Yesterday, our old college pal RJ White tried an experiment. RJ is the Editor and Chief of The City Desk, a fictional satire site that tells fake news stories about a fake city. Yesterday’s story declared that “former” candidate Ron Paul had been disinvited to visit a local fake university (to speak about the gold standard). Within hours, a deluge of hate mail had filled his comment box from Ron Paul supporters (because Ron Paul is still running). Later, the story was picked up by a few other sites like Wonkette and the requisite snarkiness poured in to castigate the Paul fans for their excitement/gullibility. Obviously this isn’t some world changing event, but it did have a sort of magical Orson Welsian hoax quality about it. As a result, I’m sure that someone, somewhere actually believes that Ron Paul did drop out and maybe this will somehow cause him to really quit his candidacy. It could also be that I just read The Tipping Point and my imagination is running wild.

It got me thinking about how new media can be coerced by the environmental movement in a non-satirical, hoaxy way. What if rumors were floated like “George W. Bush will retroactively sign the Kyoto Treaty” or “Al Gore will cancel all future speaking engagements due to air travel’s C02 emmissions”. Could these rumors convert into the truth somehow? The presidential campaigns have shown that even lies about a candidate begin to stick - just due to the fact that the candidates are constantly having to refute them.

Propagating such hoaxes would be a tight ethical tightrope to walk. There is already plenty of criticism of Al Gore - those who call him an opportunist, especially since he recently became involved with a venture capital firm investing in clean energy. Perhaps Al Gore invented global warming just like he invented the internet, just so he could make a lot of money? Or perhaps he is just looking to the private sector to solve problems our federal government has refused to acknowledge in any serious way?

Ultimately, I stand on the side of science and reason and believe that environmental issues are worth considering every day, maybe even in the form of rumors - if that makes people pay attention.

So did you hear that Woodsy the Owl, Smokey the Bear, and Ranger Rick were arrested in China while protesting the Three Gorges Dam Project!?!?