What do climate change, AI and election season have in common?
LULA’S FOE MUSK FINDS POPULARITY IN BRAZIL
Massive floods in Brazil’s southernmost region of Rio Grande do Sul have displaced over 580,000 people and spawned a web of narratives that paint President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government as ineffective at best or at worst intentionally obstructive of relief efforts. As might be expected after a natural disaster that offers, to quote the NGO Climate Observatory, a “raw state warning for climate change,” the flooding also has been met with a fair amount of climate change denialism and claims that it was the result of God’s wrath.
Curiously, Lula hasn’t been the only focal point of these narratives. An analysis of cross-platform disinformation by NetLab, a research laboratory at the School of Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, has revealed disinformation that attempts to paint Elon Musk as a hero of these calamitous times. Following a public plea for aid from model Gisele Bundchen, who is from Rio Grande do Sul, Musk donated 1,000 Starlink terminals to the state to enable internet access. However, according to NetLab, several publications in Brazil have falsely claimed that the tech titan’s satellite internet system was the sole internet operational in the state, helping volunteers to coordinate rescue efforts.
The contrasting narratives are interesting considering Lula and Musk have been at loggerheads in the past. Musk’s Starlink satellites, which first became available in Brazil in 2022, have ushered in an era of high speed internet to remote parts of the Amazon rainforest. They are also beloved by illegal miners in the region.
Speaking before the floods at an event related to combating deforestation, Lula indirectly referred to Musk when he spoke of “billionaires trying to build a rocket to find something in space.” The Brazilian president continued: “He's going to have to learn to live here, he's going to have to use a lot of the money he has to help preserve this here, to improve people's lives.”
The coordinated wave of positive publicity generated for Musk by right-wing influencers and publications in the wake of the floods seems to be exploiting tragedy to score a political point — by praising Musk’s generosity, strong work ethic, wealth and success, along with making claims that no rescue missions would be possible without Starlink internet, critics are able to tear down Lula and the government’s own relief efforts.
“Similar patterns are evident in Europe and the UK, where parties like Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Reform Party UK exploit climate policies to stoke cultural divisions and polarize public opinion,” Pallavi Sethi, a policy fellow of climate change misinformation at the Grantham Research Institute in London, told Coda. “These narratives typically feign concern for ordinary citizens while demonizing the ‘corrupt elite,’ in this case, the pro-climate policy government.”