False claims that heatwave is bogus spread online
www.bbc.com
Weather forecasters wrongly accused of using misleading data to "drive fear".

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”.

    • agitatedpotato@lemmy.worldEnglish
      45·
      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.worldEnglish
        19·
        1 year ago

        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.worksEnglish
          9·
          1 year ago

          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.caEnglish
          31·
          1 year ago

          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.caEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Absolutely, now these fools can Darwin award the whole planet! For a couple of people to be really rich!

          • El Barto@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            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.worldEnglish
        14·
        1 year ago

        The pandemic officially retired the phrase “avoid it like the plague” for at least a third of the USA population.