Faux-some Utopia vs Fearsome Dystopia / DK split persona as dangerous as Fox’s MAGA-verse
Since 2016 I have been reading about both politics and climate on Daily Kos and over time the divide between the two has gotten increasingly pronounced. During this time, climate collapse has stepped to the front of the world stage, but you might not fully comprehend the full weight of that if you haven’t kept up with climate posts. As this environmental nightmare unfolds, going back and forth between the two topics as they are presented here, has become profoundly disturbing.
Reading about politics and other non-environmental topics is literally like entering a wholly different, semi-utopian reality where climate is rarely mentioned and spinning scenarios out into the future is the norm. Behind this delusion lies cognitive dissonance, which is being subconsciously employed to preserve an illusion of normalcy. On the other hand, absorbing some climate posts can feel like descending into a frightening dystopian realm offering a very short-lived future terminated by oblivion. This is particularly so when reading comments, many of which are darkened by despair. Of these two polar opposites, the truer picture of a future reality is presented by climate posts, as all other topics are rapidly becoming relative to climate collapse.
Pakalolo’s recent post on climate migration provides a sobering example:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/23/2170699/-Billions-will-be-pushed-out-of-their-climate-niche-by-2030-from-rising-temperatures?utm_campaign=trending
And the irony is that it seems many on DK purport to know this, starting at the top.
Like most of the rest of the world, when it comes to climate change awareness, DK is largely ruled by fear generated denial, mostly manifesting as self-centered preferences.
This disconnect shares some of underlying causes with our current political situation. Part of the reason we’re currently in such political turmoil is due to neglect. Like any other vessel, Democracy needs vigilant upkeep, particularly to shore up leaks in the helm and keep it seaworthy as it sails into uncharted waters. In the same way, avoiding rigorous oversight to insure information adheres accurately and thoroughly to our up to date global reality can undermine DK’s effectiveness as well.
The constitution is a 300 year old document that needs to be regularly reviewed and adapted to make it relevant and resilient to the vicissitudes of social evolution. Without this oversight Democracy becomes vulnerable to troubles unforeseen, which as we have seen, can threaten its very existence. Similarly, climate change has grown like an undiagnosed tumor on DK. As such, it has not been diagnosed and adequately confronted by most for the threat it is. Furthermore, in DC and on DK, there are some who adopt a sacrosanct attitude as a defensive response, to gloss over faults, failings and inadequacies, causing intervention to be further forestalled. All of this has contributed to a breakdown in meaningful political discourse in Washington and in the case of climate awareness, on DK. In various ways, denial has played the winning hand in all of this and on DK still does.
And then there are those who unintentionally obstruct healthy discourse on Daily Kos. This can happen through ego-display, aggression and deflection to name a few methods. While such reactions can be understandable and at times, even appear laudable, when they block viewpoints that run contrary to the mainstream, it can be detrimental and harmful to the vitality of DK, which depends on the healthy discourse of differing opinions to assure its relevancy.
That some commenters have such a high opinion of certain personalities on DK, that they will jump to their defense under any circumstances, as if the favored are infallible, may at first appear commendable, but, nevertheless, may ultimately not prove beneficial to anyone. Making the suggestion that the site is not as on top of things as it should be (like climate collapse) and therefore in need of targeted guidance, will trigger some commenters to go into attack mode.
