GB News

Governments Must Tackle Climate Disinformation, Experts Urge

Spread the love

Original article by Joey Grostern republished from DeSmog.

Scientists and campaigners are calling on governments and tech companies to tackle climate disinformation. Credit: MauriceNorbert via Alamy

An open letter from climate scientists and campaigners warns of the dangers associated with false climate claims.

Governments around the world must take “immediate and decisive action” to tackle climate disinformation, scientists and campaign groups have urged as talks at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan enter their fourth day. 

A coalition of 55 climate information integrity groups and 42 leading climate scientists and experts have signed an open letter urging countries to counter the risk of false and misleading claims that are wrecking efforts to slow climate change. 

It comes two days after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke at COP29 arguing that “there is no national security without climate security” – and a week after the election in the United States of Donald Trump, who has previously called climate change a “hoax”. 

The letter published today – signatories to which include Friends of the Earth, the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, and regional branches of Greenpeace and WWF – lists steps governments could take. 

These include adopting a universal definition of climate disinformation, such as the working definition proposed by the Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition, another signatory. 

According to the letter, the definition should cover anything that misrepresents scientific data or “falsely publicises” supposed solutions to climate change which in fact contribute to global warming, often referred to as “greenwashing”. 

Such a definition should cover “deceptive or misleading online behaviour” that undermines public understanding of climate change, the fact it is caused by human activity, and the need for urgent mitigation and adaptation action, the letter said. 

Signatories also urged governments to take action against organisations which give a platform to climate disinformation – including social media outlets, advertising technology providers, broadcasters, and publishing companies. 

“The spread of disinformation continues to undermine and delay our collective ability to act, jeopardising progress at crucial negotiations and the upcoming G20 Summit in Brazil”, the letter said.  

“Climate disinformation, waged by vested interests, undermines climate action and puts our collective future at risk. Our information ecosystem is being damaged, and those responsible must be held accountable.”

The letter ends by arguing that “by adopting these principles, governments can foster a healthier and safer online environment that supports informed decision-making and enables effective climate action.”

The world’s leading climate science group, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has warned that efforts to tackle climate change were being delayed by “rhetoric and misinformation that undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgency”.

“As disinformation continues to be an obstacle to vital climate action, the message from this open letter to decision makers globally is clear: protecting truth in the climate conversation is critical if we are to secure meaningful change”, said Max MacBride, Head of Counter-Disinformation at Roots Greenpeace, the NGO’s grassroots campaign initiative.

“At Roots, we see every day how climate disinformation stifles youth advocacy, and we join this call to hold governments and platforms accountable for enabling informed, equitable climate action”, he said.

Climate Disinformation Threats 

A CAAD report published earlier this week found that climate disinformation is widespread online, and is hobbling efforts to address climate change. 

The report said that social media platforms bear responsibility for allowing “super spreaders” to “pollute their platforms with debunked claims attacking renewable energy and electric vehicles”.

CAAD also found that fossil fuel companies were allowed to use digital advertising across Meta platforms to greenwash their reputations, by promoting false solutions or presenting fossil fuels as essential to the energy transition. 

A study published in February found that 14 percent of Americans don’t believe climate change is real – even as growing numbers of Americans say they are concerned about the climate.

“In the US, we’ve painfully experienced the role disinformation has played in thwarting disaster response and threats to the lives of responders”, Kate Cell, Senior Climate Campaign Manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told DeSmog.

“As climate-fueled disasters become more common around the world, governments can protect their residents by addressing the problem of climate disinformation systemically.” 

Another report released this week by the scrutiny NGO InfluenceMap found 2.500 cases of fossil fuel companies pushing arguments which contradict IPCC recommendations since COP28 last year. 

Thais Lazzeri, founder of educational group FALA, a signatory to the letter, told DeSmog: “The letter comes at a unique time for Brazil, which is hosting the G20 and the incoming COP30 Presidency. The alliance of so many Brazilian institutes and professionals shows the urgency for answers and the intersectoral power of this Brazilian network, willing to work together.”

