we’re not spending a full afternoon listening to a mumbling misinformer interview a tuxedo’d dingbat, but our Twitter feed was bursting with takes on the duo’s discussion. Let’s (begrudgingly) take a look at the top three lowlights, bearing in mind the wise words of Molly Taft, who wrote that “it’s really not worth anyone’s time to engage with ‘I just took a bong hit for the first time’-style talking points from a dude whose head is filled with an empty swampland of his own self-importance.”
So assuming your time is worthless and you wish to keep reading, let’s press on!
Things started off stupid right from the jump, with a beyond-parody Peterson telling Rogan that, and this is not an exaggeration or paraphrasing, “there’s no such thing as climate.”
Now, while a smart man might have then explained that what humanity experiences in the day-to-day is weather not climate, which is an abstract averaging of those days, Jordan Peterson is not a smart man.
“Climate and ‘everything’ are the same word,” Peterson continued, “and that’s what really bothers me about the climate change types.” In the ensuing ramble, Peterson is clearly referencing Justin Worland’s TIME magazine cover story about how people (and governments) are increasingly recognizing that “climate change touches everything” and are starting to respond with comprehensive, cross-society measures, but he doesn’t actually cite it.
He instead pretends he’s clever by pointing out that apparently climate is everything, “but your models aren’t based on everything. Your models are based on a set number of variables here. So that means you’ve reduced the variables, which are everything, to that set. So how did you decide which set of variables to include in the equation if it’s about everything? And that’s not just a criticism, that’s like, if it’s about everything then your models aren’t right. Because your models do not and can not model everything.”
Stop the presses! Models aren’t everything? What’s next, Peterson’s going to expose the frauds at Rand McNally, because their maps aren’t life size and don’t include every pothole?
This is a great example of the intellectual emptiness of Peterson’s schtick. Obviously models don’t include everything, and it’s hardly news to scientists that “all models are wrong, but some are useful.” And of course anyone who’s so much as pulled up Google Scholar and glanced at an actual climate modeling paper would know that the decisions about variables and such are extensively documented in methodology sections and appendices. But Peterson’s argument is full of SAT-words and his audience is hardly about to check his work, so he sure sounds smart!
We were surprised that one of Peterson’s contrarianism was so out there that even Rogan was quick to puncture it: Peterson claimed that more people die every year because of solar power than nuclear power. A puzzled Rogan said something about sunburns and asked him to elaborate, and Peterson, laughing and smirking because he’s clearly concern-trolling, says that people have fallen off roofs when installing the solar panels. That people dying is literally a punchline for Peterson is one thing, but what’s really incredible is that Rogan says “well that’s gravity, right?” because even he can see Peterson’s full of it, and in response Peterson attempts to claim that’s his point all along. “That’s a good example of unintended consequences. Because systems are complex and when you change them you think only good things will happen.”
Hmm if only there were an incredibly complex system, one that may be said to include everything, that is experiencing some unintended consequences of changes as a result of some human activity, with ramifications that are very much not good…
Lacking such an example that would show Peterson’s two-faced but no-brained philosophizing to be little more than social-media sophistry, we’ll move on to the last fun claim.
It’s our favorite, because even though someone like Rogan knows enough to occasionally push back on Peterson, the deniers at NetZeroWatch (the rebranded GWPF) retweeted a clip in which Peterson presents his super-well-thought out and serious contention with climate policy. If you actually cared about the environment, just make poor people rich. Rich people treat the environment better, poor people are “resource inefficient”, so we should simply be “making the poor rich as quick as possible.”
Oh of course! Why didn’t anyone think of that, “make poor people rich”, what a policy genius! Pack it up folks, Peterson’s solved this whole thing. Just gotta make poor people rich. Easy! And while you’re at it, don’t forget to give them super-polluter yachts!
If you haven’t already guessed, the crack expert Peterson relies on for these wisened takes is, judging by his retweets, none other than Bjorn Lomborg, which would explain all the stupid.
Back in the day, you’d have to do something gross and embarrassing to be on Joe Rogan’s show Fear Factor. But no bugs those contestants ate were as gross as just appearing on Rogan’s podcast, and no shameful act performed for that cash is as embarrassing as Peterson’s attempts to pass as an intellectual. Unfortunately, while there is no spoon for those living in The Matrix,, for those of us living in this reality, it appears there is no shame. |
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