Yes, this is an environmental web page, but today I’m writing about the war in Ukraine and about the need to conduct an information campaign directed toward Russians—because a prolonged Ukraine War could cause us to lose the Climate War.

Information Campaign Needed to Change Russian Minds

A public relations campaign directed at the everyday Russian man and woman needs to be deployed to win the Ukraine War.

      This past December, a reporter asked an expert on Russia what ordinary Russians believe about the war in Ukraine. He replied that the common man/woman believes the state’s propaganda that Russia is fighting for its survival against the West. Believing that they are in an existential struggle, Russians will continue to support the war, no matter how bad economic conditions get in their country, and the war will drag on.
     The West must let Russians know how their government has wreaked tragedy on Ukrainians (invasion, destruction, mass displacement, war crimes) and that Russia is viewed as a pariah among nations. We must counter the propaganda with which Putin has misled Russians. A truth-telling campaign (in other words, the news), transmitted or emailed into Russia, is as important a weapons system for Ukraine, the West, and a freer future for Russians as are missiles or artillery.
     Is it technologically possible to beam the truth to Russians? I don’t know, but it is necessary. Putin is conducting a terrible war at a terrible time for the world.

The Ukraine War and Climate Change: a series of bad events

Nuclear weapons might still destroy the world, not because of explosions but because the West is not countering Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as strongly as it might—because he has nuclear weapons. Consequently, he’s able to conduct a prolonged war that distracts democracies and the world from the urgently needed conversion from fossil fuels to renewable fuels.
     If Ukraine falls, then Europe (or parts of Europe) falls, and the United States becomes more focused than it already is (for example, Biden—a man strongly desiring a transition to renewable fuels—just approved drilling for more oil in the Arctic) on saving nations and freedom at a time when we are desperately behind in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and when we should be focusing our talent and labor on cutting those emissions.
     Worsening climate change—with its droughts, floods, strong storms, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, radical remake of ecosystems, and forced mass migrations—will accelerate the already rapid mass extinction that’s occurring, and we really don’t know how that will affect humanity. For want of a nail a kingdom was lost. For want of climate action when needed, a world was lost. A series of bad events.