She added: “At the opening of the Brazil space at CO29, Environment Minister, Marina Silva, said that denialism doesn’t fit. The Brazilian government can lead by example and guarantee information integrity policies and strategic, connected actions to change the game.”

DeSmog has previously reported on news media spreading false climate claims, with The Telegraph newspaper in the UK attacking climate solutions – a trend that has increasing since July’s general election. As revealed by DeSmog in 2023, one in three presenters on the right-wing broadcaster GB News had spread climate disinformation during the previous year. 

“It is much easier to pollute the waters of public discussion on climate change causes and consequences than it is to keep them clean and productive,” said Max Boykoff, signatory to the letter and professor of Environmental Studies at Boulder University in Colorado and founder of the Media Climate Change Observatory, a project which analyses mentions of climate change in news media.

“Therefore, more proactive, clear, accurate and effective communication efforts are consistently and repeatedly needed. That motivates this call for government action to curb disinformation about climate change.”

Original article by Joey Grostern republished from DeSmog.

Related: UK & Government Petitions: Run a public information campaign on the climate crisis

Continue ReadingGovernments Must Tackle Climate Disinformation, Experts Urge

UK Labour MP Says Right-Wing Politicians, Media Fueled Xenophobic Mob Attacks

Spread the love

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Ed Balls was previously a Labour Party MP.

People clean up debris outside a Holiday Inn Express whose walls bear graffiti reading “Get Out England” and a racial epithet on August 5, 2024 in Tamworth, England.

“There are politicians and there are journalists who have played an active role in fanning the flames of hate and division, and we are seeing that play out,” said Zarah Sultana.

As British Prime Minister Keir Starmer covened an emergency security meeting on Monday to respond to violent attacks on immigrant and Muslim communities that have spread across the United Kingdom in recent days, progressive MP Zarah Sultana said the crisis—fueled by rampant disinformation and xenophobia—must serve as a reckoning for politicians and journalists who have “fanned the flames” of hatred for years.

Sultana, who represents Coventry South in the House of Commons, appeared on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” to discuss the violent riots that have taken place in at least a dozen cities across the U.K. in recent days, mostly in England, with far-right protesters attacking mosques, libraries, and a hotel housing asylum-seekers.

The attacks have been in response to disinformation that has pinned the blame for a deadly stabbing attack on a children’s dance class in Southport, England last week on undocumented immigrants. The suspect was born and raised in the U.K., according to police.

“Rather than saying, this is the result of political decisions made by consecutive governments, people have blamed and scapegoated minorities.”

Sultana said that the violent attacks in cities including Blackpool, Leeds, and Manchester “shouldn’t be a surprise,” considering the years the British government—led for 14 years by the Conservative Party until the Labour Party won last month’s elections—has spent pushing anti-immigration policies and demonizing asylum-seekers, with the help of national news outlets.

“There is decades of work by the right-wing press and by politicians who have fanned the flames of this hate,” said Sultana in a panel discussion that also included journalists from The Daily Mail. “When we look at the role that media outlets like GB News has played, that The Daily Mail has played… There are politicians and there are journalists who have played an active role in fanning the flames of hate and division, and we are seeing that play out.”

Andrew Pierce of The Daily Mail took issue with Sultana’s remarks, demanding that she provide examples of anti-Muslim news stories in the paper.

The lawmaker did so after the broadcast, posting an image of 16 front pages from the outlet, including ones that asked “how many more” migrants the U.K. can take, referred to asylum-seekers as “illegals,” and claimed that migrants are taking the majority of jobs in the U.K. and sparking a “housing crisis.”

Sultana added that former Home Secretary Suella Braverman referred to refugees arriving in the U.K. as an “invasion” and far-right Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said in May that British Muslims do not share “British values.”

“So when we look at the complicity,” said Sultana, “there’s a lot of mirrors that people have to be looking into.”

