Fake of the Week: Greta Thunberg failed as climate Cassandra

Zdjęcie: https://www.euractiv.pl/section/demokracja/news/fake-of-the-week-greta-thunberg-failed-as-climate-cassandra/

Rightist Do Rzeczy magazine mocked young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg for her “end of the world” forecast that reportedly proved mispredictiction, showing its own deficiency of investigation and reading comprehension.

The article entitled Thunberg-predicted apocalypse date passed and published last week, was followed with a series of posts by climate denialists that emerged in social media later the same day. Nobody realised that they misinterpreted Greta Thunberg’s post. Neither did far-right MP Konrad Berkowicz.

Greta the „activist”

Do Rzeczy’s news outlet is traditionally not supportive for climatologists’ forecasts. It frequently publishes opinion pieces and articles sceptical the of climate crisis.

This time, the outlet described 20-year-old Thunberg “an «activist»” (that is, putting the word “activist” in quotation marks), making small of her objectively considerable achievements.

Between 2018 and 2023, she organised School Climate Strike that drew attention of large masses of her peers worldwide, afraid by the threat resulted from global warning. Inspired by Thunberg, 1000 of young people proceed to regularly protest against insufficient actions by adult politicians in fighting for the young generation’s future.

Thunberg received respective awards for her activity, including Time’s individual of the Year title in 2019. She spoke at UN COP24 and COP25.

Lack of reading compehension

In 2018, Thunberg quoted an alleged message by an American climate scientist. “A top climate scientist is informing that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we halt utilizing fossil fuels over the next 5 years,” readed a quote she tweeted on 21 June 2018.

Consequently, the tweet pointed to negative consequences resulting from not abandoning fossil fuels in energy production by 2023.

Climate-sceptical right wing altered the post’s message for suggesting an apocalypse in the following 5 years, which did not happened. This way, the authors touted Thunberg’s alleged imagination a misprediction.

Thunberg’s tweet, cited by Do Rzeczy, was shared with an ironic comment by Kraków MP of far-right Confederation organization Konrad Berkowicz. „According to Greta, humanity should have ceased to be until yesterday,” he tweeted.

His tweet was later deleted, but a screenshot was published by Jakub Wiech, climate expert and editor-in-chief of Energetyka24.pl news outlet.

„Set aside Greta’s post based on press communicative misquoting a scientist’s statement, which did not mention wiping out humanity, it is worth noting that this tweet (by Thunberg) did not propose that an apocalypse should have happened yesterday. individual seemingly does not realize English,” Wiech tweeted on 22 June.

Neither Thunberg’s 2018 tweet is available online any longer.

Wiech rightly pointed out the message itself, cited by the Swedish activist and ascribed to atmospheric chemist James Anderson, being fake. It came from an article that misquoted the scientist’s words.

Anderson actually meant that should the humanity refuse to quit burning fossil fuels in the following 5 years (starting from 2018), the ice caps at the Earth’s North and South Pole would melt in a considerable degree, and reducing greenhouse gases emissions would no longer be adequate to prevent a climate disaster.

Nowhere in his message did Anderson foretell an apocalypse, even though his imagination is in no condition positive.

Five years later on, Anderson has been proven right: the ice caps have dramatically reduced. The inflow of large amounts of fresh water coming from them to ocean saltwater influences the climate even more, causing violent winters and freezing of northern seas and oceans, among another phenomena. Even if they might seem to disprove global warming, it is the contrary.

Climate disaster is well-documented and scientifically confirmed, and it is caused by human activity. Everyone can experience the climate change, including in Poland, with heatwaves getting longer and even hotter and winters with small snow.

Global informing involves the emergence of average global temperatures. Yet, the rising air temperature is not its sole result. another consequences include violent weather phenomena that are hard to predict, specified as frequent and dangerous storms, as well as rising sea levels, forest fires and hurricanes.

DISCLAIMER: The sole work for any content supported by the European Media and Information Fund lies with the author(s) and it may not necessarily reflect the positions of the EMIF and the Fund Partners, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the European University Institute. / https://gulbenkian.pt/emifund/