Aaron Huertas on the Purveyors of Disinformation

Disinformation. It sometimes manifests in theatrical shows of ignorance, like Senior Republican Senator James Inhoffe bringing a snowball to the Senate floor as “evidence” that global warming is a hoax, or the persistent denial coming out of the ill-informed head of the current president that Harvey and Irma are unrelated to climate change. But where does the disinformation start? Sometimes the seeds of willfully inaccurate right-wing talking points are planted by more mainstream conservative thinkers like George Will, Rich Lowry, Peggy Noonan, or the latest star of the right wing elite, NY Times opinion columnist, Bret Stephens. Under cloak of sophisticated language, these opinion columnists bury grains in the fertile right-wing psyche that grow into dangerously thorny vines of falsehood. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with DC-based science communicator, Aaron Huertas, to discuss what disinformation Bret Stephens has sown lately regarding the climate. We talk about Stephens’s disregard for solutions that could fight climate change, examine the weaknesses in his research, and ponder what motivates him to reach his simplistic and misleading conclusions.