False Claims that Heatwave is Bogus Spread Online

VentraSqwal@links.dartboard.social to World News@lemmy.world – 540 points – False claims that heatwave is bogus spread online
bbc.com

False claims suggesting that the BBC has been misreporting temperatures in southern Europe have been spreading on social media.

A clip of Neil Oliver, a GB News presenter, accusing the BBC "and others" of "driving fear" by using "supposedly terrifying temperatures", has been viewed more than two million times.

For the past few weeks, an intense heatwave has been sweeping through parts of southern Europe and north Africa, with extensive wildfires breaking out in Greece, Italy and Algeria - leading to more than 40 deaths.

Speaking about the fires on Rhodes on GB News on Monday, Mr Oliver accused the BBC, and other broadcasters, of trying to "make people terrified of the weather".

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Deny, deny, deny. Now climate change deniers are doing that even to observable, recordable phenomena, just to avoid the truth of what is happening. This is what's stopping progress towards saving our children's future.

Don't look up

It hurts me that this one turned out to be a farsighted documentation.

I remember being angry at people saying it was “too on the nose.”

The worst was the people who insisted it wasn't funny enough. I thought it was pretty funny, but was that really the point?

It's funny, isn't it? It's so "on the nose" and yet perfectly reflects reality.

"Difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to be believable.." and all that

"I'm inadvertently in this movie and I don't like it"

There is something to be said about subtlety in story-telling. When writers tell their message with a sledgehammer, it comes off as unrealistic.

It was meant to be a spoof in that it was so on the nose was it not? I enjoyed it with that lense

Don't worry, next year (assuming it's not another el ninio) they'll accept this years temps and use it as proof that the climate change is fake since "it's colder than last year".

We haven't even begun to see the impact of this year's el nino event, yet.... https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/20/us/2024-hotter-than-2023-el-nino-nasa-climate/index.html

"It’s really only just emerged, and so what we’re seeing is not really due to that El Niño,” Schmidt told reporters. “What we’re seeing is the overall warmth pretty much everywhere – particularly in the oceans. … The reason why we think that’s going to continue is because we continue to put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Until we stop doing that, temperatures will keep on rising.”
....
“We anticipate that 2024 is going to be an even warmer year because we’re going to be starting off with that El Niño event,” Schmidt said. “That will peak towards the end of this year, and how big that is is going to have a big impact on the following year’s statistics."

A few goal post moves later: "it's the liberals that caused this!"

Not just observable, but directly observable by our own senses.

All these dumb fucks have to do is actually go outside to prove themselves wrong.

I've watched flat earthers conduct foolproof experiments to prove the earth is flat, then come up with excuses when their experiment fails.

The heat is caused by Jewish space lasers or something.

All the wokies are woking it up causes it to get hotter

Should just send them to space. So they can see for themselves or just to get rid of them, take your pick.

It's been unseasonably wet and cool in the UK so that's probably part of why they believe it.

Here in parts of the south USA it's been a normal summer, getting adequate rain and temps not hitting 100+ like last year as well. So I can see some of the skepticism but the world is fucking huge....If I drive one hour further north or south...the weather has changed...

I'm in SoCal, very mild summer. But I talk to by best friend from HS who lives in Phoenix, and it's a different story.

I live in Phx area. It's been stupid mild this year?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/07/25/phoenix-hits-25-straight-days-above-110-degrees-heres-where-else-daily-records-have-fallen/

Yeah... And?

I can write all sorts of garbage stuff on a blog. It's not hard to claim that "OH GOD IT'S OVER 110 THAT'S HOT"... when the AVERAGE high for basically the whole month of July is 106.8 degrees.

Look at the actual history data. https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/az/phoenix/KPHX

May has been below average... June below average. This July has been a bit warmer than average.

That link shows the temperature today is 10 degrees over average. That's hot. It's a weird flex to try to claim 115 isn't hot. Are you a lizard?

It’s a weird flex to try to claim 115 isn’t hot.

It would be a weird flex. Good thing I never said that. Strawman someone else asshat.

It’s been stupid mild this year?

Source: You. Name calling. I suppose we are done. You seem...uh...cool.

Yes... in reference to "summer".

Hold on there was a gust off wind today! This summer is really windy!

I have no problem name calling people who lie to make their point. Manufacturer and shoving words and ideas on my mouth earns you whatever you get.

Yeah 110 is warm for phx not hot. When I was a kid Tucson would easily get into the 112-117 range often. Phoenix was always hotter by a few degrees.

I love when people who've never lived here act like they know better about it though.

