False claims suggesting that the BBC has been misreporting temperatures in southern Europe have been spreading on social media.

A clip of Neil Oliver, a GB News presenter, accusing the BBC “and others” of “driving fear” by using “supposedly terrifying temperatures”, has been viewed more than two million times.

For the past few weeks, an intense heatwave has been sweeping through parts of southern Europe and north Africa, with extensive wildfires breaking out in Greece, Italy and Algeria - leading to more than 40 deaths.

Speaking about the fires on Rhodes on GB News on Monday, Mr Oliver accused the BBC, and other broadcasters, of trying to “make people terrified of the weather”.

  • VentraSqwal@links.dartboard.socialOP
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    Deny, deny, deny. Now climate change deniers are doing that even to observable, recordable phenomena, just to avoid the truth of what is happening. This is what’s stopping progress towards saving our children’s future.

        • JDPoZ@lemmy.world
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          I remember being angry at people saying it was “too on the nose.”

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            The worst was the people who insisted it wasn’t funny enough. I thought it was pretty funny, but was that really the point?

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            It’s funny, isn’t it? It’s so “on the nose” and yet perfectly reflects reality.

            “Difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to be believable…” and all that

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            There is something to be said about subtlety in story-telling. When writers tell their message with a sledgehammer, it comes off as unrealistic.

    • Deuces@lemmy.world
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      Don’t worry, next year (assuming it’s not another el ninio) they’ll accept this years temps and use it as proof that the climate change is fake since “it’s colder than last year”.

  • Buffaloaf@lemmy.world
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    So we’ve actually gotten to the point where these idiots will argue whether or not it’s hot outside. I knew people could be stupid/crazy, I just didn’t realize how many of them there are.

      • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yep, with the future in store for the earth the pandemic was basically a social test and the results weren’t promising.

        • El Barto@lemmy.world
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          I look at the bright side. Many idiots won the Darwin award during the pandemic.

          The problem with these new idiots is that they won’t get to experience their idiocy because they live in a place that’s not affected yet.

          • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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            I know people who literally came close to being dead from COVID who still have a lot of stupid ass opinions about the pandemic. Hell, my FIL suffered permanent lung damage to the point that he can’t handle being at high elevations for very long. He struggles to breathe with any physical exertion whatsoever. Still a skeptic. Some people just kind of go all “sunk cost falacy” on their own idiocy.

          • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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            The problem with these new idiots is that they won’t get to experience their idiocy because they live in a place that’s not affected yet.

            Or a place that is getting affected, but not in a way that looks like what they think global warming means.

            More intense storms and more extreme weather of all types are still symptoms of the same problem, even if a local area isn’t hotter today than last summer.

          • gornar@lemmy.ca
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            Absolutely, now these fools can Darwin award the whole planet! For a couple of people to be really rich!

            • El Barto@lemmy.world
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              Nah. Earth will be fine. We and any species that won’t adapt to the shit we did, not so much.

        • Baron Von J@lemmy.world
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          The pandemic officially retired the phrase “avoid it like the plague” for at least a third of the USA population.

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      Giving every moron the ability to broadcast to the whole world, turned out to be a really bad idea.

    • Mynameisnotdoug@lemmy.world
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      I’ve watched flat earthers conduct foolproof experiments to prove the earth is flat, then come up with excuses when their experiment fails.

      The heat is caused by Jewish space lasers or something.

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        Here in parts of the south USA it’s been a normal summer, getting adequate rain and temps not hitting 100+ like last year as well. So I can see some of the skepticism but the world is fucking huge…If I drive one hour further north or south…the weather has changed…

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        Didn’t June break some heat records in the UK? I thought that I had read that. I’m in Southern California and this summer has been super mild.

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    This came out 2 days ago:

    Koonin finds that daily record high temperatures have not increased over the past 100 years and daily record lows have become less common. This is directly at variance with media headlines.

    Although wildfires made headlines this summer, global areas burned by wildfires have shown a downward, rather than an upward, trend. Tornado activity in the United States has declined since 1970.

    The media covers climate change as though doomsday is approaching. Bad news sells, and well-funded organizations support the crisis message.

    The conservative intellectuals are dedicated to destroying the planet for money. And, with conservative politicians, they have a whole platform for it, Project 2025.

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      New York University professor Steven Koonin has presented data

      Who is also the chief scientist for BP. Just so we’ve got that out there.

      in his bestselling book, “Unsettled,” to show that the science is not as settled as many politicians would have us believe.

      Which many scientist have indicated is just being contrarian to seek more books and the arguments within the book are easily debunked.

      Koonin is a respected academic physicist

      Yeah in physics he knows his stuff.

      Koonin finds that daily record high temperatures have not increased over the past 100 years and daily record lows have become less common. This is directly at variance with media headlines.

      Yes, because his dataset is from the 1990s. There’s zero reason to think any conclusion he has is in step with modern data. His modeling method even pre-date the 90s. Everything he has used to provide argument is not via a method that is modern. His data is right just that is using methods no one uses because it’s wildly inaccurate. So right in this case just means he’s consistently inaccurate. Everyone please refer to your seventh grade science class on the difference between accuracy and consistency.

      The media covers climate change as though doomsday is approaching. Bad news sells, and well-funded organizations support the crisis message.

      The irony of this statement while completely missing the notion that someone can just say a lot of opposite things to sell a book is… Interesting.

      Even if rising “greenhouse gas” emissions were affecting the climate, actions by the United States will not be helpful in the absence of changes by China and India, the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

      Yes. Let’s not do something because China isn’t doing it. That’s fine argument. You know China isn’t doing human rights so I guess we can nix that here too.

      If the United States were to get rid of all fossil fuel emissions, this would only reduce global temperatures by 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2100.

