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climate misinformation
Sanders Aims to Convince Fox News Readers Climate Action 'Is a Moral Responsibility'
"Either we maintain the status quo and continue to see more heatwaves, drought, floods, and extreme weather disturbances or we move away from fossil fuels and do our best to make sure that the planet we leave our kids and future generations is healthy and habitable."
Aug 08, 2023
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent who caucuses with the Democrats and even sought the party's presidential nomination twice, on Tuesday tried to convince Fox News' predominantly Republican audience that not only are scientists right about fossil fuels dangerously warming the planet, but swift and sweeping climate action "is a moral responsibility."
Sanders is no stranger to Fox's opinion page, having previously authored articles on everything from Big Pharma and corporate greed to Medicare for All and Social Security. However, his latest piece—"Climate Change Is a Threat to the Planet: We Must Address It"—takes on a topic readers of the right-wing network's website aren't necessarily eager to tackle.
The results of an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll published last week showed that 53% of Americans—including 80% of Democrats and 54% of Independents—believed that addressing climate change should be given priority, even at the risk of slowing economic growth. However, 72% of Republicans said the economy should be given priority, even at the risk of ignoring climate change, a 13-point increase from 2018, despite more frequent and devastating extreme weather events in recent years.
Survey results released in November by Climate Action Against Disinformation revealed that among U.S. respondents, belief in climate misinformation "was consistently highest among regular Fox News consumers," with majorities of the network's audience accepting lies about electric vehicles, fossil fuels, renewable energy, and whether scientists largely agree or disagree on what causes climate change.
Sanders, in his new piece, spent several paragraphs addressing claims that "climate change is not real. Or, if it is, it has nothing to do with carbon emissions—and there is nothing we can do about it."
Then, he wrote: "If this is what you believe I would respectfully disagree and I would urge you to get on the phone and call friends and family around the country to hear about what their communities are experiencing. I would also suggest that you check out (reliable) websites and take a look at what's going on in virtually every part of the world."
While fossil fuel giants rake in billions of dollars, communities across the United States and around the world are enduring unprecedented and deadly extreme heat. July is expected to have been the hottest month in recorded history.
The senator highlighted recent records in Brownsville, Texas; Miami, Florida; and Phoenix, Arizona, as well as various locations in China, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and European countries. He pointed out that "parts of the Middle East exceeded 150°F—near the most intense heat that the human body can survive. It's winter right now in South America, but that hasn't stopped temperatures from exceeding 100°F in some places."
"And it's not just that temperatures have been soaring on land. Our oceans have never been warmer. Right now, 44% of the world's oceans are experiencing a marine heatwave," Sanders noted. He also laid out in plain language how scientists have concluded that human activity—particularly the use of fossil fuels—has created current conditions.
Sanders emphasized the dangers of rising temperatures, explaining that they "create more flooding, extreme weather, droughts, wildfires, and disease. And that means more human suffering, death, mass migrations, and international instability." He also appeared to address readers who may still argue for prioritizing the economy over the climate emergency:
Climate change will not only impact the physical well-being of humans, it will also have enormous economic implications. The Deloitte Economics Institute estimates that if left unchecked climate change could cost the global economy $178 trillion over the next 50 years as a result of lower productivity and employment, food and water scarcity, and worsening health and well-being. We'll also have to spend huge amounts of money repairing the damage that extreme weather causes.
That's the bad news.
The good news is that we can still avoid the worst impacts of climate change, save a great deal of money, and make our energy grid more resilient by transitioning away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy and energy efficiency.
"While the path forward to a cleaner and more sustainable energy future for planet Earth will not be easy, and mistakes will certainly be made, the choice we face is pretty clear," Sanders warned. "Either we maintain the status quo and continue to see more heatwaves, drought, floods, and extreme weather disturbances or we move away from fossil fuels and do our best to make sure that the planet we leave our kids and future generations is healthy and habitable."
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Google-Owned YouTube Makes Millions From Channels Pushing Climate Disinformation: Analysis
"It's time for YouTube to step up, detox its platform, and protect the integrity of the fight against the climate crisis," said Ekō's campaign director.
Jul 28, 2023
Google-owned YouTube is again facing allegations of profiting from not enforcing its own ban on the monetization of climate misinformation, this time in a report published Friday amid legislative battles in Brazil over policies on the Amazon rainforest, Indigenous rights, and social media.
Google announced in October 2021 that for advertisers and publishers along with creators on its video platform YouTube, the company would "prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change."
