2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2

A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Jan 5, 2020 through Sat, Jan 11, 2020

Editor's Pick

Debunked Australian Bushfire Conspiracy Theories Were Pushed by Alex Jones, Murdoch Media

Bushfire in Australia 

As unusually intense and widespread bushfires have ravaged a drought-ridden Australia, bots and trolls have begun pushing climate science denial across the internet in the form of conspiracy theories about the fires. Thanks to climate change, exceptionally hot, dry drought conditions have worsened and lengthened Australia's typical fire season.

Two of the main conspiracies about the fires are based on the false ideas that they are caused by a spate of arson and they have been worsened by the Green Party's supposed efforts to stop controlled burns as a fire management and reduction measure.

Dr. Timothy Graham from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) did an analysis  of the online activity and concluded there was a high level of bots involved in spreading these conspiracies. As ZDnet reported, Graham is “at least confident” that that this was some type of disinformation campaign.

Debunked Australian Bushfire Conspiracy Theories Were Pushed by Alex Jones, Murdoch Media by Justin Mikulka, DeSmog, Jan 8, 2020

Click here to access the complete article as posted on the DeSmog website. 


Articles Linked to on Facebook

Sun, Jan 5, 2020

Mon, Jan 6, 2020

Tue, Jan 7, 2020

Wed, Jan 8, 2020

Thu, Jan 9, 2020

Fri, Jan 10, 2020

Sat, Jan 11, 2020

Posted by John Hartz on Saturday, 11 January, 2020


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