Canceled: The earth is not cleansing herself

It makes sense that in this time of seemingly endless bad news, we cling to whatever good news we come across. In the past few weeks, pictures have been circulating on Twitter of nature thriving in the absence of humans. 

One post with over one million likes showed pictures of swans and fish swimming in the canals of Venice, the caption reading: “Here’s an unexpected side effect of the pandemic – the water’s flowing through the canals of Venice is clear for the first time in forever. The fish are visible, the swans returned.” 

Another post claimed to show footage of dolphins swimming in Venice, the caption reading “Nature just hit the reset button on us.” A third post claimed that a group of elephants “broke into a village in [Yunnan] province, looking for corn and other food. They ended up drinking 30kg of corn wine and got so drunk that they fell asleep in a nearby tea garden.” 

The list goes on. 

I’ll admit, these pictures are heartwarming to see. After being surrounded by news, real-life proof of global warming and human activity that has devastated the environment, seeing news about animals enjoying themselves in our absence may feel like a good thing. The problem with these stories is that none of them are true. 

It turns out that, according to National Geographic, swans regularly visit the canals of Venice, and that the dolphins allegedly swimming in Venice were actually in the Mediterranean Sea, where dolphin sightings are not uncommon. The pictures of the “drunk” elephants roaming in Yunnan were misattributed, according to WUSA9. The first picture was taken a year ago. The second has been contested by Chinese officials who claim the story is fake. 

Though reports show that a herd of elephants did come through a village in Yunnan recently, the herd destroyed villagers’ houses and turned over (not drank from) some wine jars. And though the water in Venice may be more clear recently due to the absence of boats, I wouldn’t call this a sign of nature regenerating itself.

Not only are these “feel-good” stories all complete fabrications, or at the very least, exaggerations, the narrative they rely on has dangerous implications for how we treat the issues of global warming and environmentalism. 

Here is what tweets like these unintentionally posit (though I think the people behind those tweets had good intentions): that human beings’ daily activity is the root cause of global warming. Ordinary people going to work every day in motorboats, or just trying to live their lives in a rural area — they are to blame for the canal’s pollution, and for animals’ hesitancy to visit these areas. 

In the past few weeks, I’ve seen an uncomfortable amount of tweets claiming that the coronavirus is helping the “earth cleanse herself,” a statement which I believe falls under the same line of thinking as those animal story tweets. This ideology ultimately posits that the disappearance of human beings may be a good thing for the earth. 

This ideology has two glaring issues. First of all, it simply isn’t true that daily human activity is the root cause of global warming. Yes, the water in Venice may be temporarily clearer due to decreased boat activity. But most foremost scientists studying this phenomenon argue that climate change is primarily caused by big industry. According to the 2017 Carbon Majors Report, just 100 companies have been responsible for over 70 percent of the world’s greenhouse emissions from 1988 to 2015. 

Pedro Faria of the environmental non-profit CDP stated that the report proved that a “relatively small set of fossil fuel producers may hold the key to systemic change on carbon emissions.” 

It’s fossil-fuel producers like ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron that are the main culprits of global warming. Big corporations want you to think ordinary people are at fault for global warming, and that we’re all in this together because they don’t want to let go of their cash cow. 

In 2019, Shell’s chief executive Ben van Beurden stated people should “eat seasonally and recycle more” and chastised “consumers who choose to eat strawberries in winter.” This is coming from the leader of a company that wanted to leave radioactive oil rigs on the seabed last year. This criticism comes from one of the world’s leading oil producers that is responsible for close to 2 percent (in 2015) of the entire world’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions. 

I’m not saying individual actions don’t have an effect on climate change. Rather, regular people’s impact on the climate is minor, and should not be the main focus of this debate. Who cares if you eat strawberries in winter if some huge corporation out there is going to continue to demolish our environment with no remorse?

Second, the ideology underlying those tweets is a few steps away from what eco-fascists have been saying for years. Eco-fascism is a racist, anti-semitic ideology that believes climate change is caused by overpopulation and immigration. 

It owes its roots to Nazism. More people have started talking about it recently because the El Paso shooter espoused eco-fascist beliefs in his virulently racist and delusional manifesto. 

How does this racist ideology have anything to do with fake stories about swans swimming in Venice? Well, both operate on the false belief that regular human beings are the root cause of climate change. To put it more simply, I’m not saying that these two things are anywhere near the same level of bad, but rather, that they both advance the same false narrative. 

Fake animal stories and the “earth is cleansing itself” tweets are harmful because they allow for more dangerous ideologies like eco-fascism to enter the mainstream and solidify in the public consciousness.

Say you believe that regular human lifestyle choices are the root cause of global warming. It isn’t that much of a stretch to say that you would also believe in the myth of overpopulation. I mean, look at how the numbers have grown over the years. Surely, the worsening climate condition must have something to do with the fact that we simply can’t take care of all these people.

See how easy it is for malignant ideas to infiltrate this kind of thinking? See how easily dumb ideas like overpopulation can lead you to justify the deaths of millions of people? There are over seven billion people on this planet. We produce enough food to feed 7 billion people, and still, children starve. 

The issue of global poverty and hunger has nothing to do with whether the planet can sustain everyone, but rather, with how these resources are distributed. The issue at hand is that while we keep blaming ordinary people for living their lives, hugely profitable fuel producers like Shell get away with completely destroying our planet. 

Those fake animal tweets are not harmless. They peddle the same delusions that enable the problematic myth of overpopulation to persist in the world, and they are also annoying now that I know they aren’t real. 

I, too, could take a picture of the turkeys that regularly walk around Boston University’s campus, caption it with “Look at how fun and quirky nature is while people are locked away terrified for their families’ lives and financial situation!” to get a million likes. But, I’m not going to do that because I have some dignity left. 

In conclusion, I hereby rule that those fake stories about animals walking around empty streets are canceled. We should just share that video of the Italian man playing the trumpet on his balcony again.