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The next step in climate denial... [1]

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Date: 2022-07-08

One of the consequences of a planet that is heating up is changes in weather, both long term and short term. That includes things like shifting weather patterns (things arriving too soon or too late or not at all), heat waves, extended drought, blizzards and cold snaps that exceed expectations, bigger storms, more and bigger fires, and flooding. AKA climate change AKA climate crisis.

It should come as no surprise that recent massive flooding in Australia is accompanied by conspiracy theories blaming it on weather manipulation for purposes of, well whatever/whomever the people pushing the theories want to blame it all all on.

When denial is no longer possible, the next step is to find scapegoats. Via Marco Silva, Climate Disinformation Specialist at the BBC:

For the third time this year, Sydney has been hit by major floods. Scientists blame intense rainfall on a combination of factors - but, on social media, unfounded allegations of "weather manipulation" have spread widely. About as much as eight months' worth of rain has come down in just four days, bringing parts of Australia's largest city to a standstill. Experts say no single factor can explain this extreme weather, pointing instead to warmer oceans and saturated soils as contributing factors. But conspiracy theorists aren't buying it. On social media, they blame the extreme rainfall on "cloud seeding" and "weather manipulation". There is no evidence to back up such theories, but this hasn't prevented falsehoods from reaching thousands of people online.

As is often the case, there’s a small nugget of fact which conspiracy theories condense around — much like the way the cloud seeding blamed for the flooding works. It’s not a big step for people suspicious of government and scientists who are opposed to any changes in their lives to address climate, to take it to the next level when predictable weather events happen. Predictable for those who accept climate change is real and is happening — but which deniers need to explain away.

They say it's all part of a government plan to "weaponise" the weather against its own people - a popular conspiracy trope that has been around for years. "The idea that this is happening on a widespread scale, and that there is some motive to manipulate the weather is a complete myth," says Dr Ellie Gilbert, a climate scientist at the British Antarctic Survey. And yet, this myth seems to have found an audience on various social media platforms. Many of the accounts seen by the BBC posting this type of content have also shared other conspiracy theories involving global warming, Covid vaccines, and the Moon landings.

The link in the block quote above goes to a story about chemtrails and weather manipulation by the government. It has a description of how CT evolves and spreads.

If you do a web search for “wind turbines affect the weather” or “solar panels affect the weather”, you can find legitimate scientific studies on real effects — but you can also find things that will take you right down the rabbit hole.

There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL); wind turbines and solar panels do have some negative aspects when it comes to climate change. Any manufacturing activity consumes both energy and resources and is seldom completely emission neutral. Things like that are seized on and exaggerated to justify opposition to them — while disregarding the far greater consequences from fossil fuel use.

And, as increasingly more severe weather events make it harder for deniers to explain them away with “We’ve always had storms” and “The climate has always been changing”, expect them to descend to even more outrageous CT.

It’s a sign of the times that the BBC has actually given someone the title of Climate Disinformation Specialist; Marco Silva is going to have his work cut out for him. If you have a story for him, he can be reached at [email protected]

Speaking of disinformation, The NY Times has a related story:

Spoiler: it’s not the pandemic that has eroded Americans’ trust in experts and elected leaders alike. It’s the partisanship coming from one side that has made a question of political identity. That headline is effectively disinformation, as it lumps all Americans together as losing trust — ignoring the clear finding that it is primarily Republicans who have lost trust.

How bad is it?

As the coronavirus pandemic entered its third year, the American public had lost much of its trust both in public health experts and in government leaders, and was less worried than before about Covid-19, according to a survey conducted in early May and released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. Confidence ratings for public health officials, like those at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; for state and local elected officials; and for President Biden fell in a range from 43 percent to 54 percent in the survey — much lower than during the early stages of the pandemic. The survey found a wide partisan gap in attitudes. Overall, 52 percent of respondents said that public health officials had done an excellent or good job at managing the pandemic. But while 72 percent of Democrats in the survey said they felt that way, only 29 percent of Republicans did. Democrats were also more likely than Republicans — 67 percent to 51 percent — to say they had at least some confidence in how prepared the nation’s health care system was to address a future global health emergency.

emphasis added

Christine Chung and Carly Olson do a straightforward reporting of facts:

A narrow majority of respondents in the latest survey — 55 percent — said they thought vaccination had been somewhat or very effective at curbing the spread of the coronavirus. About half felt that way about wearing masks indoors. Respondents were more skeptical about the efficacy of people staying at least six feet apart indoors, with only 34 percent considering that practice at least somewhat effective. The survey found very wide partisan gaps in attitudes toward all those preventive measures, especially mask-wearing, with Republicans far more likely than Democrats to say they did little or no good.

emphasis added

One way conspiracy theories thrive is when they get little to no pushback. By ignoring the role played by Republican disinformation, The NY Times is effectively leaving room for CT to flourish.

The NY Times report on the survey results keeps mentioning partisan differences to explain the differences in opinions between Democrats and Republicans on covid, but is very careful to NOT even look at the reasons behind those differences. Given how strongly party affiliation tracks with opposing beliefs, it would be useful to have some suggestions as to why that it so.

Here’s some missing paragraphs I’m supplying that would have added some important context to the survey report:

The partisan differences found in this survey can be traced to the entirely different objectives the two parties had in dealing with the pandemic. While Democrats have tried to develop science-based policies to combat the spread of the Covid virus and provide people with access to vaccines to prevent infection, Republicans have taken a completely different approach. President Trump’s initial and continued mishandling of the pandemic was never acknowledged. Instead scapegoats were targeted to to divert responsibility away from the administration with attacks on scientists and on China. Right wing media spread disinformation to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic and to discredit those who proposed effective measures versus bogus cures promoted by President Trump and others. There was also a reluctance by Republicans to acknowledge that government had an important role to play in the pandemic, both in providing assistance to those hurt by a crippled economy, and in encouraging collective action to fight the pandemic. Instead the Republicans and right wing media chose to make it all about ‘freedom’ to ignore measures people found inconvenient, backed by disinformation questioning both vaccines and masks. The partisan differences found in this survey are such because one party chose a political response to the pandemic over one based on the best available science, and was backed up by right-wing media. It has now become a matter of political identity.

Reality has a liberal bias. The NY Times seeks to avoid it whenever it proves inconvenient. Citing partisan differences as the reason for loss of trust is simply not to be done unless it can applied to both sides. The paper had established a working reporting group on the threat to democracy. (Is it still there?) If the Times gets around to it, a climate disinformation group would not be a bad idea. The Times report on how hard it is for California to give up fossil fuels shows they can make the effort to look at the problem in depth.

Although it’s difficult to see how Republicans are going to come up with conspiracy theories to blame Democrats for the weather disasters ahead due to changing climate, the pandemic has shown us that they will come up with something.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/8/2109140/-The-next-step-in-climate-denial

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