When Nature Becomes 'Fake News'

How nature videos on Notes reveal our truth crisis

An ermine (or stoat, via X: curioxities

Thank you for actively 'restacking' the nature videos I share on Substack notes and for your many comments. I share them daily, and they are popular; some get thousands of likes and more than a hundred comments. They raised more questions than I can answer today, but I'll cover some in this newsletter.

The truth is under threat

There was also disbelief; it's a sign of time, and we should go there first. The truth in the media is under threat, and when people don't even trust what they see in innocent videos of beautiful nature, other facts may be far more vulnerable. Extremism is the norm, and opinions beat science.

There was a time when centralized media institutions largely shaped public perception. Professional journalists curated news about politics, science, and culture, with audiences selecting preferred outlets like newspapers or radio channels.

But this system had vulnerabilities. When Orson Welles' 1938 War of the Worlds radio drama simulated a Martian invasion and caused panic, it showed that new media technologies could blur fiction and reality, exposing gaps in public media literacy. On the other hand, contemporary newspaper reports exaggerated mass panic, seeking to discredit radio's growing influence.

The Nazi regime weaponized this vulnerability. Joseph Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry exploited radio's perceived authority, manufacturing consent by selling state-controlled radios to households at a much-reduced price. The Nazis also provided synchronized programming that began broadcasts with "Heil Hitler" and prioritized military marches over critical journalism. The truth was often the first victim in fabricated crises, like the staged Polish attack in 1939, to justify the invasion. Goebbels' strategy—"repeat a lie until it becomes the truth"—relied on monopolizing a single medium.

Today, I guess you—especially American readers—are drawing parallels to what you experience daily in the news and social media. Here is a quote from yesterday; I'm sure you'll recognize the speaker:

"A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. That's the way it is, whether you like it. And a lot of people like to say, Oh, it's a tax on us. No, no, no, it's a tax on a foreign country. It's a tax on a country that's ripping us off and stealing our jobs."

I wonder if the Washington Post has started counting Trump's lies again, and I would love to know how many they count in these five sentences. Only the third line is correct; many people, including almost all economists, warn that his tariff is a tax on Americans. Repeating the lies rhymes with history, but as in any rhyme, there are differences, too.

Lies for likes

Nearly a century later, social media's decentralized structure enables similar manipulation at scale. A 2023 USC study of 2,400 Facebook users found that 15% of habitual sharers spread 30-40% of fake news due to platform reward systems. Users also shared six times more misinformation when motivated by engagement metrics rather than accuracy. They often unknowingly repeated a lie until it became the truth.

Inspired by authoritarian regimes' manipulation of the truth, modern figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk exploit these dynamics differently than 1930s propagandists. Instead of censorship and synchronized messaging via the radio on a national scale, we now see the impact of algorithms and bot networks in social media on a global scale.

Nowadays, people voluntarily tune their television sets permanently to Fox News. When I travel in the American West, it feels at every stop along the highway that people still live in the time of the "Volksempfänger" radios; I don't see any other channel.

While I retreated to nature writing during these painful weeks of US political turmoil—sharing beauty like kangaroos jumping in shallow water at sunrise—the environmental stakes of misinformation became clearer. Climate denialism thrives on the same platforms, enabling election falsehoods, both fueled by prioritizing engagement over truth and the weaponized repetition of simplified narratives ("Drill, baby, drill").

For many, the distinction between professional journalism and opinion has blurred. On Notes, I had to deal for the first time with climate-change-denying trolls aiming to destroy a platform made for readers instead of shouters. I quickly found the block function and regret that I had to use it a dozen times for just once mentioning the words climate change in a note; the account with a swastika in its logo is the only one I reported to Substack.

Nature: a healing experience in troubled times

Focusing on nature was a healing experience (and I'm not going anywhere, so stay tuned). In the months leading up to the US presidential elections, I had written more about politics than about my environmental concerns or about the beautiful things in life I usually share with you. So, I returned to nature and combined that with a focus on Substack notes.

While the US tumbled into chaos in the tiny hands of the democratically elected convicted felon, I shared with you videos showing the beauty of nature: frost flowers in the early morning, the gaze of a shoebill, or that cute ermine. I focussed on these to stay sane while the world as I knew it derailed, to remind you all what's at stake during a 'drill, baby, drill' policy of planetary destruction, and to give you a break from the barrage of negative news.

It felt like an escape from reality by showing you the real world.

But for many, it has become hard to accept reality and science. Like some hundred years before, many are now again brainwashed to believe lies and disbelieve the truth.

So, the magnificent shoebill became, for some, an AI creation, while others claimed the frost flowers must be AI-generated. Many reacted that ermines will not be impacted by climate change; they will simply change the color of their fur depending on the presence of snow. Or, as one reader accusingly wrote, "Apparently, you are not aware that ermines are chromatophores."

Let's start with that last one, about which I apparently lack awareness. Chromatophores are rapid color-changing cells found in some animals, like cephalopods and chameleons, not in mammals like ermines. So, chromatophores are individual cells, not entire animals. Ermines' color change is a slower, seasonal process that takes weeks, unlike the rapid changes possible with animals like chameleons, which have chromatophores.

A monument to the confusion that reigns in our times

And then there was this:

"You crooks have been crying for climate meltdown for decades. Guess what, climate is always changing.. you can't stop it, so you stop manipulating it with your efforts to "block out the sun" and start eliminating waste, pollution and plant trees!! We are oxygen deprived!!!! The fact is that ice is not going anywhere, it's shifted and gotten bigger. Your temperature readings are affected by deforestation and the active underwater volcanoes. Air temperature is getting colder because of the lack of oxygen and were headed for a dead planet because of your policies. Refuse to plant trees, spreading wind farms and stupid solar farms, combined with concrete cities where we should have natural vegetation."

I didn't block this account or remove the comment. I just left it there as a glorious monument to the confusion that reigns in our times. It makes me sad, not angry. A better environment starts with education.

So many other questions were raised by readers of these nature Notes. Let's have a look at:

• Was the frost flower video AI?

• Will ermines be affected by climate change when they have a white winter coat, and there is no snow?

• Can they change skin color later in the season?

• And I have some beautiful videos for you in this newsletter that I don't share in the notes.