The COP30 Declaration on Information Integrity is Wrong and Dangerous
The Signatories Show a Lack of Understanding of the Difference Between Information and Knowledge
Reality is simple for environmental activists. There is information and those are facts deemed to be the truth. If others make claims that go against their mandated consensus, it is deemed disinformation – tales told by wicked shills, skeptics and special interests. This simplistic, black and white world of good versus evil grossly misunderstands how information functions and how we should be using it. At the UNFCCC COP30 Climate Conference in Belém, Brazil, the climate campaigners have demonstrated their ignorance on the difference between information and knowledge in their recent Information Integrity declaration.
Packets of Information
Information comes in many shapes and sizes and often contradicts other information. When we need to make a decision (like whether to take an umbrella in the morning), we gather all available information (weather reports, how the sky looks, where we need to travel, the size and burden of bringing the umbrella...). Analyzing this information, we arrive at a decision based on the best available reasons and knowledge. Unlike how the activists want us to believe, knowledge is not identical to information (and some information can be discarded or devalued). Interesting to add that once we interpret and process this information (once we gain a certain amount of knowledge), we then communicate it to others (ie, we manipulate others into seeing the information in the way we want them to). For an activist, someone communicating a differing view is spreading disinformation.
The disinformation catcall that has become popular since COVID has changed how many of the intellectually-challenged activists interact in policy dialogues. In not distinguishing information from knowledge, campaigns are run based on limited information that disguises itself as facts and truths. There is no question of debate or dialogue. Some examples:
Plastics: Critics of plastics cite its synthetic (ie, not natural) industrial model and this information blocks considerations of how plastics applications (in packaging or industrial uses) are more sustainable than alternatives like glass, wood or steel. Studies of microplastics and nanoplastics in humans and the environment are quite poor and do not identify significant exposure levels, but this limiting information does not influence the anti-plastics campaigns.
Climate crises: Increased information on extreme weather events and forest fires are often used to justify the urgency of climate action. Activists ignore information that shows fewer tornados in the past decades or that the fires are connected to poor forest and water management caused in part by increased urbanization in forested areas.
Pesticides: Activists citing information on health hazards from exposures to pesticides (certain cancers or Parkinsons) ignore information on how insignificant the exposure levels are. Their campaigns also only consider information on synthetic (industrial) pesticides and ignore information on the often higher exposure risks from natural-based pesticides approved for organic farming.
In all of these cases, the activist campaigns analyze the information according to fixed socio-political paradigms (pro-natural, anti-industry, social justice driven…), but they do not see these influences as part of their processing (interpreting) of any given information. The information the campaigns provide is, they believe, the undeniable truth (the facts speak for themselves) and anyone who denies this knowledge is spreading misinformation. As any skeptics are outside of the activists’ socio-political paradigms and given their assumed special interests, they must be excluded from the decision-making process.
When you want to define your world with rainbows and butterflies, you need to chase the clouds away.
Technology has made this ignorance of the difference of information and knowledge even more absurd. Algorithms sort people into echo-chambers where everyone agrees on the information (the power of a belief in consensus to silence analytical reasoning). Our AI LLMs are being trained to provide users with a vast array of information confidently packaged as clear knowledge. Bots are not very good at analyzing and processing information within multiple perspectives, but if people are just looking at having information that agrees with their algorithmic feed, then, like “satisfied pigs”, they are happy in their ignorance.
It should be added that knowledge continually evolves as more information is gathered and processed (so assuming that knowledge is truth moves information analysis into the religious sphere). There are also different forms of knowledge (empirical, inductive, experiential…). But in the simplistic world of dogmatic ideologues, identifying the knowledge process with information seems to be a reasonable fix.
While it is easy to conclude that those campaigners who cannot distinguish between information and knowledge are either naïve idealists or wicked opportunists, the evolution of the vocabulary has amplified the ignorance on a massive scale. Take for example a recent declaration coming out the COP30 Climate Conference demanding “Information Integrity” with ten countries signing on.
Information Integrity Doublespeak
In George Orwell’s book, 1984, doublespeak was a technique to obscure or reverse the meaning of words. The COP30 climate wordsmith engineers have been working hard to make radical activist vocabulary part of the vernacular. As climate change or global warming no longer carry a sense of urgency, the term “climate heating” is showing up in the reports. Weather events are part of the “climate crisis” rather than events where a warming planet may have contributed to the severity. But the best doublespeak has to be the Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change. Information is now declared to be vulnerable to attack by some unidentified dark forces seeking to undermine the political consensus that has transformed certain packets of information into facts and truths. But apparently other information that might contradict these truths must be considered as disinformation and censored.
The Declaration pretends to be objective, that all parties in the debate must respect the information, but it is clear the architects mean those that disagree with the self-proclaimed climate consensus are the ones that must be defeated. For example:
The UN directors from the Information Integrity unit in the UN, I wish I were making this up, speak directly about the threats from those challenging the climate orthodoxy. Defending information integrity on climate change means stopping any dissent, criticism or analysis of the “proven” information on climate change.
If you disagree with the information or the scientists who make political statements, if you don’t think the climate crisis is the most urgent issue of our time or if you try to slow the political momentum to impose costly and inefficient green energy solutions, then you are attacking the integrity of information on climate change. I have to write an urgent letter to Bill Gates and beg him to abandon his recent “denialism”.
How do you spell “stupid”?
Brazil’s president Lula has called COP30 the “COP of Truth”. No serious scientists would ever use such vocabulary and it is clear the beleaguered president, in a room full of empty chairs, is facing his own moment of truth. Truth is often used in the war on disinformation so it is no surprise that the organizers are hitting at any dissenters or critics from the get-go.
What this Declaration on Information Integrity is saying is that nobody has a right to challenge a consensus or even disagree with a position put forward by the self-proclaimed authorities. This is not only a denial of the scientific method, it is censorship of free thinking analysis and open research. It is also saying that the ten national signatories of the declaration don’t understand the distinction between information and knowledge. They assume information is sacred and uncontestable when it is merely part of the process of interpretation and analysis to gain a certain degree of knowledge – a process they seem to be trying to stop.
The declaration pretends to act as a defender against personal attacks on journalists and scientists. But what about activist scientists like Michael Mann, who disrespectfully unleashes personal attacks on his critics, or the lucrative personal interests of many climate researchers, or the climate denier accusations used to ostracize anyone who challenges research by the climate collective? They should equally be sanctioned for attacking the integrity of information. But they are not. Note that I am writing this as a person who, for two decades, has stood up against a corrupted group of activist scientists pushing personal agendas on agricultural technologies and because of that, have lost a job, a blogsite and have been physically removed from a conference hall.
What is to stop the UN from applying this Information Integrity doublespeak to silence others in dialogues on plastics, chemicals or non-communicable diseases. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is about to begin their COP11 in Geneva. They have already banned the involvement of anyone who may have other, quite reasonable views on tobacco harm reduction measures like vaping or nicotine pouches.
Is this the level of extreme restrictions on dialogue we can soon expect from all UN organizations?
Where is the integrity in authorities censoring free thinking and open engagement of ideas?
How is what the UN doing in banning open dialogue not identical to what fascists do?
Or Maybe it’s not Actually About Integrity
Of course the key point of this Information Integrity movement is all about the money.
The UN has become so financially dependent on the big philanthropic foundations that they don’t even recognize the level of their grift and graft influencing their policies. The price for a UN Special Ambassador title depends on the UN organization and nobody involved in this process dares to question how this affects their credibility. That is information whose integrity does need protection.