Sultana also implored politicians and the British media to explicitly refer to the riots over the weekend as Islamophobic, noting that Prime Minister Keir Starmer and others have denounced the attacks as racist but have not clearly expressed solidarity with the Muslim communities that have been targeted.

“Naming it as Islamophobia is really important because that allows us to shape our response,” said Sultana. “If we’re not identifying what is happening, the language that is being used and what this is about, we’re not going to be able to address this fundamentally.”

“Why is there such controversy around calling it Islamophobia?” asked Sultana after “Good Morning Britain” host Ed Balls dismissed her concerns, displaying what the lawmaker called “sneering contempt.”

The interview took place a week after three children were killed and 10 were injured in a knife attack in Southport. The 17-year-old suspect, Axel Rudakubana, was born and raised in Britain, according to authorities, who took the unusual step of making his identity public to counter disinformation that quickly spread online and fueled riots that first began in Southport the day after the crime.

The first riot included anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant demonstrators throwing bricks at a mosque in the town, setting cars on fire, and damaging a convenience store.

The authorities’ decision to disclose the suspect’s identity did not stop the violence from escalating over the weekend, with rioters setting a library on fire in Liverpool, burning books, and attempting to block firefighters from putting out the flames on Saturday.

In Rotherham, an anti-immigration mob broke into a hotel housing asylum-seekers and attempted to set the building on fire while blocking exits.

Nearly 150 people were arrested for taking part in the attacks, and Starmer warned Sunday that “those who have participated in this violence will face the full force of the law.”

“This is not protest. It is organized, violent thuggery,” said Starmer.

BJ Harrington, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for public order, said in a statement Sunday that “disinformation is a huge driver of this appalling violence and we know a lot of those attending these so-called protests are doing so in direct response to what they’ve read online.”

“Often posts are being shared and amplified by high profile accounts. We’re working hard to counteract this,” added Harrington. “They won’t win.”

While calling on the government and media to directly confront the Islamophobia that has been fomented in the U.K. in recent decades, Sultana said the new Labour government should also correct the austerity policies that have caused unrest and scapegoating of immigrants and Muslim communities.

“The economic system which has allowed inequality to exacerbate in this country, has brought down living standards,” said Sultana. “Our communities have faced the brunt of Tory austerity, and what has happened on the right-wing side of politics, in the media and in politics, is that migrants, Muslims, and trans people have been blamed for people not being able to access council housing, not being able to get [National Health Service] appointments, not being able to find school places for their kids. Rather than saying, this is the result of political decisions made by consecutive governments, people have blamed and scapegoated minorities.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Ed Balls was previously a Labour Party MP.

Continue ReadingUK Labour MP Says Right-Wing Politicians, Media Fueled Xenophobic Mob Attacks

The UK’s Billionaire Media – Just Stop Oil

Spread the love

Original article by Donnachadh McCarthy republished from Just Stop Oil under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence. Many Just Stop Oil supporters were arrested on Thursday evening / Friday morning: Dozens of campaigners held over alleged airport plans.

There is only ONE REASON why Just Stop Oil climate protectors are being jailed:

The UK’s 4 climate-trashing media billionaires insisted that they be jailed. 

There is only ONE REASON why Just Stop Oil’s key single demand #NoNewOil has not been implemented by the UK government: 

The UK’s 4 climate-trashing media billionaires insisted that the UK government reject JSO and instead max out UK North Sea oil and gas reserves. 

For many climate protectors who do not read the billionaire owned tabloids (Mail, Sun,Telegraph) or watch their new far-right TV stations GB News and Talk TV, this may seem exaggerated. Many are unaware of the full-scale billionaire-media war being waged on UK climate action and how despite dwindling circulations, they wield enormous unaccountable political power over UK policy, including climate policy. 

Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, outlined to a Parliamentary Select Committee the direct impact the right-wing media had on Johnson’s decision making. The Climate Media Coalition in 2022 carried out an analysis of the process leading up to the UK government’s energy security strategy, drafted after the energy crisis provoked by the invasion of Ukraine. 

We looked at opinion polling on eight energy policy issues covered by the strategy. We then analysed the coverage of these issues in the editorial and comment pages of the billionaire media. And finally, we looked at the government policy positions adopted by the published strategy. The eight policy issues were: onshore wind, offshore wind, solar, nuclear, fusion, insulation, fracking and new North-sea oil drilling.

The public by significant majorities supported onshore wind, offshore wind, solar and insulation. They opposed new North Sea oil and gas, fracking and nuclear. There was no polling on fusion. The billionaire media supported new North Sea oil and gas, fracking, nuclear and fusion. They opposed onshore wind, insulation and solar. 

The government’s final strategy? 

Every single policy position reflected the eight policy positions of the billionaire media! Only one item reflected what the public supported. The only one also supported by the billionaire media. 

We are the only nation on earth to have had a de facto ban on onshore wind for the last decade after the Telegraph and Mail demanded it be banned. This evidence graphically demonstrates the raw climate-trashing political power of the UK’s billionaire press and the threat it poses to humanity and what is left of nature. 

Murdoch (owner of the Sun) and Rothermere (owner of The Mail) abused their power by bullying the police and government into introducing not just one but TWO new  Acts of Parliament, to punitively try to destroy Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion and are actively lobbying for a third, following the peaceful Palestinian protests. 

The Guardian has reported that distinguished international scientists identified Rupert Murdoch, as one of the key media billionaires endangering humanity. 

Prof Lesley Hughes, Australian Climate Change Authority said: 

“Rupert Murdoch bears enormous responsibility for the world’s lack of action on climate. His outlets promote scepticism about climate science that undermines the need to act.”

Prof Michael Mann, University of Pennsylvania, said Murdoch is 

“one of the most destructive forces in modern history when it comes to climate action”. He wields his media empire as a cudgel to sow doubt about science and solutions. He is one of the greatest climate villains.”

Dr Friederike Otto, Grantham Institute said: 

“Murdoch leaves a terrible legacy, that people are paying for, with lives and livelihoods. Climate protesters are portrayed as people trying to make life difficult for the average person, whereas of course they try to make it better”

So what strategy should the climate movement now move forward with?

What are the four pillars of the fossil fuelled economy? They are the government that regulates it, the oil industry that operates it, the banks that fund it but most importantly the corporate media that give it the social and political licence to operate. The media pillar is THE foundational pillar on which the other three depend.

And the UK’s media billionaires Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere, the Barclays and Paul Marshall have captured that pillar. Therefore, the climate movement’s TOP-PRIORITY must be one way or another to remove the billionaire climate-trashing media and instead create a free Fourth Estate that backs the urgent climate action and wildlife repair necessary.  

We must replace a bought press with a free press!

The world has recognised how Ukraine has a right to self-defence from the brutal Russian invasion. It is time for the climate movement to recognise that all of humanity has a far, far -greater right to self-defence from the media billionaires’ war to destroy the climate, upon which nature and all future generations’ lives depend. 

But excitingly, in this battle there is a huge coalition out there gagging for leadership. Not least, the 76% of the UK public horrified by the billionaire-media backed Gazan genocide. There are deep chilling parallels between their support for the horrific Gazan genocide and their support for climate genocide and how both usurp British democracy. In the crucial parliamentary vote, 71% of MPs backed the billionaire media’s opposition to the ceasefire and betrayed their own constituents!

There is hardly a section of the population that the billionaire media have not vilified at one time or another. These include NHS staff, gay people, trade-unions, wildlife protectors, freedom of the press campaigners, human rights advocates, refugees, immigrants, EU residents, civil servants, locally elected councils, the disabled, the unemployed, travellers, Muslims, women, cyclists, the Church of England, etc etc. 

