WE are surely at risk of drowning in a sea of information. Or more accurately a swamp, due to the increasing amount of misinformation and disinformation muddying the waters. Deliberately deceptive disinformation has consequences, including loss of life as in America when Fox News – part of Rupert Murdock’s media empire – knowingly broadcast a lie that the election was rigged against Trump. The motivation was financial, whipping up the far-right to increase audience ratings. People later died when a right-wing mob stormed the US Capitol, and America’s political divide was worsened.

Social media is a fertile and lightning-fast breeding ground for the spread of disinformation. A Twitter study found that false information spreads faster and further than accurate information. Similarly on Facebook false information is more likely to attract attention. TikTok has announced plans to remove climate change denial videos, but we’ll see how effective they will be.

For decades the fossil fuel industry and its mouthpieces have spread disinformation, casting doubt on the reality of global warming. The industry averaged $2m profit every minute for the last 50 years, enough to buy all the influence needed to successfully delay political interference that might limit its activities. Around the world governments and regulators have effectively been captured, which explains the International Monetary Fund calculation that the industry benefits from subsidies of $11m a minute, in part through not having to pay for the deaths and poor health caused by air pollution, or the heatwaves and other impacts of global warming.

There is another more subtle form of media manipulation, which is to starve issues of the ‘oxygen of publicity’ as Margaret Thatcher described it. Last weekend I was at The Big One demonstration in London, with about 90,000 people who took the time and trouble to travel to London to express their growing concern at the disastrous lack of sufficient government action on the environment. It was heartening to see so many people of all ages and ethnicities, including families with young children, coming together peacefully to raise awareness of growing public disquiet at our politicians’ failure to safeguard our collective future. Before the event there was considerable media attention on the totally bogus story about the risk of the London marathon being disrupted. Of the event itself there was minimal coverage. Nothing to see here folks.

Climate change will cost us all one way or another, including here in beautiful north Dorset. At a recent Dorset Council planning consultation I was pleased to see the seriousness with which the environment is now being taken. Better late than never, but we are still not taking sufficient action quickly enough. I worry that the emphasis is shifting towards mitigation measures to try and cope with the effects of global warming, rather than on reducing it.