Fever dreams

Wellness influencers are churning out climate misinformation

I was recently interviewed by CNN to discuss the uptick in climate change misinformation being traded in wellness spaces. I’d prepared a number of clips and information for the interview, most of which didn’t make it into the reporting, so I’m going to share what I found in more depth.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate recently crunched thousands of hours of YouTube videos (full report here) and pinpointed an intriguing pivot in how climate change is discussed.

Climate deniers have transitioned from the old climate denial, which is rejecting anthropogenic climate change, to a new climate denial, which is casting doubt on solutions.

As I revisited many conspiritualists we’ve covered over the years, I found this is exactly what’s been going on. None, save JP Sears, made any note of the idea that climate change isn’t real. Yet they all expressed distrust in “the narrative” around climate change, whether exact human influence or proposed solutions. A common theme was that climate change is “planned,” especially as it relates to the Maui wildfires in August, 2023.

This is, in the words of CCDH’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, all part of a shift that has devastating consequences.

The narrative shift from “Old Denial” to “New Denial” seeks to undermine the solutions to mitigating the climate crisis and delay political action.

Considering how much of the wellness world refuses to engage in actual politics, instead choosing to use paranoid videos about global plans to drive attention to them, this isn’t surprising. But given how far their reach goes, it should alarm us.

Conspiritualists tow the line

Elizabeth April is a popular “channeler of the Galactic Federation” that we covered early in the pandemic. When struck with Covid, she posted videos about having “ascension symptoms” while spreading anti-vax rhetoric.

In September she published a half-hour rant, “Climate Change Conspiracies Exposed,” in which she claimed that “what is taking place is not natural.”

According to the aliens April claims to channel, “they” (those unnamed and scary elites) want us to think global warming is not manufactured. She spends most of the time discussing three things the aliens told her: 

• Humans are really damaging the planet—an admission that climate change is in fact real—but “they” are really pulling the strings.

• Governmental weather manipulations are accelerating climate change. (While there are instances of weather manipulation—the Beijing Weather Modification Office is a real thing—the notion that this is driving climate change is false.)

• Pole shifts are creating electromagnetic fields, which is also affecting the climate. According to April, since we can’t “stop pole shifts,” “they” create global warming as a distraction, which is part of “their” agenda is to make us think we’re harming other people around the world.

This last claim also includes a healthy dose of spiritual bypassing: the notion that we could possibly be harming others does not comport with such a worldview, and so the idea must be manufactured. In this telling, “they” want us to feel bad for hurting those poor people; that means “they” want us to assume guilt; guilt is a byproduct of living in the meat factory of a human body, and if we’re truly going to ascend and talk to aliens, such concerns must be transcended (really, ignored).

That last paragraph hurt to write. If it sounds like a stretch, though, you haven’t spent enough time in wellness land. 

Or, apparently, Hawaii. That’s where Shelby Hosana, cofounder of the anti-vax dating app Unjected, lives. Maui, specifically. Within weeks of the wildfire she co-wrote a book on the wildfires that included, I’m guessing (based on social media posts, videos discussing the wildfires, and a general knowledge of how long it takes to write a book that involves actual research), zero original reporting and 100% paranoid fervor. 

Here’s part of the marketing copy: 

What role may D.E.W’s (Direct Energy Weapons) or Climate Engineering have played in this event?

What is being planned in Maui that may have compelled governing bodies to allow the city to burn?

The answers are none and nothing, but the conspiratorial power is in the question. While both inquiry and criticism are important for functioning in society, Just asking questions has become shorthand for I’ve reached the limits of my knowledge and am not willing to learn more or consider data or opposing viewpoints.

Instead of taking the opportunity to seriously entertain the anthropogenic reasons for the planet’s shifting climate, Hosana offers a religious response: I’ve acquired secret knowledge guided by intuition, and I’m sharing that insider information with you. An intriguing blend of marketing and self-confession reside within such a mindset.