Month 8, Day 9: Fake Astroturf Redux

Man, this thing works great. The Boston Herald ran an AP article on Russia’s fires, so I zipped through this one in 10 minutes.

At first glance the Associated Press story on the fires currently raging through Russia are unexceptionable. Closer examination reveals that important facts have been left out: the devastating heat wave that has triggered those wildfires is part of a worldwide trend of increasingly severe weather — a consequence of global warming, or climate change, or global heating, or, to use the most accurate term, climaticide. Floods, heatwaves, tropical storms, droughts — we’re going to see more and more of them, and they’ll do more damage and destroy more lives than ever before. To respond appropriately to the threats posed by the climate crisis, the citizenry must by fully and accurately informed. By failing to connect the crisis in Russia to the broader crisis that affects all of us on Earth, the Associated Press has failed in its responsibility to journalism and to the American People.

Warren Senders