For four weeks, researchers with Ekō—a group formerly known as SumOfUs that works to curb the power of big corporations—reviewed 60 YouTube videos in English and Portuguese that contained disinformation and conspiracy theories about Amazon deforestation, Indigenous rights, and the climate emergency.
Over two-thirds of the videos were monetized, and Ekō identified more than 150 brands in the ads. Using a common industry tool, researchers estimated that the channels—which collectively had over 40 million subscribers and more than 5 million views—earn $636,000 to $10.1 million a year through monetization.
"The proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories are helping to derail efforts by the Lula administration to advance policy agendas around Amazon protection, Indigenous land rights, and social media regulation."
"Well-known Brazilian and global brands like Lyft, Calvin Klein, Budweiser, Panasonic, and Samsung, as well as environmental and human rights groups like Friends of the Earth U.K., UNICEF, and the Peace Corps, are appearing next to extreme climate denial content and conspiracy theories," the report states, "effectively pouring money into the pockets of conspiracy theorists and climate deniers."
"Ekō researchers found top-name apparel, electronics, and drink brands appearing next to videos suggesting actor Leonardo DiCaprio funded nongovernmental organizations to commit arson in the Amazon," the publication continues. "Other false claims include that the rainforest is too humid to catch fire, and that manmade global warming is a lie."
"The proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories are helping to derail efforts by the Lula administration to advance policy agendas around Amazon protection, Indigenous land rights, and social media regulation," the document adds, pushing for policy "that prevents platforms from monetizing and profiting from disinformation and lies that are subverting the legislative process."
In a statement Friday, Ekō campaign director Vicky Wyatt also demanded action from the company.
"While global warming, deforestation, and wildfires reach their highest levels ever recorded, YouTube's shameless greenwashing is exposed—with the company giving profits to climate deniers to the tune of millions," said Wyatt. "This is a clear slap in the face to the brands whose advertisements unknowingly support climate disinformation. It's time for YouTube to step up, detox its platform, and protect the integrity of the fight against the climate crisis."
Ekō's analysis follows a May report from Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) for which researchers found 200 YouTube videos containing climate mis- and disinformation. The videos had a total of 73.8 million views and all had featured ads.
YouTube spokesperson Michael Aciman toldEngadget in response to those findings that the company is "constantly working" to remove content that violates its rules and welcomes third-party feedback to "help improve the accuracy of our enforcement over time."
"In 2021, we launched a new, industry-leading policy that explicitly prohibits ads from running on content promoting false claims about the existence and causes of climate change, which we designed in consultation with experts and authoritative sources on climate science," Aciman also said. "We do allow policy debate or discussions of climate-related initiatives, but when content crosses the line to climate change denial, we remove ads from serving on those videos.”
Meanwhile, Callum Hood, head of research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, part of the CAAD coalition, said at the time that "despite Google's green grandstanding, its ads continue to fuel the climate denial industry."
"Whether it's taking cash to target users with climate disinformation, or running ads that make climate denial content profitable, the company is selling out," Hood added. "Tech companies make big promises on hate and misinformation because they know it's hard to see if they've kept them. We need to force Google to open up the black box of its advertising business."
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Oregon County Sues Big Oil and 'Misinformation Agents' Over Deadly 2021 Heatwave
"The heat dome was a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants' decision to sell as many fossil fuel products over the last six decades as they could and to lie to the county, the public, and the scientific community."
Jun 22, 2023
Two years after what experts called the "world's most extreme heatwave in modern history" devastated the Pacific Northwest, Oregon's Multnomah County filed a lawsuit against several fossil fuel giants and "their misinformation agents" in state court.
"This lawsuit is about accountability and fairness, and I believe the people of Multnomah County deserve both. These businesses knew their products were unsafe and harmful, and they lied about it," said Jessica Vega Pederson, the county chair. "They have profited massively from their lies and left the rest of us to suffer the consequences and pay for the damages. We say enough is enough."
The complaint names fossil fuel companies including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Shell, as well as the consulting firm McKinsey & Company and two trade associations: the American Petroleum Institute (API) and Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA).
The 2021 extreme heat event was linked to hundreds of deaths in the region and scientists said at the time it would have been "virtually impossible without human-caused climate change," which is notably driven by ongoing fossil fuel extraction and use.
"The heat dome that cost so much life and loss was not a natural weather event," the complaint stresses. "It did not just happen because life can be cruel, nor can it be rationalized as simply a mystery of God's will. Rather, the heat dome was a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants' decision to sell as many fossil fuel products over the last six decades as they could and to lie to the county, the public, and the scientific community about the catastrophic harm that pollution from those products into the Earth's and the county's atmosphere would cause."