When Extinction Rebellion successfully blockaded Murdoch’s printing works for just 12 hours in 2020, a ripple of excitement ran across the nation. Finally, somebody had stood up to the billionaire media dictatorship brutalising Britain. Just imagine what would happen, if we broke the hold they have on our democracy? Imagine if every front page constantly screamed for action on climate and wildlife?! 

The fossil fuelled criminal establishment would be gone within a year. 

The banks would be funding the renewable energy economy, the government would regulate for a net zero economy by 2030 and the oil corporations would become renewable energy corporations. 

If Just Stop Oil and the wider climate movement are to win (and we must!) – then it needs to now focus, focus, focus on the one key positive and uplifting political revolution that can enable our success – peaceful direct action and building a pan-societal coalition to win the media battle for human and wildlife survival. 

It is the media stupid!

Links:

Revealed: Scale of The Telegraph’s Climate Change ‘Propaganda’

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/sep/23/rupert-murdoch-climate-change-denial

Donnachadh McCarthy, is a director of the Climate Media Coalition (climatemediacoalition.org.uk) and was in 2015, one of the first people to be arrested for a peaceful direct action demanding the criminalisation of investments in new fossil fuels. He is a former Deputy Chair of the Liberal Democrats and the author of The Prostitute State. (theprostitutestate.co.uk), E-book version is free to JSO activists & supporters from contact@3acorns.co.ukPost navigation

Original article by Donnachadh McCarthy republished from Just Stop Oil under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence. Many Just Stop Oil supporters were arrested on Thursday evening / Friday morning: Dozens of campaigners held over alleged airport plans.

Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil's You May Find Yourself... art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.

Continue ReadingThe UK’s Billionaire Media – Just Stop Oil

Labour Under Pressure for Reselecting Climate Denial Group Director as Election Candidate

Spread the love

Original article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

Graham Stringer, Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, on GB News. Credit: GB News / YouTube

It’s “a scandal” that the party continues to support Graham Stringer, campaigners say.

The Labour Party has been criticised by campaigners after a board member of the UK’s leading climate science denial group was reselected as a candidate at the upcoming general election. 

Graham Stringer, a Labour MP since 1997, has been reselected as the party’s candidate for Blackley and Broughton in Greater Manchester. Since 2015, Stringer has been a director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a group founded to contradict established climate science and advocate against policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions. 

The GWPF has in the past expressed the view that carbon dioxide has been mis-characterised as pollution, when in fact it is a “benefit to the planet”. GWPF director Benny Peiser has said “it’s extraordinary that anyone should think there is a climate crisis”.

Staff members at the GWPF and its sister group Net Zero Watch have been given a regular platform on the right-wing broadcaster GB News in recent months, during which they have claimed that the climate emergency is simply “scaremongering”, that “net zero is doing enormous damage to the economy”, and that “the lights will go out” if we divest from fossil fuels.

“It’s a scandal that Labour is allowing Graham Stringer to stand again,” said Carys Boughton of the Fossil Free Parliament campaign group. “To keep a forthright, prominent climate denier in the fold is to suggest that the party doesn’t understand the urgency of the crisis we are facing. We need Labour to actively stand against the forces that are compromising good climate policy, be they external or within their own ranks.”

The GWPF is based in 55 Tufton Street, Westminster, which has housed a number of libertarian groups that are opposed to clean energy policies and climate science.

Stringer has vocally questioned climate science and policies to achieve net zero emissions. At a Battle of Ideas event in 2023, he said that the policies adopted by the UK to address emissions “make China stronger, make us vulnerable to supply chains that we have no control over, and cost large amounts of money.”

In 2014, Stringer was one of only two MPs on Parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee to vote against accepting the conclusion of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that humans are the dominant cause of global warming.

Stringer and Conservative MP Peter Lilley said that they did “not dispute the science of the greenhouse effect”, but that “there remain great uncertainties about how much warming a given increase in greenhouse gases will cause, how much damage any temperature increase will cause and the best balance between adaptation to versus prevention of global warming.”

