I guess this is where you go when your movement’s last spokesperson was a scoldy teenager. The UN has a new spokescreature for demanding action on climate change. This clip is part of a new campaign called “Don’t Choose Extinction” and features a dinosaur borrowed from Jurassic World and a score that sounds like it was borrowed from the Avengers. There’s no time to worry about plagiarism when the world is ending.

To spotlight the hugely negative effects fossil fuel subsidies have on people and planet, UNDP has produced an engaging short film as part of a new campaign in which one of the world’s most well-known extinct animals, the dinosaur, gives a speech to the UN General Assembly urging world leaders to shift away from fossil fuel subsidies and “Don’t Choose Extinction.”

And like the world-invading-aliens in some films, the spokescreature speaks multiple languages in various celebrity voices.

I get the dinosaur connection to extinction but the idea that all humanity has accomplished since the start of the industrial revolution can be reduced to “subsidizing giant meteors” is incredibly stupid and short-sighted. Can you just picture the 20-something dolts who are watching this on their phones, nodding along while surrounded by technological miracles that only exist because of the global economy. Reducing all of that good to a heedless desire for self-annihilation is really…I want to say anti-human. It’s a level of stupidity makes me angry but what can you expect from a talking dinosaur.

Even if you absolutely believe we’re headed for a climate disaster, avoiding that only matters if you also believe that what we’ve achieved is amazing and worth preserving. Why couldn’t the UN have said something like, “Thanks to fossil fuels and the technology built around them, much of the world is living longer, better lives. That’s worth preserving for generations to come…” But no, they went with Why are you killing yourself, stupid?

In addition to the video clips the UN has also put up a fancy website which seeks to eradicate various sub-optimal attitudes about climate change.  For instance, excuse #4 (for not acting now to stop climate change) is “We need fossil fuels for our economy.” Not so, the website claims.

Fossil fuels don’t cure our global economy, they actually hurt it in more ways than one; by taking billions of taxpayer dollars in support and causing costly destruction to our planet.

According to the UNDP’s own research, about $420 billion per year is spent supporting fossil fuels. Since the benefits of these subsidies mainly reach wealthy people, this money could be better spent tackling global inequality, by investing in things like school and healthcare.

Fossil fuels don’t “cure” our economy? What does that even mean?

I’m not sure where the $420 billion figure comes from but that’s not a huge amount of money if we’re talking about the global economy. The US spent nearly triple that amount last year just on Social Security.

Cutting all of that money (a lot of which comes from indirect subsidies) would raise the cost of energy, goods and gasoline which might decrease usage somewhat. That’s clearly what the campaigners want. But raising the cost of energy isn’t much of a selling point. In fact, the UN website has an excuse about this as well: #8 “I don’t want to give up holidays or my car.” “Reducing fossil fuels doesn’t mean reducing quality of life,” the site lies.

Actually, that’s absolutely what it means. There’s just no way to replace all fossil fuels energy production in the next decade. So cutting their use before enough renewable sources are available to replace them is necessarily raising prices and raising prices cuts into quality of life. If you’re wondering why many people don’t have more respect for climate campaigners, it’s because of the all the lying they do about things like this.

Anyway, there are already lots of people mocking this gimmick. Someone pointed out that the UN allows dinosaurs to address its members but not Taiwan and that led to this funny response:

Taiwanosaurus Rex! 🦖🇹🇼

I'm sorry.

— Jim Maruschak🆗️ (@JimMaruschak) October 27, 2021

Loved this response too.

Is the UN going to sanction China over climate change? No they are going to scold Europe and the US. They aren't serious.

— Flurypd (@FluryPD) October 27, 2021

This was funny.

I agree with him and I'm not trying to cancel him or anything, but he has a problematic past. #Receipts pic.twitter.com/UtNOpdYrgK

— ErrorStan (@mercurypixel) October 27, 2021