It’s no secret that, for years, climate denial has been running rampant online and in the media. Newspapers, cable networks, and especially social media companies, have been taking huge sums of money from the fossil fuel industry to spread disinformation and misinformation on climate change. In exchange, policy gets stalled, voters are confused and misled, and the fossil fuel industry and media elites get rich.
But there’s a new problem, just this week: a Trump-appointed federal judge is trying to block the Biden administration from talking to or regulating misinformation by, tech and social media companies, based on a wild lawsuit that alleges the deep state and Democrats are conspiring to censor speech about election denial, vaccine opposition, and, you guessed it, climate change. The state department has already canceled meetings with Facebook as a result, and other federal agencies — including ones with pending cases and dockets related to climate change like the EPA and Department of Justice — are expected to do the same soon.
This is a chilling, hopefully temporary, threat to our ability to stand up for truth, facts, and demand information necessary to act on climate. Sign on to our global petition calling on media and tech companies to stop promoting climate denial and misinformation and we’ll deliver it directly to the corporations the Biden Administration has been banned from talking to.
The reality of the climate crisis is all around us, from wildfires, to choking smoke, to record-setting heat waves, superstorms, and more. July 4, 2023, was just declared the planet’s hottest day in recorded history! But the fossil fuel industry has spent decades of time, and billions of dollars spreading climate disinformation online and offline to drive public polarization and stall action on the climate crisis. That’s why the latest UN Climate Reports say climate disinformation is a threat to climate action.
But Semafor, a digital media startup, recently congratulated Sen. Joe Manchin on his “victory” in pushing through the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline in legislation raising the debt ceiling. And a new report from US climate and media leaders shows that social media companies are largely leaving the public in the dark about their efforts to combat the problem.
And now, to make matters worse, climate denying red-state Attorneys General are using the out of control federal judiciary (the same folks that struck down Roe v Wade last year, and eliminated Affirmative Action, LGBTQ+ protections, and student debt relief last week) to claim that anyone who calls climate denial a lie is engaged in illegal censorship. It’s the same playbook we’ve seen from the same conservative courts and AGs on divestment – where conservative AG’s claimed that even considering climate impacts was oppressive, and courts gave them permission to block investment and divestment campaigns, even when they’re supported by voters or benefit shareholders and pensioners.
Climate change is real and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer. Sign here to hold the media and Big Tech companies accountable for promoting climate change deniers and spreading their lies.