With many deaths and massive damage, the floods in Valencia are making deep inroads into Spanish society. The record amount of precipitation points unequivocally to fossil-driven climate change. The scientific explanation is quite basic: More water evaporates from the much warmer Mediterranean Sea while the warmer atmosphere can absorb more water vapour. If this moist air collides with cold air, more rain therefore falls.
Science aside, MP Henk Vermeer (BBB BoerBurgerBeweging) gave a very different explanation in the talkshow of Sven Kockelmann. Where the Netherlands had given the rivers more space, the Spanish government had actually restricted it: ‘They have demolished a lot of dams there in recent years because that would be good for biodiversity. And then all the buffer capacity is gone.’
Complete nonsense, of course: These are small dams that were not built for flood control, and hardly any dams have been removed in the Valencia region (that happened mostly in northern Spain). On reflection, ‘it’s the dams’ is a piece of disinformation that has been eagerly spread by (extreme) right-wing politicians and Twitter users for a while now to question the effects of climate change. Not entirely surprising that the BBB participates in this: Vermeer was recently visiting the climate deniers pf Clintel who have made doubt sowing their profession.
With their wide reach and political chatter, talk shows like Café Kockelmann (Omroep WNL’s, NPO) provide a welcome platform for climate disinformation. To make the public sphere resilient to this, we could replace the easy-talking sidekick with someone who is knowledgeable. Or not invite politicians who (continue to) abuse their podium for disinformation purposes for a while. Because one thing is clear: if we do not put up institutional dams, the disinformation will continue to run freely.
For my opinion piece in the Volkskrant on the desinformation tactics of the BBB (in Dutch) see: Van Trump naar de BBB: desinformatie is dichterbij huis dan je denkt.