"Wind and solar power pollute the Earth and make life miserable:" DeSantis's Florida Approves Climate-Denial Videos in Schools

0x815@feddit.de to World News@beehaw.org – 426 points –
DeSantis’s Florida Approves Climate-Denial Videos in Schools
scientificamerican.com
124

Yes, Ron, everyone knows Clean Coal™️ is the one true source of non-pollution.

Is anyone stupid enough to believe this?

Yes... People are stupid

I used to ride the bus with a lady who grew up in a coal town. We once debated over coal. She said it was so green because there were so many regulations and that wind and solar were horrible for the environment because they were killing birds. So yeah, people are stupid.

Glass windows kill birds too when they try to fly through them. How exactly did she think solar power could kill birds or be bad?

Well ya see that there sun energy gets so dagnabbed concentrated in those there pannels that the poor li'l baby birds, bein' much smaller and weaker than a big ol' coal minin' macho-man like me, ain't able to withstand all that there sun energy. Coal tho? Coal stays rite thar in non-energy form 'till you wanna use it, allowsin' us to keep the energy levels below bird-killin' amounts.

PV panels, not really, but concentrated solar can and does kill birds. Not nearly as many as coal, though, lol.

No, they aren't. In 15 or 20 years, however, when people have left their indoctrination camps disguised as schools ...

Children in school

Yep. They're trying to get their lies in as these children's first belief on the matter. Anyone pushing a different view (such as the truth) will then have to defeat this belief first. Same thing religions do, because they know their stuff doesn't stand up to neutral mature scrutiny.

Belief in Clean Coal would be an improvement for his brain!

He's currently trying to pave Florida roads with literal radioactive mining waste.

It’s fine though, if you say “radioactive” his supporters will insist it must be nuclear.

My Dad just last night was complaining about wind farms…

Damn, America's really fucking dumb.

Florida* I'm from California and I'll be damned if I'm lumped in with most of the rest of the US (Oregon and Washington are great though).

Eh, the populated areas of Oregon and Washington are chill. The rural areas are scary.

As someone who grew up in rural Washington on the threshold of populated Washington, yeah shit gets pretty fucked really quick in those rural areas.

It was a really religious area as well so that really didn't help. The local religious people have a strong belief in having as many children as possible as soon as possible. The running non-joke (because it's common) about it is the first kid to turn 16 drives the 3rd van.

Yeah it gets pretty embarrassing the more east, southeast ya go. SMH

Marylander here, and I resent that! Don't lump us east-coasters in with whatever the fuck is going on down south!

From your PNW neighbor, thanks!

We’re a great coalition of states, even with the red areas we have to drag kicking and screaming into this century.

But I thought it was the left that's indoctrinating children?

That's what they need to convince their base in order to get them to support their indoctrination schemes. They've convinced so many people that simply teaching science and history is leftist indoctrination, and they need to combat it with their own propaganda.

"attacking solar and wind because “their batteries break down and become hazardous waste”"

My solar array has no batteries, it powers the house during the day and generates 2x to 3x the power which is fed back to the grid which gives me credits that pays for the energy we use after the sun goes down

My "electric bill" went from over $100 a month to $13, which is really just the associated taxes and fees.

I guess nobody explained that setup to him.

They (Mr. Oil, Mr. Coil and Mrs. Nuke) explained to him that they are loosing $87 from your electric bill what will effect their profits and donations to him.

What interest group does Mr. Coil represent?

:D sorry, of course the coal guy, not the one with the fancy hairstyle.

PragerU has produced anti-climate policy videos since shortly after it began in 2009. The Prager foundation has received millions of dollars from the billionaire brothers, Farris and Dan Wilks of Texas, who made their fortune in fracking.

PragerU has received additional funding from foundations that oppose climate regulations such as the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

PragerU CEO Streit said her group has tapped into angry parents who want their politics reflected more in classrooms.

Yup.

I see conservatives have already shifted from "take politics out of the classroom" to "put our politics into the classroom".

That's what it always was. Many people view. "Politics" as simply being anything they don't like or disagree with.

Or anything that's not the status quo.

This is common, and it's why a lot of conservatives describe themselves as "not political" while acting and voting conservative. From their perspective it's just all these annoying people stirring things up and demanding change to a perfectly good situation who are the political ones.

In general, when someone says "I'm not political," I hear "I'm unreflectively conservative."

If someone is lobbying for climate change denial then they’re guilty of something morally akin to treason, but it’s not treason itself because instead of just betraying just their country they’re betraying their entire species.

