by Kit Knightly, Off Guardian:
If you look up “climate lockdown” with Google – or some off-brand Google substitute that pretends to independence until it actually matters – you will be greeted with an AI summary that begins:
A “climate lockdown” is a widespread conspiracy theory alleging that governments and global elites plan to use climate change as a pretext to impose COVID-style restrictions, strictly control populations, and permanently limit personal freedoms.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
It’s a lie. And it’s a lie that exists because we won.
The AI goes on to say the phrase “first appeared on social media in early 2020, shortly after COVID-19 lockdowns were initiated”. That’s a lie too.
The term originated in a report written by an economist who worked for the World Heath Organization, the report to which the below article (originally published June 2021) was a response.
Although pitched as “avoiding a climate lockdown”, the report could more accurately be described as “floating the idea of a climate lockdown”. The idea was rejected. And rejected hard. Millions of “conspiracy theorists” came together to smother it in its cradle, and it worked. It was smothered.
It was smothered so hard the powers that be had to pull a “whatever man, we were totally kidding” and never mention it again. Levels of cope never previously thought possible.
These days “climate lockdowns” are only written about as a phantom of the diseased anti-vaxxer, covid-sceptic, climate denier mind.
Pieces like this one, from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government “misinfo review”:
The climate lockdown conspiracy
Or this, from the European Digital Media Observatory:
How “Climate lockdowns” conspiracy theories target authorities undertaking climate action
These are lies. Absolute, weapons-grade post-hoc coping mechanisms.
Make no mistake, if OffG hadn’t published this article, and dozens of other outlets hadn’t published their own, and millions of people hadn’t informed themselves and made themselves heard, not only would climate lockdowns definitely be a thing, we’d probably be in the middle of one right now.
But we’re not.
It’s five years later, and no think-tank, NGO, paper or politician dares even suggest the idea of a climate lockdown.
Because we won.
But as a hot summer fuels ever more apocalyptic Climate Change panic, it’s good to remind ourselves what they wanted to do before, and what they absolutely will do if we take our eyes off them.
Stay awake
KK
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If and when the powers-that-be decide to move on from their pandemic narrative, lockdowns won’t be going anywhere. Instead, it looks like they’ll be rebranded as “climate lockdowns”, and either enforced or simply held threateningly over the public’s head.
At least, according to an article written by an employee of the WHO, and published by a mega-coporate think-tank.
Let’s dive right in.
