The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Main Topic: The Real Climate War Is Being Fought with Misinformation
Dear Diary. Climate scientists, who present climate statistics in the form of graphs or charts, know that there are others out there lurking in fossil fuel circles who will put out disinformation trying to confuse the public. This confusion from Fox News and other outlets in turn has delayed climate action at both the policy level from governments and on individual levels as many decide to continue to buy gas guzzling vehicles and products heavily dependent upon fossil fuels from there makeup and manufacture, being convinced that spewing more carbon into the atmosphere does no harm.
As Al Gore writes, these truths involving climate are inconvenient, so climate people are finding it difficult to get the public to do the right thing because it is so easy to continue the same lifestyles and harder (but not that hard) to become green.
So, the Climate War goes on between climate people and those who are either plainly climate deniers or are climate deniers because they are tied to the fossil fuel industry with the fate of humanity and nature in its current form at stake. I noticed a good essay on this subject from Julian Cribb. Here is that work from Pearls and Irritations:
The real war is misinformation – and it’s blocking climate action | Pearls and Irritations
The real war is misinformation – and it’s blocking climate action
May 1, 2026
A global disinformation campaign is undermining climate action, weakening democracy and posing a direct threat to human survival, according to new security analysis.
A war is quietly being waged against humanity that threatens the security not only of all nations but of the entire planet and all its people.
The warning comes in the latest report from the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG), a taskforce of distinguished military and defence personnel headed by former Australian Chief of Defence, Admiral Chris Barrie.
The warning is particularly relevant to outmoded militaries like those of the USA and Russia, with their World War II force structures and assumptions, that are now being outgamed by asymmetric opponents, adding fresh meat to the 1920s proverb that “generals always prepare to fight the last war”.
According to the ASLCG, the war now being waged is not with bombers and warships, nor even with drones and smart missiles. It is being waged with misinformation – and its war aim is to cripple all efforts by humanity to avoid a climate catastrophe.
“Over the last two decades, anti-climate action propaganda and disinformation networks have grown into multi-billion dollar permanent campaigns that run across the entire information ecosystem, with expenditure globally of up to $7 billion dollars a year.” the report states.
“Power in this digitally networked age comes from dominance in the information space and (we) are now living in a world increasingly shaped by propaganda and disinformation rather than factual information.
“These campaigns may be best understood through a lens of information warfare, combining traditional media influence, coordinated online activity and algorithmic amplification to shape narratives and perceptions at scale.”
The Group has long argued that global heating constitutes the more dangerous security threat both at national and global level, and that traditional military thinking does not encompass the scale or imminence of this threat. Consequently, many militaries are trapped in a 20th Century model of inter-nation conflict that has been superseded by far more grave and universal dangers.
The aim of the war is not only to wreck the global climate response, but also to undermine democracy, the group warns.
“The overall objective is not simply to convince, but to degrade the information environment itself, creating confusion, mistrust and institutional delegitimisation that weaken democratic decision making on complex issues including climate and energy.”
“Climate disinformation is evolving from a communications issue into a national security challenge, with implications for…sovereignty, economic resilience, disaster readiness, institutional trust, and strategic autonomy in shaping the energy transition.”
“Currently there are offensives ranging across global information to turn back momentum on renewable energy and climate action, but also to attack democratic norms.”
The strategy aims to control online content production and dissemination, via think tanks, PR companies, domination of social media, broadcast, cable and radio networks, the cultivation of high-profile ‘influencers’ to spread propaganda, and the mass deployment of bots and digital disruption, it explains.
To confuse and distort its effect, the narratives combine anti-climate-action sentiment with anti-immigration, antidemocracy, anti-journalism, anti-racial-equality, anti-LGBTQI, anti-science and anti-government themes, it adds, destroying the trust that should exist between a people and their government.
Prior to the election of Donald Trump, the US defence establishment released several reports in which it warned that global heating was a major threat to both US and world security. Such warnings have vanished as the Pentagon, along with other government departments, have been gagged from even mentioning climate and commanded to cancel their climate research. Coupled with this is the Trump push to increase fossil fuel use and discourage the spread of renewable energy. Such measures will greatly exacerbate the climate threat to both US and world security.
Climate deaths are already estimated at several million a year worldwide and affect all countries. They are expected to climb sharply as the planet heats. Climate fatalities include deaths from flood, fire, famine, heat and storm. To these must be added millions of deaths due to plastics, pesticides, air pollution, water pollution and toxic chemicals used in food, clothing and furnishings and other petrochemical products.
“The continued expansion of the use of fossil fuels is a death sentence to millions. There is no excuse for persistent delay in climate action,” the Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Gebreyesus has stated.
The goal of the fossil fuels $7 billion disinformation campaign is thus nothing less than the systematic mass murder by industry of increasing millions of people – all for the sake of preserving profits in the oil, gas and coal sector. Governments, such as those of the USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries, Venezuela, China, Australia and Canada, are complicit. It is, as the ASLCG says, an act of war – and this mass slaughter is a war crime for which all the culprits deserve to be indicted.
The ASLCG makes several recommendations for dealing with the problem including tougher anti-trust laws, AI and social media regulation – but these are all national measures and, as such, will never be adopted by all 197 nations globally. This means the spreaders of deadly lies and disinformation will always have somewhere to hide.
In The Age of Lies, I warned that disinformation is, potentially, the biggest threat facing the human species – since it corrupts all public discourse, rational decision making by government or industry and by individuals. In other words, it blocks humanity from saving itself.
In How to Fix a Broken Planet, I proposed the adoption of a World Truth Commission to expose the liars to public scorn, and a World Integrity Service, which ranks websites and media sources according to their truthfulness. Such measures can at least let the public know whom to trust – and whom to ignore, for their own safety.
The war being waged by the fossil fuels lobby against humanity is universal. It will destroy their own grandchildren as surely as yours. It will certainly wreck civilisation and, as many scientists have warned, could end in human extinction.
It is intentional, uniquely evil and driven by pure greed. It’s cruelty, caprice and callousness is unmatched by any murderous regime or conqueror in the whole of history.
It must be stopped.
The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.
The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.
Here are some “ETs” recorded from around the U.S. the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Saturday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)