• On Monday, the Supreme Court of India invited the capital New Delhi to confine itself due to a spike in pollution.

  • A decision that stirred the conspiracy sphere, many evoking a new climate dictatorship, using the expression devoted to the coronavirus of health dictatorship.

  • Is the sanitary conspiracy spreading to other themes?

On Tuesday, the New Delhi government extended the closure of its schools, decreed on Saturday, November 13, due to pollution and urged residents to stay and work from home until further notice.

As of Monday, the Supreme Court of the country invited the capital of India to "containment due to pollution".

This news - just a few days after COP26 - has not escaped the conspiracy sphere.

"Climate dictatorship", "lock us up to better control ourselves", "docile population", "false report" ... The semantic field used is reminiscent of that already used in the conspiracy against the coronavirus, as if the health conspirator could extend to d 'other themes.

Temptation and fertile ground

Covid and global warming have similarities: an evil that we cannot see and cannot measure, against which we cannot do anything on our own scale, and which heralds disaster for the whole of society, potentially including ourselves and our loved ones. "The conspiratorial answers are the same: either it is an evil less dangerous than it is said just to scare the people and control them, or it is an evil created from scratch to eliminate part of it. the population ”, summarizes Tristan Mendès France, associate lecturer at the University of Paris in digital cultures and expert in conspiracy.

Another point in common: these are two events with a heavy media hype, especially at the moment between the fifth wave and COP26.

Marie Peltier, historian and author of

Obsessions: Behind the Scenes of the Conspiracy Story

(Inculte, 2018), explains: “Conspiracy does not thrive on all subjects.

It is generally those who make the news, and who impact us and arouse a certain emotional charge in us.

"

Be careful, one conspiracy can hide another

In reality, the phenomenon is not new and represents the very essence of conspiracy: to spread more and more. "When we begin to enter into conspiracy, we rarely remain confined to a single theory or a single theme," recalls Tristan Mendès France, taking up the symbolism of the finger in the gear. Marie Peltier adds: “The conspiracy is based on a common software: behind the official word and the facts, there is a logic of staging for the benefit of hidden interest. "

Because of this common software, available for each sub-category, it is difficult to know which conspiracy generates the other.

Climate conspiracy did not wait for the coronavirus to exist, climate skepticism often leaning towards the machination of rigged figures on the part of scientists for a secret reason.

"Even Donald Trump, and this before the coronavirus, made this kind of speech", supports Tristan Mendès France.

Chemtrails, the idea that the HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, an American research observatory dedicated to the study of the upper atmosphere) would be used to control the climate, and other theories of this kind were already proliferating long before the appearance of Covid-19.

A front door but no way out

The front door doesn't matter much anyway, as the conspirator becomes generalized afterwards. “There is no privileged range of entry - neither the ecology nor the coronavirus - but once you get in, it's usually endless. The software is constantly leading to other avenues, ”says Marie Peltier. Especially since the trend since the election of Donald Trump is towards a “synthetic” conspiracy, as the historian evokes. Namely, that a single global plot would encompass and explain all the events of the world.

As a result, it is hardly surprising to see the followers of coronavirus conspiracy then fall into ecological or other conspiracy.

"Even those who are only so-called anti-vaccine, it suffices to question them quickly to see that they are distrust of many other things," says Marie Peltier.

The wave of conspiracy engendered by the coronavirus will likely outlive it, as conspirators find other themes to invest in.

"Even assuming that the coronavirus disappears completely, the majority of those who fell into conspiracy during this period will remain so," announces Tristan Mendès France.

As we have seen, it is the characteristic of conspiracy to spread.

And he rarely turns back.

World

India: Authorities refuse to impose containment on Delhi, affected by pollution episode

Society

Nearly four in ten French people convinced of the existence of conspiracies

  • Conspiracy theory

  • Global warming

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