[ad_1]
According to a new analysis, the marginal climate science deniers who spread the disinformation online are now actively downplaying the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic.
DeSmog, a blog and organization that tracks those guilty of false information about the climate crisis, identified some 70 individuals and groups who questioned the mortality of the coronavirus and lobbied to end the social distancing, along with protesters who have been encouraged by Donald Trump.
From conspiracy theorist conservative Alex Jones to the US Heartland Institute. USA And Britain’s James Delingpole, the review concludes that the same influencers trying to get the public to question the severity of global warming are also discounting the science surrounding the coronavirus.
“The climate war has been largely about confusing the public and making people less confident in science and government,” said DeSmog chief executive Brendan DeMelle. “And here we are in a pandemic where science and global cooperation are critical, and that is a threat to the ideology of many of these … organizations.
“You end this conspiracy theory about the big government taking over our lives, taking away our freedoms, and subjecting us to stay-at-home orders that we have to free ourselves from,” said DeMelle.
DeSmog also identified interests aligned with the chemical and fossil fuel industries promoting single-use plastics in personal protective equipment, food packaging, and grocery bags.
John Cook, who studies climate denial at the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, said he expected the overlap but was surprised by the extent of the parallels.
“People who are politically conservative and value individual rights to collective responsibility are less supportive of social distancing policies and also have a lower understanding of the dangers of Covid-19,” Cook said, citing data from emerging polls.
Cook describes five science denial techniques that people must observe, including data selection.
“The last argument that we should relax social distancing because the curve [of cases] This flattening is very much an example of cherry picking, ”Cook said.
In the USA In the US, some of the same groups that have asked the Trump administration to debate man-made climate disturbance and reverse climate standards are spreading mistrust of epidemiological research.
Jay Lehr, chief scientific officer of the Heartland Institute, said March 30 that people have been “bombarded in the 24/7 news cycle for years” about climate change and now “face a more realistic fear of the most contagious virus than ever we have had “experienced” but “both, however, suffer questionable statistics and predictions that make us wonder what is real and what is someone’s best guess.”
Heartland communications director Jim Lakely, in a podcast on the “Wuhan virus” on March 15, compared the virus to a bad flu season and said that while “panic is definitely more dangerous than flu, this should be put into perspective. “
“We have to think about the economic damage this is doing to the country. This is incalculable, ”said Lakely.
The Heartland Institute also published an article by economics professor Daniel Sutter arguing that alternative strategies to social distancing, such as protecting vulnerable populations, “could have mitigated the human cost at a significantly lower economic and social cost.”
The Manhattan Institute, which calls itself a group of free-market experts, published an article by Heather MacDonald in which she wrote: “Even if my odds of dying from the coronavirus suddenly increased ten thousand times, from the current rate From 0.000012 percent across with the US population down to 0.12 percent, I would be happy to assume those odds about the destruction that is occurring in the US and in the global economy from this panic rampant. “
The Media Research Center in a video said: “This is exactly how they incite mass panic: through lies and deception and exploiting ignorance. It’s how they convince people that we’re all going to die because Trump doesn’t believe in science or something. “
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who founded Infowars, called the virus a “hoax” and appeared Saturday at a “Can’t Close America” rally in Austin, where he shook hands with unmasked supporters.
Supporters of fossil fuels have also taken advantage of the pandemic to warn about the costs of climate action.
Alex Epstein, founder of the Center for Industrial Progress, which DeSmog cites as associated with various groups connected to right-wing billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, called the current recession a “mild foretaste of the Green New Deal,” and said that “Our greatest ally in the fight against the coronavirus is the fossil fuel industry.”
The links between denial of climate science and minimization of Covid-19 come from outside the US. USA In the UK, right-wing commentator James Delingpole has forwarded calls to quickly return to normal life.
In a recent podcast, he called quarantine skeptics “lockdown skeptics,” and referred to those who support social estrangement as “hysterical bed cairns.” He accused the mainstream media of promoting panic in the “hysterical tabloids.”
