BadEmpanada 
A rebuttal to Kurzgesagt’s misleading video about ‘staying hopeful’ on climate change.
We WILL Fix Climate Change! By Kurzgesagt: https://youtu.be/LxgMdjyw8uw
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Second Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjY9R3_6sxfUViabj93Vnhw
Sources:
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61383391
[2] Extreme heat waves under 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming, Alessandro Dossio, et al.
[3] Differential climate impacts for policy-relevant limits to global warming: the case of 1.5◦C and 2◦C, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, et al.
[4] https://www.carbonbrief.org/interactive-what-will-2c-and-4c-of-warming-mean-for-global-sea-level-rise/
[5] https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099733752/famine-africa-ukraine-invasion-drought
[6] Climate Change and Right to Development, Vivek Mukherjee & Faizan Mustafa.
[7] The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Who is Who in the Fight Against Climate Change, Miren Gutierrez.
[8] https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/latest/2016/11/581f52dc4/frequently-asked-questions-climate-change-disaster-displacement.html
[9] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/09/climate-crisis-could-displace-12bn-people-by-2050-report-warns
[10] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2016/08/02/number-of-refugees-to-europe-surges-to-record-1-3-million-in-2015/
[11] https://ednh.news/migrants-walls-go-up-around-fortress-europe/
[12] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/eu-action/international-action-climate-change/climate-negotiations/paris-agreement_en
[13] https://climateactiontracker.org/press/global-update-projected-warming-from-paris-pledges-drops-to-two-point-four-degrees/
[14] https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1052171
[15] https://www.statista.com/chart/26102/emission-reduction-goal-and-projected-achievements-by-country/
[16] https://www.ecowatch.com/greenhouse-gases-paris-agreement-2649767807.html
[17] https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6wg3/pdf/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf
[18] https://www.iea.org/news/global-co2-emissions-rebounded-to-their-highest-level-in-history-in-2021
[19] https://www.ipcc.ch/2022/04/04/ipcc-ar6-wgiii-pressrelease/
[20] https://hbr.org/2019/10/gdp-is-not-a-measure-of-human-well-being
[21] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=US
[22] https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
[23] Czechia: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=CZ France: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=FR Romania: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=2020&locations=RO&start=2005 USA: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=2020&locations=US&start=2005
[24] https://web.archive.org/web/20220409191059/https://sites.google.com/view/sources-can-we-fix-climate/
[25] https://www.climatecentral.org/news/recession-caused-us-emissions-drop-19272
[26] https://www.infoplease.com/world/diplomacy/how-many-countries
[27] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/distribution-of-global-wealth-chart/
[28] https://eciu.net/netzerotracker
[29] https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants/2015/11/opp1139276
[30] Do drivers of CO2 emission growth alter overtime and by the stage of economic development?, Kangyin Dong, et al.
[31] https://www.cgdev.org/media/who-caused-climate-change-historically#:~:text=Developed%20Countries%20Are%20Responsible%20for,Global%20Development%20%7C%20Ideas%20to%20Action
source
About The Author
My original response to Kurzgesagt's comment (which is still somewhere down below) was auto-deleted by youtube. I'm reposting the original exchange here. YouTube keeps auto-deleting EVEN MY OWN COMMENTS on my channel.
Kurzgesagt's comment:
"Not going to reply to this video as you have made up your mind anyway (also ignored our 65 page source document with further reading https://sites.google.com/view/sources-can-we-fix-climate/).
Just wanted to comment on something wrong you said: We have no investors. Kurzgesagt is an independent channel and is almost entirely viewer funded. We do not rely on sponsors like Gates to keep the lights on. Although we have worked with them and other sponsors from time to time because it makes things safer, which is important if you want to pay your team fair wages. Kurzgesagt the sort of small business you should be rooting for.
You fundamentally get something wrong here: Pandering to the world view of a sponsor makes no sense if you consider the economics of it. While the Gates sponsorships were helpful, the amount we got over multiple years, is not that much if you need to pay 50 people (seriously, do the math). Gates Organizations payed us not nearly enough for us to do their bidding, or to motivate us to please them. For example, Brilliant alone (who also sponsored the video you criticized) funded us to a much, much larger degree than Gates, as did Skillshare or other organizations. But mainly, our viewers fund us through Patreon and our shop.
You don't understand the economics of small businesses or of channels with large teams on Youtube. If we wanted to sell out, this would be a really bad and inefficient way to do it. Crafting a deliberate propaganda piece with lies, sponsored by a Learning Website, just to please an organization that is currently not funding us is frankly conspiracy theory wackiness."