Stringer also planned to join Reform UK’s Nigel Farage and Richard Tice for their launch of a net zero referendum campaign in 2022 (though he later pulled out of the event). Reform wants to scrap the UK’s 2050 net zero target, while both Farage and Tice are critics of climate science. Tice has claimed that “CO2 isn’t poison. It’s plant food”.

Speaking on GB News about his initial decision to campaign alongside Farage and Tice, Stringer said that “I’ve argued for a long time against the extra costs being placed on people to achieve net zero.” 

Energy price rises triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 were exacerbated in the UK – the worst hit country in western Europe – due to its over-reliance on gas. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the government’s independent spending watchdog, has said that “the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero”.

Conservative peer Lord David Frost is a director of the GWPF alongside Stringer. Tory and Reform donor Terence Mordaunt is also a director of the GWPF, while Conservative politician Andrea Jenkyns is a director of Net Zero Watch.

“Labour can claim a serious commitment to environmental and climate policy. Or it can select as an MP a candidate who is on the board of a Tufton Street climate science denial think tank. But it can’t do both,” said Jolyon Maugham, director of the Good Law Project. 

Labour and Climate Change

The Labour Party has this week been finalising its list of candidates for the general election, with its full slate set to be submitted on Friday (7 June) ahead of the 4 July vote. 

The party has been campaigning prominently on the issue of clean power, pledging to create a state-owned renewable energy investment vehicle, GB Energy, that it says will help to “speed up and scale the deployment of new technologies”. 

Labour has also said that it plans to remove fossil fuels from UK electricity production by 2030, five years earlier than current government plans, and to ban new North Sea oil and gas licences. 

Reports suggest that the party views climate change as a key dividing line of the election campaign, with Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government having overseen the watering down of several net zero policies over the last year. Sunak launched the election campaign by claiming that he had “prioritised energy security and your family finances over environmental dogma”.

However, Labour has been criticised for dropping its plan to invest £28 billion a year in green infrastructure to reach net zero. On announcing that the policy would be scaled down, Labour leader Keir Starmer said that “fiscal rules come first”, adding that higher interest rates meant that financing the plan would be more expensive. The pledged investment has now been reduced to £15 billion a year. 

Labour did not respond to DeSmog’s request for comment, but a spokesperson previously told The Guardian: “The choice at this election is clear: a Conservative government that pollutes our rivers with record levels of toxic sewage, is led by and funded by climate deniers and fails to meet our climate and nature targets; or a Labour government that will restore nature, deliver the largest investment in clean energy in our history so we can cut bills for families, make Britain energy independent and tackle the climate crisis to protect our home for our children and grandchildren.”

Original article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingLabour Under Pressure for Reselecting Climate Denial Group Director as Election Candidate

Suella Braverman blanked by students at Gaza protest camp in excruciating video

Spread the love

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/suella-braverman-blanked-by-students-at-gaza-protest-camp-in-excruciating-video/

Suella Braverman has been ridiculed after an excruciating attempt to engage with students at a protest camp in support of Palestine outside the University of Cambridge. 

Visiting the camp on Thursday with GB News presenter Patrick Christys, the Tory MP was met with a wall of silence as she and the presenter attempted to talk with activists. 

The former Home Secretary tried a number of times to ask questions, but was met on all occasions with no response during the humiliating two and half minute encounter.

She introduced herself with, “Hi, I’m Suella I’m keen to find out your views and what you’re protesting about.” But protesters didn’t give them the response they were after, instead they just stood and stared back. 

Braverman persisted asking questions such as, “I’m interested in why you’re covering your faces. Is it a Covid or a health measure?” and “I’m really keen to hear what your message is to Israel.”

…

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/suella-braverman-blanked-by-students-at-gaza-protest-camp-in-excruciating-video/

Continue ReadingSuella Braverman blanked by students at Gaza protest camp in excruciating video