Life among the zombies

Whenever I overdose on stupidity, I tend to invoke the deities of chaos and wish for a zombie apocalypse. That’ll settle annoying first-world problems, I say to myself. No time to worry about your gender identity if you’re running for your life. No point in gluing yourself to the street when there’s no oil production to protest. Ah, sweet, masochistic dreams.

Alas, like millions before me, in those moments I forget the number-one rule of wishful thinking — be careful what you wish for. Because you might just get your wish.

This certainly appears to be the case in the world of energy. We have quietly slipped into a zombie apocalypse and the zombies are out for brains. Your brains. They don’t want to eat them. They want to wash them clean of critical thinking. Unlike their fictional book and movie versions, these zombies can talk — and they do it quite loudly. That’s how they spread the disease.

Take the latest push against so-called climate misinformation. It comes from something called the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which found that YouTube was allowing ads on channels that “promoted content that undermines the scientific consensus on climate change that human behavior is contributing to long-term shifts in temperature and weather patterns,” per Reuters.

Apparently, that Center for Countering Digital Hate had analysed thousands of videos from close to 100 channels to come to the conclusion that climate deniers are using new tactics to undermine the transition.

This is a very bad thing because of course questioning the wisdom of most transition policies and their necessity is misinformation and not healthy doubt based on indisputable physical facts. But there is no such thing as indisputable physical facts as we shall see later.

The report about YouTube’s apparent transgression is the latest example of a massive push for censorship in the energy world. That push has become so successful that even Exxon now calls itself a technology company. A roast is being prepared as I write this.

I’ve argued before that the more the transition fails, the more desperate the attempts to keep it alive will become. I must admit I am now afraid of trying to imagine the depths to which the transition crusaders will stoop to yet, in order to do this. I mean, once you get to the level where you literally deny physical facts, how much deeper could you go? A chilling question.

The facts, this week: “Tesla supercharging stations around Chicago have become what some residents are referring to as 'Tesla graveyards' as the arctic blast runs their batteries flat.”

That’s according to the Daily Mail, which is a rightwing rag, so we shouldn’t believe it and should instead go back to supporting The Guardian with 2 pounds per month. There’s just one problem with that.

The Daily Mail cites actual drivers complaining about the situation. It also cites scientific data about batteries and subzero temperatures. The short version: they don’t go well together. The cold drains batteries. And it’s not only the Daily Mail that’s reporting on it.

Another thing the cold does to batteries is make recharging slower. It was to this end that Tesla apparently issued a notice to car owners urging them to precondition their battery before leaving for the charging stations — 30 to 45 minutes in advance, for best results. Tragically, I couldn’t find the source where I read this so feel free to accuse me of misinformation, nay disinformation.

No zombies yet but here they come. At around the same time the reports about dead Teslas around chargers in Chicago came out, another report appeared on Canada’s CBC. I strongly advise sitting down and not drinking anything for the next five seconds.

“Electric cars 'the best vehicle' in frigid temperatures, Sask. advocates say,” CBC told us this week, going on to cite said advocates — two men at an apparent age of below 30 — about why exactly EVs are the best for subzero temperatures.

I shall now treat you to a few quotes because there is no way I could possibly do this ode to EVs justice.

Quote 1: "You know, there's no starting of the car. It's always just kind of on, right? It's like a phone, basically, or a computer on wheels."

Here, we see an absence of independent thinking, which has been substituted with parroting advertising slogans for the EV industry.

Quote 2: "I believe that an electric is the best vehicle in these temperatures, just because it's a simpler car. It's taking care of itself even if I'm not thinking about it."

Here, we see a flight of fancy that tries to present EVs as magical devices that can self-maintain, unlike clunky internal combustion engine vehicles that you need to maintain 24 hours per day because they are so horribly complex something always goes wrong.

Quote 3 (my absolute favourite): "I can leave my vehicle unplugged overnight to –40, fire up the app on my phone, preheat the car, heated steering wheel, heated seats.… Basically I hop in the car, everything is defrosted, toasty warm and away I go."

Here, instead of my own thoughts on the author and the workings of the contents of his skull, I shall quote my husband. Upon reading this quote, he said “And he drove five miles before the battery died, right?”

But that’s not all. I give you the Colorado General Assembly, with many thanks to Green Leap Forward. The Colorado General Assembly has instituted something called “a seal of climate literacy diploma” and it is exactly as zombic as it sounds.

Per the general assembly itself, any local school can now “grant a high school diploma endorsement in climate literacy (seal of climate literacy) to graduating students who demonstrate mastery in climate literacy and attain green skills or technical green skills.”

In case you’re wondering what climate literacy might mean, you’re out of luck. There is no definition. But it sounds wonderful and trendy, and sustainable, so who cares if it means anything. I guess they’ll teach children that oil’s bad and solar’s good, and climate change is robbing them of their childhood.

The disease spreads by word of mouth and word of legislation. It spreads by word of social media and word of regulation. It spreads by censorship and cancellation of the dissenting voices.

In this, the FT did The Guardian one better this week, by publishing a report about the upcoming European Parliament elections and the fear they have sparked in transition crusaders. So mighty is this fear that the crusaders are now in a rush to lock in as much transition commitments in laws as possible before June.

Coming from “an independent adviser” to the EU called European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, a warning has been issued that “The EU must double annual emissions cuts and move fast to pass existing green plans into law if it is to meet its climate targets.”

It has become painfully obvious that the only way for the EU to meet its climate targets is by dying but that part, of course, is not being spelled out. Instead, the FT tells us that “The continent has warmed twice as fast as the global average for the past 30 years.” Yes, they really did write this, because we need more media turning into a laughing stock.

Fear grips the euro-zombies because the right is coming for their agenda and it is coming in force as people across Europe get fed up with exorbitant costs of living. Conservatives might well win more seats in the EP election in June than the crusaders would be comfortable with. The fact that they can then change green legislation appears to have escaped the attention of the crusaders, hence the last-minute legislation rush.

By way of a silver lining, this increasingly desperate push to present a set of questionable technologies as the only viable way to long-term survival of the species is prompting more and more people to question the zombie narrative — especially when they see with their own eyes that it does not reflect the truth, as so many EV drivers have lately.

Transition fatigue is settling in among those with stronger mental immunity. Higher electricity bills and EV battery replacement bills are doing the job of antibiotics in curing the disease among those who are not yet at the terminal stage.

There is, as always, hope. And the louder and more desperate the zombies become, the stronger the hope. Also, it’s fun to watch them squirm and lie, and try to shut the mouths of everyone who dares dispute the fantasy. Meanwhile, everywhere is warming twice as fast as everywhere else because of course it is. Except Davos, where the zombie leaders have gathered yet again to talk disease.