Temps over 110 are indeed regular here. It's something we've generally learned to deal with. And yes... the dryness of heat makes a HUGE difference in the matter.

How you know that it's been a cooler summer (At least in June) was that humidity was up a bit. Now we're back to "normal" and it's dry and hot. But it's about August... and Monsoon season is going to kick in, it will cool down again.

For those of us that have lived here for a while... you will remember at least a few years where there were 3 solid months of "heat". This year is shaping up to feel more like 1.5-2 months of that heat.

Preach. Lived in Tucson until after college. I can't handle the heat like I used to. It's been a weird summer where I am (Denver) with way, way more thunderstorms than I think I have ever seen, May - June, kind of like how southern az monsoons are in Aug. So I kind of wonder if several areas have had an odd summer this year.

I remember Tucson would hit 100 in may and stay over 100 until like September. Of course 100 is just a warm day for Sonoran Desert dwellers. The weather station had a contest to guess when the Santa Cruz (or was it Rillito?) would melt (break 100°) Which if you're from the area is fairly amusing on two levels. (The river is almost always dry)

We've been unseasonably mild her in the mid-Atlantic. We're just getting our first run of 90F/32C+ days this season, whereas we usually see that sometime in June. Seeing what's going on in the rest of the country I consider us to be damn lucky.

We've been getting hammered with rain, though. About 3-4x normal in June.

I can tell you that here in AZ... We're normal right now. Earlier in the Summer is was SUPER mild. And more wet than normal.

No where near "worst". I remember a few years back hitting 118 and back in the mid 2000's hitting 122... This year has been great... We're already hitting monsoon time, where the humidity kicks the temp down a bit. Then september rolls around and it'll cool down again.

Didn't June break some heat records in the UK? I thought that I had read that. I'm in Southern California and this summer has been super mild.

This came out 2 days ago:

Koonin finds that daily record high temperatures have not increased over the past 100 years and daily record lows have become less common. This is directly at variance with media headlines.

Although wildfires made headlines this summer, global areas burned by wildfires have shown a downward, rather than an upward, trend. Tornado activity in the United States has declined since 1970.

The media covers climate change as though doomsday is approaching. Bad news sells, and well-funded organizations support the crisis message.

The conservative intellectuals are dedicated to destroying the planet for money. And, with conservative politicians, they have a whole platform for it, Project 2025.

New York University professor Steven Koonin has presented data

Who is also the chief scientist for BP. Just so we've got that out there.

in his bestselling book, “Unsettled,” to show that the science is not as settled as many politicians would have us believe.

Which many scientist have indicated is just being contrarian to seek more books and the arguments within the book are easily debunked.

Koonin is a respected academic physicist

Yeah in physics he knows his stuff.

Koonin finds that daily record high temperatures have not increased over the past 100 years and daily record lows have become less common. This is directly at variance with media headlines.

Yes, because his dataset is from the 1990s. There's zero reason to think any conclusion he has is in step with modern data. His modeling method even pre-date the 90s. Everything he has used to provide argument is not via a method that is modern. His data is right just that is using methods no one uses because it's wildly inaccurate. So right in this case just means he's consistently inaccurate. Everyone please refer to your seventh grade science class on the difference between accuracy and consistency.

The media covers climate change as though doomsday is approaching. Bad news sells, and well-funded organizations support the crisis message.

The irony of this statement while completely missing the notion that someone can just say a lot of opposite things to sell a book is... Interesting.

Even if rising “greenhouse gas” emissions were affecting the climate, actions by the United States will not be helpful in the absence of changes by China and India, the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

Yes. Let's not do something because China isn't doing it. That's fine argument. You know China isn't doing human rights so I guess we can nix that here too.

If the United States were to get rid of all fossil fuel emissions, this would only reduce global temperatures by 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Just FYI, 0.2 is equal to 2,100 Tsar Bombas going off at once. That's the largest nuclear device ever created by humans. Decreasing 0.2 is like not blowing that many nuclear bombs. 0.2 is super significant. This is what happens when you have some mid-sixty year old economist talking science.

The EPA’s proposed tailpipe and power plant regulations will reduce economic growth by raising energy prices.

Lady, I don't know if you've had a change to exit your private jet, but fuel cost are going up, no matter what. Everyone was like "if you increase minimum wage food prices will go up!" And then we didn't increase minimum wage and prices still went up. I'm just going say, I don't think it really fucking matters what we do or don't do at this point, prices are going up no matter what. I used to buy eggs for fifty-nine cents way back. What happen? I didn't get any nice shit or saving the planet and eggs are $4, what happened?