Daily Kos, like any other human endeavor, is prone to suffer from a range of potential flaws and shortcomings because it is inherently…a human endeavor. It is essential to maintain an openness to constructive feedback even if it does not conform to what you want to hear. In many ways, that level of open-mindedness is the backbone of progressive thinking, because without it, things stagnate and fail to keep up with a constantly changing world. This ossification can result in conservative-like rigidity. Viable constructive discourse is grounded and enabled by well-rounded attention to all important current issues, while the preferential ‘cheery-picking’ of topics undermines the productive exchange of information and ideas, as it attempts to preserve and reinforce popular attitudes and the comfort of pre-embraced norms. Most importantly, in a world increasingly shaped by climate collapse, it dangerously ignores the heightened interconnectivity of all issues
When I first started following DK, climate collapse was becoming manifest and awareness of it was transitioning from theoretical to actual in the minds of the few brave enough to follow. My grasp of this made me quickly comprehend that the neglect of this issue on DK was a serious dereliction. While I had learned to expect that from the commercially compromised MSM, I was surprised to find it on a progressive website of DK’s standing, but I also understood immediately that the cause of this, in DK’s case, was founded in fear not greed. Unlike the media at large, DK has little vested interest in obstructing climate awareness and action, but largely does so for unrecognized subconscious reasons and the effect that has on algorithms.
For years, climate posts were few and poorly read, while political articles rarely referenced climate change, even when listing critical issues facing the electorate. Of all the terrible damage the Traitor was wreaking while in the White House, willful environmental destruction for profit was often ‘conveniently’ overlooked, understated or sidelined by other ‘more pressing’ matters,despite the fact that it may yet prove to be his greatest crime.
But during this time climate has transitioned from ‘change’ to ‘crisis’ to ‘emergency’ and we now find ourselves very clearly in the midst of ‘collapse’. Sadly this has still not penetrated the ‘fire-wall’ of climate disconnect that shields nearly all other topics on DK, and this throws the resulting disparity with climate reality into high relief.
But only for those of us who read all the news and information offered by Daily Kos.
Readers and contributors who shun climate news remain comfortably misinformed and highly prone to cognitive dissonance. They take shelter in a climate fact deprived faux reality which they unmindfully accept as accurate.
Symptoms of this denial can be further discerned by the frequency with which climate posters are treated poorly by some commenters. The extraordinary people posting about climate on DK are sacrificing both their time and mental comfort, but this can often go overlooked by readers who react aggressively as a response to having their comfort zone threatened. The ‘gift’ that environmental articles are, is for the most part not shown sufficient appreciation, although there are exceptions which can swing the paradigm for posters, bolstering their resolve. These are like salve for the wounds of ‘slings and arrows’.
When I initially spoke out about the lack of sufficient attention climate was receiving on Daily Kos, I was informed that ‘DK was a political site’, with the inference that it was through shear magnanimity that climate was generously accommodated in the first place. I immediately recognized this as an excuse shaped by denial, readily accepted by the majority for its expedient deflection of the unpalatable. I had been following environmental issues and climate change for decades, and understood that it was a politically charged issue, with a long history of mostly ‘backroom’ political deal-making. From the moment the energy sector started using their profits and influence to shape public opinion and legislation in their favor it became political. In fact, this has been going on for as long as I can remember, albeit, much of it behind closed doors, further obscured by a public and press all too willing to ignore it.
Since climate change and the environment are not static, over time, denial about any political connections has become increasingly difficult to maintain, as is made plain by political operatives now being called out for obstructing environmental action.
Until recently, world blanket denial has also been enabled both by climate’s predictable regularity dotted with noteworthy, but to be expected, passing anomalies, as well as the vast timescale of environmental change, which makes it subtle and therefore difficult to grasp. A skillful disinformation campaign by the energy sector has taken advantage of these factors to foster complacency.
Of late, their efforts are being undermined by the fact that over the past several years there has been a largely unexpected ramping up of the speed at which climate change has been taking place with a corresponding increase in highly note worthy destructive climate events.
Perhaps due to this, the number of climate posts on DK has increased somewhat and the attention they receive has improved more or less. We are especially fortunate that the ongoing efforts of Pakalolo and Meteor Blades have born fruit, as more and more readers turn to them for information and guidance. However, despite all this, DK continues to fail in keeping pace with climate change, while in all other non-environmental posts, it is business as usual.
Although this dissonance may appear to differ from the more willful environmental denial of Fox News and Maga, which is fueled by greed manipulating subconscious fear, in the last analysis the end result is still inaction, which is now becoming lethal.
