Disinfo: Only Russia will benefit from (non-existent) global warming, the West believes

Summary

Forecasts about global warming are not coming true, particularly in Europe. On the contrary, in Russia’s European part August temperatures decreased compared to a few years ago. Only liars can claim that the average temperature on Earth has increased by 1 degree over the last one hundred years. The fact that it was already snowing twice in Russia’s Yakutia region this year is one of many pieces of evidence that contradict the global warming claim.

Around 80 global warming scenarios were elaborated by various institutions under the UN aegis, but all of them turned out to be nonsense. To cover it, alarmists began using the wording ‘climate change’ instead of ‘global warming.’

The anthropogenic factor of climate change is not true. The Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in the course of a few days erupted as many carbon dioxides as the whole humanity over the whole period of its existence. Similarly, the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland nullified all humanity’s efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions over the last five years.

Traditionally, though, the West believes that as a result of global warming, only Russia will benefit. A research paper published by Environmental Research Letters concludes that by 2080 the Siberian climate will become much more beneficial for humans than it is today.

Disproof

This is a mix of conspiracies and fakes concerning climate change, wrapped into the "anti-Russia" narrative claiming that the West believes that only Russia will benefit it. Oddly enough, at the same time, the publication suggests that climate change is actually a lie.

There is a strong consensus among publishing climate scientists (around 97%) that humans are responsible for climate change. The greater the climate expertise among surveyed scientists, the higher the consensus on human-caused global warming. One of the misunderstandings about the global warming presented in the publication is that it mixes up climate, which refers to how the atmosphere acts over a long period of time, with the weather, which describes what’s happening on a much shorter time scale. Look for debunks of 'unreliable climate change models' and other climate change myths here.

The volcano claim is also false. The “volcano gambit” is indicates that the author is uninformed about climate science, according to one of the websites explaining the climate change-related research. It continues saying that the amount of CO2 emitted by Eyjafjallajökull was, in fact, more than 20 times smaller than just European aviation emissions per day. There is scientific evidence that even if we include the rare, very large volcanic eruptions, like 1980's Mount St. Helens or 1991's Mount Pinatubo eruption, they only emitted 10 and 50 million tons of CO2 each, respectively. It would take three Mount St. Helens and one Mount Pinatubo eruption every day to equal the amount that humanity is presently emitting. In fact, human activities emit 60 or more times the amount of carbon dioxide released by volcanoes each year.

In reality, global warming has a global effect and it is even faster in Russia. As Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment 2018 report says on page 20: “The pace of temperature increase in Russia is faster than the average on Earth in the period 1976-2017; the average annual temperature in the world rose by 0.18°C in a decade, while in Russia the same index was 0.45°C.” Northern countries feel the consequences of global warming quicker than those in equatorial or tropical regions because their permafrost layers are melting.

publication/media

  • Reported in: Issue 163
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 12/08/2019
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Russia
  • Keywords: West, Climate, Conspiracy theory
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Disinfo: The Munich conspiracy of European powers launched the WWII

The Munich Agreement (1938) is the culmination of the helplessness of European diplomacy in front of the Nazi threat. This Munich conspiracy of European powers launched the largest war in history. UK and France did not want to form an anti-Nazi alliance with the USSR, which forced Moscow to take maintain peace on its territory with its own forces.

Disproof

This is a pro-Kremlin conspiracy narrative about the WWII. The Munich Agreement (September 30, 1938), indeed, permitted German annexation of the Sudetenland, in western Czechoslovakia. The policy of appeasement towards Adolf Hitler was heavily criticized in Europe and proved to be a disastrous move. World War II began in Europe on 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany on 3 September. A week before Germany attacked Poland, Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression pact, also known as the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" (23 August 1939). The deal was accompanied by a secret supplementary protocol on the delimitation of areas of mutual interest in Eastern Europe. In particular, Hitler and Stalin agreed to divide Poland. The agreement also indicated that the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, as well as Bessarabia and Finland, also belonged to the respective areas of interest of Germany and the USSR. Soviet Union attacked Poland on September 17, forcing the Polish army to fight on two fronts. Poland was divided according to the agreements of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. USSR later attacked Finland and annexed the Baltic states, all along the agreements with Nazi Germany. USSR and Germany engaged in an intensive trade program, where Soviet Union provided Germany with grain and strategic raw material. More on the trade between Moscow and Berlin 1939 – 1941 here. The war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany began on 22 June 1941, with the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union joined forces with the Allied Powers immediately after the German attack.

Disinfo: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact did not trigger World War II. Russia was threatened by Germany

Supporters of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as a “conspiracy of two dictators” deliberately forget to mention the role of the 1938 Munich Agreement, the culmination of the helplessness of European diplomacy in the face of the Nazi threat.

The Munich Agreement forced Moscow to be an outside observer of the entire European adventure. Russia could finally give up the illusions regarding the anti-German intentions of England and France, which skillfully pushed the German aggression to the East, to the Soviet borders.

Moscow draw the simple conclusion; the time had come when only their own forces could keep peace on their territory.

Disproof

A recurring disinformation narrative revising the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This message is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism and an attempt to portray Russia's role in World War II as non-aggressive.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was signed on August 23, 1939. Its secret protocols divided Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Thus, the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact directly caused the German and Soviet military aggression against Poland in September 1939, which resulted in complete occupation of the country by Germany and the USSR. The Treaty enabled the Soviet Union to invade and annex the Baltic States. The Soviets also annexed Romania's provinces of Bessarabia (today's Moldova) and northern Bukovina (now in Ukraine) and the Czechoslovak territory of Carpathian Ruthenia (now also part of Ukraine). Throughout the territories it occupied, the Soviet Union carried out harsh political reprisals, including mass executions and deportations.

Disinfo: Crimea's peaceful return to Russia is one of Putin's successes

Crimea has returned to Russia through a peaceful referendum where a large majority of citizens declared that they want to live in Russia. The referendum was directly prompted by the coup in Kyiv, but it has been a long-term wish of the local population to rejoin Russia and making that happen is one of Vladimir Putin’s successes.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the annexation of Crimea, claiming that Crimea voted to rejoin Russia through a legal referendum. Crimea is a part of Ukraine and was illegally annexed by Russia. In 2014, Russian troops obliged the parliament of Crimea to organise a referendum, which was illegitimate under international law, and then formally annexed the peninsula and brought it under Russian territorial control. The annexation has been condemned by the UNGA (see the resolution A/RES/68/262 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine). Following the covert invasion by “little green men,” the referendum in Crimea was conducted hastily and at gunpoint, barring impartial observers from entering the peninsula. The oft-cited figure of 97% participation in the referendum has been contested by the Kremlin’s own Human Rights Council, which estimated that only between 30% and 50% of Crimeans took part in the referendum, of which some 50-60% favoured secession. A year after the illegal annexation, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that the plan to annex Crimea was ordered weeks before the so-called referendum. For similar disinformation cases about Euromaidan protests being a “coup”, see here and here. For disinformation about the referendum and “legal annexation” of Crimea, see similar cases here, here, here andhere.