5. Greta Thunberg said climate change is a hoax. Fake or not?
An Instagram post in January 2023. includes an image of climate activist Greta Thunberg speaking into a microphone. “Greta Thunberg reveals climate change is a hoax: ‘It’s all about the money and controlling people,'” the post reads. Similar iterations of the post accumulated thousands of likes on Instagram and Facebook.
There was also a short clip on Twitter in 2021, where one can see Thunberg being interviewed by MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan. On being asked, what advice she’d give to President Joe Biden, if he rang her up and consulted on his climate policy, she said, “nothing, as that would be undemocratic. I would just want him to tell the situation as it is. Since the climate crisis doesn’t exist, how can we expect people to want climate action?”
The video has gone viral across social media platforms with many reminding that former US President Donald Trump used to call climate crises a hoax.
HOW CAN WE VERIFY THIS?
Thunberg’s climate activism is well-documented. She began conducting skolstrejk för klimatet or “school strikes for climate” when she was 15. In February 2023, she posted that it was the 233rd week of her climate strikes.
The clip from 2021 has been altered to change the meaning of Thunberg’s sentence. The full clip shows she was actually saying world leaders should treat climate change like a crisis to garner public support for democratic climate action. The Instagram post that followed it, was just continuing the fabrication of Thunberg’s statements that are fake.
Throughout the full 5-minute clip, she repeatedly said world leaders need to present climate change as a crisis to influence public support for democratic climate action. She criticized Biden for not doing enough to address climate change and treating it as another political issue. She repeatedly said climate change was a crisis. “Treat it as a crisis, that’s the number one step we need to do,”
Many media outlets did the fact-check on both the video and the photo, confirming the falseness. e.g. USA Today, Times of India
WHAT ARE OTHER SOURCES SAYING?
A close examination shows the video jumps as Thunberg appears to make the controversial statement. When she says, “I would just tell him to tell the situation like it is,” her head is tilted slightly to the left and then jumps to the right – a clear sign that the clip was doctored to alter her words. Both PolitiFact and The Associated Press rated the video false.
FAKE OR NOT?
There is no record of Greta Thunberg, a climate activist, saying that climate change is a hoax. The post and the fabricated, altered video present no evidence to back up this claim. Fake!
