The fact check admits it doesn’t know what Ramaswamy was referring to but still marks the statement ‘false’. ‘No deaths have been linked’ is irrelevant; with billions of dollars and dozens of countries involved in climate change policies it’s a certainty that deaths have been caused. Linked by who? How significant might these linkages actually be? Around how many deaths were caused by the policies in question would be an interesting question, but it’s one the fact-checkers aren’t interested in exploring.
Finally, the check says that ‘extreme weather fueled by climate change is linked to the deaths of more than 2 million people… ‘. The link between extreme weather and climate change is, right now, tenuous and hypothetical. No scientist can even make a decent estimate regarding the effect climate change is having on storms and flooding and fires. Hurricanes in Florida have not grown in strength or frequency, despite predictions that they would. This quote shows the use of lexical ambiguity available to dishonest writers. It might be true that extreme weather is linkedto +2 million deaths per annum, but extreme weather is obviously not 100% due to climate change. It may be 1% caused by climate change… or less.
This fact check might give the careless reader the impression that climate change was causing +2 million excess deaths per annum and the NYT (among the most carefully-edited newspapers on Earth) knows this and is comfortable with the misleading ambiguity. I challenge you to find a similar instance of fuzzy writing whose meaning might contradict their narratives. You won’t.
I’m not sure if Vivek’s statement is true or not but the fact check is false in a number of respects. Fact checks should be especially careful to be precise and accurate in their statements. As with so many excerpts from modern legacy media, you would be better informed if you never read this fact check. That is the defining feature of propaganda.
It is pretty obvious what Vivek Ramaswamy had in mind. Bad climate policies keep the poorest and most vulnerable people living at a subsistence level, subject to famine, malnutrition, disease, and debilitating physical hardship. As a result, their mortality rates are significantly higher than those living in developed societies.
Most 'Fact Checks' are politically motivated exercises in obfuscation, misdirection, and outright falsehoods.
It is pretty obvious what Vivek Ramaswamy had in mind. Bad climate policies keep the poorest and most vulnerable people living at a subsistence level, subject to famine, malnutrition, disease, and debilitating physical hardship. As a result, their mortality rates are significantly higher than those living in developed societies.
Most 'Fact Checks' are politically motivated exercises in obfuscation, misdirection, and outright falsehoods.