There is no shortage of “alternative versions” the Kremlin offers. Russian parliamentarians believe the US is attacking Russia with climate weapons. The New Eastern Outlook, managed by the Russian Academy of Sciences (Yes, Sciences!), suggests an upcoming “solar minimum” as the cause of extreme weather:
The crucial question to ask is whether we can assume, as many do, that this is all part of man-made global warming, today renamed climate change, or whether it can be caused by something quite different: The periodic cycles of solar activity that in the past months have entered what astro-scientists call a “solar minimum.”
Crackpot conspiracies
Yet another crackpot conspiracy, unfounded by any scientific data and fueled by pro-Kremlin media’s attempt to suggest “alternative” explanations to Global Warming. But why limit yourself to only a few conspiracies? Oriental Review goes on, describing the efforts to curb climate change as an evil scheme by “the British Empire” to reduce the population of the planet:
The Green New Deal is nothing other than a new form of eugenics masquerading as a socially conscious reform of the system. The fact is that not only is this Green New Deal NOT green (as a world covered by solar panels would increase desertification of the earth through heating), but has no connection to the true New Deal. The effects of a program that seeks to reduce global CO2 emissions to “acceptable levels” in accord with the will of today’s British Empire would bring nothing more than chaos, famine and depopulation to humanity.
Another Russian disinformation site, Strategic Culture Foundation, also supports the notion that the climate concerns are merely a conspiracy to de-populate the Planet. And don’t be afraid of a few nuclear disasters! Strategic Culture Foundation assures us that radiation is good for you!
Without that natural radiation emitted by stars, supernova, earth’s soil, cosmic radiation etc, then our very cellular functions break down and we get sick. This was demonstrated in tests conducted on lab rats in the 1990s which were isolated from natural background radiation, including in their food. /—/ Fear of radiation is a fraud pushed by a Malthusian lobby whose goal has been to dismantle the sovereign nation state by getting its victims to undermine their own basis of existence.
But the climate conspiracies are not limited to websites. They are an integral part of the decision-making processes in Moscow. Russian parliamentarian Aleksei Zhuravlyov has suggested that the wildfires and extreme weather in Russia this year are a result of the US employing climate-altering weapons:
I think they are experimenting with climate weapons. A summer like this is not real, that is something we all understand. So as a result we have wild fires and torrential rains in Moscow, says the Parliamentarian.
Once again, this could be easily disregarded as, again, a conspiracy emanating from one individual parliamentarian, but Kremlin authorities take the claims seriously. The Russian state news agency RIA Novosti is quoting an expert from the national weather services, claiming that Western powers are experimenting with climate weapons:
According [to the expert], special stations are based in Alaska and Norway, occasionally bombarding the upper layer of the atmosphere. This creates a plasma cloud, reaching four-five thousand degrees, in the ionosphere. This energy is later projected to certain regions, blocking anticyclones or enforcing cyclones and creating dramatic changes in the climate. The US is of course toying with this, but no one has any clear evidence. This is the most super-secret part of all Pentagon’s programs.
Attacking the Activists
No effort is saved for attacking activists, like 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, famed for her school strike for climate action. Russian Nationalist website Zavtra describes her as “degenerate” and views her as a symbol of “global madness”:
A Hóng Wèibing; a Red Guard, of climate activists and a possessed girl as a symbol of the “green” movement towards a new world order.
Zavtra is a rather marginal Russian right-wing national extremist publication, but Kremlin-funded channel RT joins in on the attack on Thunborg, publishing an avalanche of articles, defaming the 16-year-old girl:
- Elites’ darling Greta Thunberg poses next to German ‘eco-extremist’;
- Why Greta Thunberg and the environmental elite hate you;
- Meat tax will take food off poor people’s tables so that wealthy eco-socialists can feel virtous;
- I am terrified of ‘children’s crusader’ Greta Thunberg – and you should be too
Influential think tank Russian International Affairs Council, founded by the President of Russia in 2010, joins in on attacking Thunberg, suggesting her campaign “reflective of Western neoliberal racism“:
Racial supremacist undercurrents are cleverly masked by the clarion call of “social justice”. Nothing non-Westerners do is good enough unless it involves and profits vested Western interests. Neoliberals and their neoconservative cousins feel they are entitled to run the affairs of other nations. If the line is not toed, an army of “child actorvists” are ready to selectively name and shame national leaders. How is this different from the use of child soldiers and human shields by an assortment of violent thugs and jihadis?
Conflicting Messages
These messages are conflicting with Russian official policy on climate change. The Russian science community is working together in joint projects with Western scientists on examining the processes around climate change. Russian state media, targeting a domestic audience, share facts, not conspiracies. The Russian state leadership understands the challenges, connected to climate change:
Climate change will not only create physical changes and changes to the nature, but it will also create international tensions, connected to the search and exploitation of energy resources, to use of maritime trade routes, biological resources and to the deficit of water and food. –
Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation
The Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters joins in. Climate change is a reality:
The increasing challenges and threats caused by climate change will undoubtedly continue to create serious obstacles for stable social and economic development throughout the 21st century.
Climate change is not a theory. Neither are the consequences. Greta Thunberg is not an expert on ecology or climate change; she is a school kid asking why politicians aren’t listening to experts. And the facts are there. Russia officially supports the notion of urgent action to address the issues of climate change.
Read also:
- By 2050, eight Russian regions will be submerged under water, Urals researchers say
- Fancy a frack? How the UK Greens got into bed with Putin
- Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russia Today – leading outlets for anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda
- Russian hybrid warfare: what are effects-based network operations and how to counteract them
- Russia’s largest problem: Permafrost lying beneath two-thirds of its territory will melt this century
- A single methane ‘bubble’ explosion from global warming could cut Russia off from 89% of its natural gas
- Bot accounts published 55% of Russian-language tweets about NATO in May-July
- Global warming already having ‘explosive’ consequences in Russian North
- Where Russia is already beginning to collapse – the Permafrost Zone in the Far North
- Russian propaganda’s fake Western journalists who exist only on paper
- Russia’s largest problem: Permafrost lying beneath two-thirds of its territory will melt this century
- Moscow’s false story about Alaska infuriates residents of Russian North
- ‘Kremlin’s greatest worry: will the siloviki shoot at the people?’ and other neglected Russian stories
- What’s behind the return of pro-Russian politicians to Ukraine?
- Whataboutism strikes again in Russia’s disinformation campaign to discredit the MH17 investigation
