January 17, 2020
by Saranac Hale Spenser

The video referred to below (click here) has been proven to be propaganda by right wing media. That's right, they took a global tragedy and turned it into a political bone for right wing politicians.

Somehow, the disproved video never made a news story anywhere.

...Here’s what the video gets wrong: (click here) First of all, “nearly 200 arsonists” haven’t been arrested since Nov. 8, 2019.

As its source, the video cites a Jan. 7 story from Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper the Australian with the headline: “Bushfires: Firebugs fuelling crisis as arson arrest toll hits 183.”

The story said that “police arrested 183 people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania in the past few months.” But that total of 183 arson arrests occurred over various periods in 2019, including all of 2019 in the case of Victoria.

The story also referenced statistics since Nov. 8, 2019, from only one state — New South Wales. Police there announced that they had taken “legal action” against 183 people for bushfire-related offenses. Only 24 of those people were charged for “alleged deliberately-lit bushfires,” according to the police; others were cautioned or charged with different offenses.

So, the video used the date from the New South Wales announcement and the number of arson arrests counted over five states and various periods in 2019 from the newspaper story. The effect is an inflated number of arrests since the bushfires began.

The larger point in the video, though, is that arson is primarily responsible for the bushfires in Australia, not climate change. That message has been distilled into online memes. It also has been trumpeted by some high-profile political figures, including Donald Trump Jr.

But overemphasizing the role of arson and pitting it against climate change distorts the issue.

The fact is, hot, dry conditions allow for bushfires to escalate, regardless of how they are started. As we explained in 2017, in a story about wildfires in the western U.S., climate change doesn’t cause these fires, but it can exacerbate the hot and dry conditions that make wildfires more likely to develop and grow....