Anti-renewable groups internal disputes over misinformation

Anti-renewable groups have internal disputes over use of misinformation

In the last few months, more states — Washington, Iowa and Kansas — have proposed bills to restrict rural utility-scale wind and solar. In Kansas, these bills were proposed by state Sen. Mike Thompson, who also introduced a bill to shut down existing renewable projects.

Thompson, a former meteorologist, is a longtime critic of renewable energy. One of his anti-wind videos even popped up on Kitson's anti-wind Facebook group.

In one video on the anti-solar group's YouTube channel, Thompson calls climate change "one of the biggest scams out there" and says "carbon dioxide has no correlation with the temperature on this planet whatsoever." That statement is false: The vast majority of scientists agree that the climate crisis stems from greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity. Thompson did not respond to requests for comment.

YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez said in an emailed statement, "In general, we don't recommend or prominently surface content that includes climate change misinformation. Our systems are trained to raise videos from authoritative sources, like news outlets and experts, in search results for certain queries related to climate change and renewable energy."

Barbara Kerr is a professor of psychology at the University of Kansas and she's a founding member of that anti-solar group in Kansas, which opposes NextEra Energy's proposed utility-scale solar plant in Douglas and Johnson counties. Kerr says she knows the videos that have been featured by the group she co-founded have misinformation.

"Just horrible," Kerr says of the videos. "They are just counterfactual and not something we should have on the website."

But despite Kerr's objections, her group decided in January to keep the videos online. "It is important to not judge, and censor utility-scale solar content/opinions contributed by citizens. If we become judge and jury, we are headed down the wrong path," the group said in an emailed statement.

Kerr says that while she disagrees with the misinformation used by some in her group, she says the anti-solar coalition makes for "strange bedfellows." "Sometimes you have to compromise," she says. "I don't want to alienate these people. They go to the meetings in Douglas County and Johnson County."

But Dan Reuman, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kansas, says he worries about the role misinformation could play in the decision-making over the solar project, which he supports. He says that while he is sympathetic to those in his county who don't want to live near a large-scale solar plant, he also thinks their concerns need to be weighed against the need to mitigate climate change.