Never Trust a Tree-Hugger

Why global banks, insurance companies and the Pentagon are more reliable enviro-news sources

This here’s an informal Part 2 /3 to last week’s post where I mapped out the three most prevalent types of news we read regarding climate change (and how not to get snookered by it all).

I described three big buckets of content we all sift through: False Hope (“everything’s gonna work out!”), Fatalistic Doubt (“nothing’s gonna work out :(“ and finally, Critical Doubt (“if it’s gonna work out, we have to face some hard facts first”).

I suggested we should mostly ignore the first two buckets and pay attention to the third bucket as both most realistic and generally more trustworthy.

I concluded with two quick tests to apply to any think tank, article or podcaster to suss what they’re up to: #1 follow the money (i.e. check to see how they are funded/incented to determine how conflicted their interests might be) and #2 scrutinize their ultimate Call to Action (i.e. are they motivating or demotivating personal or political change).

Read it here if you want your full climate literacy inoculation.

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But there's another quick hack for climate media literacy that I want to dive into today:

Ignore the Tree Huggers.

You already know what they're gonna say anyways.  They're all in the tank for "Big Attenborough" Climate Awareness. 

Boring. Dull. Predictable. 

Always blathering on about ecosystems, and rainforests, and the delicate yet wondrous nature of Nature. 

About humankind's responsibilities. "Stewardship." 

Insufferable really.

Instead, get all your climate news from Big Finance, the Military Industrial Complex and Big Business.

Seriously.

Because when the World Bank–that thin end of the Neoliberal wedge that has extorted most of the Global South into privatizing their natural resources and locking in debt for the remaining loan balance–when that lot publish forecasts that 50% of their global investment in the next decade will go towards remediation from climate change? 

Makes you kinda sit up and wanna pay attention!

Or when their partners in global grift, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledges a growing agreement between economists and scientists that “risk of catastrophic and irreversible disaster is rising, implying potentially infinite costs of unmitigated climate change, including, in the extreme, human extinction.”

Well, it's not exactly to keep up their eco-groovy credentials, is it?

Same with Goldman Sachs and major international banks.

Viz: a 2020 report from the French Banque for International Settlements concluding that exceeding climate tipping points “could lead to catastrophic and irreversible impacts that would make quantifying financial damages impossible.”

Or how ‘bout the most astute risk assessors on the planet–global reinsurance companies?

When they're abandoning entire lucrative markets like California, Texas, and Florida (Greece? India?), and downgrading billion dollar portfolios based on the shitshow they're predicting coming down the pike?

You can solidly trust they're not hysterical climate alarmists. 

(see this recent article by Harvard Kennedy School of Gov't professor “What Your Insurer Is Trying to Tell You About Climate Change”)

Or picture this little scenario going down at the Pentagon:

"um, excuse me, Generals of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Terribly sorry to bother you. But my team and I have just spent 18 months and millions of dollars of taxpayer money to prepare a report on how climate instability is going to upend geopolitical stability, trigger deepening kinetic conflict, migrant crises, and possibly domestic disruptions and civil war in the good ol' US of A. But to be honest, Sir, we're only running this up the flagpole, cuz I saw a Nat Geo nature documentary about polar bears huddling on little ice caps and it really left me shook."

I mean, what are the odds?

So yeah, if in doubt, over-index on the news sources coming from institutions with a vested interest in the exact opposite of liberal do-gooder climate alarmism. 

Listen carefully to what they're saying, how they're saying it, and when they're saying it.

Because if you're getting wind of it, it's well past the whispers behind closed doors, or secret briefing at Epstein island retreats, or after parties at Davos-stage.

If you're getting wind of it, it means that optics, "brand" and even caution are being thrown to the wind, and these folks are pulling the fire alarm.

Out loud and on the record.

And that should make us, at the very least, want to hug someone we love.

Never mind those infernal trees.

(and stay tuned for Part 3 next week where we bring this thing across the finish line)