      Just FYI, 0.2 is equal to 2,100 Tsar Bombas going off at once. That’s the largest nuclear device ever created by humans. Decreasing 0.2 is like not blowing that many nuclear bombs. 0.2 is super significant. This is what happens when you have some mid-sixty year old economist talking science.

      The EPA’s proposed tailpipe and power plant regulations will reduce economic growth by raising energy prices.

      Lady, I don’t know if you’ve had a change to exit your private jet, but fuel cost are going up, no matter what. Everyone was like “if you increase minimum wage food prices will go up!” And then we didn’t increase minimum wage and prices still went up. I’m just going say, I don’t think it really fucking matters what we do or don’t do at this point, prices are going up no matter what. I used to buy eggs for fifty-nine cents way back. What happen? I didn’t get any nice shit or saving the planet and eggs are $4, what happened?

      Raising the cost of energy at any time is poor economic policy, but especially when economic growth is slow. U.S. annualized gross domestic product growth was 2% in the first quarter of 2023, with data for the second quarter expected on Thursday. It’s summer, but now is not the time for Democrats to use the excuse of climate change to slow the economy further with more regulations.

      Well the cost of energy is going up anyway, so it doesn’t matter. And economic growth is slow, because for the last fifteen years its been at breakneck pace. So maybe look a bit more than just a single year for your data points. And also, y’all just hate regulation, that’s what it boils down to. But every time regulations get removed, “Oh no! The Housing Market crashed! The econmy is getting tanked!” There’s just been no demostrated self-restraint so, yeah, nah, I don’t trust you mfers. I think you all need more regulation.

      Also, the econmy is going be in more pain later than now if we can’t fucking grow food. I know, none of that is your 65 year old ass’ problem, but I mean people who are 12 right now, might want to eat when they get to their 50s. I know, you’ll be dead and all, so it won’t matter to you, but it kinda of matters to them. So I mean, pardon if we all take your perspective with a nonexistent grain of salt.

      • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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        Except it’s the Heritage Foundation, which is been manufacturing this bullshit for decades to lawmakers who are currently 70+ years old and wouldn’t know the difference between a telephone operator and a Google search operator if you asked them.

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        It’s hard to overstate how big 0.2 degrees is, for a single countrys change.

        That’s 10% of the total expected climate change (assuming we held it to 2°)

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      I know it’s not much to look forward to, but I’m going to enjoy some schadenfreude when conservatives are dying from the same shit that’s killing all of us and they can’t even process what’s happening to them.

    • Bipta@kbin.social
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      Please link to an archived version of their page or you’re boosting them on Google

      • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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        Honestly, that’s not a bad thing, imho. If old people come across their “social security/Medicare need to go!” articles, that would benefit all of us.

      • phaedrux_pharo@lemmy.world
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        The commenter you’re replying to is using a common English colloquialism: “go out.” In this particular construction, “go out” is short for “go outside,” which generally refers to the act of transporting one’s physical body (assumed to currently exist inside a structure, underground, or somehow contained within some sort of boundary) to a location that could be considered exterior to their present location.

        In the context of the thread, the commenter is inviting those making claims about the air temperature to experience it for themselves by exiting their current containment units and exposing their sensory organs to the actual air temperature of the external world, thus providing the counterpoint to their proposition.

        For the beginning of the sentence, please see:

        [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/my-brother-in-christ]

  • Obsession@lemmy.world
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    This is my parents, who emigrated from Europe in 80s.

    “Greece is always this hot in the summer”

    “I remember 40 degree weather when I was a kid, no one was complaining then”

    “Do they expect the Mediterranean not to get hot?”

    I hate to see it, especially since they’re both otherwise smart people. They’re just completely taken in by climate denialism.

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      hate to see it, especially since they’re both otherwise smart people.

      I hate to say it… but they are not really that smart based on that. Amd I’m saying this as someone who’s mom who is “otherwise really smart”, but pretty fucking stupid.

    • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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      It’s the fear and guilt of having destroyed the planet their children and grandchildren (especially their grandchildren) will inherit. What they’re doing right now is shoving their heads right into the sand and selling themselves on whatever climate change denialism is out there right now.

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    Boomers gonna boomer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    At the end of the day, they’re again the ones that are going to suffer the most with the higher temperatures, it’s kind of like karma really.

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    How does anyone maintain even a shred of hope in the face of this rampant bullshittery?

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      About half of my job is dealing with infrastructure so I fight the second order effects of this every day. That gives me hope, that I am delaying the unavoidable disaster ever so slightly every day. Maybe if I work really hard I can buy the human race a single second.

      Also I started a guerrilla gardening group and committing myself to planting on average 3 new plants a day.

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    I was on holiday in southern Europe. I was there at 43° Celsius. I know a person who witnessed 47 more southern. In places where these temperatures have been seen only over the past 10 years

    I mean, it’s pretty simple to know the temperature, thermometers exists. Just call someone in southern Europe and ask

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      I’m not denying there is a heat wave in southern Europe, but where I am in Spain, it was actually hotter last year. I’m enjoy this summer and am usually able to sleep without AC and at the same time I have family outside of the country calling and asking if I am OK because of what they see on the news. There is definitely parts that have it worse than others.

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        I was in the same place same period of last year and this year was definitely hotter. I grew up there (although I don’t live there anymore), in south of Italy. This year was really bad

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    If these people were on fire and their talking heads told them they weren’t they would say they weren’t.

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    well, the millions who live there and the millions upon millions with heat waves all over the world aren’t fooled. almost no one denies climate issues now, other than people paid to do so, and soon even they will be forced to stop. too busy dealing with climate fallout they themselves experience.

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    Weird. The complaints I’ve seen myself are about how they change the colour pallet for the weather maps compared to several years ago, so the same temperatures that used to be displayed in greens are now being displayed in reds.