Is social media a blessing

or a curse?

Social media has allowed the mainstream narrative to be challenged as never before.

However, social media has also provided a vehicle for people who distrust the carefully controlled messages of the mainstream to be purposefully led down a garden path. These people are not being controlled by the anti-vax business, how does looking after your body holistically and not taking drugs make money anyway? No, they are being led into thinking that green policy rather than the climate crisis is the existential threat.

Industry influences and funds ‘resistance’ groups. These include; The Light Truth paper (I once had a piece published; don’t judge me!), Stand in the Park (now morphed into Together; a climate skeptic organisation), Joe Rogan (sponsored by animal ag), The World Council for Health (pharma), Mike Yeadon’s Truth for Health (supplements and chicken immunoglobulins), Tom Cowan’s own animal products, Weston A Price Foundation (animal ag), Toby Young’s Economic Institute (BP), Jordan Peterson’s ARC (funded by the murky Dubai based Legatum), the Reform party (oil), the Tories (oil and gas) and GB News (Legatum again).

This network of groups, all interlinking and reposting each other (also includes Sasha Latypova, Joel Smalley, Peter Sweden, Conspiracy Sarah, Dawn Lester and Jaime Jessop) think that they are resisting an alleged ‘WEF/UN climate coup’. They tell us that climate science is flawed and are convinced of an unevidenced depopulation and control agenda. Whereas, in fact, the Davos agenda is a fake invented by industry to create pushback and the ‘science’ fed to these groups is a nonsense. They are also fed economic lies.

On the costs of energy transition Carbonbrief writes;

‘The (oil funded) climate-sceptic Reform party has mislead by omission, highlighting a large and scary-sounding figure for the cost of net-zero, without mentioning the cost of the alternative.

Its manifesto says the cost of net-zero is “estimated by the National Grid and others at some £2tn or more” – but leaves out the part about this being cheaper than not meeting the target (‘scenarios that deliver Net Zero do not result in a material increase in costs over the scenario where Net Zero is not met by 2050’) (and also ignores the environmental cost of not addressing the climate crisis).

Strikingly, the IEA concluded that accelerating climate action to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 would make the global energy system “more affordable and fairer”. Rapid role out of clean technologies will make energy cheaper, not more costly.

According to the report, this is because higher investment costs would be more than offset by lower fuel bills, greater efficiency and reduced fossil fuel rents. It concluded:

“Energy transitions could lead to major reductions in household energy bills and accelerate progress towards universal energy access. But managing upfront costs for poorer and rural households – as well as ongoing costs – remains a key public policy challenge.”’

Hence considerable pushback on green investment from richer and urban households. And more propaganda from the oil industry.

On ULEZ OpenDemocracy writes; ‘In 2021, brewery owner Alan Miller and alleged Formula 1 marketing scammer David Fleming formed the Together Association. Ostensibly created to resist lockdowns, vaccine passports and digital ID, the opaquely funded enterprise has the support of a number of well-known right-wing figures and ex-Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen.

As the effects of the pandemic have lessened, Together has latched onto anti-net-zero campaigning, perhaps as the next part of its plan to operate as a “shadow cabinet”.

Even as transport secretary Grant Shapps told Khan that funding for Transport for London would be wholly contingent on the ULEZ expansion, Conservative-run Facebook groups paid for numerous ads presenting the scheme as a Labour-imposed tax on the poor. One such group, ‘STOP ULEZ’, appeared small and relatively innocuous, but its bio revealed it was “run by Kanto Systems Limited on behalf of 3rd Party Ltd”.

Both Kanto and 3rd Party Ltd are owned by Thomas Borwick – digital strategist for Vote Leave and the Conservative Party as well as being the chair of the Cities of London and Westminster Conservatives. Borwick has since been accused of using 3rd Party to engage in election interference after boasting that he could create “unknown online campaign groups to ‘split the vote’ of Conservative opponents”.

Prior to this, Borwick worked for Cambridge Analytica and, following the company’s collapse, hired two of its data scientists to run his newest company the College Green Group, which currently runs four all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) including one tackling “environmental, social and governance” issues.’

So is social media good or bad?

It's a fundamental problem with the structure of our society. The political discourse in both the mainstream and on social media is controlled by billionaires, Pharma, bankers, arms manufacturers, oil barons, Meta, Google and X. 

There needs to be more independent media and less power in the hands of a few people.

Until them, following the money is always a good place to start with any information wherever it comes from. 

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