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"The real problem with electric vehicles is the bad press they get"
This opinion piece touches an important challenge we have when trying to communicate around the climate crisis and the solutions we have today to reduce its impact.
Part of the problem is that our current information and media environment (including how we get the news, whose ideas or views we see, the voice of authorities we trust, and ultimately how we form our opinions) seems hopelessly broken.
As the opinion article points out, social media platforms are pushing and promoting fake or misleading information on climate, which is generating confusion, promoting misinformation, and ultimately creating a backlash against the clean energy transition. First the platforms promoted climate denial, now they are often discrediting solutions:
"A recent study of more than 12,000 climate-related YouTube videos posted since 2018 found that old-fashioned climate denial — think “global warming is fake” — has been replaced by another breed of dissent. While straight-up denying the existence of climate change has declined by a third (harder to do when we’re all feeling it), videos discrediting climate solutions, like EVs, have more than tripled."
It's not just platforms and algorithms, by the way. Mainstream journalism isn't absolved either, especially as it looks for problems and failures. The old adage, "if it bleeds, it leads," remains true.
But let's be clear. There is no solution to the climate crisis that doesn't involve mass adoption of electric cars for road transportation. Are they perfect? No, of course not. Are they more expensive? They can be, initially. But are they better than their petrol/gas-powered alternatives when it comes to cutting emissions? Yes, most definitely yes.
Here's a link to that study on "The New Climate Denial" 👉
https://lnkd.in/esKwQBnS
And the full opinion piece from Trevor Melanson and Joanna Kyriazis, both at Clean Energy Canada, which was published by Canada's National Observer 👇