Reminds me of how Trump has been going after wind farms for a long time. He claims they're noisy and they're killing all the birds. (He began saying this when Scotland wanted to place Wind farms near his Scottish golf resort)

It's almost silly to look into bird deaths and realize just how low wind power is on the list, even with its rapid growth in recent years. It was recently estimated that with the expected growth of wind power, it will be killing about 2.2 million birds a year in the US... in 2050. Meanwhile, power lines kill anywhere from 12 to 48 million a year right now, fossil-fueled power plants kill as many as 14 million a year right now, communication towers kill over 5 million, cars 60-80 million, pesticides as much as 90 million, and cats well over a billion. Every year. The numbers aren't that hard to find. Replacing all fossil-fueled power plants with wind turbines would be a net positive for bird populations, and the facts make that very clear.

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/08/22/pecking-order-energys-toll-on-birds
https://www.energymonitor.ai/tech/renewables/weekly-data-how-many-birds-are-really-killed-by-wind-turbines/

If they actually cared about birds they'd shut up about wind power and try to get rid of cats instead

Like Bob Barker said, spay and neuter your pets.

And keep your cats indoors!! Outdoor cat pets should be illegal.

(Maybe there's a case for farm cats keeping vermin population in check? I don't know enough to have an opinion on that.)

What an idiot, birds aren't even real.

Problem was that they are government agents/drones/whatever and this is costly for the government

They did have an effect on birds though. I think it was almost entirely mitigated by painting one blade black, if memory serves, but it was based on some truth.

Please don't give their statement any credibility without adding the important context. Based in some truth may be technically accurate, but when compared to all the other possible causes of bird death it's basically inconsequential.

https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds

If there's a solution, such as painting one blade a different color, then great. We can leave it up to the turbine engineers and wildlife agencies to address it, it doesn't need to be part of any news cycle. Giving their outlandish claim any air at all lends it far too much weight.

I somehow feel this will backfire spectacularly. Younger kids can be dumb like the rest of us, but there is one thing they are exceptionally smart about: spotting and mocking lame-ass adults.

There is already little tolerance among (a lot of) younger folk for climate denialism and general right wing jackassery. Adding a cut-rate Donald Duck screeching about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or how windmills are dangerous is just gonna’ cement the lameness for them. Now, if we could just do something about the grown-up idiots on Facebook, we’d be cooking.

but there is one thing they are exceptionally smart about: spotting and mocking lame-ass adults.

I think fucked up education, if started at the first grade, or even kindergarten will do the job. The unfixable 'problem' DeSantis faces, is that teachers are typically not idiots and also it's not easy to force them to teach a fake curriculum and you cannot just replace them with mind washed rednecks, probably not even in Florida.

Yep. I also think the ham-fisted way they are rolling this out is a projection of how they think the ‘libruls’ are brainwashing the kids.

Rather than educated people coming to educated conclusions on their own across vast segments of society, it is almost as if they think there is this secret committee of hooded Illuminati that generates Disney princess woke coloring books to turn little Billy-Bob away from Jesus, and the rest of the country just marches unthinkingly in lockstep with those orders. So of course, that is the playbook they want to follow.

The thing is Mother Nature does not care about the American political and social divide. I just wonder how future generations are going to view us, how our prevalent negligence for the planet is going to be portrayed?

Luckily the world is bigger than the US/Florida

Unfortunately the US has a tendency to export their particular brand of crazy to the rest of the world

I hope you are right, but I have my doubts, people in Eastern Europe, for example, share the scepticism and outright denial presented in the article above without having Ron DeSantis.

In our old age, Millennials and Zoomers will envy the respect the Baby Boomers are given today. We'll say "I was one of the good ones, I voted against this!"

Florida students who want to go to college in other states will need months of remedial education to catch up.

Why would those colleges admit them? Any college worth attending already has more than enough qualified applicants.

Is the SOB trying to burn the planet down or what? That's criminal. I wish those POS could be held accountable for the dangerous ideas they push.

Florida kids are going to grow up and leave Florida and be like “What the fuck?” Why is the rest of the world different from what o was taught.

Leave Florida? The majority of Americans never travel more than a few hundred miles from where they’re born. And an overwhelming majority never leave the US.

reminder: the greatest things you can do to help the environment: Go Vegan; Don't have kids; if you can, walk/catch public transport/cycle.

I would say that stop voting a**holes is even better (and the best thing is, you can do both!)

But if I don't vote for this climate genocidal asshole, an even worse climate genocidal asshole might win!

Veganism is a moral philosophy regarding the treatment of animals. I feel it is disingenuous to present veganism as a solution to climate change. What if we discover a way of torturing animals that tends to restore the environment? Then you're fucked. Call it a plant-based diet, not veganism.

what if all the current vegans started eating CEO's and politicians instead? Would that not help more?

there'd be an endless supply of food, that's for sure.

