In his opening speech at the COP29 global climate summit, UN Secretary General António Guterres stated that 2024 was turning into “a masterclass in climate destruction”. A good example of this is the DANA, an acronym to describe the meteorological phenomenon of a high-altitude isolated depression [depresión aislada en niveles alto] that hit Spain, especially the province of Valencia, at the end of October. It turned into the 21st century’s deadliest climate-related catastrophe ever in Spain, and possibly in Europe.
Traditionally known as cold drops, the episodes of torrential rainfall that occur when autumn arrives on the Mediterranean coast are nothing new. But the scientific community agrees that the climate crisis is intensifying them both in frequency and severity.
A study following the floods in Valencia published on the ClimaMeter platform indicates that DANAs on the Spanish Mediterranean coast are up to 15% wetter than in the past. Climatologists point out that episodes of severe rainfall associated with DANAs or other phenomena are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity.
The insane race for profit and the production-led, mercantile logic of industrial capitalist civilisation is leading us to an ecological disaster of incalculable proportions. With each passing day, not only scientific but also more empirical evidence, such as in Valencia, attests to this ecological emergency. Nevertheless, the Valencian government led by the right-wing Popular Party (PP) and far-right party Vox (until Vox’s departure last July), has pursued a policy of active climate denial. This includes measures ranging from the elimination of the Emergency Unit (UVE), which was conceived to deal with the “new emergency scenarios which we can expect in the context of climate change”, to the 99% cut in the budget of the Valencian Climate Change Agency.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the far right took advantage of the post-catastrophe state of shock felt in Valencia after the disaster. They flooded social networks with fake news and conspiracies, reaffirming their climate denial, spreading their hatred, attacking the government, and in the process attempting to absolve their loyal foot soldier Carlos Mazón, President of the Valencian Government, of responsibility for the tragedy.
Climate denial through fake news
Following the floods, the fake news around it ranged from antiquated Francoist nostalgia for the dams and reservoirs supposedly conceived by the dictator, to a nonsensical meteorological attack from Morocco using an experimental US weapon, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). Any theory, however far-fetched it may sound, can be put to use to deny the climate crisis. It’s worth remembering that many of these professional distributors of fake news are stuffed to the gills with public money through institutions controlled by the PP.
On the social network X, the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, went so far as to blame the European Commission and its president Ursula Von der Leyen for the tragedy: “If there are culprits … you are the first with your criminal law of blowing up dams. You are the enemy of the Spanish people.” The far right has opposed any measure, however feeble, put forward in the European Parliament that might address the climate crisis, accusing the European Commission’s European Green Deal of being a radical environmentalist platform that is “harmful for the countryside, industry, employment, and energy and food sovereignty in Spain”.
The fabrications concerning the government’s demolition of Franco-era dams has had such resonance on social media, even reaching some television programs, that the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) had to come out and deny that the government had destroyed any reservoir in Valencia. Those on the extreme right, however, took no notice of MITECO’s denials. They are less interested in the cold light of reason than in their ability to stir up indignation.
In their denialist crusade, Vox’s ultra-right and the radicalised right of the PP have set themselves the goal of bringing down Teresa Ribera. The vice-president and Minister for Ecological Transition and candidate for vice-president of the European Commission is a perfect scapegoat for the right.
This is not only because she oversees the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation, which, according to right-wing fake news, demolished Franco’s dams, opted not to clean rivers in order to restore their natural environment, and did not warn of the dangerous increase in river levels during the DANA in time.
Attacking Ribera is thus, to a certain extent, a way to delegitimize policies, which aim to counter the climate crisis, and to amplify denialist rhetoric. Above all, it is a perfect smokescreen to prevent the disastrous management of the DANA from dragging down a PP that has not managed to distance itself from Mazón, who has become a liability.
Poverty porn and anti-politics
The tragedy in Valencia is not only flooding social media and many media outlets with fake news, but also facilitating the emergence of a new phenomenon: the monetarisation of tragedy.
A legion of influencers directly or indirectly linked to the right have descended on Valencia, taking advantage of the tragedy to create a spectacle, make a profit, and attempt to upset Spain’s political chessboard. This use of marketing and propaganda aims to gain more followers, comments, views, fame and legitimacy through making their acts of charity viral.
They have even gone so far as to urge Instagram users to vote which villages should receive relief.
This represents one more step in the phenomenon known as “poverty porn”: content created on social media to exhibit the ravages of poverty, in order to economically profit from the morbid interest this content provokes.
Comparisons with similar events show common patterns with a model of communication that socio-linguist Laura Camargo Fernández has called “Trumpist discourse”.
Indeed, during the floods in Porto Alegre, Brazil a few months ago, Brazilian influencers travelled to the capital of Rio Grande do Sul to monetise their charitable endeavours and spread a cascade of false news. The Brazilian authorities described this proliferation of fabricated stories as an absolute “communication war” orchestrated by a professional network of anti-government disinformation agents.
Evidence of this anti-government “professional network” is provided by the data from the WorkPoliticsBIP project’s research on the links between content creators and the extreme right: of the 212 most important online influencers in Brazil, 187 were aligned in one way or another with Bolsonarism.
Influencers in the far-right ecosystem use similar fake news stories and even the same slogans. “The people for the people” was used in the tragedy of Porto Alegre, while “only the people save the people” could be heard in Valencia. This is another attempt to reappropriate and reinterpret traditionally left-wing concepts and expressions. Far-right groups have used this slogan as they collect donations, but it goes deeper than that, as the slogan is designed to attack the very idea of the public sector.
The fake news industry is taking advantage of the initial lack of coordination in the response to the DANA not only to sow hatred, but also to its own particular war against the public sphere, hyping up the idea of every man for himself, fostering popular distrust of institutions, politics and the public.
Choosing life over lies
Let us not allow the muddy waters of fake news prevent us from seeing the social movements at work in Valencia. The networks of mutual support activated during this period, the work of alternative trade unionism, neighbourhood networks, and left-wing organisations. The thousands of volunteers who anonymously, without spectacularising or monetarising their help, have acted in solidarity in the face of the neglect of duty by institutions that responded late and poorly to Spain’s greatest tragedy of the 21st century.
A good example of solidarity-based collectives and platforms that have arisen in the midst of the disaster is the DANA Valencia Mutual Support Network, founded with the aim of channelling solidarity in terms of needs and support. This is a platform that “puts people who need help in contact” with the volunteer brigades. It also coordinates the basic aid that arrives from social organisations in other territories. This is an example of popular self-organisation put together in record time.
The strength of these popular networks was epitomised in the demonstration they organised on November 9, which brought together more than 130,000 people, according to government figures. The participation numbers contrast with the far right’s attempts at mobilisation, which barely brought together 200 people. This reveals the gulf that still exists between their agitation on social networks and their presence on the ground.
Moreover, the popular demonstration called by the Valencian social organisations went beyond anger against the criminally poor management of the DANA or demanding Mazón’s resignation. Rather, it placed at the centre of the public debate the nefarious role played by climate denial and predatory property speculation practices in amplifying this type of tragedy. Demonstrators called for the right to decent and affordable housing to be a priority, and for the prohibition of housing redevelopment in flood zones. In short, they were calling for a new set of economic and social policies that place human life at the centre of politics.
[Abridged from Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. Miguel Urbán Crespo is a founder of Podemos, former MEP of the parliamentary group The Left and a member of Anticapitalistas.]