The great thing about conspiracy theories is that they knit everything nicely together. Facts, fallacies and fantasy are all rolled together and any challenge from the reality-based world is rebuffed with a simple reminder of the sinister nature of those making the challenge and the evil overlords that control them.
In a world in which many media outlets (particularly those with three- or four-letter acronyms that reside mainly on cable) continue to feature the views of people who just make stuff up, the conspiracy theory has become an easy-to-go-to safe place when facts get in the way. We are very nearly back to the days of black helicopters, One World Order and a UN takeover of Texas. But even that conspiracy is too crude to encompass everything the opposition to the current order wants to oppose. Instead, there’s a kind of unified field theory that the president and his party are “out to destroy America.†With a theory that big and simple, just about everything can be made to make sense. Anything good that comes out of this administration, you see, is just a feint.
This newspaper would never beseech a supreme being to unleash actual lightening upon an individual making an outlandish statement. We are, however, divided on whether it would be best for all if the next person who claims this cold winter means there is no global warming be struck dumb.
Not that we don’t think it is amusing to blame a cold snap on Albert Gore Jr., but it’s nonsense to actually believe that a spell of cold weather is proof of anything.
Alas, we live in a world where a lie can be repeated enough times to be true and among well-paid people who are quite willing to do so. Back in the good old days, conspiracy theorists had to include a little bit of truth in everything. Indeed, some helicopters are darkly painted. But one of the marvels of 21st-century media is that we’ve gotten beyond that.
Truth is not only optional; sometimes it is damn inconvenient.
It would be wonderful to ignore such things. That was easier to do when the debate was over whether the president was actually born in Hawaii. Now that the truth-optional crowd has turned to flu vaccines, economic policy, health care and climate science, things are a little dicier.
In one example, a host on a three-letter network has repeatedly noted to his millions of viewers that last year was the coldest on record, using that “fact†to bolster his case that climate nuts are conspiring to use junk science to destroy our industries and convert us to socialism.
According to actual scientists, last year was not the coldest on record; it was, in actual fact-fact, the fifth warmest on record since records started being kept on such things a century and a half ago.
It doesn’t matter though. That last year is the coldest ever has bounced around the echo chamber so many times it qualifies as hard science and another refutation of all these evil, conspiring climate experts.
This is a community full of scientists, some of whom probably have strong opinions and even disagreements on various points in the global-warming discussion. We’d like to invite an open and honest debate as to the nature, pace and possible solutions to global warming. But please, fellow laypeople, don’t confuse a good one-liner about the recent deep freeze with actual science.
And the next time you tune into a cable station with the word “News†anywhere in its title, understand that someone on it will very likely lie to you. And that’s not just a theory.