Erstellt am: 14. 6. 2016 - 11:23 Uhr

Today's Webtip: Conspiracy Facts

Because sometimes those things that look like ducks and act like ducks really are ducks.

Conspiracy theories tend to get a bad rap.

Ok, the whole hollow earth, lizard people, bavarian illuminati thing might be a stretch, but sometimes there really are groups of people who get together to conspire to influence governments, the media, and the public.

Take the whole climate change thing. One of the favourite claims of climate change denialists has been that the science is not trustworthy because scientists, the government, and the media have financial interests and are in the pockets of "big green energy". This is the kind of conspiracy theory that can actually (sometimes) be proven. Money leaves a trail, if you can find it.

And it turns out that there actually has been money changing hands in order to influence the public discourse. The only trouble (for denialists at least) is that the trail leads to dirty energy companies who want to encourage peoples mistrust of the entire debate.

We already know that Exxon seemed to have been aware of the effects they could have on the environment since at least 1981. We also know that they liked to give anti-climate change politicians cash. Now we know that the big coal companies were at least interested in influencing the entire debate. By heavily funding the sceptical scientists, pundits and others who claimed big energy had nothing to do with it.

The Guardian currently has an article up about some interesting things that were discovered thanks to the bankruptcy of a huge coal company. Now, none of this proves that the people who do believe humanity has played a role in the situation aren't cashing in as well, but it does make it seem like the sceptics might have been protesting a bit too much.

Biggest US coal company funded dozens of groups questioning climate change