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We're Not Controlling Hurricanes, Just Making Them Worse. Also, Street Sharks Are Real Now. [1]
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Date: 2022-10-03
If you've been on social media during a hurricane in the past ten years or so, you've likely seen someone post an image of a shark on the highway, claiming the storm was so bad sharks are swimming the streets of [flooded area.]
You've also likely seen hot takes about how climate change has nothing to do with the storm. Thanks to how social media algorithms are programmed though, you may well not have caught the corrections, fact checks, and real science about the storm — not to mention potentially life-saving updates from official sources about evacuations and the like.
During Hurricane Ian, the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida in 60 years , we saw the pattern play out once again.
For example, a popular Instagram post claimed that "all weather is artificially controlled. Chemtrails, cloud seeding, tornadoes, hurricanes. They had weather control back in the 1930s. They had DARPA, they had HAARP… They can throw a hurricane anywhere they want. They can create it."
And it only gets less coherent from there, talking about "high frequency" people and those "who can't hold the light," and if they create the fear of a hurricane, it will manifest. "Everything is created by thoughts. Thoughts are energy."
Hmm, yes, good quality content, thank you Instagram! But is it true? Tucker Carlson basically thinks so ! But Politifact took a shot at factchecking that mess, and found it it "pants on fire " grade false.
For those wondering, Andrew Dessler was kind enough to correct the record that "we cannot create hurricanes nor can we throw them anywhere we want to. Hurricanes are not manifestations of our thoughts. If we didn’t believe in Hurricane Ian, it would still pummel the west coast of Florida."
That said, it's not that we have no influence on these events. "By adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and causing the climate to warm, we are in fact turbocharging weather events to the detriment of humanity. But this is quite different from ‘controlling’ the weather," Dessler added.
By contrast, the tweet announcing that a rapid analysis of the storm, based on a pre-existing peer-reviewed method, showed Ian dropped 10% more rainfall because of climate change, was hardly noticed online. The AP's Seth Borenstein picked it up though , demonstrating the difference between how a journalist and an algorithm determine what's' worthy of attention.
Elsewhere at the AP, though, was the real bombshell . After years of Street Shark myths , the meme became real, and the AP confirmed that Hurricane Ian really did push a small shark (or fish) into a residential backyard in Fort Meyer, Florida.
After years of it being a joke, apparently it's now true: climate change created street sharks.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/3/2126683/-We-re-Not-Controlling-Hurricanes-Just-Making-Them-Worse-Also-Street-Sharks-Are-Real-Now
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