False claims about climate change and renewable energy were once most common on the fringes of the internet.
However, a new Senate report has found targeted efforts to spread misleading messages have already delayed climate action and fuelled fear in Australia, particularly local communities, with experts in Melbourne’s east warning public health is at risk.
What happened? A parliamentary inquiry - backed by Labor, the Liberals, the Greens and Independent senator David Pocock - has found there are coordinated misinformation campaigns actively working to mislead Australians. Their aim is to delay action to reduce climate pollution, erode trust and inflame community conflict.
Health impacts: Dr Cara Platts from Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA) was one of the authors of DEA’s submission to the inquiry.
She said climate misinformation was an “urgent threat to public health because false information about climate change delays action”.
“We've had the 11 hottest years on record in the previous 11 years – those numbers have real world impacts: increased heat days, increased mortality and higher burdens on our hospital systems,” Platts told the Eastern Melburnian.
Fuelling the fire: She pointed to the gas industry’s funding of campaigns to promote the use of natural gas as an example of disinformation leading people to make unhealthy decisions.
“Our most recent peer-reviewed evidence shows that gas appliances in homes increase indoor air pollution,...
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