Social media has made it easier than ever for conspiracy theories to spread, and those dedicated to the truth are working overtime to debunk harmful ideas.
In a Reddit discussion about a weather-control conspiracy theory making waves on Facebook, members of the r/cringepics subreddit took the time to make it clear that hurricanes cannot be manufactured or controlled by people.
"Kind of scary that a conspiracy like weather manipulation is so widespread," the poster said. "These are the kinds of voters we have these days?"
Per FactCheck.org, the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is a program the government did initially start in order to study radio communication in the upper atmosphere, but "HAARP is a basic science research program aimed at understanding the highest parts of the atmosphere using radio waves" and "has nothing to do with weather modification and could not alter hurricanes."
Conspiracy theorists typically hunt for a real program or process they can point to that can sound mysterious and nefarious, with a taste that there might be secret knowledge somewhere. And to be sure, sometimes there are secretive government programs. But the government isn't going to be hatching evil plans to cost itself and American insurance companies billions of dollars.
And as TCD has said before, "when put under real scrutiny with the real — and often boring, by their own admission — scientists who work on such things, theories such as beaming radio waves from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico (without being detected by any group or foreign nation, no less) to create hurricanes quickly fall apart."
Politicians have spread lies about weather control and even legislated on fringe beliefs. They use conspiracy theories to gain and hold power, attacking opponents, deflecting blame, sowing mistrust in authoritative sources, and dividing people, according to Psychology Today.
When folks espouse fantastical conjecture about real-life things such as chemtrails and natural disasters, the consequences can be severe. In October, a North Carolinian threatened Federal Emergency Management Agency workers because of a conspiracy theory that Hurricane Helene, which devastated the state and killed hundreds of people across the South, was engineered to wreck Republican areas.
Experts, educators, and journalists are the first line of defense against malevolent or uninformed actors who spread false information. These trusted sources rely on facts and science to sort through the morass and find the truth. It's important, of course, to verify that anyone who claims to know what's going on is not being influenced or affected by bias.
For example, when a small Ohio newspaper was bought from the family that owned it for decades, it became a mouthpiece for the oil and gas industry against a farmer-backed solar energy project. Fabrications about the clean, renewable source of power — including claims that solar panels are toxic — are now swirling in the area.
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It's a recipe for catastrophe, as it's hard enough to handle the rising global temperature and associated health problems, increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events, and ecological collapse without wading through mis- and disinformation.
"I think a lot of people can't comprehend how scary climate change really is," one user wrote. "They can't accept the reality they have no control over it, so they try to tell themselves other people are controlling it so they feel like if they vote a certain way they can then have control."
Another said: "What if [I] told you execs at a handful of large companies looking to make bank have known for at least 5 decades that their product is changing the climate and are actively bribing politicians to keep doing so? Would you believe in that? Because that's no secret conspiracy and the problem you should actually focus on."
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