In Multnomah County, the heatwave killed at least 69 people, caused property damage, and took a financial toll on local resources. The suit—which accuses the defendants of fraud, negligence, and creating a public nuisance—seeks $50 million in actual damages, $1.5 billion in future damages, and an abatement fund, estimated at $50 billion, to "weatherproof" the county.
"There are no new laws or novel theories being asserted here. We contend that the defendants broke long-standing ones, and we will prove it to a jury," said attorney and law professor Jeffrey Simon.
Along with his firm, Simon Greenstone Panatier, the county is represented by Thomas, Coon, Newton & Frost as well as Worthington & Caron.
"What is new about this case," explained attorney Roger Worthington, "is how the leadership of Multnomah County is utilizing irrefutable climate science to hold corporate polluters accountable for their role in causing a discreet and disastrous event, as well as recent wildfires."
According to Worthington:
We will show that fossil fuel-induced global warming is already costing Oregonians lives and treasure. We will show that the normal use of fossil fuel products over time has imposed massive external, unpriced, and untraded social, economic, and environmental costs on the county. We will show that they were aware of this price, and instead of fully informing the public, they deceived us. And we will ask a jury to decide if it is fair to hold the polluters accountable for these avoidable and rising costs.
We are confident that, once we show what the fossil fuel companies knew about global warming and when, and what they did to deny, delay, and deceive the public, the jury will not let the fossil fuel companies get away with their reckless misconduct.
As some local groups responded to the filing by urging Multnomah County to also "help us fight dirty, dangerous, and inequitable fossil fuel development" in the region, the new legal action was widely welcomed by climate campaigners.
Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said that with this suit, "Multnomah County has joined the growing ranks of local governments that are standing up to Big Oil and fighting to make these polluters pay for the catastrophic damage they knowingly caused and lied about for decades."
"While other communities are seeking to hold Big Oil accountable for the costs of hurricanes, rising seas, and wildfires," he highlighted, "Multnomah County is the first to demand that oil companies stand trial for fueling the devastating 2021 heat dome, which claimed lives and wreaked havoc across the Pacific Northwest."
"Communities should not be forced to pay the price for these catastrophic climate damages while the companies that caused the crisis perpetuate their lies and rake in record profits," Wiles added. "The people of Multnomah County deserve their day in court to hold Big Oil accountable."
Lawsuits that aim to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its planet-wrecking products and lies aren't the only climate-related cases currently moving through U.S. courts; Delta Merner at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) on Thursday pointed to another legal battle—a historic climate trial in Montana, the result of 16 youth suing the state.
"Multnomah County residents are on the frontlines of devastating climate change impacts. Extreme heat and wildfires are taking a massive toll on the health, well-being, and livelihoods of community members and leaving scars that will last for generations," she said. "A growing body of attribution science is paving the way for real accountability, showing over and over that the fossil fuel industry bears a great deal of responsibility for the damage done. As the first constitutional climate lawsuit trial draws to a close in Montana, plaintiffs, advocates, and scientists are hopeful that our justice system will work effectively, informed by robust scientific evidence."
"Across the country and the world, climate litigation is helping communities resist the fossil fuel industry's attempts to further extend a dangerous, unjust, and destructive fossil fuel-dependent energy system and economy," added Merner, lead scientist at the UCS Science Hub for Climate Litigation. "While nothing can truly compensate for the lives lost, the homes destroyed, or the irreplaceable natural landscapes forever altered, legal avenues provide a glimmer of hope for justice. Climate litigation is a necessary mechanism to hold these corporations accountable for their callous disregard for the well-being of communities and the planet."
As DeSmognoted Thursday:
It is the first time that McKinsey & Company has been named as a defendant in a climate accountability lawsuit. It is also the first climate case to name the WSPA as a defendant; other climate cases filed by California communities have invoked the Big Oil trade association—which spent more than any other group lobbying in California last year—as a relevant nonparty.
McKinsey & Company has a sordid history of working with industries that have deliberately deceived the public about the harms of their products, from Big Tobacco to opioid manufacturers. The consulting firm has also served the fossil fuel industry.
Ben Franta, senior research fellow and head of the Climate Litigation Lab at the University of Oxford, suggested to DeSmog that firms that have done work for polluting industries may increasingly face such legal challenges.
"Fossil fuel majors have collaborated with ad agencies, public relations firms, and others over the decades to create misleading public communications campaigns," he said. "Much as the consulting firm McKinsey has faced liability in the context of opioid litigation, third parties beyond fossil fuel producers might conceivably face liability in the context of climate litigation."
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