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Comment by mandmandam | Hacker News Reader

The 2017 study [0] linked in the article showed that:

> Only about one in eight Americans (13%) understand that nearly all climate scientists (more than 90%) are convinced that human-caused global warming is happening.

And the numbers are pretty similar in Britain [1], where people estimate the consensus at only 65%.

... At what point, if ever, do we hold politicians, media and fossil fuel corporations responsible for their disinformation on this? When does/did radical action, however unpopular, become necessary self defense?

0 - https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-c...

1 - https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/public-hugely-underestimate-scien...

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> At what point, if ever, do we hold politicians, media and fossil fuel corporations responsible for their disinformation on this?

Well, it heavily depends on how we define "we". Two out of those three groups are both supposed to uphold the responsibility of others.

> it heavily depends on how we define "we"

No need to get overly semantic. We the people. We the 90% who have no representation in media or politics.

> Two out of those three groups are both supposed to uphold the responsibility of others.

Sure, and throw the legal system in there too. They're not fit for purpose, unless you realize what their purpose really is - upholding and maintaining a murderous, genocidal, apocalyptic status quo. No exaggeration.

> We the people. We the 90% who have no representation in media or politics.

My point exactly. And without that representation, we have zero leverage to hold anyone responsible.

> without that representation, we have zero leverage to hold anyone responsible.

Few revolutions and progressive movements have had politics and media on their side.

Moral high ground, solidarity, economic disruption (strikes, protests etc), non-violent resistance, and armed resistance are all levers we can use...

Which is why we're seeing peaceful protesters mocked, savagely beaten, tear-gassed, jailed, called terrorists, and straight-up murdered. Armed resistance is almost unthinkable, given the entities being challenged, and yet, those who make peaceful revolution impossible...

I don't have all the solutions for this, but letting things keep going as they are is rapidly diminishing humanity's potential.

I don't think you're interpreting those statistics correctly.

Most Americans can agree climate scientists think the climate change is man made while still thinking we don't have an effect on it.

I don't think I'm misinterpreting those statistics at all.

> Most Americans can agree climate scientists think the climate change is man made

The statistic I cited (verbatim) shows that Americans grossly underestimate the level of consensus.

Even though only 1 out of 100 climate scientists - or even one in 1000 - disagree that humans are causing global heating, 7 out of every 8 Americans falsely believe that there's >10-100x more dissent.

Only 1 in 8 Americans put the consensus at over 90%, when in fact it's more like 99.9%.

That's because our media and political (and banking, and military, and legal) institutions are selling out the entire planet. Have been for decades.

> while still thinking we don't have an effect on it.

Most Americans actally do know we're fucking up the planet. "Over half of Americans (58%) understand that global warming is mostly human caused" - from the same link as above. That 58% ought to be far higher, all the same.

We are not being represented in policy or media, and the scientific consensus is being systematically misrepresented (for cash) by the people we employ to make good decisions for the future.

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