LifestyleForEnvironment / Bharat Amrutkal Trust on LinkedIn: Fact-checking the viral conspiracies in the wake of Hurricane Helene (2024)

LifestyleForEnvironment / Bharat Amrutkal Trust

Disaster Reduction & Relief Operations & Climate Change | Peace, Poverty & Hunger Alleviation, Environmental Compliance

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This story is part of State of emergencya Grist series exploring how climate disasters impact voting and politics. The conspiracy theories began to swirl even as flood waters rose: Hurricane Helene, the deadliest storm to hit the United States since Katrina in 2005, was created specifically to attack Trump voters in crucial swing states. “Yes, they can control the weather,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right representative from Georgia, wrote Thursday on X. “It’s ridiculous for someone to lie and say it can’t be done.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, best known for insisting the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, released a video on Why? To push people out of the region so it can mine the state’s vast reserves of lithium, a key component of the batteries that power electric vehicles and store renewable energy. The video was viewed almost a million times in three days. Hundreds of keyboard conspirators have used TikTok, X, Reddit and other social media sites to say the Federal Emergency Management Administration is withholding critical supplies from stranded communities in the Southeast. “I just came from the mountains to deliver stuff,” someone with the username “RastaGuerilla” posted on X on September 30. “As crazy as it sounds, FEMA immediately confiscates donated items and blocks volunteers from helping, churches kicking out of parking lots, etc.” The post received tens of thousands of likes, and similar posts from people claiming to be in the disaster area have racked up hundreds of thousands of views and reposts. Search and rescue teams walk along the Broad River where North Carolina Route 9 was located in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on October 2.Sean Rayford/Getty ImagesThere’s no telling what percentage of these bogus claims came from people who were actually in the areas devastated by Helene, let alone whether humans or bots spewed them out. Regardless of who or what wrote them, the conspiracies are patently untrue. FEMA does not confiscate deliveries. The Biden administration is not trying to kick people off land it wants to mine for lithium. And the federal government certainly has no control over the weather. For disaster researchers, the barrage of sharp conspiracies is further evidence that conspiratorial thinking is becoming something of an epidemic. “We’ve entered a space where conspiratorial thinking has gone mainstream,” said Rachel Goldwasser, who tracks far-right activity and disinformation at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Any tinfoil hat who says the government controls the weather now feels validated because Marjorie Taylor Greene said that too.”Disasters invariably cast a cloud of conspiracies aimed at casting doubt on the legitimacy of government – the dark corners of society have long characterized FEMA as a sinister, all-powerful

Fact-checking the viral conspiracies in the wake of Hurricane Helene https://bharat-amrutkal-trust.com
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