My response:
"You accuse me of making up my mind, but you've made up yours – you reiterate the same point as in the video. 'Doomerism is bad!' – it's really hardly even a thing, and you never demonstrate that it is much of one. Worse, there's not a single government in the world with the stance of 'climate change is real and caused by humans but we can't stop it so let's do nothing'. It is completely non-existent as a relevant political current, it has absolutely zero influence. So the video is underpinned by a strawman, which it then uses as an excuse to peddle fake optimism. Those who acknowledge the true extent of climate change which you gloss over are the ones doing the most to fight it – even imperfect groups like Extinction Rebellion engaging in direct action are heroes in comparison to a channel spreading the notion of 'the market'll fix it.'
Firstly, it's completely ridiculous that the single mention of your Gates Foundation 'grant' is what you chose to single out. The money you received from Gates was not mentioned until 53 minutes into a 66 minute video. You look at this single mention of this fact, which was intentionally (as stated in the video!) left until the conclusion to avoid muddying the waters, and dishonestly spin that into the idea that I'm peddling a conspiracy theory that Gates controls you. Even though in the video I mentioned NOTHING MORE than the idea that Gates gave you this money because the arguments presented in your videos are useful for protecting & furthering his interests, which is just uncontroversially true – that is why any individual or organization gives out no-questions-asked funding, because they think the receiver is doing something that they agree with. At no point was it ever even remotely implied that you made this video at the behest of Bill Gates, I am in fact 100% sure you didn't and made that clear in the video. This part of the video is actually just completely unimportant to its arguments and it would have practically been the same if I'd never even mentioned it. You focusing on this is a cop-out that is not only false, but you're using it to avoid addressing the actual arguments put forth in the video, instead trying to paint it as merely presenting a conspiracy theory.
I'm sure you have no 'investors', by the technical meaning of the term, *now*, but you absolutely had them earlier – they're what made your channel a viable enterprise in the first place. $600,000 goes a long way to building up a base. You can talk about the semantics of a 'grant' vs an 'investment', but functionally they're the same: someone like Bill Gates doesn't need to invest for profits, he needs to invest to influence policy. Investment (or a 'grant') in a YouTube channel that spreads the sorts of economic policies he supports is just as important to the performance of his portfolio as investment to gain a more direct profit. If I got a $600,000 investment I could turn my channel into a multi-million dollar enterprise within a few years, anyone can do it. You discounting it is reminscent of the classic Trump line 'just a small loan of a million dollars'. Most people could do a whole lot with a million dollars. I make these videos on $1,500 a month entirely alone, give me $600,000 and I can hire enough help to make an hour long video every week with 5x the quality, which will exponentionally increase channel growth over the course of 7 years (the time since your grant). Tell me that I don't know how to run a business all you want – but the reason I'm not getting the $$$ from monopolists like you to kickstart my channel is because my ideas won't make them money. You know 'how to run a business' in the sense that you know how to say things that appealed to the right people, that's really it. Me (one person) and your business actually make money in the exact same way, through making YouTube videos, so I understand it perfectly, thank you very much. You merely hire others to do most of the work for you, something which you can only do now due to the initial $$$ you had years ago.
As for how you have been influenced by Gates, why he funded you, etc? The way capitalist propaganda generally works, outside of the most direct organizations such as think-tanks, is through funding/hiring those who are already saying the sorts of things that benefit capitalists. So the reason you got your big funding windfall from Gates is because he liked what you were saying, he thought that it aligned with his overall goals which undeniably involve maintaining the very system that got him to where he is today. This creates a further incentive structure for you (or anyone else – I'm not just singling you out here) to continue to spread the same sorts of ideas. Gates may not have sponsored you any more than his 'small loan' of just $600,000, but others like him doubtlessly have since, and the audience which has already been primed to be inclined to such narratives through the hegemonic nature of this sort of propaganda just give you even more of an incentive to keep at it. It pays to tell people that the status quo is (mostly) fine, that the system can handle the problem. That's half true, the system could potentially handle the problem (and my proposed solutions here are actually entirely capitalist ones, since state companies and nationalizations have and do exist under capitalism. My proposals are New Deal style, not new innovations), but people like Gates are preventing us from doing so. Yet I don't think you'd ever get into that.
Feel free to prove me wrong in your follow-up video, that would be a very welcome surprise. It would be very important for a channel with 20 million subscribers to come out and advocate for nationalizations and public ownership of manufacturing to fight climate change.
BTW, you say I ignored your source document? No, I address it in the video, actually. And plopping up a bunch of sources in a disorderly fashion without even using them to support your argument is not a cop out. Do you see how I cite my sources IN THE VIDEO ITSELF? More of them than you, despite being one person on a shoestring budget? That's how you do it. Just putting a list of next to no context sources in a Google Doc without actually explaining how they fit into your overarching arguments and the points you're making is very dishonest, it's a way to say 'look at all these things that I say prove me right, when I don't actually explain how, yet which I curiously didn't actually put in the video itself.' Just saying 'I have sources' is also pretty useless against my response. I barely even contested the veracity of your individual statements, I contested how you utilise them. You might have a source that proves that light bulbs are becoming more efficient – and? Your argument was that this is a sign of progress towards fighting climate change, which is a massive logical leap from the actual fact. That's just one example but it is an accurate characterisation of how you utilised your sources here."
