First of all, I believe there are far fewer of these crackpots than are commonly thought to exist. The presence of social media serves to distort this.
To answer the question, there are QAnon conspiracy theorists who simply believe that science of all types is a web of lies. The theory goes that scientists in all disciplines, health, climate, transportation, infrastructure, etc., are paid to publish papers proving ideas that profit the wealthiest and most powerful people on the planet.
If you will recall, someone has supposedly invented a carburetor that enabled cars to get 200 miles to the gallon, but it was buried by the auto industry. This whole phenomenon isn’t new.
On top of all this, we live in a time that features an appalling lack of scientific education. If you go on Facebook right this minute, you’ll run across dozens of different fraudulent claims for devices that generate electricity out of thin air, and tons of other crap that violate the laws of thermodynamics.
I met a guy earlier today who told me that wind and solar are controversial, and that some people say that the mining and manufacturing of wind turbines requires more fossil fuels that the turbines themselves produce.
I told him that I’m aware of such people; they’re called “professional liars.”
I explained the concept of EROI, energy return on investment, and surprised him by saying that the EROI of wind is somewhere between 18 and 30, meaning that each wind turbine you see as you drive along the freeway will generate at least 18 times as much energy as was required in its mining, fabrication, installation, maintenance, and decommissioning–all the way up to 30 times that amount.
The generation of disinformation of renewables has become a cottage industry. People are paid to make up and publish complete bullshit, so as to discredit the burgeoning clean energy industry, and keep Big Oil in place.
As bad as things are in the United States, they could always get worse.
Trump could succeed in his quest to be a dictator, Christianity could be taught in schools, and unvaccinated adults and their kids could trigger another epidemic.
In terms of our reputation on the world stage, however, things really can’t get must worse; the countries around the globe already regard us with a mixture of hate and derision.
Yet regardless of what the future holds, there will always be idiots who that believe that Trump is our savior, like the author of the meme above.
Good to see John Eastman disbarred in California; it’s a small measure of justice.
Criminal prosecution in the future?
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