Disinformation

On March 2, 2020, The New York Times reported that an official at the Interior Department is forcing the inclusion of intentionally misleading language about climate change into the agency’s scientific reports.  This includes debunked claims that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is beneficial.  According to the Times, the misleading language appears in at least 9 reports so far.  As pointed out by the article, this is important because the Interior Department’s reports are the basis for “critical decisions about water and mineral rights affecting millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of acres of land.”  The official in question is Indur M. Goklany.  Goklany was a minor employee in the Department until he was elevated by the Trump administration to the post of deputy secretary “with responsibility for reviewing the agency’s climate policies.”   

You may also recall that going back to the early days of Trump’s term that mention of climate change and global warming was scrubbed from government websites and that scientific reports on the subject were removed.   

Trump has no policy to combat climate change and it is far too late in the game for him to admit that he was wrong.  He has left himself no choice other than to reject everything to do with climate change as a “hoax”.  The next best thing he can do is try to give an illusion of credibility to what he intends to say in the upcoming campaign by contaminating the reports of government agencies with garbage such as “some studies have found the earth to be warming, while others have not,” and that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are a good thing.  Can’t you already hear him in a debate saying:  “Some people are saying…, or “I’ve heard…”?  Seems to me that whenever he leads with “some people are saying” or, “I’ve heard” or, “my people tell me” or, “people are talking” or, “some very good people are saying”, that whatever follows is a lie.  Actually, come to think of it, Trump has two “tells” that are infallible.  If he says something is a fake or a hoax, it is true.  If he says some variation of “people are saying,” it is false and he intends to plant a seed that will grow in social media until some people are actually saying whatever he wants them to say.   

Original image is property of Victor J. Blue for The New York Times.