conspiracy theories

Reflections on “Yes they can control the weather.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene is wildly wrong about government scientists controlling hurricanes. There is a rich history of weather modification experiments that make that false claim more dangerous.

Since U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted earlier this month that “Yes they can control the weather” — a bunch of commentators have pointed out that she’s wildly wrong. Yes, she’s wildly wrong. No one can make, intensify, or steer hurricanes. No ability to do anything like this is even on the horizon. Her comment …

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Did the COVID Response Poison the Well for Climate Action?

Sadly, the answer may be yes, at least for one conspiracy-minded segment of the population.

One meme that seems to be popping up is that the “evils” of the COVID response reveal some dark reality behind climate policy. Whatever its roots, these dark fantasies threaten the welfare of current and future generations.

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A Compendium of Climate Conspiracy Theories

“The Truth is Out There.” Or maybe not.

Conspiracy theories about climate change are widespread.  They cover a wide range, but the theme is generally that the world is run by some elite that is secretly using climate change as an excuse to take over the world. My favorite conspiracy theory is that the world is run by the Lizard People, evil reptiles …

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RFK Jr. and Climate Change Conspiracy Theories

Voters who care about the climate should know the longtime environmental lawyer turned long-shot presidential candidate has turned away from environmentalism.

When an old acquaintance of mine recently shared a series of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. videos on Instagram, I couldn’t resist asking him what was appealing about the long-shot presidential candidate. He said that RFK Jr. would end corporate influence, including when it comes to industries that pollute the environment. RFK, he said, has done …

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No, There’s No Scientific Conspiracy About Climate Change

Anyone who thinks otherwise has never met a real live academic.  We can barely conspire about where to eat lunch.

Among the host of conspiracy theories out there, a perennial one depicts climate science as a global hoax perpetuated by scientists. There are thousands of climate scientists around the world, which is an awful lot of people for a secret conspiracy. But even if there were only forty or fifty, a successful conspiracy of any …

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Conspiracy!

Even as conspiracy theories go, the

Some members of Congress — not to mention any number of bloggers — think climate change is a hoax.  Most famously, Senator Inhofe has said: With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American …

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The Credibility of Climate Science

Climate denialists contend that climate science is either the result of a conspiracy of some kind  or of groupthink plus institutional incentives to support alarmist predictions.  The conspiracy theory makes even less sense than most conspiracy theories, because there would have to be hundreds, perhaps thousands of people involved, scattered across the world at  numerous …

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Climategate: Did the Russians do it?

The “Climategate” story gets even weirder. New Scientist reports (picking up the story from The Independent) that anonymous sources in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change think the Russian secret service is responsible for hacking into e-mail at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. The reported evidence? [T]he hacked data apparently surfaced on …

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