Storms Helene and Milton have triggered rise of misinformation stoked by Trump and fellow Republicans
Meteorologists tracking the advance of Hurricane Milton have been targeted by a deluge of conspiracy theories that they were controlling the weather, abuse and even death threats, amid what they say is an unprecedented surge in misinformation as two major hurricanes have hit the US.
A series of falsehoods and threats have swirled in the two weeks since Hurricane Helene tore through six states causing several hundred deaths, followed by Milton crashing into Florida on Wednesday.
The extent of the misinformation, which has been stoked by Donald Trump and his followers, has been such that it has stymied the ability to help hurricane-hit communities, according to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).
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Doesn’t the Noah’s Ark story involve some sort of bad weather?
that’s the one about when the good, honest people of the world had to survive the liberal weather machine created by NOAA, right?
NOAA’s Ark or Noah’s HAARP?
Hurricane AARP
If you live in the south east and you are repeating conspiracy theories about the hurricane. May you rot in hell.
If you
live in the south east and youare repeating conspiracy theoriesabout the hurricane. May you rot in hell.If you
live in the south east and youarerepeating conspiracy theories about the hurricane. May you rot in hell.MK Ultra and Area 51 were a conspiracy theories… Until they were formally acknowledged.
And my burrito wasn’t poop until I ate it. What’s your point?
They may actually rot in hell when they refuse to evacuate for the next major hurricane.
Thoughts and prayers?
I see the Kremlin has been hard at work, spreading chaos just before the election, the same way they do every time.
The Kremlin may have had to work hard in 2015-2016, but I bet they don’t need to work so hard now that MAGA has become self-sustaining. No doubt they’re doing their bit, but these days they have more help than ever from inside the USA.
What’s going to happen if (when?) a meteorologist actually gets murdered over this?
If I were a meteorologist, I would refuse to go on the air after that. Could you blame any of them for wanting to preserve their own lies? Which will inevitably lead to more people getting killed in weather events.
This is so fucked up.
We should just stop any weather predictions for the South.
Let it all be God’s surprise to them, and if a surprise hurricane comes up and knocks them on their ass, well, God works in mysterious ways.
Or not because there are plenty of good people in the South who are worried about these threats and worried about climate change and try to get politicians who are also worried about climate change into office so they can do something about it. Those people are in the minority, but they still exist.
Also, plenty of children.
As someone who escaped, we should set up funds to let decent people leave for civilized places.
I simply do not consider the south redeemable at this point, we’ve given them 150 years and it’s just been a cancer on the rest of the country.
It’s anti-vaxx all over again. I knew these people were insane and stupid, but still, “anti-meteorology” wasn’t on my bingo card.
Except worse, because I know some meteorologists from my time working in local TV. Doctors get into medicine much of the time because they want to help people. In my experience, meteorologists get into it because they think the weather is really fucking cool and they love telling people about it. That’s a much smaller incentive to keep doing what you do when your life could be in danger. At that point, and again I’m just speaking for me, meteorology would become a hobby.
This has already played out exactly as you’re predicting: The Weatherman Who Tried to Bring Climate Science to a Red State
In 2021, Chris Gloninger, a television weatherman in Boston with a passion for climate science, was approached with an intriguing prospect. Would he consider a job as chief meteorologist at a television station in Des Moines?
It was a smaller market, and talk of global warming would be challenging in a politically conservative state. But research from 2020 showed that most Iowans were interested in news about climate change, and the state was a leader in wind energy. Mr. Gloninger’s weather forecasts could be a breakthrough.
He quit after death threats.
And that’s just threats. If/when one gets murdered, it won’t matter if it’s a red state or a blue state. They’ll all consider their lives at risk. In an occupation that, unless you’re a storm chaser, is not one where the person doing it thinks is going to be an issue.
Once they became anti-librarian, anything is possible.
I know you meant lives not lies, but it’s an interesting typo
Ah fuck, yeah I did.
Death threats to meteorologists - as one does.
Does anyone but me think that’s simply insane?
The irony
I thought I was past being shocked by things like this, but it still shocked me,
We are experiencing a bizarre confluence of terrible things. Large numbers of people have checked out from reality, which is bad. Meanwhile, more and more people are willing to resort to extreme violence toward anyone who disagrees with them, which is worse. The combination is incredibly destructive.
Of course it’s insane! To threaten these absolute gods who wield the power of nature (and also accept part time work explaining their plots on television.)
Is their plan to shoot someone who can summon hurricanes?
Is… is american dream is being as dumb as possible?
No healthcare, no welfare, no higher education. But I thought you had at least schools there.
But I thought you had at least schools there.
Oh between vouchers and property taxes funding schools…we’re uh, we’re working on not.
Everything is a conspiracy when you don’t know how anything works.
I work at a meteorological institute in Europe and we also get phonecalls from angry imbeciles insulting the meteorologists.
My passion for science and curiosity peaked when I got the job. Now I realise everything is a pipe dream if we do not revolutionise education into something that makes more decent philosophers of us all.
