“Murderers”, “we are watching you”, “criminals”, “miserable”, “hitmen of information at the service of evil”. In recent days, the State Meteorological Agency has suffered unprecedented harassment on social networks, and these insults and threats are just one example. The reason? Do his job.
What’s going on? At the end of April, after an escalation of aggressiveness (“harassment, insults and even death threats”), AEMET She was forced to disseminate a statement in which they asked for respect for all public employees who worked at the Agency.
In recent months, as the drought intensified and AEMET took over a more proactive role in weather communication (and in the fight against pseudoscience), the situation in networks has become increasingly unsustainable. Many meteorologists, in fact, have experienced this harassment on their own personal accounts.
When the drought becomes evident. After months warning that the country’s water reserves are at a minimum and explaining that long-term trends are getting worse, the situation is becoming so critical that it can no longer be denied as if it were something “normal”.
In this sense, the drought has prompted a renewed interest in meteorology and in the scientific approach to water scarcity. However, the situation is driving a revival of all kinds of pseudo-meteorologies and traditional methods that, despite having neither head nor tail, are receiving unprecedented media attention.
And, as if that were not enough, the conspiracy theories arrive: It is not only argued that the lack of rain is induced by geoengineering; rather, there is a perfectly orchestrated plan to empty reservoirs and destroy dams with the intention of destroying the Spanish countryside and, by extension, ruining the country. And, at this point, the organized groups that spread these ideas have started a smear campaign against an agency that is not used to being at the center of the new culture wars.
And, unfortunately, it is nothing new. This strategy of harassment by well-organized anti-science groups is something that we have been seeing in recent years. And that we suffer, with all its virulence, during the pandemic and the controversies surrounding the vaccine.
Not because public debate on issues as critical as public health or the weather is not acceptable. On the contrary, we ourselves, a few days ago, commented on the doubts that exist among some meteorologists about the accuracy of AEMET’s maximum temperature forecasts.
Polarization, everywhere. The problem is that this debate cannot be carried out in a context of polarization in which terms such as “murderers” or “criminals” are bargaining chips. The scientific debate systems are not prepared to be at the center of the hurricane and if they are going to start to be, we have to take action. Deeper and deeper than we imagine.
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