Where this split-reality on DK used to concern me, it now makes my head spin and I feel like Alice going down the rabbit hole. Seesawing between engagingly distracting ‘news bites’ like the latest shit out of the Traitor’s mouth, countered by the levels of despair being voiced in climate post comments, is the stuff of Rod Serling’s imagination. My daily dive into DK leaves me feeling as if I’ve just visited the metaverse of a disjointed mind.
The contrast between the current level of threat posed by climate collapse and the ongoing general obliviousness to this in all other topics is shocking. This maintenance of an unquestioned and unshaken ‘normal’ world view would be awe inspiring if it weren’t so profoundly fucked up.
The best of the great political coverage and the remarkable war reportage presented on DK add even further to my disorientation and sense of the surreal. Despite the fact that it makes my heart rupture, I find reading about the hellishness of Ukraine to be a ‘welcome’ distraction from grappling with the nightmarish reality presented by environmental destruction and I know I am not alone in this. Human nature and a comparison of the rec numbers, has enabled this intuitive insight on my part.
Climate collapse is growing exponentially and beginning to takeover every aspect of our existence as it progresses inexorably toward our annihilation.
Kos explained to me in a comment that the majority of DK readers know and ‘care’ about climate change and because they do, don’t feel they need to keep up with it.
“What I will say, however, is that doesn't mean the community doesn't care about the environment. It's actually the opposite-they don't need to read another story about the climate crisis to know there's a climate crisis. They already get it. So they skip the stuff that already fits their worldview, because there's nothing left to add to it.” Kos
This, in our present situation, is reasoning bordering on the insane. It enables this crisis by resignation concocted indifference and gives free license to the destructive side of denial. In our present circumstances ‘caring’ without aggressive action is worthless. When your house is burning, ‘caring’ won’t put out the fire.
In war, and make no mistake about it, this is war, everyone knows the enemy is dangerous. The trick is in knowing how dangerous and what they are up to.
Climate collapse is a force the likes of which we’ve never contended with and it is currently reshaping the world as we sleep.
It does not take well to being ignored and will soon shake the tree of denial until it’s striped of of all its leaves, providing a clear view of our darkening future. Pray this happens while there is still time to act.
Recently, we’ve been informed that the likelihood of exceeding the 1.5C tipping point is all but assured. After that, we will have little chance of mitigating climate collapse and a severely damaged world will be our legacy. But the matter doesn’t rest there. If we don’t begin to act aggressively to veer from reaching 2C, there will be no one left to inherit even that.
Daily Kos has a political progressive mandate to act as an agent for beneficial change. If it does not start pressuring elected officials to act aggressively to save our world, it will have failed in the most important challenge it has ever faced and perish along with everything else.
For those of you who do not keep up with climate news, no matter your age, this will ‘take place in your lifetime’, because it is already happening and currently manifesting catastrophic developments. You no longer even need to put your head on the tracks to feel the vibration of this ‘freight train’ barreling towards us and despite all the surrounding ‘noise’, you’ll soon hear its warning whistle above the fray.
Well over a year ago I read an article posted on DK warning that as things are progressing, we will have dead oceans by the end of this decade. We are also being repeatedly warned about massive releases of CO2 and methane as global warming ramps up. If we don’t evert these we may be soon be left with no recourse and ‘post’-millennials won’t fix things because they will be toast.
All the components necessary for ‘wet bulb’ events are in place. Depending on the circumstances, when this strikes, millions of both humans and animals can perish within days and there have already been incidents. We are facing the possibility of heat stroke, asphyxiation and starvation on a massive global scale.
Much of this is preventable if we take targeted aggressive action ASAP. But it will prove inevitable if we don’t overcome fear and denial and hit the ground running.
This starts with a well-rounded reading of DK topics, because avoiding some posts to focus on the less onerous, tips the ship.
’Pick and choose’ and you lose.
