Outside the Beltway

Speaking of Conspiracy Theories and Their Consequences

Lying about hurricanes and stoking ridiculous theories about weather control are the latest examples.

Steven L. Taylor · Thursday, October 10, 2024 · 7 comments

Apropos of both my post earlier today, as well as Kingdaddys’ comes this via Rolling Stone: Meteorologists Get Death Threats as Hurricane Milton Conspiracy Theories Thrive (which links to a post about Helene from late last week).

As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida, meteorologists are staying awake for days at a time trying to get vital, life-saving information out to the folks who will be affected. That’s their job. But this year, several of them tell Rolling Stone, they’re increasingly having to take time out to quell the nonstop flow of misinformationduring a particularly traumatic hurricane season. And some of them are doing it while being personally threatened.

“People are just so far gone, it’s honestly making me lose all faith in humanity,” says Washington D.C.-based meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, in a phone interview conducted while he was traveling down to Florida for the storm. “There’s so much bad information floating around out there that the good information has become obscured.”

Cappucci says that he’s noticed an enormous change on social media in the last three months: “Seemingly overnight, ideas that once would have been ridiculed as very fringe, outlandish viewpoints are suddenly becoming mainstream and it’s making my job much more difficult.” 

[…]

This hurricane season, Cappucci and the other meteorologists I spoke with say, conspiracy theories have been flooding their inboxes. The main one that people have seemed to latch onto is the accusation that the government can control the weather. This theory seems to be amplified with climate change creating worsening storms combined with a tense election year, and the vitriol is being directed at meteorologists. “I’ve been doing this for 46 years and it’s never been like this,” says Alabama meteorologist James Spann. He says he’s been “inundated” with misinformation and threatening messages like “Stop lying about the government controlling the weather or else.”

[…]

“Something has clearly changed within the last year,” says Spann. “We know some of it is bots but I do believe that some of it is coming from people that honestly believe the moon disappeared because the government nuked it to control the hurricanes, or that the government used chemtrails to spray our skies with chemicals to steer Helene into the mountains of North Carolina.”

This is, well, insane. Although, as Kingdaddy notes, people often believe in these nutty theories because they are desperate to understand the world in a way that makes them feel secure. On one level I get it: it is easier to accept that these terrible outcomes are the result of human actions rather than to accept how helpless we are all in the face of the truly terrifying forces of nature. And also better to assume evil politicians are are work than accept that we all helped warm the planet and are living with the consequences.

Leaders of quality should seek to quell conspiracy theories and, moreover, should want to promote truth. However, too many politicians see advantage in stoking fears and spreading lies. It is why Trump is lying about hurricane relief. Worse, Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene is propagating actual conspiracy theories about weather control. This is not a kook in their mom’s basement, but rather an elected kook with a really important position.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has doubled down on claims Democrats control the weather, prompting fellow GOP congressperson Carlos Gimenez to tweet she should “have her head examined.” Meanwhile, the White House is launching a Reddit account to keep the public informed on Helene/Milton response and recovery.

“Science is one of the few things that doesn’t care about politics,” says Cappucci. “If a tornado is coming down the road at you, it doesn’t check your voter registration.”

Again, leaders who care about people shouldn’t behave this way.

Some experts I spoke with think that misinformation is exceptionally bad this year because we are leading up to a presidential election. Some of the conspiracy theories accuse Democrats of intentionally steering hurricanes to red-leaning swing states, in order to hurt Donald Trump’s chances of winning.

“The 2024 misinformation is being fueled to a certain extent by political polarization,” says Sarah DeYoung, a professor at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. “I think that’s corresponding with there being a presidential election this year.”

DeYoung says there are certain myths that pop up for every disaster. Some of them are well-intentioned, like telling people that hotels have to accept pets in an emergency event, which is not true. Others are misconceptions, like saying looting goes up after natural disasters when in fact, the crime rate often goes down and people are just trying to locate basic essentials like food and water to survive. But in 2024, they are often politically motivated.

“It becomes particularly dangerous because it starts to rile up additional feelings of division and then the false information about FEMA funneling money towards immigrants, that makes people who are immigrants more vulnerable to potential acts of violence and backlash from those kinds of rumors.”

DeYoung says this harms both the people that need help and the people trying to help, by adding confusion, slowing down the recovery process and fomenting mistrust. 

All persons of good conscience should demand better of our leaders and roundly reject anyone who is clearly lying to us for their own political gain without any concern of the consequences of their actions as long as they get power to sate their own self-important appetites.