The system, no matter how good its education, will never be able to turn everybody into “decent philosophers”. Some people just aren’t smart, no matter how good education might get. Some just are gullible. That doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be as well-educated as they can possibly be, but people and their capabilities just are a spectrum and always will be. And even if today’s dumbest people will be as smart as today’s “decent philosophers” by tomorrow, today’s “decent philosophers” will still outsmart them, which is an issue if there are manipulative people with hidden agendas among them. Which they will be.
This isn’t an education issue, it’s an information and misinformation issue. Giving anybody, including malicious actors, their own, personal channel to spread whatever information they want, regardless of its quality or truth, has turned out to be a terrible idea. The Internet kind of comes with the idea to give everyone access to all of humanity’s information without taking into account that there should be a certain responsibility attached to the question of the creation of that information or that there should be a separation of concerns between people who spread information and people who have other interests than just informing people in the best way possible.
Fortunately I completely disagree.
“Imagine going back to the year 1600. Even then, Western Europe was one of the more educated parts of the planet, but back then about 20% of the population could read and write. And I suspect if you went back there and you asked someone who was capable of reading and writing—say a member of the clergy—and you said: “What percentage of the population is even capable of it?” They might have said: “If you have an incredible education system, maybe 50%.” You fast-forward 400 years to today, and we know that that prediction would have been wildly pessimistic; that nearly 100% of the population can be literate. But what similar blinders we have on today? If I were to ask you: “What percentage of the population is capable of understanding quantum physics? Or what percentage of the population is capable of contributing to medical research?” You might say maybe 5 or 10%, or with a really good education system maybe 15 or 20%. But what if the answer is a 100%? What could that mean for the rate at which human society could progress? What would that mean for the human condition? But that is just one aspect of the types of blinders we have on today, that in 400 years will hopefully seem silly.” —Salman Khan, Harvard Class Day 2014
I love it.
Yeah, that’s a much better point of view. I’ll just make that my own. Ignore what I said before.
Wow, unexpected response. Have an excellent day fellow “philosopher” ;)
I’m a Republican who Does Her Own Research and it’s OBVIOUS that these WEATHERMEN are causing our Problems and NOT the Billionaires who gave our Supreme Court Justices MILLIONS in Gifts and Vacations! All this Pollution IS LEGAL!
Good news! The damage is reversible, we just need to lower carbon emissions to pre industrial levels! We can band together to defeat the evil weather man!
Does anyone want to summarize the misinformation they’re referring to? I’m slightly curious but not enough to dig into what the crazy half of the country is up to today. I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling a lack of enthusiasm to read their bullshit directly.
Yup, they’re literally claiming dems control the weather. Apparently there was a massive hurricane on Sept 11, but the dems made it go away, because the deep state had bigger plans that day and a hurricane would interrupt it.
At this point I think you can say that lot no longer live in reality, and most likely need to be committed for psychiatric evaluation.
MTG claimed the hurricanes were controlled weather created by democrats
I love how I read her name Magic the Gathering every time
Conspiracies?! Sounds like we’re over the target.
When people lack information or are uneducated about a subject, they make up their own information to compensate. The less education, the more conspiracies.
I dont think it’s a good strategy to assume that conspiracy nutters are uneducated. My anecdotal data is that I know at least two college educated people who are big Alex Jones fans and were completely on board the pizzagate and sandy hook train. They’re by no means stupid but self-radicalized with YouTube and Fox News. It’s easy to get caught up in the propaganda machine.
There are of course smart people who get caught in conspiracies, but, in general, it’s easier to work your way out of it if you are educated and know how to do proper source criticism and check your own biases against the facts.
We are all going to die
I kept trying to articulate my reaction but this is about the best it gets. Oh humanity.
And thank God for that. The only things that live forever are cancers.
I crave the afterlife
I don’t want to live on this planet - in this star system anymore.
I just saw someone on Facebook saying the aurora being bigger than usual was caused by the weather radars.
I mean ignoring the fact that the aurora has gone through phases for all of recorded history, the amount of energy it would take to generate that is enormous. Do they think we’ve launched a bunch of nuclear power plants into orbit to power these things? Or maybe the giant nuclear power plant in the sky might be the real reason?
No, they just don’t understand the scale of things because they’re used to their small town thinking. Just like they don’t understand how much a billion dollars is and why one persons shouldn’t be allowed to have that much while others have none.
Do they think
no.
We need to stop pretending this is due to a lack of education or critical thinking. Sure, that’s true for some, but I’m betting the vast majority of these conspiracy theories are spread by people that know that they are lies and don’t care. Evil Russian propaganda bots aren’t a great explanation for the totality of the phenomena. People say outrageous things because it gets them clicks on the internet and hurts the “other team”.
We saw it recently with the lady lying about hatian immigrants eating cats - link. She didn’t care how true it was - only that it hurt the other team. They have it comin’, anyway, is their perspective when they’re saying these things.
