Conspiracy theories are invalid if they cannot be proven with historical or scientific evidence. They are typically highly improbable. Finding conspiracies where none exist is a mental illness which psychologists call illusory pattern perception.
Some conspiracy theories are not theories at all. They are deliberate lies told to influence the gullible. Many of the statements that come out of the Trump administration are examples of this. In our next posting we will tell how to guard against invalid conspiracy theories and lies posting as theories.
These theories are typically about secret government plans or plots to take control of the world or the government. They often accuse some group of plotting to take over the country. Jews, Catholics, the Illuminati, George Soros, liberals have all been accused of such plots. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a book written over a hundred years ago, accuses the Jews of a plot to take control of the world. Although the book has long since been shown to be a forgery, the accusation keeps popping up. Sometimes it is a conspiracy of world bankers (shorthand for Jews) who are involved in the plot. George Soros, a Jew, has been accused of handing out one hundred dollars to rioters (protesters) for causing trouble.
Some have claimed that the moon shot never happened. It was done in Hollywood, and the American government has been fooling people ever since. Not only did the American government fake the moon shot, according to some. It also was somehow complicit in the attacks in September 11, 2001.
What kind of mind comes up with ideas like these, and how gullible must people be to accept such things as true? All of these conspiracies are harmful to someone. The charge that global warming is a liberal hoax has been harmful to everyone. In February 2015 Senator Inhofe brought a snowball onto the floor of the Senate, thereby proving (in his mind) that global warming was a hoax. At about the same time a conservative whom I knew smirked on a cold winter day as he asked, “Has anyone heard anything about global warming lately?” Another conservative I knew conceded that the world was getting warmer. “But we don’t know,” he insisted, “if it was caused by man.” On the surface that seems to be a reasonable position. After all, we know that the earth has gone through and recovered from several Ice Ages. That was before human beings existed in the large numbers they do now or had the power to make such a drastic impact on the environment.
However, there is ample evidence that global warming, or climate change, if you prefer, is caused by human activities. People release 35 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, largely by burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. That means it traps heat from escaping earth’s atmosphere, and that is what makes the earth become warmer each year.
Under the Obama administration major steps were taken toward cutting back on greenhouse gases. One major accomplishment was the Paris Accords, which was signed by 194 countries. The signers agreed to cut emissions in their countries.
In the United States these cutbacks were achieved by improving fuel economy in automobiles and using more renewable energy. From 2008 to 2015 carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. fell 9.5 percent. Another way emissions were cut was by switching from coal to natural gas for power plants. Gas is much cleaner than coal and releases less greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. During the Obama administration natural gas production rose 28 percent in the United States.
One of the first things Donald Trump did in his misrule was to withdraw the country from the Paris Accords. He lifted the restrictions on fuel economy in American cars. He promoted what he called “beautiful, clean coal,” a meaningless phrase. He appointed Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt had worked as a lawyer for energy companies in the past. He finally resigned in 2018 under charges of questionable ethics. Before he resigned, he pulled the teeth from many of the environmental-friendly policies that had been put in place during the Obama administration.
Conservatives still question whether climate change is real, but its evidence is all around us, and it gets more frightening every day. As I write, an area of 780 square miles in California has burned. That’s half the size of Rhode Island. The fires have been getting larger every year. That’s because climate change has brought warmer, dryer conditions to the forests. Other parts of the world are experiencing the same phenomena. Indonesia, Brazil, and Australia have all face devasting fires in recent years. One study estimated that climate change makes these fires 30 percent more likely.
Forest fires are not the only natural phenomenon gone awry. Each year we are hit with more strong hurricanes. That is because the conditions for the storms increase over warmer ocean waters. It is ironic that some people think measures intended to decrease greenhouse gases put an unnecessary burden on business. However, the reverse is true. Procedures to cut emissions create new business opportunities, and they cost much less than the damage done by fires and hurricanes.
Another conspiracy theory that has created havoc in the United States is the charge that the coronavirus is a hoax. Forcing people to wear masks in public places is a violation of their freedom. Anyway, the virus is not as deadly as it seems. It is hardly more dangerous than the flu, and it will disappear by itself anyway. Not only that, but vaccines for the virus will inject people with something that will allow them to be tracked.
Unfortunately this view of the virus did not come from someone’s sick speculation. It came from an outright lie. By the President of the United States! This was revealed in Bob Woodward’s book, where the President told Woodward that he understood how dangerous the coronavirus was, but he didn’t want to alarm people! This was in Woodward’s book. Tapes of the Trump’s words were played on television, so there could be no doubt about them. It is hard to understand why anyone would believe anything he says. By the summer of 2020, fact checkers at The Washington Post determined that Trump had told 20,000 lies since the beginning of his term. Because of the President’s failure to reveal the truth about the virus’s danger and his urging businesses and schools to reopen before they had dealt with the pandemic, businesses have failed and almost 200,000 Americans have died.
It is time for us to learn the truth and reject false conspiracy theories.
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