Marco Silva
Appearances
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
It's a very good question and certainly one that shows how those beliefs can defy logic. So one thing that I've noticed as part of my job covering climate change, mis- and disinformation is that Every time these extreme weather events happen, be it heat waves, floods, hurricanes, you name it, there will always be an explosion of misinformation online.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
Of course, by misinformation, I mean false and misleading claims being made about these events. And that misinformation can be focused not only on people. the political response, for example, the aid relief, but also, perhaps more importantly to me, the causes of those events.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
Now, as we heard Greer say there, attribution, linking specific extreme weather events to climate change, requires quite a lot of scientific work, is difficult, right? But we can say for sure that many extreme weather events are indeed being made more likely, more intense by climate change. What some people say online is that they look at these facts and they dismiss them outright.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
They look at these extreme weather events and say, this has nothing to do with climate change. Climate change is a scam. Climate change is a hoax. And instead, I've seen increasing numbers of people turning to often conspiracy theories, to try and make sense of these rather dramatic scenes. And there are some egregious examples of that, aren't there? Absolutely, absolutely.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
I've been telling my colleagues that for the last year, most of my time has been spent covering extreme weather events, where indeed people turn to conspiracy theories to make sense of what happened. The
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the US were one good example, with people suggesting online, wrongly, without any shred of evidence, that these hurricanes, these storms had been engineered into existence. Now, there's no technology available to humankind that allows us to create or control hurricanes, but still those beliefs were there.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
More recently, in Spain, when flash floods hit the region of Valencia, there too, there were allegations that weather weapons had supposedly been used to create this storm. Again, there is no evidence to suggest that is the case. And even among the numbers of people who are making these claims, there isn't always consistency about weather.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
who exactly is deploying these weapons, for what purpose they are being deployed. But what we do know is that very rarely there is any credible evidence to back such theories. Just how widespread are these views? You know what? It's rather difficult to quantify just how many people share these views.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
What we do know is that whenever these extreme weather events happen and these claims go viral online, posts and videos making these claims are getting millions of views, right? You have millions of people literally engaging with this type of content. Now, some people might say, well, this is just social media being social media. It doesn't actually transpire to the offline world, as it were.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
But we can see in a number of different countries that there are politicians, especially politicians who describe themselves as anti-establishment, politicians who will embrace these narratives, who will themselves platform some of these ideas. Chris, you're the BBC's weatherman.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
Well, before I answer that, it's still worth pointing to Chris and say that colleagues like him, weather presenters, have been at the front line of experiencing the results of this misinformation. As a result of the misinformation that I'm describing here, colleagues like Chris are being harassed on social media. And this is not a preserve of the BBC.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
Weather presenters all around the world have... have been reporting harassment and attacks by people on social media who say, you are lying to us about the real causes of the weather. The floods that we're seeing, the heat waves that we're seeing, they are not actually natural phenomena. They have been engineered.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
So there is already that consequence of real-world harassment from people who share these beliefs. But also, there is a wider point here to be made, one that certainly many experts that I've spoken to make, that Because these narratives spread so widely, what could happen as a result is that urgent action that is required to deal with climate change is hindered, is delayed.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
Because, let's face it, if you look at flash floods, if you look at many of the extreme events which scientists have conclusively linked to climate change and say... That's not to do with climate change. This is they, some amorphous entity that is controlling the weather.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
Then, quite likely, you're perhaps less likely to put pressure on your politicians, on your own government, to take the action that is required to deal with climate change. So experts say that misinformation could effectively delay very, very important, very urgent action that is needed to tackle this problem.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
Absolutely, absolutely. As I said, we've seen in a number of countries politicians embracing these narratives and sometimes also weaponising these narratives. Again, just to go back briefly to the example of Hurricanes Helen and Milton in the U.S.,
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
One of the claims, as I said, that the hurricanes had been engineered was that the hurricanes were being engineered to target specifically Republican-dominated states. Of course, the context of this claim was it was a very energetic campaign in the run-up to the US presidential election.
Global News Podcast
Extreme weather special
And so people who believe that these storms were engineered were saying the system is trying to target us, those who don't necessarily vote for the Democrats. Right.