Social media claims of an arson epidemic and obstructive environmentalists have infected mainstream reporting of the bushfire crisis
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Lies have spread faster than grassfire during Australia’s unprecedented national emergency.
They’ve ranged from the exaggerated to the outrageous.
One conspiracy bizarrely claims bushfires have been lit to clear a path for high-speed rail down Australia’s east coast. Others baselessly claim Islamic State is instructing its followers to wage war on the country with fire, that Chinese billionaires are using lasers to clear the path for new cities, or that eco-terrorists are trying to spur action on climate change by manufacturing a catastrophe.
Accompanying these laughable mistruths, though, are more dangerous distortions.
They are the ones being used to deflect from climate change’s role in creating longer, more severe fire seasons.
Two pieces of disinformation stand out from the rest: that an “arson emergency”, rather than climate change, is behind the bushfires, and that “greenies” are preventing firefighters from reducing fuel loads in the Australian bush.
Luke Pearson for IndigenousX
Disinformation has spread across social media, finding its way into major news outlets, the mouths of government MPs, and across the globe to Donald Trump Jr and prominent right-wing conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones.
Esteemed climate change expert professor Will Steffen, a member of Australia’s Climate Council and the inaugural director of Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute, is concerned at how disinformation has spread with such ease.
“In my mind, I think it’s a serious issue and it is potentially very dangerous,” Steffen told the Guardian. “That’s because the bushfire situation is very dangerous … the evidence is overwhelming that climate change is playing a prominent role in worsening bushfire conditions across Australia.
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