These Climate Science Deniers are Spreading Misinformation about the Australian Bushfires

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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has doubled down on his refusal to strengthen his administrationโ€™s approach to climate policy as his country burns. While Morrison acknowledges that climate change is one factor driving the fires, he is unwilling to consider reversing his governmentโ€™s poor record on climate action to help prevent similar disasters happeningย again.

In recent days, Morrisonโ€™s position has been bolstered by a group of fringe climate science deniers pushing conspiracy theories and misinformation about the relationship between the fires and climateย change.

Alex Jonesโ€™ย NewsWars

An article on the alt-right website NewsWars makes the false claim that โ€œauthorities in Australia are working on the premise that arsonists and lightning strikes are to blame for bushfires that have devastated numerous areas of the country, not โ€˜climate changeโ€™ as many global warming alarmists have claimed.โ€ Independent factcheckers from Climate Feedback judged the article to be โ€œmisleadingโ€, saying the claim’s โ€œflawed reasoning misunderstands that fires are exacerbated by hot and dry conditions and Australia is currently facing aย severe droughtย amidst increasingย temperatures.โ€

NewsWars is published by Alex Jones, who has been described as โ€œthe most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary Americaโ€ by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit which tracks hateย groups.


Want to know more about the people and organisations spreading climate science denial? Check out DeSmog’s Disinformationย Database


Jones has interviewed numerous climate change deniers on his InfoWars radio show including Lord Christopher Monckton, Marc Morano, John Coleman, and James Delingpole. Jones has promoted the idea that the United Nations seek a โ€œglobal governmentโ€ and has described the UN as โ€œthe founders of the global tyrannyโ€ when criticizing the 2009 Copenhagen climate changeย negotiations.

Jonesโ€™ material has been variously banned or suspended from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube for violating the sitesโ€™ respective guidelines around abusive behaviour and hate speech.

Myron Ebell and Patrickย Michaels

Two stalwart climate science deniers and fossil fuel industry promoters published an article in the Washington Examiner arguing that, โ€œitโ€™s very convenient for alarmist greens to blame the fires of Australia and California on global warming. In reality, the policies they themselves advocate are the culprits.โ€ In other words, they claim that only poor land management is to blame โ€” not decades of rising emissions and globalย temperatures.

Myron Ebell is the Director of Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). In 1998, Ebell was a member of the โ€œGlobal Climate Science Communications Teamโ€ (GCSCT) assembled by the American Petroleum Institute (API), which worked on a plan to convince the public that climate change was uncertain. In September of 2016, Myron Ebell was selected to lead Donald Trump’sย  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency transition team, though he later admitted he had never actually directly spoken to the President.

CEI has received over $1.5 million from the oil giant ExxonMobil. It has also received a combined total of over $6 million from the secretive DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, groups used by organisations including the industrialist billionaires the Koch family to funnel funds to conservativeย causes.

Patrick Michaels is a relatively recent recruit to the CEI, having previously been director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute. He has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the energy industry to spread misinformation on climateย change.

Tonyย Abbott

In an interview about the fires, Australiaโ€™s former Prime Minister Tony Abbott told radio in Israel that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions were โ€œnot the only, or even main factorโ€ in driving climate change, the Guardian reports. In the same interview, he said the world was โ€œin the grip of a climateย cultโ€.

Abbott gave the annual lecture for the UKโ€™s principal climate science denial campaign group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), in 2017. In the speech he saidย rising carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning could be โ€œbeneficialโ€ and compared acceptance of human-caused climate change to religion.ย University of Melbourne climate scientist Dr Benjamin Henley said at the time that the lecture was โ€œfull of falsehoods, miscomprehension, and basicย untruths.โ€

The GWPF has recently promoted at least seven articles trying to play down or counter the message that the fires were related to climateย change.

Christopherย Monckton

Not to be outdone, Viscount Christopher Monckton, a man who once rode into the annual UN climate talks on a camel felt the need to โ€œnail the childish myth that global warming caused the bushfires in Australiaโ€ in a long blog post.

A journalist by trade and former advisor to the Thatcher government, Moncktonโ€™s assertions on the causes of climate change have been widely discredited. He has also been reprimanded by the House of Lords for falsely claiming to be a sitting peer and warned not to use official imagery on hisย presentations.

Royย Spencer

Another fringe blogger arguing that climate change has less to do with the fires than credible scientists suggest is Roy Spencer, a research scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. On his blog, he argues that population rises and natural variability can explain the ragingย fires.

Spencer is an advisor to the Cornwall Alliance, formerly the Interfaith Steward Alliance (ISA), an evangelical Christian group that claims environmentalism is โ€œone of the greatest threats to society and the churchย today.โ€

Murdochย media

Australia is home to one of the worldโ€™s most influential media moguls, Rupert Murdoch. Yet his outlets โ€œcontinue to spread climate denial, attack other outlets providing lifesaving coverage, and ignore local fire threats,โ€ according to a report from nonprofit watchdog Media Matters for America (MMFA).

MMFA points to multiple commentators on Sky News Australia who refer to those saying climate change is driving the fires as having โ€œjoined a cultโ€ and โ€œbeen brainwashed.โ€ One commentator, Andrew Bolt, reportedly called the โ€œbig global warming scareโ€ a โ€œconโ€ when discussing the fires. Bolt is one of many conservative-leaning commentators to attack youth activist Greta Thunberg, calling her โ€œdeeplyย disturbedโ€.


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The Murdoch-owned The Australian has also published multiple opinion pieces attacking the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for its comprehensive coverage of the fires, the Guardian reports, including its reports linking them to climateย change.

Bots

Multiple reports have also pointed to the role of social media bots helping to spread conspiracy theories to counter the claim that climate change is driving theย fires.

Analysis by Queensland University of Technology senior lecturer Dr Timothy Graham found a โ€œcurrent disinformation campaignโ€ on Twitterโ€™s #arsonemergency hashtag due to the โ€œsuspiciously high number of bot-like and troll-like accountsโ€, the Guardian reported.

Analysis by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation found โ€œsome of the suspicious accounts were amplifying unproven suggestions arson had been the overwhelming cause of Australia’s disastrous bushfire season.โ€ These claims have been contradicted by official statements from Australianย police.

Reputableย sources

In contrast to the misinformation, a large number of climate scientists have been busy talking to the mainstream media to explain the links between climate change and theย bushfires.

Stefan Rahmstorf, a lead author of the United Nationsโ€™ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changeโ€™s Fourth Assessment Report, told Time that Australiaโ€™s record high temperatures and droughts have both driven the fires, and that both have โ€œwell-establishedโ€ links to climateย change.

Likewise, Australian National University climate scientist Dr Imran Ahmed, University of Sydney ecologist Glenda Wardle, and Richard Thornton, the chief executive of the Bushfires & Natural Hazards Co-operative Research Centre, all told the BBC that climate change was โ€œexacerbatingโ€ conditions that drive theย fires.

So contrary to what climate science deniers, unqualified commentators and bots would have people believe, there is a large body of research showing the bushfires are โ€œundeniablyโ€ linked to climateย change.

Main image credit: Sean P Anderson/Flickrย CC BY 2.0. This article was corrected on 14/01/2020 to remove an erroneous statement about the Evangelical Climateย Initiative.

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Mat was DeSmog's Special Projects and Investigations Editor, and Operations Director of DeSmog UK Ltd. He was DeSmog UKโ€™s Editor from October 2017 to March 2021, having previously been an editor at Nature Climate Change and analyst at Carbon Brief.

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