Yesterday, on Indigenous Peoples Day, I was thinking about the fact that for most of my life, it was called Columbus Day. We were taught in school that Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas, which we should have known then and we definitely know now, was a lie. He didn’t “discover” anything, because of course, millions of people already lived on both continents.

A recent study by climate and geography scientists found that as many as 60 million people were living in what is now called North and South America, nearly as many people as there were living in Europe, where historians say anywhere from 70 to 88 million people lived in the late 1400s.

But by 1600, only a hundred years after Europeans brought measles, smallpox, influenza, the bubonic plague and weapons of war with them across the Atlantic, they concluded that nearly 90% of the Indigenous population had died from disease or been killed by colonists. At the time, this "Great Dying" represented the loss of 10% of the world's population and, incredibly, also cooled the planet. They write:

“This human tragedy meant that there were simply not enough workers left to manage the fields and forests. Without human intervention, previously managed landscapes returned to their natural states, thereby absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. The extent of this regrowth of the natural habitat was so vast that it removed enough CO₂ to cool the planet.”

Pretty incredible, right? Human impacts on climate change go back to before the Industrial Revolution. Of course, back then the warming and in this case, the cooling, was not anywhere near the extreme levels that we're witnessing today. According to the scientists, “The unprecedented reforestation event in the Americas led to a reduction of 5 parts per million CO₂ from the atmosphere — only about three years’ worth of fossil fuel emissions today.”

Today, the vast majority of carbon emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels with energy production accounting for more than 70% of emissions, and we're seeing the impacts of that pollution nearly every day all over the world.

But I digress, as I often do to the climate impacts. My point this week is that for hundreds of years, Americans told themselves a story, inscribed it into the historical record, and believed it as something to celebrate every year on the second Monday of October.

Revisionist history like this is as old as time. The victors write the history books, and as Shakespeare wrote, "What's past is prologue.”

But in our fast-paced, meme-driven, AI, bot and bad actor mis/disinformation cluttered present, we're seeing the revising happen in real-time.

We are living in what has been described as a post-truth society, and the deluge of mis/disinformation that exploded online after Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton — that scientists say were made worse by climate change — suggests that we're entering a new era, one that is far more distressing and dangerous than the lies — or revisionist history — of the past.

Some of the same people who say we shouldn't believe the 99% of scientists who say that climate change is real and happening, are now saying that scientists, instructed by the White House, have the ability to manipulate the weather and control hurricanes. Scientists and Democrats are creating the hurricanes! That’s the new big lie.

You may find that ironic, or crazy, or even a little bit funny considering the absurdity. But the problem with laughing it off is that these fringe conspiracy theories broke into the mainstream, resulting in very real and very dangerous consequences.

As the Guardian reported:

I can’t believe it either, but as Charlie Warzel writes in The Atlantic, it seems that we've entered a new phase. One where the truth no longer matters, or perhaps more accurately, knowing a lie is a lie doesn't matter. “To watch as real information is overwhelmed by crank theories and public servants battle death threats is to confront two alarming facts: first, that a durable ecosystem exists to ensconce citizens in an alternate reality, and second, that the people consuming and amplifying those lies are not helpless dupes but willing participants.”

The purpose of disinformation in the past has been to persuade people that lies are the truth, Warzel writes. For example, fossil fuel companies spread lies about climate change for decades, claiming that it wasn't real in advertising, interviews and congressional testimony. People, politicians, and even the news media were swayed by it, and the "debate" over climate change went on for far too long.

But this is different. A couple weeks ago, CNN's Dana Bash asked vice presidential candidate JD Vance to admit that the stories that he and his running mate were spreading about Haitian immigrants in Ohio were not true based on evidence that she presented to him, several times. After repeatedly refusing to answer her direct questions, he finally responded, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do."

Create stories. Tell boldfaced, easily verifiable lies. That’s what he and the Trump campaign are doing and they admit it, and admitting that this is what they do may be most truthful statement from either one of them.

Now with the advent of AI-generated images and videos, lies are not just words, but visuals and moving images that are capable of evoking stronger emotional responses, generating outrage, clicks, and shares. But even when they are called out as lies, for some, it doesn't matter. As Warzel writes:

That sums up our truth crisis for sure. At least when the fallacy of Columbus “discovering” the Americas was called out, we dropped the lie (for the most part although I heard some still insist on teaching the lie in some places in the US). But in this post-truth world, there are just too many lies leading to too many conspiracy theories to keep up with rebuttals based on facts… and apparently, the facts have become much less popular than the lies that travel much faster online.

Yes, this is depressing, and I'm sorry I can’t just stretch the truth a bit here and find some way to make this less alarming. I am alarmed. I hope you are, too, and that we continue to try to distinguish — especially for our children and grandchildren — the difference between truth and lies and why it matters more than ever to question and attempt to verify.

I’m reminded, ironically enough, of what Ronald Reagan said when as president he was negotiating with the Russian leaders about the numbers of nuclear weapons being stored and developed. He famously said, “Trust, but verify.”

I like to believe we can still trust teachers, preachers and political leaders, but I’m recommending that we also verify what we read before we retweet, forward or share. That means checking “facts” or “news” with journalism that is reliable, and subscribing to newspapers, magazines and other reputable news sources that certainly need our support. If we don’t, the liars will control of our future.

As one great indigenous proverb goes…

"What is the world's greatest lie?" the little boy asks. The old man replies, "It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.”

The truth is that we control our own fates, and with our votes, we determine our future. I don’t want to live in a post-truth world. Do you?

Onward!

- Pat