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LONDON—One lesson from an unprecedented year of elections around the world is that voters in industrialized countries are particularly unhappy, ready to boot unpopular leaders out of office and making it more difficult for politicians in power to enact bold programs of change.

Rarely have the rich world’s political leaders been so widely disliked. No leader of an industrialized country other than tiny Switzerland has a positive rating, according to a survey of some 25 democracies by pollster Morning Consult. Ruling parties that went to the polls this year largely got a drubbing, including in the U.S. and U.K.

This whale’s death comes at an interesting time: Only a few weeks ago, researchers from Brown University published a new paper tracing the extensive links between offshore wind opponents, who have cast themselves as whale defenders, and the fossil fuel industry. The misinformation that “wind kills whales” hasn’t only been repeated by politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump, or by Fox News—though these right-wingers are saying it a lot. Local wind project opponents, some of whom appear to have environmental values and commitments, have also made this argument in recent years.

“Beyond Dark Money,” published in Energy and Social Science in November, clarified the complicated status of these groups, which aren’t simply astroturf fronts for corporate interests; nor are they purely grassroots efforts. The researchers found that groups in southern New England opposing offshore wind were supported extensively by what the researchers called “information subsidies” from the fossil fuel industry. That means that the industry and its think tanks provide the groups with false narratives, misleading facts, and fake experts. These relationships have helped broaden the coalition opposing wind energy to include people concerned about the environment and many other citizens who wouldn’t normally find common ground with the fossil fuel industry.

“Wind power kills whales” is one of the fake stories generated by this network. One of the groups mentioned in the report, Save Right Whales, founded in 2021, warns on its home page, “They survived whaling, but right whales won’t survive wind energy.” On its home page, Save Right Whales doesn’t mention any threat to whales other than wind energy.

Beyond dark money: Information subsidies and complex networks of opposition to offshore wind on the U.S. East Coast

This whale’s death comes at an interesting time: Only a few weeks ago, researchers from Brown University published a new paper tracing the extensive links between offshore wind opponents, who have cast themselves as whale defenders, and the fossil fuel industry. The misinformation that “wind kills whales” hasn’t only been repeated by politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump, or by Fox News—though these right-wingers are saying it a lot. Local wind project opponents, some of whom appear to have environmental values and commitments, have also made this argument in recent years.

“Beyond Dark Money,” published in Energy and Social Science in November, clarified the complicated status of these groups, which aren’t simply astroturf fronts for corporate interests; nor are they purely grassroots efforts. The researchers found that groups in southern New England opposing offshore wind were supported extensively by what the researchers called “information subsidies” from the fossil fuel industry. That means that the industry and its think tanks provide the groups with false narratives, misleading facts, and fake experts. These relationships have helped broaden the coalition opposing wind energy to include people concerned about the environment and many other citizens who wouldn’t normally find common ground with the fossil fuel industry.

“Wind power kills whales” is one of the fake stories generated by this network. One of the groups mentioned in the report, Save Right Whales, founded in 2021, warns on its home page, “They survived whaling, but right whales won’t survive wind energy.” On its home page, Save Right Whales doesn’t mention any threat to whales other than wind energy.

Beyond dark money: Information subsidies and complex networks of opposition to offshore wind on the U.S. East Coast

Too many media outlets rush to condemn those campaigning against fossil fuel chaos as “middle class”. Bizarrely, they do not say the same of millionaire land-owners.

In short:

• A $500 annual increase in home insurance premiums correlates with a 20% rise in mortgage delinquencies, based on a study not yet peer-reviewed by New York University researchers.
• In some counties in Florida, some homeowners report spending over 5% of their income on insurance, said a researcher.
• Higher reinsurance costs, severe weather and climate-driven disasters have caused insurance companies to raise premiums, with some homeowners opting to pay off mortgages early or forego insurance entirely.
• In fact, a report published last August noted that last year, 30% of losses from natural disasters went uninsured.

Key quote:

“This is how many people across the country are beginning to directly experience how climate change is changing our world and the cost it’s going to have.”

— Moira Birss, research fellow at the Climate and Community Institute.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/23010022

Women in Iran could face the death sentence or up to 15 years in prison if they defy new compulsory morality laws due to come into effect this week.

New laws promoting the “culture of chastity and hijab” passed by the Iranian authorities earlier this month impose severe penalties for those caught “promoting nudity, indecency, unveiling or improper dressing”, including fines of up to £12,500, flogging and prison sentences ranging from five to 15 years for repeat offenders.

Article 37 of the new law also stipulates that those promoting or propagating indecency, unveiling or “bad dressing” to foreign entities, including international media and civil society organisations, could face a decade in prison and up to £12,500 in fines.