Greta Thunberg pulls out of Edinburgh Book Festival over 'greenwashing'
Greta Thunberg pulls out of Edinburgh Book Festival over 'greenwashing'
The climate activist says she cannot attend an event that is sponsored by a firm with links to fossil fuels.
"We strongly believe that Baillie Gifford are part of the solution to the climate emergency. They are early investors in progressive climate positive companies, providing funds to help them grow".
Says the guy getting funded by Baillie Gifford.
No investment firm is part of the solution. Capitalism isn't part of the solution.
Actually it is. The issue of sustainable energy production solves itself as we speak. Not because of some activist initiative or international treaty, but because capitalism has turned green energy into a cheap energy
Capitalism doesn't push innovation, in fact it hampers it. But once innovation pushes through despite all the odds, capitalism is right there to exploit it and enshittify it as much as possible.
Just because capitalism is the end-all be-all of our economic system right now does not mean it is responsible for all the good in the world. Good can exist in spite of a system, not just because of it.
Actually it isn't. Capitalism isn't interested in cheap energy. Capitalism is interest in cheap profits and so far there's no other energy source as profitable as oil.
Capitalism has actually fought against green energy, even after knowing the possible effects of continued reliance on fossil fuels. This site has a good summary of what Exxon and other oil companies knew and what exxon decided to do. The short gist is that back in 1970 got the first pretty definitive conclusion that CO2 emissions are a concern and they spend another 10-15 years researching the outcomes, finding out that it's an ecological catastrophe and it ends with a memo from an Exxon spokesperson more or less saying that Exxon's strategy will be to emphasize the uncertainty of the same scientific conclusion they spent almost 2 decades researching. Here's literally the one of Exxons top lobbyist confirming that they did aggressively fight the science and the early efforts to prove climate change.
The only reason we're now seeing a shift towards green energy isn't because of capitalism, but because government regulations finally understanding that oil companies (capitalism) has effectively played them like a fiddle for whatever short-term profits. It's government regulations and subsidies that are now forcing capitalism towards green energy. Capitalism has little to nothing to do with turning green energy cheaper, instead it has tried to keep us from shifting to green energy for as long as it could simply because it was more profitable to stick with fossil fuel.
I’m not a fan of these rapid news with very little context.
What’s going to happen, if it hasn’t happened already, is that companies and corporations are going to play with words in order to seem like they’re more climate-friendly than they are. Few people disagree that fossil fuels needs to be reduced but without knowing more context, it’s hard to say whether an firm that commits some amount of money into another firm that has some role in fossil fuels is “a bad thing”.
The biggest one I hate right now is “carbon neutral”. “Hey we make a shit ton of pollution but we also recycle 0.5% of our supply chain. Our imaginary math works it out that it means we aren’t polluting because that’s absolutely how that all works”