What do we do now in the age of know-nothingism?

Climate arsonists, skeptics, deniers and delayers are taking over governments and minds around the world. How can we fight this?

I will not comment directly on the American election; I have not been an American since I was 18* and do not have much to contribute to the discussion. I will comment on the general international trend toward denialism, skepticism, and the new Know Nothing Movement.

I was surprised on Friday to see an intersection near the University of Toronto festooned with THEYLIED.CA banners, and a bunch of protesters carrying signs. So many of them in downtown Toronto! Earlier this year I noticed THEYLIED.CA along highways 11 and 400, all the way from Huntsville to Toronto. They are everywhere.

A quick look at the website finds a fetid swamp of anti vaccines, electric cars, 15-minute cities, bugs on the menu instead of meat, renewable energy, digital currencies, and the globalist agenda. Like the President-elect, they claim climate change is a hoax.

The protesters in Toronto are not just a small group of crazies. In the Province of Alberta, you can’t get a COVID booster shot. According to the Tyee, “Alberta’s anti-vax UCP government won’t be distributing COVID and flu vaccines to family doctors this fall.” The Premier has been discussing chemtrails.

The recent convention of the ruling party passed a resolution recognizing “the importance of CO2 to life and Alberta’s prosperity” by abandoning all net-zero targets and stating that “CO2 is a foundational nutrient for all life on Earth.”

“We must prioritize policies that protect our economy and our way of life. CO2 is an essential nutrient for mass, driving growth and boosting plant production. According to the CO2 Coalition, higher CO2 levels have led to healthier crops and improved food security worldwide.”

In Ontario where I live, Premier Doug Ford spent millions to cancel wind projects, is building highways like mad, ripping up bike lanes in Toronto, and spending more millions “helping drivers save more.” Walkable/cyclable cities? Forget it, we want sprawl. Climate change? Not a concern. Science? He even closed the Ontario Science Centre on spurious grounds (they can’t afford to fix the roof, as they spend $3 billion on voter bribes in advance of the next election)

As Environmental Defence lawyer Phil Pothen noted at a rally on Saturday to save Toronto’s bike lanes, “Doug Ford governs like climate change doesn’t exist.”

About the only thing that is holding anybody back is Justin Trudeau’s federal government, which will likely be thrown out soon in favour of Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. As Desmog notes, Pierre Poilievre Voted Against Environment and Climate 400 Times. He delivered doughnuts to the convoy. They are peas in a pod with Alberta on climate and fossil fuels.

After I first saw the THEYLIED.CA signs in October I wrote Forget about system change vs individual behaviour change; what matters now is political change. I wrote:

That is why this election season is so nerve-wracking; in a normal world, the American election wouldn’t be close. The new British government wouldn’t be acting more conservative than the conservatives. Justin Trudeau would be revered for everything from daycare to carbon taxes. Doug Ford wouldn’t be on cruise control to another re-election. I would still be voting NDP. Theylied.ca would be a bunch of unknown cranks instead of being on every lamppost between here and Huntsville. So lets not worry about personal change vs systemic change; let’s worry about political change, that’s what matters most right now.

Alas, political change isn’t quite going in the direction I hoped. It’s not just the USA either, it is everywhere. The big question, in a world of Trump, Ford, and Poilievre is what do we do now? How do we motivate people to care about climate change? I am still stunned by the Gallup poll I showed in my last post, where climate change was not exactly a high priority.

People apparently do care about the economy and Maslow’s basic needs of food, water, shelter and warmth, not to mention WiFi. Governments have not been doing a very good job on those basic physiological needs recently, or at least not doing a good job of convincing anyone that they have, thanks to all the shit coming over the WiFi.

Since the American election, everyone and every organization is looking forward, and also looking in the mirror. Jonathan Foley of Project Drawdown is look for “climate heroes.” They are also going to fight know-nothingism.

“America is at its best when science is accepted and used to do great things. Science helped us defeat fascism, win the Cold War, end polio, feed the world, land on the moon, and crack the genetic code of life. And it will be essential to end the climate crisis. The greatness of America is founded on science. It helps lift people up, improve the human condition, and build a better world. Our world and our future depend on it. At Project Drawdown, we will defend science and never waver in opposing lies and disinformation.”

Bill McKibben writes in the Crucial Years about how he is going to focus on the positive economic benefits of solar power;

“The reshaping of our energy system—to cope with climate change, and to reflect the rock-solid fact that we live on an earth where the cheapest way to make power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun—may offer, if we are clever and good-hearted, a new basis on which to remake the world.”

I don’t agree with his production bias. As Ken Levenson of The Passive House Network wondered, “In moving from fossil fuels to renewables, does it strike anyone else as weird that there is so much emphasis on energy production, and so little on doing more with less energy?”

I will be thinking more about Maslow’s basic physiological needs of food, water, shelter, and warmth. I will be writing more about the economic benefits of a sufficiency lifestyle and “How a life of just enough offers a way out of the climate crisis.” It also happens to be a lot cheaper.

Notwithstanding Trump, Ford, and Poilievre, I still believe that we can build a better world of low-carbon comfortable homes in walkable, cyclable communities that don’t run on fossil fuels.

But when we have Albertans going back to the 1990s with “CO2 is life,” Ontario going back to the 1960s with highways everywhere, and Americans going back to the 1890s with tariffs and vaccines, I worry that this better world is not going to happen unless we address the problems people are stressed about today rather than 2030 or 2050.

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*My Canadian parents moved to the US for a few years and I was born in Chicago. They moved back to Canada when I was two so I have no memory of the USA. When I was 18, I had to choose; there was no such thing as dual citizenship and it was the middle of the Vietnam war. I chose Canada.