Google ‘fake climate change news’ and you will find a slew of stories about how to stop the spread of false stories about climate change. Many focus on President Trump. Most will tell you that the misinformation is spread by climate change ‘deniers’ who undermine the mainstream narrative of a manmade climate change emergency.
Much misinformation is spread via Facebook, one article claims. This is where a picture of Greenland did the rounds in June 2019. The picture was taken by a climate scientist and showed him dog-sledging on a sea of meltwater. It caused a bit of a stir. A Google search of ‘Greenland melting ice picture’ yields plenty of links to articles with titles like ‘Greenland’s ‘unusual’ melting sea ice captured in stunning image’ and ‘This photo from Greenland says everything about climate change’. There is however one problem with the story: there is nothing unusual about it, as the visitgreenland.com website tells us. Yes, global temperatures may be rising, but dog-sledging on meltwater is not unusual and tells us nothing about climate change. Fake news.
But something is going on in Greenland: in August, the Danish Metrological Institute reported a new temperature record measured at the Summit weather station. Of course, the news went viral – but this story also had a minor problem: it wasn’t true. After taking a closer look, the scientists concluded that the data was wrong. No record, after all. It was fake news.
Later in the summer, a new story hit the headlines: the Amazon was burning at unprecedented rates. An ‘environmental catastrophe’, the Guardian called it. The fires could be seen from space. Global panic erupted. Celebrities from Leonardo DiCaprio to Cristiano Ronaldo posted dramatic pictures of what DiCaprio told us was the ‘lungs of the Earth’ in flames, producing 20% of the planets oxygen. The ‘lungs of the Earth’ phrase went viral, both in social media posts, in news headlines across the world and in speeches by the President of France and the Secretary General of the UN. Few knew that the celebrity posts used pictures of fires from previous years. Never mind. It’s the message that is important, not the pictures… But the ‘environmental catastrophe’ is not as unusual at the 1000s of dramatic headlines and social media posts may have you believe. According to NASA (who can indeed observe the fires from space as they have done for decades), the total fire activity is close to the average for the last 15 years. And the ‘lungs of the Earth’ phrase is not true either. Yes, the Amazon produces a lot of the world’s oxygen. But the 20% figure is fake news: if you account for photosynthesis in the oceans as well as on land, the reality is around 9%. And that’s not all. The Amazon consumes an equivalent amount of oxygen as it produces, for an effectively net zero contribution. Despite the hyperbole, we would not suffocate without it.
And a the world panics about wildfires and deforestation, the number of wildfires have actually been in decline and the rate of deforestation is dropping, especially in Brazil. Last year, a study in Nature magazine even concluded that global tree cover has increased by 7.1% relative to 1982. The same magazine even suggests that trees may not be the saviour environmentalists claim it to be. These stories are often buried by the climate change lobby who sets the agenda and ensures that the public is not exposed to the ‘wrong’ facts. This is of course what can be expected from a lobby. They present their case by picking arguments that supports their case.
But what about official statistics? Such data is not presented by a lobby but by unbiased scientists. Surely they are not deliberately misrepresented. Think again. Back to Denmark, which according to official data is a leading example in the global fight against CO2 emissions. Since 2003, emissions have dropped from 62 million tons to 36 million tons. This has happened primarily by shifting from coal to wood biomass in Danish power plants. This is expensive so Danish taxpayers have been shelling out to save the environment. Of course, burning wood instead of coal doesn’t remove the CO2 emissions – in fact, it increases emissions by around 50%! However, according to EU rules emissions from wood need not be counted, as wood is a renewable source of energy. But the Canadian trees replacing the ones being burned in Danish power plants may take up to a century to offset the CO2 impact. Shifting from coal to wood increases CO2 emissions for decades to come, far beyond the climate hysterics self-imposed deadlines of 12 (or is it 18?) years to Armageddon. Scientists know this. But by a sleight of hand they are portraying a different picture to the public. So is the claim that Denmark is a leading example of successful CO2 reduction fake news or not? You decide.
Climate change is a contentious subject and can be difficult to get a handle on even without spurious and false stories polluting the picture. But that misinformation is largely disseminated by so-called ‘climate change deniers’ is also fake news. The reality is that much fake news is spread by climate change campaigners and indeed supposedly unbiased scientists. And whereas a dramatic headline of ‘Greenland temperature record’ attracts global attention, the subsequent correction often doesn’t. In these heated times of environmental hysteria, fake claims supporting the prevailing narrative quickly become established as facts in our common psyche. They are arguable much more dangerous than a fake claim on a climate sceptic website or in a tweet by Donald Trump, which is either ignored or widely called out as fake.
The rise of the internet has led to an explosion in news, much of it unfortunately untrue. The environmental lobby is keen to present a picture of their opponents as callous and scrupulous and the narrative of fake news fits neatly in the picture. Worryingly, few of them seem to care when their side is spreading it too.