Raising the cost of energy at any time is poor economic policy, but especially when economic growth is slow. U.S. annualized gross domestic product growth was 2% in the first quarter of 2023, with data for the second quarter expected on Thursday. It’s summer, but now is not the time for Democrats to use the excuse of climate change to slow the economy further with more regulations.

Well the cost of energy is going up anyway, so it doesn't matter. And economic growth is slow, because for the last fifteen years its been at breakneck pace. So maybe look a bit more than just a single year for your data points. And also, y'all just hate regulation, that's what it boils down to. But every time regulations get removed, "Oh no! The Housing Market crashed! The econmy is getting tanked!" There's just been no demostrated self-restraint so, yeah, nah, I don't trust you mfers. I think you all need more regulation.

Also, the econmy is going be in more pain later than now if we can't fucking grow food. I know, none of that is your 65 year old ass' problem, but I mean people who are 12 right now, might want to eat when they get to their 50s. I know, you'll be dead and all, so it won't matter to you, but it kinda of matters to them. So I mean, pardon if we all take your perspective with a nonexistent grain of salt.

Except it's the Heritage Foundation, which is been manufacturing this bullshit for decades to lawmakers who are currently 70+ years old and wouldn't know the difference between a telephone operator and a Google search operator if you asked them.

It's hard to overstate how big 0.2 degrees is, for a single countrys change.

That's 10% of the total expected climate change (assuming we held it to 2°)

I know it's not much to look forward to, but I'm going to enjoy some schadenfreude when conservatives are dying from the same shit that's killing all of us and they can't even process what's happening to them.

Please link to an archived version of their page or you're boosting them on Google

Honestly, that's not a bad thing, imho. If old people come across their "social security/Medicare need to go!" articles, that would benefit all of us.

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My brother in christ, just go out.

What do you mean?

The commenter you're replying to is using a common English colloquialism: "go out." In this particular construction, "go out" is short for "go outside," which generally refers to the act of transporting one's physical body (assumed to currently exist inside a structure, underground, or somehow contained within some sort of boundary) to a location that could be considered exterior to their present location.

In the context of the thread, the commenter is inviting those making claims about the air temperature to experience it for themselves by exiting their current containment units and exposing their sensory organs to the actual air temperature of the external world, thus providing the counterpoint to their proposition.

For the beginning of the sentence, please see:

[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/my-brother-in-christ]

This is my parents, who emigrated from Europe in 80s.

"Greece is always this hot in the summer"

"I remember 40 degree weather when I was a kid, no one was complaining then"

"Do they expect the Mediterranean not to get hot?"

I hate to see it, especially since they're both otherwise smart people. They're just completely taken in by climate denialism.

hate to see it, especially since they're both otherwise smart people.

I hate to say it... but they are not really that smart based on that. Amd I'm saying this as someone who's mom who is "otherwise really smart", but pretty fucking stupid.

It’s the fear and guilt of having destroyed the planet their children and grandchildren (especially their grandchildren) will inherit. What they’re doing right now is shoving their heads right into the sand and selling themselves on whatever climate change denialism is out there right now.

Boomers gonna boomer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At the end of the day, they're again the ones that are going to suffer the most with the higher temperatures, it's kind of like karma really.

No they won't, they're going to live fast, die old and leave an absolute ton of healthcare cost for their descendents.

If there's one thing boomers made it clear this decade, it's that they're not going quietly.

They need to be called the 'me' generation again due to some of their selfish, short sighted acts.

I think they want to be called the "Last" generation, they seem to hate everything that isn't them.

How does anyone maintain even a shred of hope in the face of this rampant bullshittery?

About half of my job is dealing with infrastructure so I fight the second order effects of this every day. That gives me hope, that I am delaying the unavoidable disaster ever so slightly every day. Maybe if I work really hard I can buy the human race a single second.

Also I started a guerrilla gardening group and committing myself to planting on average 3 new plants a day.

I was on holiday in southern Europe. I was there at 43° Celsius. I know a person who witnessed 47 more southern. In places where these temperatures have been seen only over the past 10 years

I mean, it's pretty simple to know the temperature, thermometers exists. Just call someone in southern Europe and ask

I’m not denying there is a heat wave in southern Europe, but where I am in Spain, it was actually hotter last year. I’m enjoy this summer and am usually able to sleep without AC and at the same time I have family outside of the country calling and asking if I am OK because of what they see on the news. There is definitely parts that have it worse than others.

