Colorado climate activists protest by spreading disinformation

by Nathanael Johnson


In Colorado, climate activists tried to trick reporters into releasing false information on two separate occasions.

A couple of days ago, Colorado Public Radio reporter Michael Elizabeth Sakas got an eyebrow-raising press release from the Sunrise Movement, a youth climate-activism group that rose to prominence with sit-ins in politicians’ offices. Supposedly Denver Mayor Michael Hancock was going to apologize for the fact that an oil company was one of the sponsors of a sustainability conference he hosted this week.

When Sakas asked for more information, Sunrise shared a statement on what appeared to be City of Denver letterhead that seemed to back up the claim. But it was a fake: The Sunrise Movement had written the letter and lied to journalists.

Link to tweet

The national leaders of the Sunrise Movement said they hadn’t known anything about the misinformation tactic ahead of time. In an email, Sunrise Movement spokesperson Sofie Karasek said, “As a decentralized grassroots movement, hubs are autonomous from us and do their own thing.”

Read more: https://www.hcn.org/articles/climate-desk-colorado-climate-activists-protest-by-spreading-disinformation
(High Country News)


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