Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, and Anne Hidalgo, the Parti Socialiste mayor of Paris, have written a joint article for the Guardian called “In London and Paris, we’ve experienced vicious backlash to climate action. But we’re not backing down”. They write,
“We welcome efforts such as the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires online platforms to counter the spread of illegal content, including disinformation, and lays the groundwork for holding platforms accountable. But much more is needed. For example, the UK’s Online Safety Act could be strengthened by explicitly recognising climate disinformation as a form of harmful content.”
It is remarkable how people who would be ashamed to support a law to “counter the spread of illegal speech” happily praise a law that “counters the spread of illegal content.” The magic of words: just re-label “speech” as “content” – as being inside something – and it can now truly be contained, as in “restrained or controlled”.
The same people regularly proclaim that Europe is a place which has banished censorship of the press. That is almost true, although both the EU and the UK governments are working to restore their old powers. In the meantime they are willing enough to temporarily refrain from censorship of ideas spread by old technology if it gives them cover for censoring ideas spread by new technology.
Do not go along with their word games. The term “Freedom of the press” is not restricted to words conveyed to the public by means of a a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium. Nor does “freedom of speech” only refer to words that come out of mouths by the action of tongue and lips. In the words of a source they claim to respect, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says,
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Emphasis added.
And while I’m emphasising things, let me also emphasise this: the minute I learn that an idea is being censored, I give that idea more credence.
No, that does not mean that I automatically believe any censored idea entirely. (How could I? A million contradictory falsehoods are censored alongside the truth. The problem is that the act of censorship destroys our ability to tell which of them is the truth.) It means that I strain to hear what is being said behind the gag. It means that I start to wonder how real the claimed consensus is, if those who depart from it are silenced. It means that I start to wonder why the proponents of the “accepted” view feel the need to protect it from counter-arguments.
I said in 2012 that my belief in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) was two and a half letters to the left compared to most commenters on this blog. Damn, it should have been one and a half letters to the right. Oh well, you knew what I meant. With regard to CAGW or whatever they are calling it now, whether I phrase it as my belief moving to the left or my disbelief moving to the right, the surest way to make that movement happen is to pass a law defining “climate disinformation as a form of harmful content”. Then I will know that the so-called scientific consensus on climate change is no such thing. If certain hypotheses cannot be discussed, not only is there no scientific consensus, there is no science.
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A related post, but focussing on self-censorship rather than the government censorship that Mayors Khan and Hidalgo favour: “Bubbles, lies and buttered toast.” Any form of censorship is fatal to science.
Good post. The fundamental problem for climate alarm zealots and their hapless dupes such as Khan and Hidalgo is that CO2 has not been an important driver of climate variation in the past, and nor is there any sign that it has suddenly become so in the present. The case for alarm is a very feeble one in science but a powerful one in politics, presumably because it suits those who seek a revolution to gain the power they dream of.
“illegal content, including disinformation”
Disinformation is not illegal content, so is not “including” in illegal content.
“vegetables, including bacon”
Is this Frogs who can’t write English, or Socialists who are incapable of grasping ontological facts?
@Natalie, I apologize for my lack of sophistication but I’m afraid I don’t know what “two and a half letters to the left” or, for that matter “one and a half letters to the right” means. The linked article did not help. Can you explain?
Fraser Orr,
“CAGW” stands for “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming”.
It was a jokey way of saying that I believed that global warming (the letters G and W) was happening, and I think it is probable that some of it is anthropogenic (half of the letter A), but I didn’t believe it was catastrophic (no C).
Khan doesn’t have to believe in CAGW. He believes in his own power base. He believes in ULEZ zones, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, Congestion Charge at £18, and no doubt pay per mile driving in due course. In short he believes in the surveillance state, and he’s doing the surveilling.
Why do Londoners vote for this shit? Well, at the 2021 census London was only 36.8% white British. By now I guess it might be down to a third or less. Get rid of the indigenous British population, and you get Khan forever. The system works, for him.
Natalie,
I’d figured that out but I think you are wrong. Kinda. Leaving aside the GW and sticking with the C & A then Net Zero is definitely anthropogenic and taken the full way absolutely catastrophic. So, in a way, CAGW becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And yet I reckon that Khan and Co would be only too willing to support ‘approved’ protests whether peaceful or not.
Aha, thanks @Natalie makes sense, especially after my morning coffee. FWIW, I think you are probably right, but I don’t really know since the data is so politicized I think there is very little reliable information on which to base an opinion. So I am happy to say I don’t know, but equally happy to say nobody really knows. And if you want to destroy civilization to save it you’d better be a bit more sure than “eh, maybe?”
For Fraser, and other ‘don’t know’s, an easy way to get more insight is to read reliable climate blogs. Here’s three good ones that are generally very readable and accessible:
1. ‘notalotofpeopleknowthat’ is a wordpress blog
2. ‘cliscep’ is a dotcom
3. ‘notrickszone’ is also a dotcom.
The first two are UK based, and have recently been exposing lunacies of Net Zero. The third is based in Germany, but is in English. Very good for summarising new science papers, as well as exposing Green lunacies in Germany.
@frankS thanks for the links and I don’t know what they say, but I want to say that the problem is not interpretation of the results. The most charitable interpretation you can give to the University of East Anglia’s CRU scandal is that the “raw data” on which analyses are made are in fact highly manipulated. This is not entirely unjustified, there are legitimate reasons to modify the data, but the idea that we have the historical temperatures from a million thermometers is simply not true. And their reluctance to release the real raw data tells you all you need to know.
So how can you make prognostications on Anthropogenic Global Warming when you don’t even know what the temperature is?
And it is worth considering the source. The University of freaking East Anglia? Who the hell ever heard of them? But these minor academics that would normally be given a dusty corner desk in the office sharing with the department of French poetry and Caribbean music studies, are all of a sudden thrust into international stardom. It is hard to be quite so objective when you are surrounded by obsequious suck ups asking you if you want all the brown M&Ms removed from your snack bowl. Or where a bit too much honesty means that George Clooney doesn’t invite you to his parties any more.
The left used to be inconsistent – supporting ever more economic intervention by the state, but at least claiming to be against censorship.
Now the left are consistent – they oppose both economic freedom and civil liberties. Such people as the Mayors of London and Paris no longer even try to hide their position of what J.S. Mill called “liberticide”.
As for platforms – Bitchute no longer operates in the United Kingdom, due to existing censorship antics by British government agencies, the “Online Safety Bill” (and so on) is designed by officials (unelected people) to make things much worse.
Will X (formally Twitter) and Rumble continue to operate in Britain and France?
By the way at least this censorship campaign provides, unintentional, amusement – when the political leaders of Britain, France and so on, absurdly claim that they stand for “freedom” in various other countries.
If you are trying to crush, utterly crush, what remains of liberty in your own country, it is absurd to say you are supporting war in other countries for the sake of liberty.
Stop punishing dissent, on “Climate”, or “race”, or whatever, in your own country – and then we will listen to what you have to say about other countries.
Firstly, demanding censorship is an open admission from the climate alarmists that they have a position that they cannot defend. An open admission that climate alarmism is built on false premises. Secondly I see this as a panic measure. More and more people are starting to doubt. Fewer and fewer believe their bullshit any more. When it finally dawns on everyone that they have been had there are going to be questions about how much money has been blown to supposedly solve a non existent problem.
This illustrates how shallow are the views of climate alarm promoters who are also leftwing agitators:
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/06/24/joe-rogan-destroys-bernie-sanderss-climate-hysteria-to-his-face-n4941141