These zionistassholes
48:27 man, you were SO right in your predictions. They elected trump and now he wants to cut down funding for all monitorings of climate change
We are already screwed up by microplast, and very few people saying anything about
Incredible video !
We are told that if you don't like a certain policy, to "just vote for the other party to fix it". But we quickly learn, that nothing ever truly changes. Even the most progressive, socialist and democratic parties couldn't do sh*it against the interests of the capitalist class, or did not want to (I wonder why…). And now we are slowly realizing how our self-destructive economic system is beginning to cook us and the planet. So yes, we should be angry, but this anger should be send towards the right address.
Save billions instead of billionaires
28:35
It’s called “In a nutshell” for a reason
I live in Indonesia and I very concered what's about to happen in my country.
23:20 I would like to kindly disagree: a global thermonuclear war will end all life on this planet. Maybe not at once, but when you combine the consequences and the aftermath of those events. Like nuclear winter etc.
:'( is that why they care about borders so much? Because people are dying of climate change and they're too cruel to let them in? I'll let them in. If they come over they can stay with me I have enough space in my home 🙁 and I have enough candy too mom just got us a few juice boxes
the neoliberal assertion that climate change will be solved by the market due to it being bad for business is like saying all heroin addicts are perfectly safe because heroin is bad for them and they will eventually quit as a result due to diet and exercise being a superior and more sustainable way to feel euphoric.
the most ironic thing here is global north will just straight up take all the resources like water and food away from global south bc "their people needs it" when they were the cause of the lack of resources to begin with
when you said that they want you to feel hopefull when a fireball is aproaching i dont think the channel is meant for devolped countries so those ppl wont worry in most scenarios anyway
the 9/11 joke at the end lmfao
Can see your prediction happening in real time ffs
Stop it. The opposite of despair is not hope, but action. Quote by Joan Baez. Action is needed to stop climate change. Also. We have other problems that need solving. Loss of biodiversity for one. It’s not just about temperature and human society.
If we don’t even try, of course we will never fix it, until we’re extinct.
We are so fucked.
Serbia here ✋️ guess I'm fucked.
I am so disappointed by Kurzgesagt, can't believe they took Bill Gates' money and produce his propaganda.
Bro the point of bringing down the mood is crazy 😂😅
Zimbabwe and botswana are already nearing the 3 degrees raise in temperatures. Its not even worth mentioning that kurtzgesats video claims it would take until 2100 to reach it. Things are going to get far worse not in the span of a century but in the spans of few years.
The first and only time I had ever seen their channel, I was tripping on acid. It was the one about the egg, seemingly about reincarnation or being the universe or something like that. I got the creepiest vibes from it which was strange because I thought to myself, this should be the kind of thing I'm interested in hearing about right now. But it was fake. Everything about it was just plastic and it felt like a pacifier of sorts. Since then I've seen major YouTubers go on and on singing praises for them, but I've always gotten the heebiejeebies. It makes a lot of sense.
Now excuse me while I go party at the edge of the abyss.
They give "short video the cult uses to indoctrinate you" vibes. Very freakish AI voiceover making definitive claims about very questionable things.
end game here now
This video hurts much more when your entire extended family lives in the global south
I might have to step in
It’s also possibly profitable to keep climate change going until the very last minute. Bill gates has purchased VAST swaths of agricultural land inland, and not the perfect quality land, but rather desolate and isolated land far from civilization. With agriculture already dropping due to the high temperatures, such as 25% decrease in the UK in 2024, it’s not impossible to think that these billionaires may not be fighting climate change for profit.
Lmao the best most effiecient EV (Chinese BYD) is literally banned from being sold in the U.S. So not only will EVs obviously not save us, they are literally banned from even attempting to save us, dont you guys love "the free market"!
No
There's a a saying in Russian language – "The swing's worth a dollar, but the punch is worth a cent". I think it perfectly fits the pseudo optimistic approach.
First they portray the enormous scale of destruction and stabilisation which permeates everything – the deserts in place of forests, the trash islands, the athmosphere growing unbreathable, the oceans rising to swallow us…
and then they just go with "Hey! Sort your waste (it'll not be recycled anyways lol?l and tell 5 friends! Make a difference!"
Fucking ridiculous
Oh this is horrifying
I feel sick
We need to organize
The downtrodden blackpilled bird lmfaooo
Unconsensual suicide pacts are murder.
In 1856 a woman named Eunice Foote did experiments with tubes of gas and realized that increased CO2 in the atmosphere could lead to the earth warming. Yet here we are 170 years later.