I was in the same place same period of last year and this year was definitely hotter. I grew up there (although I don't live there anymore), in south of Italy. This year was really bad

If these people were on fire and their talking heads told them they weren't they would say they weren't.

well, the millions who live there and the millions upon millions with heat waves all over the world aren’t fooled. almost no one denies climate issues now, other than people paid to do so, and soon even they will be forced to stop. too busy dealing with climate fallout they themselves experience.

Maybe they're really reptilians. The hotter, the better, they don't sweat

Reptiles love heat, and will outlive most species in the impending climate disaster, the alligators of the American South are benefitting from climate change rn

These fucking idiots are going to get us all killed one day.

They already are, thousands during covid and people are dying already from climate change.

Idiocy is deadly

GBNews is basically the Fox News of the UK now, arguably worse. We came pretty close to getting it to shut down entirely when we managed to get 100% of advertisers to pull out of it, an honestly massive organising success by us at the time and one I was partly involved with, though we certainly weren't the only group pushing it we were one of the main ones. This coupled with a very lackluster launch and absolutely abysmal ratings really made it come close to getting shut down.

Sadly they were content to run it at a loss while reshuffling their approach, eventually they bounced back.

Mr Oliver accused the BBC, and other broadcasters, of trying to "make people terrified of the weather".

As we should be. These changes on our planet will be the end of us.

If some dumb fuck can bring a snowball into congress to show global warming isn’t real, then I should be able to bring an air conditioner and say “then what’s this for” and be taken equally as seriously.

Are these trolls literally living in their parents' basements? Like not going outside to notice it is, indeed, hot?

In the UK right now it's actually cold for July. Overnights going as low as 7-9c in the south and day time max between 16c and 22c. So it might explain it.

So, yeah that's not the case that they could go outside and see for themselves. Yeah it's still a stupid conspiracy theory. But, there's no heatwave in the UK right now.

Its been weirdly very humid though even for the UK. Its cold if you sit still but the moment you get off your ass and do something you start sweating like a pig.

I mean… As indicated by the news it’s a Southern Europe heat wave.

The UK are absolutely not located in the so it h.

But the deniers mentioned in the article are in the UK, hence the relevance

For god's sake temperatures above 40 Celsius are dangerous and claims like this will literally kill some people... But again, after everything happening in the last 3-4 years it's hard to imagine conservatives putting other folks' health and safety as a priority

I think we need to get used to a new "life law" that has arisen as a fruit of echo chambers, too much information (regardless of its veracity) and modern recommendation algorithms: "For every important global event, there will be a small portion of deniers."

Besides education at early ages, I don't see a way this trend can be stopped. "Denying" will mutate across different topics (chem-trails, vaccines, the shape of the earth). I'm starting to perceive it like the flu, a seasonal disease with no permanent cure which we just take for granted. When you do your new years resolution/planning you should remember to subtract 2 weeks from your time because certainly you will be ill, it's a constant. My head has grown accustomed to expecting this constant flux of fake-information-toxicity to appear in "obvious universal problems"

Is it new? Weren't there moon landing deniers and JFK conspiracy people and Truthers within a year, long before the modern Internet algorithm nonsense.

What's new is that they didn't have a great way of banding together. The village idiots were shunned, or had small groups that wiser people just rolled their eyes at.

Now they're bigger and more organized, to the point that the size / availability of their crazy ideas seems to lend credibility for many.

And that money is being poured in to weaponize their chaos and hate.

What’s new is that they didn’t have a great way of banding together.

1850s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing

The village idiots were shunned, or had small groups that wiser people just rolled their eyes at.

I see. So when exactly was this time period where the wisest men ruled us?

Now they’re bigger and more organized, to the point that the size / availability of their crazy ideas seems to lend credibility for many.

Thousands of years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_religion

And that money is being poured in to weaponize their chaos and hate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War

I live in Greece. The past couple of weeks have been really hot. Today we have a significant drop in temperatures, at last.

Mr Oliver needs to get out more.

I also live in Greece. I'm generally pretty resistant to heat, I love the summer, but last week was too much for me. I worked from home to avoid commuting like that, and I constantly felt tired and heavy.

This week seems to be going fine thankfully

I cannot disprove the worldwide claims. But I live in Spain in southern Europe and this past month has been far better than last July was, when we were hitting 38C every day for weeks on end. The heat this summer has been much more punctuated.

That's why the term global warming is misleading and climate change is a better term. But like you said it's just that a global average and not just individual places

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Meanwhile in some places there were temperatures statistically impossible to reach...

Ugh, is the urban heat island theory gaining popularity again?