Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis – by taking knowledge hostage
The fundamental problem is this: that most of the means of communication are owned or influenced by the very rich
If this were just a climate crisis, we would fix it. The technology, money and strategies have all been at hand for years. What stifles effective action is a deadly conjunction: the climate crisis running headlong into the epistemic crisis.
An epistemic crisis is a crisis in the production and delivery of knowledge. It’s about what we know and how we know it, what we agree to be true and what we identify as false. We face, alongside a global threat to our life-support systems, a global threat to our knowledge-support systems.
Related Knowledge Center: Democracy and politics
News organizations are scrambling to find a coverage approach that adequately informs the American public about the country’s slide from democracy to authoritarian rule.
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors