this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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Climate
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
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Yep, fight crazy theories by doubling down with a more insane one. Then when they start picking yours apart, they "might" see how theirs is silly too. But at least you can throw their momentum off as they can't use the same arguments, they have to start thinking a little bit.
Doesn't even have to be a major change. Like if they start talking about the ones in power, and how they aren't human but lizard people. Argue that they aren't lizards, but amphibians from the future trying to adjust the climate now to fix their world. And the flat Earth theory is just a cover, as the Earth is more of a curved surface, perhaps even the shell of a giant snapping turtle.
It might but not a big chance. The only real way is to sit down with them and ask what it is they're really afraid of. Feels like pulling a Lucifer: "what is it you truly desire?" Then work from there.
Yep. Conspiracy theories are deflections. Usually they're meant to turn the bad things the system does to them into mere corruption rather than an inherent effect of the system as it is. They are meant to escape the conclusion that the only just behavior is to become a radical lefist with all the social, financial, political, practical, and violent consequences that entails.
It's easier to say chemtrails are a conspiracy than that industrial pollution and climate change are inherent to capitalist democracy. It's easier to say that migration is an ethnic replacement conspiracy than that sabotaging the collective bargaining power of the working class by breaking cultural cohesion is inherent to capitalist democracy. It's easier to say that 9/11 was an inside job than that an antagonistic colonial-exploitative relationship with the rest of the world that inspires retaliatory violence is inherent to capitalist democracy.
If you make fun of a conspiracy theory, or get concerned about them believing the conspiracy theory, or in any way give attention to the conspiracy theory rather than the scary thing it obfuscates, the conspiracy theory is doing its job and earning its rent in their mind.