Given the current hysteria about wildfires on the continent – hysteria which is refuted by data – we thought this would be a good time to remind everyone they’ve done this exact thing before.
It’s the summer of 2019, the Amazon’s regular wildfire season is underway, and for some reason it’s all anyone is talking about.
“The Earth’s lungs are on fire!”, that’s the line. Everyone from Obama down is lamenting the damage and wishing we’d done more about climate change sooner.
Full on South Park “we didn’t listen!” mode.
Just one problem – It was actually a below average year for forest fires in the Amazon, at least according to NASA data.
And the conversation was being muddied by people sharing misattributed photographs, and contrived or misleading statistics.
But when rational people point this out to try and calm the growing hysteria, they are shouted down and called names.
…and then the NASA data was changed to cover up the discrepancy.
It’s an interesting little time capsule, and microcosm of the model that would take hold of the entire world when Covid landed just six months later.
And it’s exactly what they’re doing right now in Europe.
Hellbound and Down 