I think collapse@lemm.ee is a misinformation community
Most of the misinformation communities are easy to spot, but !collapse@lemm.ee falls into a slightly different category, and it presents itself in an unusual way. It seems like one of the main mods flavors his postings with a consistent sprinkling of posts that say that Europe not buying fossil fuels from Russia is a catastrophe for Europe, and they must reverse course as soon as possible and stop trying to depend on renewable energy, since it doesn't work.
Here are some examples from a most recent post. It's far from the only post that includes this general shape and character, but it's particularly on the nose. From https://lemm.ee/post/49292464:
That will leave Europe with expensive LNG from Qatar and the US, as well as some pipeline gas from Norway and through Turkiye, which is Russian gas in a roundabout, third-party way. As always: higher complexity comes at a higher price — a direct consequence of the EU’s economic war on its largest energy supplier.
With the predictable unpredictability of wind and solar, however, and with a massive reliance on natural gas fired power plants to balance electricity demand, Europe has just saw the fastest drop in natural gas storage in years. Yes, the weather was cold in the past couple of weeks, but it wasn’t nearly as cold as it could get in the dead of winter. Wind on the other hand stopped blowing, which not only resulted in lower electricity generation from wind turbines, but also in thicker clouds and more persistent fog… Leading to a much diminished solar power generation. Welcome to the good old Dunkelflaute (or the dark doldrums) so common this time of year, and by the way sometimes throughout the entire winter... Who could have thought that “renewables” produce much less electricity during wintertime…?
Whenever a large solar farm returns production it sends a shock wave through the grid, damaging sensitive equipment nearby. Similarly, when a cloud suddenly blocks the Sun a micro-blackout could occur (lasting a few milliseconds) till back up capacity comes online. These fluctuations in the supply of electricity has forced many companies with sensitive manufacturing equipment to install surge protectors and uninterruptible power supply units costing tens or hundreds of thousands of Euros (depending on size) or outright buying a natural gas powered generation unit to produce their own stable electricity supply.
In the meantime, and just for the record, the IMF has just named Russia the 4th largest economy of the world, surpassing Japan and Germany; after the World Bank classified it as a high income country. Despite all protestations, sanctions actually helped Russia rein in its worst oligarchs and encouraged investments to replace lost imports. Contrary to what Europe’s ruling elite had in mind, their policy has lead to a huge economic boom in Russia, driven by internal consumption and powered by an abundant supply of fossil fuels.
I asked the mod about what was up with this, on an earlier post, and they didn't seem to have much of a response other than an appeal to authority. (https://lemm.ee/post/49069993)
Obviously, I could be right or wrong, and no one's obligated to answer my questions about anything, but at that point I was looking at it as "You may be unintentionally posting misinformation" and warning the person, and their response didn't line up for me with someone who is innocently posting informative content because they believe it to be true.
I read that and failed to find anything outside of that. One attempt to engage isn't enough for me. But I'm neither a moderator nor an administrator for that community or instance.
Perhaps someone should tag the moderator so they can defend themselves in this Salem trial?
No other obvious place to put this jumped out at me. Is there maybe a better place to post it?
I linked to the place where I tried to discuss this with the mod in question. Discussing it with them directly was my first stop, yes, but if I'm seeing repeated postings of comically obvious Russian propaganda, and addressing it directly with the poster doesn't go anywhere, I don't think that discussion needs to be the end of the line in terms of discussing it.
I've been subscribed to the community from it was on ml. Admittedly I don't read it all that often, but the goal of the community was to showcase how things are falling apart. From my perspective climate change is a part of that and capitalism is most of that. If I was to post regularly in that community, my posts would reflect that and have a significant anti-imperilism slant. To label a community as misinformation because you happen to disagree with the primary content creator doesn't sit right with me.
There's no point in engaging with a malicious actor, my guy. This is a report on observations, and I am here to report that these observations match my own.
Yeah. I do think it’s worth engaging once or twice and asking questions. But no one needs to spend indefinite time going back and forth with someone who’s posting nonsense.