Ok so I have a question about one thing in your list.

If you don't have kids then you would not have people to continue your virtue and belief on the next generation. While the people who are denying climate change have all the kids they can spit out of their body. And guess what, children are the ones who have a higher percentage of continuing their parents beliefs.

So in a few generation their side will outnumber your side.

You can still do that by adopting kids someone else made. No sense adding to the population when some kids already don't have parents.

yup. there are HEAPS of loving kids needing homes. There's no need to add to an overpopulation already when there are so many kids needing homes already.

What overpopulation are you talking about?

You make a good point but then again, the numbers game would still be tilted in favor of those who multiply the most.

Why not have 1 child and adopt another, preferably of the same age so that both children won't be lonely and have someone to depend on as family when the parents are gone.

there's nothing that says you can only adopt one kid :)

Climate change really has to be solved in this generation. You're thinking too long term, we don't have that kind of time.

Additionally, not all children of climate sociopaths become sociopaths. The planet increasingly makes a convincing argument even for those who weren't taught to hear. That's why the old propagandists have to ramp up their effort

Buddy thinks he can fuck his way out out of a human-induced climate crisis. You don't suppose that maybe your biological drives are warping your reasoning, eh, buddy?

Don't have kids

I maybe wouldn't go that far, I would rather have a kid and teach them how to make this fucked world better.

I'm single anyway, tho, so little do I know.

11 more...

I'm a parent and I sure af would not tolerate this fucking corporate propaganda being forced on my son.

1940s Germany wants their leader back.

It always amuses me how politicians and community “faith based” leaders can blithely condemn what scientists have been warning about for decades, as if they know better (with no training or experience). Anti-intellectualism is the Dunning-Kruger effect applied to politics, known as Populism, aka the idiots revenge.

These politicians don’t give a fuck about being right. They probably know they are wrong. Being a climate change denier just lines their pockets better.

too bad we're all gonna be dead in a few decades.

The problem with faith-based leaders is that they do everything in bad faith.

This world is fucked! Sometimes i wake up and can't believe I put children in this fucked up world. It's like a fever dream.

I plan to implore my kids not to have children.

I doubt you have to. They surely see all too well now totally jacked everything is.

Has The Onion crossed over into real life?

He sure likes wearing his sponsors on his sleeve.

He's finally gone far enough out there that I now see this as more amusing than alarming. I'm sure I'll get snapped back into anger soon enough, but I'm gonna enjoy this break from reality while it last. Clownfuck.

I felt the same about Trump on 2015-2016. I was bewildered when so many believed in and supported him.

The fact that I no longer underestimate stupidity leaves me more afraid after reading this news, not less.

Wind and solar power Ron DeSantis pollutes the Earth and makes life miserable.

Instead of discussing this at such an abstract level, Does anybody have a link to the actual material to form an informed option?

Perhaps this one? I didn't watch it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqppRC37OgI

Open link. See PragerU. Immediately close link

As a point of view, I don’t see anything objectionable in that video to expose kids to. It does seem to have an underlying sales pitch, but so does most of the videos I’ve seen on green energy. 

Because they fail to provide reliable data or a better alternative

I prefer it that way. Let kids do their own research. They are just putting out a point of view in that video that is not crazy. I can only talk to that one video. I think this entire thread just highlights how talking about serious topics in forums like these is impossible. Most posts are not about the issue at hand. They mostly are about claiming the other side is evil.

Let kids do their own research.

That...that's the whole point of school! Condensing centuries of human knowledge and research so that you have an educated populace ready to make decisions in the field based on good information they were taught in school (then later on in life making decisions based on the good information they learned in the field and from others)

They are just putting out a point of view in that video that is not crazy.

That's how most indoctorination works, start by using logical fallacies and false premises that aren't immediately obvious to non-experts on the topics

Most posts are not about the issue at hand. They mostly are about claiming the other side is evil.

Climate change isn't something you can "both sides" you're either intentionally threatening the survival of the human race (and most other life on earth) or youre a sane human being. You have to be morally bankrupt to even try to "both sides" climate actions on random Internet forums

School has always let kids do proper research. Except now Florida is banning that and making kids watch oversimplified youtube videos full of logical fallacies instead of using proper lessons.

What a silly argument could someone against climate change activists come up with

Well, we’re gonna start teaching kids about the different types of power sources and their pros and cons, I sure hope we starts pushing more education about nuclear.

Nuclear could be great, but it's not that great right now. Though pushing education about it would be great for sure..

Watch this truly independent video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kahih8RT1k&t=1216s Unfortunately nuclear is not going to save us, at least not without significant technological advances.