News reports of horrific wildfires on Maui in the Hawaiian Islands grabbed my attention this month.  More than a hundred people died and several weeks later many more remain missing or unidentified.  How could this happen?  I have an image of Hawaii as a lush green tropical paradise.  I’ve been there, but never on Maui where this tragic disaster destroyed Lahaina.  If you read various news reports, you will find that almost all of them mention climate change as a primary cause.

My experiences traveling in Hawaii were on the Big Island and on Oahu where the Always-Effervescent-One and I spent a couple of weeks during our Christmas break, but this was more than a decade ago. We saw little that alarmed us about the threat of such devastation, but in this post I’m not focused on wildfires or their causes. Instead, I’m concerned with how the news is reported.  This confirmed my opinion that all news is propaganda.

First some definitions while admitting that propaganda is a loaded word.  According to my Merriam-Webster Dictionary, two pertinent definitions apply.

• The spreading of ideas, information, or rumors for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.

• Ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause. – Also, a public action having such an effect.

So, propaganda can be helpful or injurious depending upon your point of view or upon the motives of the writer.  It can be factual or based on rumors and opinions of some people, if not most people.  Consider the two phrases in these definitions that make propaganda a loaded word:

for the purpose of,

deliberately to further one’s cause.

How do we know when we are hearing propaganda?  The quick answer, the speaker’s mouth is moving!

You pick your poison when you read or watch the news.  How do we avoid indoctrination.  The usual antidote is to seek out different points of view, but what if only one dominant point of view is allowed?  In other words, when dissent is silenced, censored.  Then we may become victims of brainwashing, another loaded word needing a definition. Again, Merriam-Webster provides two relevant definitions.

• A forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas.

• Persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship.

If we only hear one side of an argument and it is presented relentlessly, over and over, and if anyone who disagrees is belittled, chastised, and labeled as horrible or some other demeaning or derogatory term, then we could be victims of brainwashing.  In other words, we take for granted some ideas that are just not true, or we accept these understandings without questioning, perhaps without thinking.  This is brainwashing or at least a fixation.  It can lead to mass formation conformity and sometimes irrational fears among the populace.  What are the antidotes?

First of all, we should learn to recognize when someone is deliberately trying to persuade us to join or accept their cause.  How do we learn to do that?  Skepticism, the discipline of an open mind.  Whenever someone tells you “This is the truth,” we should realize they are only giving us their opinion of the truth.

The Climate Discussion Nexus (CDN) is a Canadian climate news service.  In their recent newsletter they compared reporting of the Lahaina tragedy by NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Economist, as well as a website known as Heatmap.  Of these news sources, only The Economist made no reference to climate change.  The others made climate change an obvious villain.  CDN, as an example of how an open-minded news service should operate, sought the opinions of others who were knowledgeable of the conditions and circumstances.  The resulting explanations identified a number of factors, both natural and as a result of questionable human decision-making now obvious with the advantage of hindsight.

None of the so-called knowledgeable sources mentioned climate change. Instead, they pointed to the following factors: 1) land-use changes surrounding Lahaina; 2) the introduction of fast growing invasive species of grasses on formerly irrigated farm land; 3) electric utilities dangerously close to flammable vegetation; 4) naturally dry environment north of a mountain range with strong southerly trade winds creating dry conditions; 5) nearby tropical storm/hurricane  adding to the higher than normal wind conditions; 6) failure to identify the dangerous threat or to prevent a catastrophic incident; and 7) ignoring the advice and concerns of many people.

Who do we believe?  The corporate media which obviously wants us to believe that climate change is an existential threat? Or do we believe others who may or may not be right about this tragedy?  Afterall, they are just stating their opinions of the truth.  If you only get your news from traditional corporate news sources, you may be misled, even indoctrinated or brainwashed.

Like most of you who read this, I’m not formally credentialed in the study of climate, weather, or environmental conditions on Hawaii.  I’m just an interested person who would like to better understand what happened in a horrific tragedy.  Maybe with that understanding, future tragedies can be avoided.

In my opinion, the corporate media is guilty of wrongthink and groupthink.  It’s as if they share the same sources, (I’m pretty sure they do).  It seems that nearly every news article even remotely related to weather, and even some that are unrelated, mention climate change, global warming, or some other euphemism to explain a weather event.  Is this propaganda?  Are the writers, editors, and publishers in the corporate media propagandists, or are they the victims of brainwashing? Maybe both. They sure don’t know the difference between weather and climate.

Isn’t it interesting that of all the possible causes of this tragedy, the only one we are wholly incapable of resolving is climate change.  No matter what we humans may do now or in the future, we cannot stop the climate from changing.  For 4.6 billion years, our planet has experienced dramatic changes in climate, this will continue.  Humans are among the most adaptable species.  This is a good thing.

By the way, did you hear on your local news that this summer of 2023 has been unusually warm because of global warming, etc.?   Here’s a 60-Day record for most of the U.S. and Canada through August 7th.  This is from WeatherBELL Analytics.

If you check the satellite record (UAH), you will discover that global temperature anomalies for June and July were +0.38 C and +0.64 C respectively above the thirty-year global average (climate is often defined as the average weather over a thirty-year period).  Also, we’ve had several hotter months in the last thirty years (check 1998 and 2016 for some examples).  The planet has been generally warming for about 150 years, but we’ve only had satellite global temperature records for about 40 years.  To reference Shakespeare, the future is an undiscovered country.